[The Guardian] Translations – review 4 / 5 stars
Crucible, Sheffield
An exemplary revival of what may be Brian Friel's greatest play makes a fine centrepiece to this
season of his work
Wistfulness, lyricism and linguistic ingenuity … Beth Cooke and Niall Buggy in Translations by
Brian Friel at Crucible, Sheffield PR
Alfred Hickling
Sunday 23 February 2014 13.45 EST Last modified on Friday 20 June 2014 15.40 EDT
Brian Friel's 1980 drama was born from twin impulses: the discovery that the playwright's greatgreat-grandfather taught classics to Irish peasant farmers, coupled with a close reading of George
Steiner's study of the slipperiness of translation, After Babel. The resulting fusion of wistfulness,
lyricism and linguistic ingenuity could hardly have sprung from the imagination of anyone else,
however, and Sheffield's Brian Friel season centres on an exemplary revival by James Grieve of
what is arguably his greatest play.
The action occurs at an 1830s hedge school in Friel's favoured fictive backwater of Baile Beag,
or Ballybeg, as it is shortly to become known once a platoon of English sappers has fulfilled its
commission to Anglicise place names and redraw territorial boundaries to the treasury's
advantage.
It would be simple to condemn the linguistic takeover as an act of cultural imperialism, yet
Friel's drama is remarkably even-handed. Máire (Beth Cooke) is a self-determined young woman
who chafes at reciting Pliny when she really wants to learn the language that will be more
beneficial to her in America. That imperative becomes even stronger when she conceives an
attraction for the sensitive English lieutenant, Yolland (James Northcote); the standout scene
between them is an enraptured exchange in which the listing of place names becomes a form of
seduction.
Even the imperious Niall Buggy as the drunken schoolmaster is prepared to concede that an
unsystematic accretion of traditional place names is ultimately a recipe for getting lost. Yet his
passionate defence of the native tongue – "full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and selfdeception" – feels like a dark presentiment from a man already fluent in at least two dead
languages.
comments (3)
Davepeak 24 Feb 2014 4:31
A wonderful production. Fundamentally about Language; the Ordnance Survey mapping coupled
with the forthcoming English language National Schools threatening the survival of Gaelic.
Translations distorting messages in ways that suit the person doing the translating giving the
colonial power an upper hand. Native speakers familiar with Greek and Latin but resisting
English.
We are so lucky to get such wonderful international-class productions in our "regional" Sheffield
Theatres and it is good to see that this Sheffield Theatres, English Touring Theatre and Rose
Theatre  co-production will go on tour after it finishes at the Crucible on 8 March. 
See it if you get the chance.
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stoon1 25 Feb 2014 7:06  0 1
Translations (Crucible) 3.25/5
Decent 1st act despite being bookended by lulls, moreso the closing.
Post interval tho’ itz a bit of trudge along lowly countoured pleasure lines. Shame as clever use
of the Crucible expanses conjures up a sense of place and situation but the production doesn’t
sufficiently evoke a deep enuff sense of meaning beyond the text to really deliver.
Qualification is due…Maire and Owen set a std which achieves a fair degree of uplift and fellow
cast are fine too but lack the Cooken factor – however so blatantly playing the invasive Brit army
as semi buffoons isn’t half as hot as Mum wud like.
Hugh warrants special mention, his ‘dominating’ performance is one of the pluses but maybe
isn’t so beneficial to the team cause as it’s impossible for others to connect with him but itz a
memorable rallying point.
In the world of Blarney this (well the 1st act certainly) is worth seeing…it’s just that
resentments, anger n politics are too bogged down in personal quagmires to hit home later on
when fowls come home t’roost
vannozzi 23 Mar 2014 9:56 Saw this in Exeter last night, a wonderful production... I was
moved!
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[NY Times] THEATER REVIEW | 'TRANSLATIONS'
Eloquent Tongues but Anguished Irish Hearts
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD Published: January 26, 2007
Quite a few languages are spoken in Brian Friel’s play “Translations.” There is a fair amount of
Latin and Greek. Gaelic makes frequent appearances. And English is of course the play’s official
lingua franca.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Brian Friel's ensemble drama "Translations," set in rural 1833 Ireland, is at the Biltmore
Theater with, from left,Geraldine Hughes, Susan Lynch, Alan Cox and Morgan Hallett.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
From left, David Costabile and Alan Cox as Irishmen and Chandler Williams as a British soldier
smitten with a country he has come to change.
But you can leave your Berlitzes and your dead-language primers at home. A basic fluency in the
workings of the human heart is all that’s necessary to absorb the beauties of Mr. Friel’s tender,
sad and funny play about the difficulty of finding a home in the world, a person to share it with,
and a name to call it by.
“Translations” has already had two major New York productions: Off Broadway in 1981 and on
Broadway in 1995. Neither made much of a splash (it racked up just 25 performances in the
more recent run), but “Translations” is anything but a splashy play. A quiet ensemble drama set
in rural Ireland in 1833, it explores the troubled lives of a handful of characters struggling to
adjust to the shifting dynamics of the world around them, which is undergoing quiet but radical
change as the hard fist of British regulation seeks to impose itself on local tradition. Item No. 1
on Britain’s agenda is mapping the island and translating the Gaelic place names into proper
English, a process that has complicated political and cultural overtones for the Irish people that
resonate to this day.
Mr. Friel’s touch is delicate, his narrative artful but oblique, his lyrical voice steeped in the lusty
idioms of rural Ireland. And then there’s the Greek and Latin, intoned with joyous relish by men
who like to chase it with a spot of hard liquor. “Translations” is, in short, the kind of play whose
merits are likely to be lost in translation when exposed to the bright spotlight of Broadway.
And yet here it is on Broadway again, where it opened last night at the Biltmore Theater,
courtesy of the Manhattan Theater Club (which also produced the Off Broadway production) and
the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, N.J. On this occasion it has wisely been entrusted to
Garry Hynes, the brilliant Irish director known for her work with the fiery young playwright
Martin McDonagh and the cycle of plays by J. M. Synge seen at the Lincoln Center Festival last
summer. Ms. Hynes has in turn wisely entrusted Mr. Friel’s challenging play to a stageful of
little-known but hugely talented actors, creating an ensemble of an extraordinarily high caliber
and consistency. In their hands — on their tongues, I should say — “Translations” is nothing
short of glorious.
Mind you, the play trades in a subtle glory, the kind that steals upon you furtively and without
the help of advance PR. Last season a revival of Mr. Friel’s “Faith Healer” opened on Broadway
with rather more éclat, thanks to the high-profile presence of Ralph Fiennes in the title role. Ms.
Hynes’s cast boasts no stars of that renown, indeed no stars of the renown of Mr. Fiennes’s
estimable co-star, New York’s beloved Cherry Jones. Nor does it involve the kind of tour de
force monologues of which “Faith Healer” is composed, long, heart-searing speeches in which
the characters seem to shed their skins paragraph by paragraph, until their souls stand naked and
exposed before us.
But this news may come as a relief to those who found “Faith Healer” a tough sit. “Translations”
is ultimately as emotionally resonant as that play is — and possibly just as heart-rending — but
its rich cast of colorful characters, its more pointed humor and its layered narrative make it more
accessible. And nobody talks for more than two minutes at a time, which is the blink of an eye
for an Irishman onstage.
Why should they? All too often the words they speak cannot be understood by their listeners,
even when their lives depend on them. In “Translations” Mr. Friel celebrates the sweet music of
human speech, but the play also explores the seriocomic truth that language divides as easily as it
unites, and sometimes fumbles and stalls just when we need it to soar. Greek or Latin, English or
Gaelic, it is the only tool we have to forge emotional bonds, diffuse social conflict and translate
inner passions into the practices of daily living. But how paltry it can seem as a medium of
expression for all that fills our searching souls!
Its eloquence and its limits are most movingly illustrated at the climax of the first act, when love
comes upon two of the play’s central characters with the speed of a runaway horse. The Irish
dairymaid Maire (Susan Lynch) has long been betrothed to a local, but she yearns to escape the
stultifying culture of Ballybeg (the fictional town where many of Mr. Friel’s plays are set, here
also known in Gaelic as Baile-Beag). Maire has recently announced a bold plan to move to
America, but her eye has been caught by Lieutenant Yolland (Chandler Williams), the British
soldier with no fixed place in the world who feels strangely at home among the wary but friendly
locals. He has fallen in love with the land, the people and, poignantly, the language it is his job to
make obsolete.
He speaks scarcely a word of Gaelic, and her English is limited to a few phrases and a useless bit
of nonsense, courtesy of Aunt Mary: “In Norfolk we besport ourselves around the maypole.” As
they each trot out their stray bits of each other’s language, Mr. Williams and Ms. Lynch — who
both give enchanting performances — make palpably clear the anguish and frustration of being
unable to find even rough words to communicate inchoate feelings. As funny as it is touching,
this beautifully played scene exposes the truth and the lie in the cliché that lovers need no
common language to lay bare their hearts.
But almost everything in this production plays beautifully. The boozy give and take between
Hugh (Niall Buggy), the schoolmaster who runs the humble rural schoolroom where the play
takes place, and his prized old pupil Jimmy Jack (Dermot Crowley), is wonderfully funny, as
they tease each other with etymological tests.
The mixture of tension and affection between Hugh’s sons is intimated with subtle force. Manus
(David Costabile), an ardent nationalist, takes over the teaching chores when Hugh has taken a
nip too much, at least until his heart is broken and he comes to feel an exile in his beloved home.
Owen (Alan Cox) ran away to Dublin and has returned to Ballybeg as the hired assistant to the
British soldiers in their mission, which he believes can help advance the cause of the locals, if
they can be made to see it. (Now if only he could get his employers to call him by his right name,
and not by the Anglicized Rowan.)
Mr. Friel’s characters are too complexly drawn — and in this production played — to line up
neatly for or against the advent of a new language that may bring economic benefits but will
speed the erosion of an entire culture. Hugh, that lover of dead tongues, makes the eloquent
observation that words “are not immortal,” and “a civilization can be imprisoned in a linguistic
contour which no longer matches the landscape of ... fact.” The mournful corollary Mr. Friel’s
play gently illuminates: People are far more mortal than the words they use, and a changing
civilization may leave them adrift and alone.
You don’t have to search hard for lamentable contemporary resonance in “Translations.” The
attempt to impose a new civilization on a subjugated country by force looms as the background
for the smaller personal dramas that take up much of the casually drawn narrative. And the plot
turns on the disappearance of a soldier, possibly a casualty of Irish resentment of the occupying
force.
But the quiet urgency of Ms. Hynes’s production derives more from the limning of the small
strains tugging at the tight fabric of a community of individuals, each bedeviled by a private
struggle. The ensemble is rounded out by Michael Fitzgerald as the impish young Doalty, who
bridles more than most at the presence of the British; Geraldine Hughes as the feisty Bridget;
Graeme Malcolm as the stern, condescending redcoat Captain Lancey; and Morgan Hallett as
Sarah, a disturbed young woman who has trouble communicating at all, and can barely say her
name.
Ms. Hynes’s production also benefits from evocative work from some of her regular
collaborators, the set and costume designer Francis O’Connor and the lighting designer Davy
Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham’s painterly lighting is particularly integral to the nuanced
contouring of the production. As the narrative darkens in the last act, the triangle of light that
formed a bright spot in the dimness of the barn is shut out, as hope for a promising end to almost
everyone’s trouble begins to dim.
A despondent and tipsy Jimmy Jack and Hugh are alone in the dusk when Maire enters and asks,
“Master, what does the English word ‘always’ mean?”
He gives her the answer in Latin, but adds: “It’s not a word I’d start with. It’s a silly word, girl.”
In fact, in the darkening gloom of the barn, in the final moments of Mr. Friel’s haunting but
hugely rewarding play, it sounds like the saddest word in the English language. Or any language.
TRANSLATIONS
By Brian Friel; directed by Garry Hynes; sets and costumes by Francis O’Connor; lighting by
Davy Cunningham; sound by John Leonard; original music, Sam Jackson; production stage
manager, Richard Costabile; production manager, Ryan McMahon; general manager, Florie
Seery; producing artistic director for the McCarter Theater Center, Mara Isaacs; director of
production, David York. Presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, Lynne Meadow, artistic
director, and Barry Grove, executive producer; and the McCarter Theater Center, Emily Mann,
artistic director, and Jeffrey Woodward, managing director. At the Biltmore Theater, 261 West
47th Street; (212) 239-6200. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
WITH: Niall Buggy (Hugh), David Costabile (Manus), Alan Cox (Owen), Dermot Crowley
(Jimmy Jack), Michael Fitzgerald (Doalty), Morgan Hallett (Sarah), Geraldine Hughes (Bridget),
Susan Lynch (Maire), Graeme Malcolm (Captain Lancey) and Chandler Williams (Lieutenant
Yolland).
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Absolut Fringe 2010
Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival 09
Translations
Millennium Forum Productions presents Brian Friel's 'Translations'. Photo: Helen Murray
Millennium Forum Productions presents Brian Friel's 'Translations'. Photo: Helen Murray
Millennium Forum Productions presents Brian Friel's 'Translations'. Photo: Helen Murray
by Chris McAlinden Reviewed 15 March
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Brian Friel’s Translations is set in nineteenth-century Ireland. The action takes place in an Irish
speaking hedge-school in Ballybeg, Co. Donegal – where English speaking soldiers have arrived,
tasked with rewriting the map of Ireland, Anglicising the place-names as they go. The play raises
questions about language and national identity that were relevant during its first production by
Field Day Theatre Company in Derry~Londonderry in 1980 and remain pertinent in 2013, as the
unresolved themes of culture, language and place still shape our society. Alot has changed in
Ireland since the eighties; however, this Millennium Forum production hasn't kept pace with
developments in Irish theatre since this innovative play was first staged.
Central to the play is an odd theatrical device: the whole play is presented in English, however
the audience are meant to believe the Irish villagers are speaking Irish, and the British visitors
speaking English – with little understanding between them. More sharply than anything else in
the play this underscores the extent to which British colonialism has shaped language in Ireland,
even up to the present day – given that a genuinely bilingual play would sadly be met with
confusion from the majority of contemporary Irish audiences.
Stuart Marshall’s minimal set, with its projected bluesky backdrop and silhouettes of two windswept trees proved a fitting design to begin the play.
The staging however does not change for the duration of the piece, and, whilst effective for dim
and dark lit scenes, the more brightly-lit scenes reveal the acrylic black texture of the trees quite
strongly, removing the illusion of the onstage Donegal village and unwittingly bringing the
audience back to the real-world theatre. Helen Quigley’s successful costume design appeared to
be searching for an authentic nineteenth-century look, yet surprisingly made the Irish villagers
seem quite stylish with their interesting mix of browns for the men and reds for the women. The
only use of sound during the piece was the actor’s voices and a prosaic accordion that covered
scene transitions throughout the three-acts, which, whilst it left the sound-world feeling a little
under-explored, neatly complemented the stark set and often elegiac script.
The play’s main problem however stemmed from the varied quality of performances from its
large cast. Hugh (Des McAleer) and Jimmy Jack (Niall Cusack) were the veterans of the piece,
and clearly demonstrated their acting experience in the roles of two erudite Irishmen, fuelled
throughout by drink and a love of Greek and Latin languages. Paul Woodson as Yolland
however was the stand-out performance; his onstage presence as the English soldier who falls in
love with Ireland was exceptionally engaging, drawing the audience completely into his naïve
and often ecstatic fancies. Dermott Hickson’s performance as Owen also held its own, yet the
rest of the cast seemed to struggle with stage presence and smaller details such as accents.
Doalty’s (Conan Sweeny) overly physical performance was energetic, but sadly felt it belonged
more to a Grotowski-style performance than a Friel play. Manus’ (Barry John Ward) inconsistent
limp and Marie’s (Jade Yourell) struggle to project (bordering on shouting) unfortunately
detracted from the well-written script and the visceral experience of live theatre.
Adrian Dunbar’s directing was also surprisingly safe, especially given recent praise for his
staging of Friel’s Performances (also in Derry~Londonderry, at the Great Hall Magee), and the
possibilities opened up for the Irish stage since Translations was first presented at the Guildhall
in the same city, 33 years ago.
The rhythm and pace of the piece picked up in the third
act, but it was by then too late to change the overall feel of the performance. Stage space and
actor direction felt under-utilised, with the vast majority of action taking place on one level,
centre stage, occasionally shifting left and right. Cliché also sometimes seemed to play more part
in the direction than subtlety; for instance, Yolland and Maria’s romantic interaction felt more
suited to the dramatic intensity of musical theatre than the understated performance this play
seems to yearn for.
“To remember everything is a form of madness” reflects Hugh in his final moments on stage. As
the theatre-goer watches these final moments I wonder what of this production will be
memorable for them? The final image as the lights fades down was that of the actors clumsily
walking offstage, having already abandoned character, leaving an awkward gulf between the
final scene and the bows, filled by the tentative clapping of the audience.
Chris McAlinden is a filmmaker and Facilitator based in Derry/Londonderry. He holds a First
Class BA (Hons) degree in Drama and a Masters degree in Film.
http://www.irishtheatremagazine.ie/Reviews/Current/Translations-%281%29
Translations, Sheffield Crucible, review
English Touring Theatre's revival of Brian Friel's 1980
classic is pitch perfect, says Dominic Cavendish
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Flying the flag for erudition: Beth Cooke and John Conroy in Translations
By Dominic Cavendish 3:19PM GMT 20 Feb 2014
A pompous red-coated English captain, a cartographer from the Royal Engineers, is telling the
assembled locals in a small town in County Donegal about the Ordnance Survey mission in
Ireland. The year is 1833. Place-names will be Anglicised and the rule of empire inscribed on the
land as never before. “Ireland is privileged”, he dares to declare.
Because he speaks no Gaelic and they no English, he’s using an interpreter – a keen go-between
called Owen, the youngest son of Hugh, the hedge-school master in whose rustic pedagogical
plot he is standing. Owen translates for the interloper, Lancey, but he shifts the meanings as he
does so, softens the blows.
And because this is the ever-artful Brian Friel, writing at the height of his powers in 1980, all
this happens in the same tongue – “our” tongue, English. We hear and understand what both
sides are saying even though they are struck by mutual incomprehension. It’s an inspired device
that invites laughter - and yet the laughter dies in the throat. This is no game, it’s history in the
making, savage and unstoppable. The scene owes its theatrical success to the death of a
language.
Niall Buggy as Hugh
The centrepiece of a season dedicated to Ireland’s
greatest living playwright, now 85, James
Grieve’s pitch-perfect revival of Translations
argues its case as a modern masterpiece in which
complex ideas and feelings flow in unison. It also
presents it as an object lesson in how countries
divided by colonialism might better understand
each other. For all Lancey’s stereotypical
arrogance, it’s remarkable how much sympathy
for the English there is in this play. The doomed
romance that blossoms between Lancey’s
idealistic young subordinate Yolland and the selfimproving Maire has something of the fairy-tale
about it, yet it rings true. In a glorious scene,
James Northcote’s gauche youth and Beth
Cooke’s beguiling, bright-eyed lass perform a sort
of mating-dance with what looks and gestures
they can muster. Friel suggests we can transcend
the limits of language in a heartbeat.
The play comes around often but you’ll be hard pushed to find a cast this good – among them
John Conroy’s begrimed Jimmy Jack, who flies the flag for erudition and the allure of Athene,
Ciarán O’Brien’s Manus, the hedge-school’s hobbling, increasingly resentful assistant, and Niall
Buggy as his grand old pa Hugh – deploying a wonderful air of sly scrutiny. An evening, then,
that combines clever paradox with warmth, ingenious artifice with atmospheric authenticity, the
remote past with the here-and-now. To speak plain: go.
Until March 8. Tickets: 0114 249 6000; Sheffieldtheatres.co.uk; Tours to May; details
ett.org.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/10651469/Translations-SheffieldCrucible-review.html