Revise and learn about the characters in Brian Friel's Philadelphia, Here I Come! - CCEA - GCSE English Literature

The plot of Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Philadelphia, Here I Come! is a play written by Brian Friel. Gar O'Donnell lives with his father in 1960s Donegal, but is preparing to emigrate to Philadelphia, first performed in 1964.

Summary: Philadelphia, Here I Come! tells the story of Gareth ‘Gar’ O’Donnell on the night before and morning of his emigration from Ireland to America in the 1960s. He lives in Donegal with his father and finds it hard to connect with him. On his last night in Ireland a series of visitations – some real and some in his imagination – force Gar O'Donnell to confront the choices he has made.
Title: An adaptation of the 1920s song California Here I Come, which Gar sings on stage to convey his “excitement” at leaving; the exclamation mark further emphasises the sense of excitement. However, the original song is about missing the place where one grew up and delighting in returning – “California Here I Come / Right back where I started from”. This is possibly an reference and the first hint to the audience that Gar may not be as enthusiastic about leaving Ballybeg as he is pretending to be.
Setting: Ballybeg, a small town in Donegal, in the 1960s.
Themes: Communication, memory, love, escape, family, familiarity and distance, public and private personalities, nostalgia, opportunity and disappointment.

Characters in Philadelphia, Here I Come!

The small cast of characters revolves around the two actors who play Gar Public and Gar Private, and includes Gar’s immediate family (his father and, in most ways, Madge), his friends, his lost love Kate Doogan and other members of the community such as the Canon and Master Boyle.

Diagram showing relationships between characters and Gar. Gar is split into 'Public' and 'Private' versions. Public Gar is described as ambivalent, uncommunicative, repressed and regretful, while Private Gar is ambivalent, nostalgic, creative and imaginative. Other characters are labelled with key traits: S.B. O’Donnell (uncommunicative, anxious, predictable, stingy), Madge (open, hard-working, caring), Kate Doogan (pragmatic, sensible), The Boys (boisterous, boastful) and Master Boyle (self-interested, emotional, regretful). All are connected to Gar in a relationship map. — Figure caption,
Characters in Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Gar

Illustration of Gar’s public and private personas, shown as two side-by-side portraits with different facial features and expressions. — Figure caption,
Gar – both public and private personas

Characteristic	How is he shown this way?
Ambivalent	Gar is about his departure and Friel shows this most cleverly through the of the divided self. There are two on-stage characters (played by two different actors) representing Gar. There is the Gar (called Public in the script) that the other characters see and talk to. There is also the Gar who speaks the thoughts, opinions and feelings of that Gar (called Private in the script). While in reality they just represent different aspects of the same person, they are two different characters and should be treated as such in your study of the play. The play opens with the stage directions telling us that Gar “marches” on stage, describing him as “ecstatic with joy and excitement” about his imminent departure for Philadelphia. The verbs, adjectives and abstract nouns used here lead us to believe that this is a choice he has made enthusiastically. We are also told that he is dancing and singing the lines “Philadelphia, here I come, right back where I started from …” (a reference to California Here I Come, by Al Johnson). As the original song is about missing the place one grew up and delighting in returning, this is possibly an ironic reference and the first hint to the audience that Gar may not be as enthusiastic about leaving Ballybeg as he is pretending to be. This ambivalence is continued throughout the play until the closing line when Private asks Public, “God, Boy, why do you have to leave? Why? Why?” and Public replies, “I don’t know. I–I–I don’t know.”
Strained relationship with his father	There are clues from the beginning that Gar has a strained relationship with his father. He tells Madge that even on his last day his father “got ten minutes overtime out of my hide”. S.B. is Gar’s boss as well as his father, and it may seem strange to us that on Gar’s very last day in Ballybeg the practical concern of work is what is most important to him. This the problems in their relationship that are never really solved. Gar Private says out loud what Gar Public is thinking about his father. For example, when Private makes fun of S.B., calling him “Screwballs”, or when he gives a fashion show commentary while S.B. goes through the same old routine after work – right down to details like taking out his false teeth before eating. This shows that much of what Gar Private thinks about S.B. is never said, emphasising the tension in their relationship.
Uncommunicative	Like many of the characters, especially the male characters, Gar represses his emotions and leaves thoughts and feelings unsaid. This is the primary problem between him and his father – the lack of communication that perhaps characterised male relationships in a certain place and time. The use of the split persona device effectively allows us to see exactly how much this affects Gar – Private can speak the thoughts and feelings repressed by Public. Private allows the audience to see “the unseen man, the man within” that isn’t presented to the other characters. This serves to show the tragedy of Gar’s situation as the fond memories Private has of his father, the boys and Kate Doogan are never articulated by Public – resulting in regret and disappointment.
Disappointed	One of the biggest regrets in Gar’s life seems to be his lost love, Kate Doogan. This relationship is portrayed through a mixture of flashback and the real time of the play. In the flashback, we see Gar fail to ask Kate’s father for her hand in marriage. In real time, we see Kate come to say goodbye to Gar before he leaves. In the we see that Kate is more than Gar. She focusses on how much money they will have to live on, whereas the stage directions show him, in his , trying to kiss and embrace her repeatedly. Before long though Gar falters – when he meets Kate’s father he about asking for her hand in marriage. Again, it is his fear of communication – along with a lack of courage – which leaves him disappointed with how things turn out. Later – in real time – we see Kate come to say goodbye to Gar before he leaves.
Imaginative	Thanks to Private, the audience is aware of Gar’s inner thoughts and his wild imagination. At different points in the play he’s an air fighter ace, a highly skilled musician and a winning footballer. The often more poetic and passionate voice of Private shows that Gar is a creative and bright young man, who has dreams and needs far beyond his life in Ballybeg. Gar’s hidden side reinforces the tragedy of his situation. This – combined with the comic nature of Private’s commentary – is what places the play in the of .

S.B. O’Donnell

S.B. O'Donnell

Characteristic	How is he shown this way?
Mean	One of the first things we hear about S.B. – in a conversation between Gar and Madge – is that even on Gar’s last day his father “got ten minutes overtime out of my hide”. Considering it’s the evening before Gar emigrates to America – a distance which at the time often meant family members might never see each other again – this seems very mean on S.B.’s part. It is contrasted with Madge, who gives up the savings she was going to use to “get my feet done on the fair day”. The flashback to the scene where Kate and Gar discuss marriage confirms that S.B. pays Gar a very small wage; Kate herself says, “We could never live on that.”
Uncommunicative	The lack of dialogue between Gar and S.B. is a significant indicator of their relationship. Private’s continuous commentary means there is rarely silence on stage, but this hides the fact that there are frequent silences between Gar and S.B. or between S.B and Madge. The very short sentences used by S.B. in his dialogue with the Canon – his one visitor in the evenings – show that even in his socialising he is a man of few words. Some of his lines are simply repetitions. Finally, near the end of the play, Gar plucks up the courage to talk intimately to his father about a childhood memory of when S.B. took him on a blue boat. Gar recalls S.B. being “happy” and even bursting into song. S.B. ignores these suggestions of love and happiness. He just argues about the colour of the boat – “I mind a brown one” – and he remembers a different song to Gar. Right up until the closing scene, S.B. fails to tell his son that he loves him or that he will miss him. The ambiguous ending means we never find out if he ever does.
Anxious	Despite not sharing his sadness and worry with Gar, S.B. isn’t as careful to hide from Madge his worry and concern about Gar leaving. The fact that he is up in the middle of the night when Madge arrives home suggests he is not sleeping well, and that he may be anxious about the impending departure of his son. His initial concerns to Madge are practical worries about the shop, which he tells himself will be okay because “I’ll get one of Charley Bonner’s boys to do the van on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I’ll manage rightly?” Yet he shows he is secretly devastated by his son's departure when he shares a memory with Madge of young Gar in a sailor suit. Madge tells S.B. bluntly that Gar never wore such a thing. But S.B. insists and he can’t let go of the memory. This conversation and one of his other final lines before he leaves the stage – “I was too old for her, Madge, eh?” –suggest to the audience that S.B. thinks more about his failures as a husband and father than he may let on to others.
Predictable	Much of the comedy in the play comes from Private’s sarcastic commentary on the routine nature of S.B.’s mundane life. Private predicts S.B.’s every move – when he’ll sit down, when he’ll “remove the hat”. When the stage directions show that S.B. does indeed do these things immediately, Private congratulates him on being “Perfectly trained; the most obedient father I ever had.” Private also uses this sarcastic commentary to mock S.B.’s speech. This happens when the stage directions describe Private as “hysterically” saying, “Isn’t he a riot? Oh my God, that father of yours just kills me!” The comedy, of course, moves to a more serious tone as S.B.’s predictable small talk and repetitive speech continue to stop him from opening up and expressing his emotions as his son’s departure looms.

Madge

Characteristic	How is she shown this way?
Open	Madge certainly seems to be the character closest to Gar. Their easy and intimate relationship is established in the first scene, which shows them dancing and joking with each other. This may be because Madge is so emotionally open compared to Gar’s father. She has no problems discussing his imminent departure and becomes frustrated with S.B. when he won’t even admit that his son is leaving. Significantly, she is the one who tells Gar about his mother – never even alluded to by S.B. until the very last scene – and Gar feels comfortable asking Madge questions about her. In a way Madge – who recalls bathing Gar “every Saturday night till you were a big lout of fourteen” – is the mother he never had.
Hard-working	Madge has been working for the O’Donnell family since Gar was born (as seen from the bath comment above). Yet she still seems to be under-appreciated by S.B., despite doing everything for them. She loses control around the midpoint of the play when her frustrations and exhaustion build up. The stage directions state that she is “on the point of tears”, and the verb ‘accuse’ is used to describe her tone. As “The tears begin to come” she lists her jobs to S.B.: “the stairs have to be washed down, and the store’s to be swept, and your room has to be done out – and – and – I’m telling you I’ll be that busy for the next couple of weeks that I won’t have time to lift my head!” The punctuation used here is significant; the dashes and the exclamation mark show her anger. This all suggests she gets very little thanks. It also seems to be the case in her own family. We see her discuss going to help her nephew’s family as they have their seventh child, “maybe I’ll take a run over on Sunday and square the place up for her”. She is delighted about the fact that “they’re going to call this one Madge - at least so she says”, but in one of the final scenes between Madge and S.B. we find out that “They’re going to call it Brigid." Madge doesn’t bring this up in her subsequent conversation with Gar, perhaps hiding her disappointment in much the same way many of the other characters hide theirs.

Characteristic

How is she shown this way?

Open

Madge certainly seems to be the character closest to Gar. Their easy and intimate relationship is established in the first scene, which shows them dancing and joking with each other. This may be because Madge is so emotionally open compared to Gar’s father. She has no problems discussing his imminent departure and becomes frustrated with S.B. when he won’t even admit that his son is leaving.

Significantly, she is the one who tells Gar about his mother – never even alluded to by S.B. until the very last scene – and Gar feels comfortable asking Madge questions about her.

In a way Madge – who recalls bathing Gar “every Saturday night till you were a big lout of fourteen” – is the mother he never had.

Hard-working

Madge has been working for the O’Donnell family since Gar was born (as seen from the bath comment above). Yet she still seems to be under-appreciated by S.B., despite doing everything for them.

She loses control around the midpoint of the play when her frustrations and exhaustion build up. The stage directions state that she is “on the point of tears”, and the verb ‘accuse’ is used to describe her tone. As “The tears begin to come” she lists her jobs to S.B.: “the stairs have to be washed down, and the store’s to be swept, and your room has to be done out – and – and – I’m telling you I’ll be that busy for the next couple of weeks that I won’t have time to lift my head!” The punctuation used here is significant; the dashes and the exclamation mark show her anger. This all suggests she gets very little thanks.

It also seems to be the case in her own family. We see her discuss going to help her nephew’s family as they have their seventh child, “maybe I’ll take a run over on Sunday and square the place up for her”. She is delighted about the fact that “they’re going to call this one Madge - at least so she says”, but in one of the final scenes between Madge and S.B. we find out that “They’re going to call it Brigid."

Madge doesn’t bring this up in her subsequent conversation with Gar, perhaps hiding her disappointment in much the same way many of the other characters hide theirs.

Master Boyle

Master Boyle is a local teacher. He is gradually revealed by his own dialogue and commentary by Private to be a self-interested alcoholic.
Although Boyle initially turns up to say goodbye to Gar, he mostly talks about himself. He even makes up a “big post in Boston, head of education in a reputable university there”, that he has been offered. Private’s sympathetic “Poor bastard” suggests that Gar knows this is a lie. Then when leaving – “His tongue out for a drink” according to Madge – he announces that “I seem to have come without my wallet” and asks Gar if he can borrow some money.
Like many of the other characters Boyle seems to have a life of regret and disappointment. The suggestion that he was in love with Gar’s mother, and his advice to Gar to “Forget Ballybeg and Ireland” – something which he has never had the opportunity or courage to do himself – make him a tragic character despite his flaws.
He is the only male character to actually admit to Gar that “I’ll - I’ll miss you, Gar.” His show of emotion seems to affect Gar as we see Private convincing Public after Boyle has left: “Remember - you’re going!”

The Canon

The only friend who visits S.B. is the Canon. Private’s tragicomic commentary emphasises how he too is predictable and how each evening’s draughts game differs very little from the last.
The physical description of the Canon as “lean” and “white”, “with alert eyes and a thin mouth” is very specific and creates the impression of a rather joyless character.
Friel seems to use the character as a comment on the Catholic Church. It is suggested through his characterisation that the Canon – and by association the Church – is inadequate in its duty to support the emotional and spiritual life of the parish and country. While Private’s commentary starts off mocking the Canon’s repetitive and predictable speech, it gets more serious as he becomes frustrated at the Canon for not helping the situation between Gar and his father: “And yet you don’t say a word. Why, Canon? Why, arid Canon? Isn’t this your job?”
Friel seems to comment on the hypocrisy of the Church when Private asks, “Agh, sure, Canon, what interest have you in money? Sure as long as you get to Tenerife for five weeks every winter what interest have you in money?” Ireland was very much ruled by the Catholic Church at the time so perhaps Friel uses the Canon to question the Church’s authority.

The Boys

Collectively named “the boys”, Ned, Joe and Tom are Gar’s friends. Their “boisterous arrival” and “exaggerated laughter” break the silence of S.B.’s quiet scene.
There is a clear hierarchy among the boys with Ned being “the leader of the group”, the self-appointed alpha male. Tom seems in awe of Ned. Joe – “not yet fully committed to the boys’ way of life” – seems the most sensitive of the three.
There is much loud talk of their macho ways and the number of girls they attract, though Private tells us that they’re actually useless. It is obvious from Private’s commentary that the boys lie, fantasise and exaggerate. Yet he admits it wasn’t always like this, and that “there was fun and there was laughing”. Although the only show of real friendship is when Ned removes his belt and presents it to Gar as a leaving present, the scene does close on a nostalgic note.
When the boys leave we hear Private’s monologue. It begins as a frustrated rant about his friends, but ends poignantly with Private, “almost in a whisper”, reflecting that the memories he is left with will be “precious, precious gold”.

Kate Doogan

In Episode I we see the first flashback as Gar recalls an encounter with his now lost love “darling Katie Doogan”. The scene is fraught with sexual frustration as Gar tries to kiss Kate and pleads, “I’m mad about you! I’ll never last till Easter! I’ll – I’ll – I’ll bloody well burst!” It is clear however that Kate is worried about whether they will have enough money to live on, and especially whether her father will accept her marriage to someone with so little financial stability.
There is an obvious contrast between the two characters and their priorities. Gar seems overcome by lust while Kate very pragmatically quizzes him about his income.
Gar loses his nerve before asking Kate’s father for her hand in marriage. Private tells us later – in the play’s real time – that Kate is now married and has become "Mrs Doctor Francis King". She and her husband honeymooned in Mallorca, but as Private points out to Public, “you couldn’t have afforded to take her to Malahide”.
While Senator Doogan tells Gar that “any decision she makes will be her own”, we get the impression that Kate – like many women in her position at that time in Ireland – chooses her husband based on her parents’ wishes and to secure her future.
In Episode II Gar receives a visit from Kate who has come to say goodbye. Gar Private’s dialogue suggests that Gar still has fond feelings for Kate. But as the conversation turns to her husband, Gar Public lets his jealousy and resentment make him angry and cruel. He loses his temper and begins raising his voice “rapidly, aggressively”, criticising Ballybeg and all who reside there. His behaviour causes Kate to leave awkwardly as this does not seem to be the Gar she remembers.
Gar’s devastation at losing Kate seems to contribute to his decision to emigrate – on the day he agrees to leave for Philadelphia we find out that S.B. is not at home because he is at the wedding of “Senator Doogan’s daughter” and “some Dublin doc”. The finality of losing Kate – symbolised by her marriage to Francis King – seems to be the catalyst for Gar’s decision to emigrate.

Senator Doogan

We only meet Senator Doogan, Kate’s father, in a short flashback scene. He is affluent. His position as a senator, his study of law and the “investments” mentioned by Kate all suggest money and high social standing.
He doesn’t think Gar is good enough for his daughter. This is made clear when Kate tells Gar to lie to her father about how much money he earns – she knows it is this kind of security that her father will look for in a husband. It is also apparent when Doogan himself brings up the doctor, Francis King, in his first line of dialogue with Gar.

The Sweeneys

Lizzy Sweeney is Gar’s aunt. She is a sister of his mother Maire, who died just after Gar was born. We meet Lizzy, her husband Con and their friend Ben Burton in another flashback scene. Gar is remembering when they visited the O’Donnell residence on a return trip to Donegal.
It is during a conversation in the kitchen that Gar agrees, seemingly spontaneously, to go to Philadelphia to stay with Con and Lizzy. Perhaps because she has had too much to drink, Lizzy becomes very emotional about the fact that she and Con were – despite spending “a fortune on doctors” – unable to have any children of their own.
We suspect Gar’s decision is influenced by the emotional effect of it being the wedding day of his lost love, Katie Doogan – reinforcing the fact that there is nothing left for him in Ballybeg. But Lizzy’s tipsy emotional state seems to contribute also.
Aunt Lizzy seems like a very tactile person. She monopolises the conversation. Uncle Con appears resigned to his wife’s behaviour and rarely disagrees with her.
Lizzy talks about Maire’s wedding to S.B., suggesting that Maire may not have been very happy with her decision. She also suggests that the O’Donnells were “kinda cold” in contrast to her and her sisters, the Gallagher girls. This too seems to awaken some kind of panic in Gar, as if he is anxious that if he stays he might turn out like his father.
The Sweeneys’ visit – coinciding with the day of Kate Doogan’s wedding – seems to be a catalyst for Gar’s decision to emigrate.

Philadelphia, Here I Come! - Characters - CCEA