Word: friel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Brian Friel...
This play is literate, wise, perceptive, humane and wryly humorous, but as drama it needs a blood transfusion. Structure may be the chief culprit. Irish Play wright Brian Friel has divided the play into four Rashomon-style monologues. The first and last are spoken by Frank (James Mason), the faith healer, the second by Grace (Clarissa Kaye), his wife, and the third by Teddy (Donal Donnelly), Frank's promotional warmup...
...Friel uses faith healing as a resonant metaphor of the artist and his gift, the mystery of how the muse inspires, deserts and sometimes destroys its own. Friel leaves the subject as murky as he found it, but his actors are luminous. Returning to Broadway after 32 years, Mason is a necromancer at his craft. His real-life wife, Clarissa Kaye, seems like a Mother Courage on loan, and Donnelly is a mischievous imp dressed in the motley philosophy of show biz. Faith healers...
Philadelphia, Here I Come dramatizes the thoughts of a present-day Irish immigrant just before he leaves for the United States. The play itself, by Brian Friel, offers a number of insights into the situation of introverted young men in traditional societies, but unfortunately it's performed in the round and it's not always easy to see what's going on. At Leverett House Old Library tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets...
...sullen, taciturn central character entails a dramatic hazard which Friel sidesteps entirely: he divides his hero in two--accompanying the "public" Gar on stage is another one, representing his inner voice, and apparent only to his counterpart and to the audience. Friel handles this gimmick with wit and versatility. The inner Gar expresses what the other cannot, in a sardonic running commentary on Gar's quiet interaction with the other characters. When the Gars are alone, the inner self serves both as conscience and provocateur...