SOURCE: "The Most Distressful Country," in New York Post, 17 February 1966.

In the review below, Watts states that Philadelphia, Here I Come! is "sad, humorous, bitter and compassionate, bravely honest … a fine and poignant play. "

To call an Irish comedy Philadelphia, Here I Come! might suggest it was filled with the antic exuberance often believed to be predominant in the Gaelic temperament. But Brian Friel is in no jolly high spirits in his beautiful play, which opened last night at the Helen Hayes Theater.

It has all the rueful sadness more characteristic of what its most famous old song described as "the most distressful country," and it is very moving and true.

In fact, while it has its delightfully humorous moments, it is essentially a comedy only in the Chekhovian sense, and its title turns out to have a suggestion of Chekhov. For Philadelphia, like the Russian playwright's Moscow...