Performance and Response

Public and Critical Reception

Theatre is meant to be performed; it is meant to be seen, and Freedom of the City is no exception. The stage directions in the play describe the action of the story well, but in order to receive the full effect of the play, it must be presented to an audience. For example, on the very first page of the play, Friel sets the scene in this way:

A PHOTOGRAPHER, crouching for fear of being shot, runs on from Right and very hastily and nervously photographs the corpses – SKINNER first, then LILY, then MICHAEL. His flash bulb lights up the stage each time, and a pool of light surrounds each corpse in turn. When he has photographed MICHAEL, a PRIEST enter Right, crouching like the photographer and holding a white handkerchief above his head. (9)

While the reader gets some sense of what the scene is meant to look like, seeing the spotlights illuminate the bodies of the protesters is a much more powerful image. There is no way to get the full sense of the ornateness and the grandeur of the Guild Hall and the mayor’s parlor without seeing it, regardless of how well it is described.

As far as the play’s reception, the only backlash it faced came from England. Nicholas Grene, author of “Truth and Indeterminacy in Brian Friel,” tells that “[Freedom of the City] was Friel’s first fully political play, and it was very severely criticized in England as polemical propaganda” (12). English audiences reported feeling “attacked” and “guilt-ridden” upon seeing the play, and it received many poor reviews in English newspapers (12). However, in Ireland, the play was quite well-received and seen to be a compelling commentary on the power of peaceful protests and the British military reactions to them. Grene points out that many Irish audiences received the play well, because even though the characters do not get a happy ending, Michael, Lily, and Skinner still get a chance to bring a little meaning to their deaths:

Friel needed to endow his characters with the dignity of tragedy and with the eloquent self-definition typical of the tragic protagonist at the end. “Soft you, a word or two before you go”. The tragedy of these people’s life and death is in fact that it was without significance, that they were accidental victims, martyrs to no cause, absurdly, purposelessly killed. In that consists the anger of the play. But the demand for meaning persists. And so, as an act of author’s grace, Friel articulates for his characters a significance beyond their understanding, gives them a last glimpse of what it is they have failed to understand, to deepen them towards tragedy. (Grene 15)

Without that component, perhaps the play would have been a depressing and frustrating piece of theatre that would not have persisted. Friel's inclusion of the three after-death monologues for each character brings the audience into their situations even further. The Irish people can feel for these protesters whose lives were taken in a useless manner, and this inspires the audience to think about their own place in society, their motivations, and what they believe in.

As the play is still being performed today, it is important to realize that regardless of the time period in which the play is set, it is still relevant to today's world. Friel's focus on poverty and the aftermath of a peaceful protest gone wrong brings a timeless element to The Freedom of the City. There are still struggles in the current world, and The Freedom of the City reminds us that the consequences of standing up for a cause are not always fair.

Trailer for a 2012 performance of Freedom of the City in Ireland featuring clips from the performance.

Works Cited:

Friel, Brian. The Freedom of the City: A Play in Two Acts. London: Samuel French, 1974. Print.

Grene, Nicholas. “Truth and indeterminacy in Brian Friel.’ Studies on the Contemporary Irish Theater, pp. 9-20. JSTOR. Web.