SERENDIPITY. It's the one word that suits. That's what it felt like, sitting in the back row of a small theatre in Boston, sharing a few chuckles with a familiar face from home.
It wasn't a play for much laughter, mind. The time was 1970. The place, Derry on the Foyle. The principals: Michael, Lily and Skinner, three citizens who had found themselves trapped inside the Guildhall, Sheltering from plastic bullets during a civil rights march.
They'd never met before, and speak with one voice was employed, political activist, Skinner, the homeless anarchist, Lily, the 43 year old housewife and mother of 22, married to a husband she fondly called "the chairman". Over a few glasses of spirits in the mayor's "parlour", they shared experiences, argued - initially oblivious to the tanks and troops ranged outside.
Written after the events of January 30th, 1972, The Freedom of the City is based on a theme which the author did not intend to adopt. "First of all, I am emotionally much too involved," Brian Friel said in an interview in 1979.
"Secondly. . . the thing is in transition at the moment. A play about the civil rights situation in the North won't be written, I hope, for another 10 or 15 years.
Bloody Sunday
That was before the shooting dead of 13 civil rights marchers by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday, an action later exonerated by the Widgery Tribunal. On February 20th, 1973, Friel's production was performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. If designed to give comfort, it held no prisoners - being a savage critique of both British brutality and Irish double think. As the Boston based Sugan Theatre Company has noted in the programme to this recent production, the work was seen by some as Friel's "stepping stone" into politics. Yet it generated hostile reactions when staged in London and New York.
Accused on the one hand of defending the IRA, the author "may have offended everyone", Sugan observes, "by providing us with many versions of the truth, or the truth as perceived, from the witnesses at the Tribunal, to the priest and balladeer who create their own myths about the dead". The dead's voices had "been silenced by those who purport to speak for them or about them". Were they victims? Terrorists? Or pawns?
Boston Centre
It was during a recent very Irish week in the Irish US city that I saw the Sugan production in the Boston Centre for the Arts. The President, Mrs Robinson, was over on one of her frequent visits to receive an award. The city's Irish Immigration Centre was making the most of her presence, with a $100 a plate dinner to raise funds for its work. There in a corner, among the glittering guests, was Lily, the harassed, if feisty Derry woman whom I'd seen that afternoon in a pool of blood.
No shabby coat now, no laughs, no angst. Just the warm, striking smile of Carmel O'Reilly, originally a Maguire from Ederney, Co Fermanagh. Carmel is artistic director of the theatre troupe. Her partner, Peter O'Reilly, is its managing director and comes from Maynooth.
Founded in July 1992, Sugan has made a name for itself in staging contemporary and classical Irish and "pan Celtic" productions, encouraging the development of new writing, and supporting Irish theatrical and creative talent in Boston - of which there is no dearth. Among this cast, Mike Farrell, the Judge, who came to acting from the White House, and Billy Meleady, brigadier, balladeer, soldier, Clareman and veteran of Siamsa Theatre.
Worldly priest
The priest in this play carried lots of life under his collar: Derry Woodhouse, from Limerick, is a former Irish lightweight oarsman, Alaskan salmon fisherman, US coast cyclist, Hawaiian surfing instructor, and even participant in one of Tim Severin's epic voyages. Acting, he felt, would help to settle him down!
Among the company's performances in the past four years have been plays by Dermot Bolger (The Lament for Arthur Cleary and In High Germany), Frank McGuinness (Mary and Lizzie), Tony Kavanagh, Liz Lochhead, Jimmy Murphy (Brothers of the Brush), and Tom Murphy (Famine). The Boston Globe has hailed it as one of the most "innovative troupes".
Of this latest production, the Globe said that despite the staging's "sloppiness", the company was to be respected for "tackling a provocative script" that stared "Ireland's present in the face". The Boston Herald decided that Carmel, who both directed and played her part, was "the standout in the cast", the "stereotypical Irish mom" whose biggest concern was getting home by 5 p.m. to get the tea ready for her brood.
But why stage this now? It's a question that the company is ready and willing to answer. Peace, ever elusive, had slipped from people's grasp with the summer events at Drumcree, Sugan felt. It struck a chord. The week after I left, there were queues down Boston's Tremont Street, people were turned away, and so there is to be another run early next year, from February 27th to March 15th. In the meantime, the group is preparing for The Gigli Concert by Tom Murphy, which is to be staged from December 6th to 22nd.
So I was lucky, then, to get a seat. Even luckier to enjoy it in good, if accidental, company. In Boston for the US publication of his memoirs, Smile and Be a Villain, he bought the coffee, enjoyed the script, flagged the cab for the trip downtown. Serendipitous indeed. Thank you for that Sunday afternoon, Mr Toibin.