{"id":11232,"date":"2019-12-17T16:03:22","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T16:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=11232"},"modified":"2019-12-17T16:03:25","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T16:03:25","slug":"translations-at-the-national-theatre-harrowing-tale-of-ireland-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2019\/12\/17\/translations-at-the-national-theatre-harrowing-tale-of-ireland-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Translations at the National Theatre: Harrowing Tale of Ireland & England"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Man alive, if you didn\u2019t hate England\nafter last week\u2019s election, you definitely will after seeing Translations<\/em>, the classic play by Brian\nFriel that is basically the stage version of the quote \u201cYou be careful out\namong them English.\u201d (The actual quote is \u2018the English\u2019 but most people\nremember it as \u2018them English\u2019 because it\u2019s so much better.) Translations<\/em> tells of the folk who run\nand attend a hedge school in the Irish community of Baile Beag in 1833. They\nseem to be having a grand old time learning and living their lives, until the\nEnglish military comes in supposedly to map their area and record the right\ntranslations of the farm-county names. But you can\u2019t trust the English, as they\ncome to know, and as the \u2018translations\u2019 become \u2018renaming\u2019 their locales, and as\n\u2018renaming\u2019 becomes, well, executing English military control. With well\nrealized characters and a captivating style and story, Translations<\/em> is a fantastic show and this revival could not be\nbetter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, your first question first: a hedge school (according to\nour friend wikipedia because I never heard the term before) was a small\ninformal (and I guess illegal?) school that secretly educated kids from\n\u2018non-conforming faiths\u2019 (catholic and presby\/anything but Anglican). They\ngenerally provided rudimentary primary school education for children \u2013\nhistorians estimate for up to 400,000 students by the 1820s. Sometimes, they\nprovided a higher level of education, and our hedge school run by Manus (Seamus\nO\u2019Hara) and Hugh (Ciaran Hinds, heyyyy) seemed a mix of both: their students\nshout out the Greek or Latin etymologies of words used in regular conversation,\nthey quote the Aeneid and the Odyssey, they talk of Greek mythology like they\nare friends with the gods (and at least our loony old man student Jimmy Jack\n(Dermot Crowley) believed he was), but then they also work on their times\ntables. So a general school of all things, and eventually, because of the damn\nEnglish, a school of hard knocks? <\/p>\n\n\n\n When the English arrive with their mapmaking plan, their\ntranslator for the local language is Owen (Fra Fee, one of the best names),\nHugh\u2019s son and Manus\u2019s brother, back after years establishing himself in the\nbig cities. Owen doesn\u2019t seem to mind erasing interesting old Irish names, with\nhistories that locals like to share with each other so someone remembers, for\nEnglish-friendly boring shit like White Plains and River Cross or whatever\nbullshit they came up with to replace like Billarendy Kragger. While he seems\nto be missing any respect for where he came from in his desire to change\/better\nhimself and his country, his partner in mapcrime, Lieutenant Yolland (Jack\nBardoe), has a well-meaning but overly romanticized notion of \u2018loving\u2019 Ireland\nand the language, and the two surprising positions make for interesting subtle\nconflict. I also loved the subtle showing of the students feeling inferior and\nuneducated in front of the Englishmen since they couldn\u2019t speak English,\ndespite their ability to talk about the Greek gods and Latin poets and word\norigins like its nothing and despite the Englishmen\u2019s inability to even\nrecognize a Latin phrase. How did this assumption that English people are\nsmarter begin? That\u2019s some white nonsense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Making for not so subtle conflict is the romance between the\nLootellan and Maire, my hair twin, who always seemed destined to marry Manus\nbut things a-change when the English come a-courting. Unforch for all, the\nLootellan goes missing, and his military buddies, like all military buddies,\nare not happy and so they threaten increasing amounts of action\/crime\/murder\nuntil he is found, the gd fascists. The rapid development of drama and terror\nin act two is alarming, especially since it so worryingly relates to those in power\ntoday. The final image is so harrowing, earning a rare \u2018faaaaak\u2019 from me in the\nblackout before curtain call. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But aside from the distress of connecting the action to our\ncrumbling society, Translations<\/em> is\nterrific theatre. All the acting was strong, and some of my favorites I didn\u2019t\neven mention yet (like the mute-but-working-on-it Sarah, played by Liadan Dunlea).\nWith perfect timing, there was so much unexpected humor, and laugh-out-loud\nmoments with the back-and-forth translations. The world they created was full,\nabsorbing, and epic-feeling right off the bat, and it felt important,\nespecially in trying to understand English history. I feel like this is the\nshow for Irish people who felt overlooked by The Ferryman<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n INFORMATION<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, this ends its run tomorrow, December 18. but\nthere are tickets available for tonight and tomorrow night so hop to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is playing in the Olivier theatre inside the National\nTheatre (there are a few theatres in there).<\/p>\n\n\n\n DO NOT bring bags bigger than like a sheet of paper? About?\nOr they give you shit and might make you check it. Luckily I remembered and\nbrought a little bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Act one is one hour and 20 minutes. Act two is under an hour\nand the 7:30pm curtain ended at 10:05pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are toilets on the mezzanine level between the stalls\ndoors level and the circle doors level, and these are always crowded because\nthe people going up to the circle don\u2019t realize that there are more toilets\nonce you enter the circle doors and it\u2019s awesomeeee. If you know. which I do. I\nalso think the circle is better for this theatre because it\u2019s a GD BARN\n(enormous) and you get a better view. Also if you sit in the front row of the\ncircle your view begins at the tip of the stage, which is incredible for my\nblood pressure because it means you can\u2019t see anyone in the stalls using their\nphones, the English bastards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also at one end of the circle bar now there\u2019s a water\nmachine for filling your bottles or cups! Whee! The line for that at the\ninterval was longer than the bar line which like good for the world but bad for\nme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Man alive, if you didn\u2019t hate England after last week\u2019s election, you definitely will after seeing Translations, the classic play by Brian Friel that is basically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"\n