Return to Production  Philadelphia, Here I Come! (09/08/1994 -
10/22/1994)   New York Daily News: "'Philadelphia' Never Gets
Its Irish Up"  If Irish life were simply about leprechauns, jigs
and the wearin' o' the green, the playful revival of
"Philadelphia, Here I Come!" at the Roundabout might be more
satisfying than it is.  But Brian Friel's play about a young
Irishman dwelling on his cramped and dismal life the night
before he embarks for America reflects a darker side of the
Irish character. The Ballybeg Friel describes is a place of
futility, dreary rowdiness and self-denial that is pathetic
rather than ennobling.  Too little of this bleakness is apparent
in the production Joe Dowling has directed. The play seems like
a collection of droll vignettes of provincial life rather than a
portrait of a young man battling to find out who he is and where
he is going.  At the heart of the play is the young man's
frustrating relationship with his father. Both are trapped by
their inability to be open with one anoth