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August 29 - Sept. 5, 2004 |
Perfect Translations
Brian Friel's Irish ode the season's best experience
By Bruce Raymond
Originally Published: 2004-08-08
When one thinks of Irish theatre, one immediately conjures up images of what are often referred to as "the Irish troubles". Irish playwrights have delved into just about every corner of the early 20th century uprisings. The result has been a long string of wonderful plays by talented playwrights, most of them performed at Dublin's world famous Abbey Theatre. Brian Friel is one of those enormous talents, but in his early play Translations, currently on stage at Harbourfront's Premiere Dance Theatre, Mr. Friel goes far back before the last century to the one before - to the 1830s, before Victoria ascended the British throne.
British army soldiers are in Ireland, doing what is referred to as an ordnance survey, which means that they are going to create updated maps. In doing so, they keep coming across the same place names being repeated over and over again in different areas. In order to remove the confusion, the soldiers replace many of the traditional Irish names with English counterparts. However, in removing the Irish name, they are inadvertently, or perhaps deliberately, destroying the people's connection with their past. As one of the characters puts it, the Irish penchant for flowery language is to keep reminding themselves of their glorious and often mythical past and to make them forget their miserable and not at all mythical present.
The play is set in a huge, magnificently designed, barn in which an alcoholically challenged schoolmaster runs an illegal but tolerated hedge school, where Catholics can get some education, denied them under the anti-Catholic laws of the time. The play meanders along with some delightful dialogue until one of the British soldiers falls in love with one of the Catholic girls. The fate of the star-cross'd lovers provides the romantic interest in the story but their situation is less compelling than the two-hour lesson in Irish history that playwright Friel has provided.
All the characters are well defined. Diego Matamoros manages to make the Irish schoolmaster Hugh quite believable, and despite Diego's racial background, decidedly Irish! One of the best drawn characters is that of Jimmy, played to perfection by Michael Simpson. Jimmy can speak Greek and Latin and reads the Greek Classics like soap operas, so much so that he has fallen in love with the Goddess Athena, whom he is convinced is waiting for him in some incarnation or other. Philip Riccio is the British Lieutenant. He is quite dashing in appearance, and quite touching when he expresses his love for Maire despite the fact that they can't understand each other's language. Maire, played by Patricia Fagan, is the love interest. She looks great and acts with a lot of heart but perhaps a tinier voice than might have been appropriate. Oliver Becker is a perfect Doalty, with strong views on everything and everyone, even if he can't get his multiplication tables right. Gordon Rand is effective as the crippled and lonely Manus, one of the schoolmaster's sons. The other son, somewhat a prodigal returning home, is Owen, very well played by David Storch. Oliver Dennis carries himself with military correctness as the cardboard cutout commanding officer. The main kudos, though, must go to the combined efforts of the Abbey Theatre's Ben Barnes' direction and Francis O'Connor's set design, aided by Kevin Lamotte's superb lighting. In fact, it was difficult to believe that I was looking at a stage set, particularly during the rainstorm!
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