Cultural colonialism was seriously on the agenda when Brian Friel's play about language, identity and a whole lot more things beyond words premiered in 1980. Set in nineteenth-century rural Ireland, it's the sort of big historical play that doesn't get written much these days, which is why it's such a treat to see Andy Arnold's new production for his Arches company being given space to breathe on the Citz's main stage. With Arnold's appointment as new artistic director of The Tron, it's something we should be prepared to get used to.
A makeshift school in a barn becomes the hub of the community, only to be rocked by the return of the schoolteacher's son, now a British army translator. His masters are intent on re-mapping the landscape with place-names of their own, beyond a Gaelic they can't understand.
Arnold embraces the play's rough-shod poignancy, as Tim Barrow's spellbound Lieutenant and Muireann Kelly's young girl, who wants only to learn English and flee to America, skirt around a doomed romance in the play's most beautiful scene.
Ireland's conflicts may not be so volatile today, so Friel's play now looks to be more broadly about change being enforced for what a ruling clique think is progress. Their desire to homogenise things in their own image, however, with little heed paid to what's being lost, is still pertinent. Translations lays bare the foundations for the theme-parking of a past once stamped out without mercy.
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