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by Brian Friel, directed by Rachel and Scott Holden-Jones

Ausable Theatre, Lucan

August 11-26, 2000

“Public Versus Private”

The Ausable Theatre is proving to be a very welcome addition to the summer theatre scene in Ontario.  In this their third season they have put on a play by Robertson Davies (the fourth in their series), a première by Jayson McDonald and now Brian Friel’s "Philadelphia, Here I Come!", a classic of modern Irish drama.  The niche it is creating for itself is an enviable one--intelligent plays, well acted and thoughtfully directed. 

   

Friel is probably best known for such plays as "Translations" (1980) and "Dancing at Lughnasa" (1990), but "Philadelphia" from 1964 was the play that first made him famous.  It shows us a glimpse of the life of the 25-year-old Gareth O’Donnell the day before he is to leave his village of Ballybeg for a new life with his aunt and uncle in America.  Friel’s innovation in telling this story is to have Gareth played by two actors--Gareth (Public) and Gareth (Private).  As one might guess, Gareth (Public) is the one seen and heard by all the others characters while Gareth (Private) is seen and heard only by Gareth (Public). 

This split is no mere dramatic trick but rather is central to one of the primary themes of the play--the conflict between what one thinks and imagines in private and what one actually says and does in public.  Like all of Friel’s plays, "Philadelphia" is also concerned with memory, specifically to what extent we are inprisoned by our memories and to what extent memory inhibits action.  As Gareth (Public) packs his tattered suitcase to leave the town and the father he thinks he hates, memories of his past crowd in upon him and, despite the satirical comments of Gareth (Private), weaken his resolve.  Untimately, he comes to see that he is leaving a past he has not fully understood for a future that is even less clear.  Anyone who has ever left home or has seen someone leave home will be able to appreciate Gareth’s dilemma and why he (literally) is so divided.

   

As Gareth (Public), Jayson McDonald showed a range and depth I had not suspected from his more limited roles in the Ausable’s two previous Davies’ plays.  He fully communicated the confusion of elation and regret of a young man about to leave his unloved home for the unknown.  Ausable Artistic Director Jeff Culbert energetically played Gareth (Private), who tries to keep Gareth (Public) psyched up for his trip by playing out fantasies of lie in America based entirely on popular culture, mercilessly caricaturing the people in Gareth’s life and satirizing key events in his past. 

This is a difficult job since Gareth (Public) keeps coming across photographs, letters, invitations, that remind him of his links to Ballybeg.  As Gareth’s elderly, taciturn father, Dale Bell is absolutely superb.  A man of the old school, S.B., whom Gareth (Private) always refers to as "Screwballs", is not used to considering what his feelings are much less formulating them in words.  His attempt to express to his housekeeper what he is feeling about his only child’s leaving home is heartbreaking.  As Madge the overworked housekeeper, Carol Robinson-Todd is also excellent   She makes the scene when Madge’s modest hope of having a niece named for her is dashed especially poignant. 

   

All of the secondary roles are well cast and well played--Mark O’Brien as both Senator Doogan and Con Sweeney, Don Reid as both Ben Burton and Canon O’Byrne, Andrew Gibbes as Master Boyle (Gareth’s teacher who once went out with Gareth’s mother), and Sam Shoebottom, Jason Rip and Justin Scott as Gareth’s supposed friends whom he has to remind that he is leaving.  Shannon Topinka is very well cast as the girl Gareth loved and might have married.  She suggests an innocence and fragility that makes Gareth’s later verbal attack on her seem particularly unfair as he uses her for a convenient focus for all his frustrations.  Ausable regular Virginia Pratten is absolutely hilarious in the key scene when Gareth recalls his mother’s sister, Lizzy Sweeney, first making the offer to him to come to Philadelphia to live with her.  As she becomes increasingly intoxicated, she praises all the material conveniences life in America has afforded them only to reveal that she and her husband have actually been miserable in having no one there to share their life.  The scene is important because it is the only real glimpse we get of what Gareth is leaving Ballybeg for.  Life with this loud, unhappy, potentially smothering woman, especially as Pratten plays her, presents a very dubious alternative to his present situation and makes Gareth’s dilemma seem more like a choice of the lesser of two evils.

   

Niki Kemeny has assembled an appropriate collection of furniture to represent the two rooms in the house of a humble general store owner.  Virginia Pratten has suitably costumed all 14 characters, giving herself the brightest costume as Aunt Lizzy and Topinka understated clothing as Kate.  She dresses both Gareths identically except that Gareth (Private) wears a darker sweater vest than Gareth (Public).  Tim Culbert, working with only 15 instruments, effectively lit the stage and used changes in lighting to distinguish scenes from the past Gareth remembers from those in the present.  Co-directors Rachel and Scott Holden-Jones shaped and paced the play very well and in the second half of the play draw subtle performances from McDonald, Culbert, Bell and Robinson-Todd that are among the best I have seen this summer (and that includes the two big festivals!).  In particular, the scene between Bell and McDonald as a father and son who make a last attempt at having a conversation after years of non-communication is riveting and superbly judged. 

Anyone with an interest in Irish drama should consider a detour from Niagara-on-the-Lake or Stratford to see this production done simply but with great feeling and understanding.

©Christopher Hoile

Photo: Jayson McDonald and Jeff Culbert.