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| Kate Reid, Lenny Baker, Allen Carlsen. |
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| Allen Carlsen, Lenny Baker, Kate Reid. |
In the first quarter of an hour of this Irish import,
the audience learns that three Catholic civil rights marchers in Londenderry,
caught in the melee of Army and police attempts to break up a 1970 march with
rubber bullets and tear gas, hide out in an empty building, learn that they
have access to the Lord Mayor’s parlor, are discovered by the British troops
who are under the impression that the building is crawling with terrorists, leave
the building with hands over their heads, and are summarily shot down in cold
blood.
The remainder of the play concerns an investigation
into the tragic incident by the British Court of Inquiry. The ironic contrast
between what the three innocent “terrorists” were really doing in the Lord
Mayor’s room and the biased accounts elicited during the whitewashing court procedure
is presented by intercutting scenes of the actual events into the inquiry.
Playwright Brian Friel’s three chief characters, two
contrasted young men (Lenny Baker and Allan Carlson) and a poor, middle-aged
woman, the mother of 11 (Kate Reid), are shown as earnest, amusing, harmless,
and entirely likable, totally at odds with the official picture drawn by the
court. During their hours holed up in the grandiose office they enjoy
themselves by dressing up in his robes, drinking his booze, examining his
papers, and using his phone.
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| Kate Reid, Lenny Baker. |
Reminiscent of certain real-life tragedies of those
years—and just as relevant today—The Freedom
of the City struck a responsive chord with Douglas Watt, who termed it “a
disturbing and lovely play filled with compassion and sudden insights.” Richard
Watts could not believe anyone could fail to be impressed by its “dramatic
power, its vivid writing, and its occasional flashes of humor.”
Others, however, such as Clive Barnes, John Simon,
Edith Oliver, and Martin Gottfried had opinions that helped it to an early
grave. These critics thought it poorly constructed, slow moving, predictable,
heavy-handed in its irony, and its events implausible, if not impossible. The
saving grace for some was the excellence of Friel’s character depictions, for others
it was the polished performances, particularly Kate Reid’s. Gottfried, who
called the play a “perfectly well done production of a perfectly boring play,” found
no good reason to stick around, and left at intermission, an admission that
would have gotten later critics into boiling water.
Among the better-known players in this effort were
Henderson Forsythe, Joe Ponazecki, J. Kenneth Campbell, and William Bogert.