Phoenix Players – Translations by Brian Friel
Book TicketsSchedule
| Tuesday 11 March 2025 | 8:00pm | Book Now |
VenueArdhowen Theatre |
Price£11 - £15 |
CategoryDrama |
Set in the North West of Ireland, Friel’s classic explores, language, love, relationships, co-existence, colonisation, nationality, and identity. Showing how language can both connect and divide people, while also illustrating the broader historical struggle between different cultures.
While set in the first half of the nineteenth century, this play is as relevant in today’s World as it was in Baile Beag in the 1830s.
The action of this play takes place in late August 1833 at a hedge-school in the townland of Baile Beag - an Irish speaking community in County Donegal. The 'scholars' are a cross-section of the local community, from a semi-literate young farmer to and elderly polyglot autodidact who reads and quotes Homer in the original.
In a nearby field camps a recently arrived detachment of the Royal Engineers, engaged on behalf of the British Army and Government in making the first Ordnance Survey. For the purposes of cartography, the local Gaelic place names have to be recorded and transliterated - or translated - into English, in examining the effects of this operation on the lives of a small group of people, Irish and English, Brian Friel skilfully reveals the unexpectedly far-reaching personal and cultural effects of an action which is at first sight purely administrative and ‘harmless’. While remaining faithful to the personalities and relationships of those people at that time he makes a richly suggestive statement about Irish - and English - history.