Translations is a three-act play by Irish playwright Brian Friel written in 1980. It is set in Baile Beag (Ballybeg), a small village at the heart of 19th century agricultural Ireland. Friel has said that Translations is "a play about language and only about language", but it deals with a wide range of issues, stretching from language and communication to Irish history and cultural imperialism. Despite the 1833 setting, there are obvious parallels between Baile Beag and today's world.
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Translations is a three-act play by Irish playwright Brian Friel written in 1980. It is set in Baile Beag (Ballybeg), a small village at the heart of 19th century agricultural Ireland. Friel has said that Translations is "a play about language and only about language", but it deals with a wide range of issues, stretching from language and communication to Irish history and cultural imperialism. Despite the 1833 setting, there are obvious parallels between Baile Beag and today's world.
Baile Beag may be presumed to be a fictional village, although such a placename does exist: as a working class suburb of Waterford, a village in County Wicklow and a village in County Down (all in Ireland). However, it is also a generic name for a small village, which Friel uses in several of his other plays.
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Performance and publication
Translations was first performed at the Guildhall in Derry, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday, 23 September 1980. It was the first production by the Field Day Theatre Company founded by Brian Friel and Stephen Rea. It was directed by Art O Briain and featured the following castFriel, Brian (1981). Translations. London: Faber and Faber.:
- Mick Lally (Manus)
- Ann Hasson (Sarah)
- Jack Roy Hanlon (Jimmy Jack)
- Nuala Hayes (Maire)
- Liam Neeson (Doalty)
- Brenda Scallon (Bridget)
- Ray McAnally (Hugh)
- Stephen Rea (Owen)
- David Heap (Captain Lancey)
- Shaun Scott (Lieutenant Yolland)
The play was staged in New York City in 1981 by the Manhattan Theatre Club, starring Barnard Hughes. It was briefly revived on Broadway in 1995 in a production starring Brian Dennehy. In 2006-07, the Manhattan Theatre Club returned it to the stage at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey and the Biltmore Theatre in New York, directed by Garry Hynes.Gluck, Victor. "Translations" Review at Theaterscene.net, 29 January 2007. Retrieved 11 March 2008.
The play was published in 1981 by Faber and Faber, who still publish it today. In the UK it remains a popular set text among English and Drama & Theatre A-Level students.
Plot
The play is set in the quiet community of Baile Beag (later anglicized to Ballybeg), in County Donegal, Ireland. Many of the inhabitants have little experience of the world outside the village. In spite of this, tales about Greek goddesses are as commonplace as those about the potato crops, and many languages (ancient and modern) are spoken in the village. Friel uses language as a tool to highlight the problems of communication - lingual, cultural, and generational. In the world of the play, the characters, both Irish and English, "speak" their respective languages, but in actuality English is predominantly spoken. This allows the audience to understand all the languages, as if a translator were provided. However, onstage the characters cannot comprehend each other. This is due to lack of compromise from both parties, the English and Irish, to learn the others language, a metaphor for the wider barrier that is between the two parties.
- Ann Hasson (Sarah)
