AN ACCLAIMED play which focuses on a dark period of Anglo-Irish history will be staged at Chester Little Theatre next month.
Translations, by celebrated Irish playwright Brian Friel, will be coming to Chester Little Theatre from Saturday, November 9 to Saturday November 16, with performances at 7.30pm.
Regarded as Friel's finest play, Translations is set in 1833 in the fictional Baile Beag (or Bally Beg as it becomes translated), a rural village in County Donegal at a time when the British Army were engaged across Ireland in mapping the land ‘to provide up-to-date and accurate information of every corner of this part of the Empire’. In order to achieve this, it was ordered that the traditional Gaelic names of every town, village and hamlet were to be Anglicised. If this wasn't possible, they were given made up English names, hence the name of the play.
Best known as the author of Dancing at Lughnasa and Philadelphia Here I Come!, both of which have been staged previously by Chester Little Theatre, Brian Friel wrote Translations in 1980. It was first performed at the Guildhall, Derry, Northern Ireland and was the first production by the Field Day Theatre Company founded by Friel and actor Stephen Rea.
The play will be directed for Chester Little Theatre by Jane Barth who said "The play takes place in a barn which doubles as a ‘hedge school’. We see what happens when fate throws the British Army and the inhabitants of Baile Beag together. To anglicise the Gaelic names, the army is paying for the help of locals who speak English as well as Gaelic.
“One English soldier, Lieutenant Yolland who is involved in the re-naming, regards it as ‘a sort of eviction’ of the people from their own country. He allows himself to relax in the warmth and friendship he finds in Baile Beag, and becomes emotionally involved with a young Irish woman, arousing anger and tension on both sides – a tension which threatens to develop into violent action.
“As well as evoking darker historical events, the play is humorous and lively, with an interesting mix of characters, such as Big Hugh, the school’s head master, fond of the bottle and Latin poetry, and Jimmy Jack Cassie, a bachelor in love with the goddess Athene – characters which give a lyrical depiction of Ireland and its people."
Full details of Translations can be found at: www.chesterlittletheatre.co.uk where tickets can be booked online.
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