The characters begin dead and the tribunal appears to be decided before it’s even begun. This sense of futility in Friel’s Freedom of the City hangs over the performance, clouding even the larks of Skinner and Lily as they parade around in the Mayor’s garments. After reading Woolley’s earlier preview, I had high expectations for the Freedom of the City. I was not disappointed. It was a brilliant choice of setting; the intimacy of the Morris Room where the actors emerged from the audience created an intense performance that could never have been achieved on a more conventional stage. Admittedly, some technical difficulties emerged from this choice of setting. For example, it would have helped the actors to have had another entrance to avoid bumping into each other when exiting and entering and the taped music played from the back of the room was a bit intrusive if you were sat beyond the first four rows; however, the realism that this setting brought to the performance was well worth these slight distractions.
The live music was a well-executed addition that again added to the hard realism that Sayers and Levinson appear to be aiming for. Although the three leads, Ballard, Furey and Wynn-Owen gave admirable performances, it would have been nice to have seen them relax into their roles a little more. The strength of the accents also required the lines to need a slower delivery than was assigned to them; indeed, Furey delivered her lines at a speed that was incomprehensible at points. The real highlight of the piece for me was the strength of the tribunal scenes, particularly the relationship portrayed between the judge and the Irish characters. The sociologist, the priest and the journalist were also played extremely well, all this helped to construct Friel’s palimpsest of this fateful event in Irish history. Overall, the whole concept of the play was brilliantly unpacked and it truly offered a theatre experience that you would not receive at the Playhouse.
