Summary
Ballybeg, a small village in Ireland, the night before and the morning of Gar's departure for Philadelphia. The curtain opens on "a bachelor's kitchen." On the other side of the stage is Gar's bedroom, while the rest of the stage—according to the stage directions—is a more fluid playing space. The stage directions also tip us off to the fact that there are two different versions of "Gar," a public and a private version, represented by different actors.
The first scene takes place in the home of County Councillor S.B. O'Donnell, a general shop owner. Madge, the 60-something housekeeper, is setting a table. She calls to Gar (Public) to let him know his tea is ready, and he comes in filled with excitement about his imminent departure for Philadelphia. He sings a song, "Philadelphia, Here I Come!" and waltzes with Madge a bit, but she bats him away.
Gar asks Madge if she'll miss him and threatens to tickle her, at which point she admits she will miss him. When he asks her what time it is, she tells him it's 10 after 7. Gar complains that his father made him work until 7 on his last day there. Gar goes into his room and throws himself on the bed, continuing to sing his jubilant song.
As he sings, the Private version of Gar chimes in and discusses the fact that Gar will soon be in a plane flying over the ocean. As Public plays with a bundled up shop coat as if it were a soccer ball, Private pretends to be a soccer announcer. Private then pretends to be an army general, and asks Public if he is ready to go to "a profane, irreligious, pagan country of gross materialism." Public replies, "I am fully sensitive to this, Sir." Public jokes about the lustfulness of America, and makes jokes, when Madge comes in and tells him what to do with his clothes to pack.
Madge suggests that Gar's father will have something to say to him before he leaves, and will give him some extra money. Gar seems indifferent, but Madge tells him, "Just because he doesn't say much doesn't mean that he hasn't feelings like the rest of us." She suggests that Gar's father did not sleep much the night before, but Gar insists that his father has to be the one to say the first word if he wants to talk.
S.B., a man in his 60s wearing a dark suit, appears at the shop door and calls for Gar. S.B. asks Gar how many coils of barbed-wire arrived that day at the shop, then leaves. Private coaches Public, trying to get him to remember what happened. but they give up. They play a game where Public Gar pretends to have a meeting with a hotel chain president. In this roleplay, we learn that Gar is 25, that he spent one year at University College in Dublin, but left school to return to his father's retail business.
Public puts on a record of a Mendelssohn violin concerto. Private pretends now that Gar is an orchestra conductor, and Public alternates between playing the violin and then conducting. Private then looks at a case that Madge brought in, and finds his parent's wedding announcement. "She was small, Madge says, and wild, and young, Madge says, from a place called Bailetefree beyond the mountains; and her eyes were bright, and her hair was loose, and she carried her shoes under her arm until she came to the edge of the village, Madge says, and then she put them on...." He talks about the fact that his mother was 19 and his father was 40 when they were married, and that she died 3 days after Gar was born.
Public looks for a new record and puts on some Ceilidhe Band music, which is very dance-y and lively. He dances wildly, when Private reminds him that the song they are listening to "was Katie's tune." He adds, "It reminds you of the night the two of you made all the plans, and you thought your heart would burst with happiness." As Public continues to dance, ignoring him, Private asks if he's going to say goodbye to Katie, and if he still loves her.
Public abruptly turns off the record and looks at a picture of Katie sadly. Private tries to remind him that Katie was a snob and tells the story of a night 10 months ago, when Gar and Katie were planning to get married at Easter and have seven boys and seven girls.
In a flashback, we see Public and Kate on that night, as if in a dream, at the front of the stage. Public discusses the children they will have, how the girls will be "gentle and frail and silly" and the boys will be "sexy goats, like me." Kate counters that they cannot live on the money he makes, worried about his big dreaming. Public tells Kate that he has an idea for making extra money.
Analysis
Before the play even begins, we are alerted to two particular details about it from the stage directions. Firstly, we learn that the play's action takes place on the night before and the morning of the protagonist Gar's departure from Ireland to Philadelphia. We also learn that in the play, two different actors will be portraying different facets of Gar's identity. While one will be portraying Gar's public self, the other will be portraying his more private identity. Brian Friel creates expectations for the reader of the play that sets up its theatrical devices, and foregrounds some of the thematic elements of the play; namely, that the play will investigate the differences between a person's private and public selves.
When we first meet Gar (Public) on the eve of his departure, he is almost maniacally ecstatic. He runs into the room and begins waltzing with the maid, who does not have time for his lightheartedness, resolved to stick to her duties. Gar is about to embark on his new life, and he feels the excitement of immigration, the sense that he is going off to find a new life, in a new country. Madge, the maid, continues about her business, representing those who stay behind and tend the home fires.
The way that the Public and Private Gars play out in the action of the play is as if there are two characters, friends who complement one another. When Public goes into his bedroom, Private is there, waiting to encourage Public in his enthusiasm about heading to America. He is a kind of cheerleader for Public, pretending to be a sports announcer and then a military commander, and acting as a kind of sounding board for Public Gar's more off-the-wall enthusiasm.
Gar's relationship with his father is strained by the fact that his father is silent and subdued in character, rarely ever saying the first word or being emotionally forthcoming. Instead, Gar's father, S.B., prefers to talk strictly of business, and behaves as if nothing is out of the ordinary, even on the eve of Gar's departure for America. Madge reminds Gar that his father has deep emotions, even if he does not express them, but Gar seems unmotivated to try and heal the silences in their relationship, resigned to his father's communicative limitations.
We also learn in this first section that Gar never knew his mother, who died three days after he was born. As he examines his parents' wedding announcement, his two selves, Public and Private, discuss what Madge, his surrogate mother, has told him about his mother, that she was beautiful and young. Not much time is spent on this information, but we learn of Gar's loss, his never having had a maternal caretaker apart from Madge, and this gives us a sense of the melancholy that is beneath all of his bombast.
