Philadelphia, Here I Come

Friel contrasts Gar's cloistered emotional life with his gregarious social persona by portraying him as two distinct characters, a public self (Donal McCann) and a private self (Des Cave). As public Gar energetically goes about his rounds, private Gar voices the anger, and sadness, "the loneliness, the groping," that has positioned him between a loveless youth and an unknown future. As the two sides of Gar spar over their shared past and we meet the people that have inclined him towards a two-faced life, the difference between emigration and exile begins to blur.