When Philadelphia, Here I Come! first premiered in the Gaiety Theatre in 1964, Brian Friel was a largely unknown playwright. Prior to 1964, Friel had produced a handful of plays for stage and radio in Dublin, Belfast, and on BBC Radio. Friel had been given the opportunity to hone his skills as a dramatist in 1963 when Tyrone Guthrie invited him to observe rehearsals in the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Friel worked as an “observer” in the three months prior to the Guthrie Theater’s inaugural opening, and when he returned to Ireland after his stint in the US, he carried the beginnings of the script that would launch his career.
Friel hoped Philadelphia, Here I Come! would premiere in London, but discussions revealed that the script needed work before it could be produced, including clarification of Private and Public Gar, removing the initial prologue and epilogue, and omitting some of the 28 instances of the word “bugger”. Philadelphia found its place at the Dublin Theatre Festival, where it was a breakthrough success with Irish audiences. The Irish Press described it as a “new twist to an ‘American wake’”, while the Irish Independent hailed it as “the best new Irish play of the year”, and The Sunday Independent characterized it as “all sexed up and chromium-plated with anti-clericalism”.
Despite its initial triumph, negotiations for the play to transfer to London or New York encountered obstacles. Eventually, the play found a home on Broadway, where it toured in Philadelphia and Boston before opening at the Helen Hayes Theatre in New York in February 1966. Its success in the United States was remarkable, earning it a place as one of the four Tony nominees for Best Play in 1966 and establishing itself as the longest-running Irish play in Broadway history.
Philadelphia arrived at a point when Ireland was in vogue in the United States, following the presidency of John F. Kennedy and the movement of Irish Americans into positions of privilege and power. Simultaneously, depictions of Ireland were rose-tinted, with the success of The Quiet Man directed by John Ford and the saturated photography of John Hinde. The play’s success in the US marked a turning point in Friel’s trajectory, solidifying Philadelphia as a timeless piece of theater and showcasing his ability to transcend national boundaries.
Since then, Philadelphia has seen an abundance of productions across the globe. In 2004, the Association of Regional Theatres Northern Ireland staged a production, directed by Adrian Dunbar. The following year, Philadelphia was staged for the second time at Irish Rep, directed by Ciarán O’Reilly. A Second Age Theatre Company production of the play toured Ireland in 2007, stopping off in Donegal, Ennis, Dublin, and Cork, as well as New York, Texas, and California in the United States. The play returned to its home stage of Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre in 2010, and was subsequently performed at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2012 and at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast in 2014. Recently, in October 2021, Patrick Talbot Productions presented the play at Cork Opera House. Philadelphia is part of the Irish Leaving Certificate curriculum, studied by students in preparation for their final exams, as well as the English course of the International Baccalaureate.
Historical Content by Sarah Moran