Twenty years on from its origin in a Field Day production in the Guild Hall in Derry, this play, in which Brian Friel uses the words themselves, and their meanings in several languages, to make his point about cultural independence and cultural imperialism, increasingly vindicates the opinion of the then drama critic of The Times of London, Irving Wardle, that he was witnessing the birth of a classic. Ben Barnes's new production is absolutely respectful of those words in all their dramatic meanings and linguistic rhythms as it chronicles how one modern militaristic culture can overcome a more ancient civilisation.
The British army is in Donegal to make new maps of the area and to bring consistency, in the English language, to the incoherence of the old Gaelic place names in the district. Hugh O'Donnell, the learned master of the local hedge school, is fluent in Greek and Latin and Irish - the languages in which he teaches his small class - and in English. He has been offered the job of principal in the proposed new National School which the invaders are to set up to teach the locals everything through English, which none of them (except Hugh's sons, Manus and Owen) understands. Manus will have to go to the Aran islands to set up a new hedge school there when the new regime is established in Donegal, and Owen arrives home as a translator with the army unit sent to make the new maps. Manus's girl friend, Maire, wants to learn English so that she may emigrate to Brooklyn. But she falls in love with the young romantic Lieutenant George Yolland, orthographer with the army mappers, who wants to learn Irish. Thus does Friel set up the linguistic framework within which the local townland may ultimately be destroyed.
Absolutely faithful to the words in all their meanings, Ben Barnes's direction loses none of the tensions nor the pleasures which the languages convey. The love scene between Maire and George, in which neither of them understands the other, is exquisite in the hands of Fiona McGeown and Damien Matthews. Owen's translations of the interchanges between the hard-edged Captain Lancey and the softness of the Master's pupils lose not an inflection of the cultural or political ironies inherent in the text. The conversations between Owen (Frank McCusker) and his friend George are richly and comically revealing of all the author's intentions. Andrew Bennett's knowing and caring and love-lorn Manus, and Garrett Keogh's pompous and self-centred, though sensible, Master could tear your heart out between them, while Brendan Conroy's Jimmy Jack, so lost in ancient mythology that he expects to marry Athena of Greece, sensibly eschews the potential excesses that could be built into his part.
For those who have not seen Translations before, this is a must. For those who think they know the play already, this production offers new and rich insights they might not previously have noticed. And Monica Frawley has provided an apt and telling setting in her strawstrewn decrepit cathedral-like barn, sensitively and accurately lit by Rupert Murray. Go see, listen carefully, and enjoy greatly.
Runs until December 9th. To book phone 01-8787222.
