Premiering in 1964, Friel’s Philadelphia Here I Come! centres around Gareth (Gar) O’Donnell’s move to America from Ireland. The play takes place the night before Gar’s flight to Philadelphia as he recaptures memories of his life growing up in Ireland. This play is raw and deeply founded in familial issues and expectations of a father/working for your family during the sixties, and the NUTS cast did not fall short in performing this tragicomedy.
I will admit, before seeing this play, I hadn’t heard of it before, but with the senior team (as led by Erin) and the rest of the cast, this performance was brilliant, witty, and tragic all at the same time. I would spend one minute laughing with the sarcasm and the next in silence just watching the characters on stage. I really wouldn’t want any other production team to bring Friel’s words onto the stage.
Gar O’Donnell is portrayed by two characters, Public Gar (Sairre Sukaphol) and Private Gar (Oscar Errington). The two characters, Public and Private Gar are essentially the man within, the conscience, and the man we see and talk about. They are in constant mental conversation with each other and there seems to be this dynamic on paper that would be difficult to produce. However, I can guarantee you that Sairre and Oscar had me in awe of this mental relationship together on stage. Sairre’s Public Gar was coy, excitable, and over-promising whilst Oscar’s Private Gar balanced this out completely with wit, pessimism, and reminiscence. At first glance this play is as it says on paper, a man travelling from Ireland to America, but without Sairre and Oscar’s brilliant representation of these two characters, you would truly miss the deeply rooted meanings behind Friel’s script.
This whole cast was incredible and really gemmed together during the scenes. I honestly can say that you could really see the love this cast/society has for each other between the lines of the script. Not to mention the fluidity between the tech team and the wider cast. This honestly was everything I could have wanted in a show I went in blind to see. I left completely moved and laughing, and just in plain awe of this cast’s efforts.
For more detail of their rehearsal/full cast and crew names look at @nuts.philadelphia and for further news of future NUTS productions @nutsncl on Instagram
