Translations

I come visit Chicago every year – at times twice a year.  And I had plans to come this Spring at some time.  But there is a specific reason I came right now – a reason which even the elves back in Los Angeles taking care of the homestead understand.  And they always insist that they understand little of what I do…
 
Around 35-40 years, I saw an absolutely wonderful play in Los Angeles, called Translations, by the great Irish playwright Brian Friel.  The first play of his that I saw years earlier was Philadelphia, Here I Come – a terrific show with fascinating staging, where the main character is played by two actors on stage at the same time (one his “outer self” who deals with all the people around him, and the other his “inner self,” where we see what he’s really thinking and the exchanges with others he’d like to have).  It was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Play.  He also wrote the play Dancing at Lunaghsa, which won the Tony Award as Best Play, and was made into a wistful, moody, lovely movie that starred Meryl Streep.  So, when I say he’s a great playwright, I’m not kidding around.
 
I’d loved Translations, which was staged in a small, Equity-waiver theater that only seated around 200 people.  But as much as I wanted to see it again, in the intervening years hadn’t come across another production of it.  In fact, it didn’t finally play on Broadway for another decade after I saw it.
 
But as it happens, the excellent theater company I’ve written about there, the Writers Theatre (that began life literally in the back of a bookstore in Glencoe where I grew up, though now they built a magnificent facility there with two intimate stages – one so small, in fact, that it’s an homage to the original bookstore location) – is putting on Translations!!  When I saw their new season announced a year ago, I’ve been anxiously awaiting for tickets to go on sale for this, finally got them, and planned my trip into town around it.  (The Writers Theatre has an excellent company, and often uses actors from the Goodman Theater in Chicago.  When they put on productions, the main theater critics from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times drive out to the suburbs to review the plays – and even the critic from the New York Times includes Writers Theatre productions when making his annual “what’s going on with theater in Chicago” trip.  The Wall Street Journal has reviewed the company’s productions, as well.)  All the more reason why I was glad that it was the Writers Theater putting Translations on.
 
The play is a drama, though often rambunctiously funny, and even has a romance.  It has to do with the importance of language and culture, and takes place in 19th century Ireland, when the British occupy Ireland and want to change the national language from Irish to English.  The clever thing about the staging is that while all the actors speak to the audience in English, of course, the Irish characters (who only speak Irish) use an Irish accent and the British characters use an English accent – and so, although the two sides within the play can’t understand one another, we in the audience can understand them both.  There is a terrific “Romeo and Juliet-like” subplot between an English solider and Irish girl – their sides are natural enemies, but the two are clearly attracted to one another.  However, they can’t understand each other, though the audience can.  There are times you want to yell out to the stage, “He’s telling you he loves you!!!”
 
Oddly, something weird cropped up related to this.  A month ago, I was watching the British talk show The Graham Norton Show on BBC America.  One of the guests was one of my favorite actors, Chris O’Dowd (who, not shockingly, is Irish).  He was telling a story about having recently appeared in a production of the play…Translations!!   But further, as part of the story, he brought up that in the very first production of Translations, about 40 years ago, one of the actors in it was a young actor at the start of his career, Liam Neeson!!  Since then, I’ve seen that it was put on by the National Theatre in London, and also the famed Abbey Theatre in Ireland.  So, it seems to be done a lot in the U.K.  And there even have been productions around this country – I just hadn’t been aware of them, despite keeping my eyes open for it.  Obviously, not open wide enough.

So, after going around 35-40 years looking for another production of Translations ever since I saw the play, and not coming across even a story about one, I then heard, within a matter of weeks, three different productions brought up!  As well as found out about these other major productions, albeit when doing research.  But still, something is in the water.

But there's even more in the water than just that.  Because it only recently struck me how far-more timely the play is today than when it was written.  Keeping in mind that the play was scheduled by the Writers Theatre over a year ago -- and noting how in the news right now, the Trump administration not only is blocking the teaching of black history and erasing any DEI references from government documents, but also changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" and changing the traditional Alaskan Native name of Mount Denali (the highest peak in the United States), back to "Mount McKinley" -- the reality is that the play of Translations isn't just about soldiers coming to change Gaelic to English, which is close enough to today's headlines...but is about the British government sending in, literally a team of cartographers to change the maps from Irish locations to English names!

In fact, how ripped from the headlines is this 40-year old play?  Watching a video that the Writers Theatre made with its cast members discussing the meaning of the play, and describing it from the perspective of the ages-old battle between the British and Irish, there is a passage where they say -- verbatim -- that Translations is about "Trying to erase culture and language of that culture, the identity of that culture...Changing the names and places of Ireland to Anglicize them for English purposes." 

​Little could be more current in America.

As for the play, it was a joy to see after all this time.  It was a great production, as the Writers Theatre's works almost always are.  And the acting was impeccable, down to the minor characters.  The only "hiccup" is that I could tell that some of the older audience (including those I went with) were having trouble with the thick Irish accents and pronounced British ones.  But that's important to the play and the whole point of what it's about.  It could be done without accents, I supposed, but it would be a lesser work for it.

The play itself is excellent.  It's not my favorite of Brian Friel's worth, and there parts that don't work as well for me as others -- the first act is a little slow, but it's absolutely critical for setting up the town, the people in it, the culture there, the relationships and history.  Though for my taste, I'd have liked it a touch shorter.  But it's so rich in texture, I understand why it's that way.  And once the British arrive, the story becomes more involved.

There is a lot left "uncertain" (or unexplained) in the play, but that's part of its point, as well.  As Friel writes about the work, language and culture is what's important in the play, not the politics.  And lack of clarity and misunderstanding and the criss-crossing of unshared history is at the heart of the play, so not everything is explained neatly.  Because language when relying on translating is rarely exactly clear, while trying to be understood is the core of communication.

All in all, I was so glad to see the play again after all these years.  It's a thoughtful, rich, meandering and substantive work.

​Here's a short, 30-second trailer of the play when it was done at the National Theatre in London.  It really doesn't to the play justice, or give all that much a sense of the substance, but hey, it's the National Theatre and at least is a start...

And as a bonus, this is a short video from one of the actors in the original 1980 production -- Liam Neeson, as he talks about a (then) major revival of the play being done in Ireland two years ago, and then touring, ending at the famed Abbey Theatre.