If I had the words I would tell you

TRANSLATIONS
Manhattan Theatre Club @ the Biltmore
Grade: A

MTC and the McCarter Theater at Princeton collaborated on this production of Brian Friel’s 1980 play Translations, which appeared first in the fall in New Jersey. Garry Hynes, who was the first woman director to win a Tony Award (for The Beauty Queen of Leenane), directed a cast that included Irish, British, and American actors.

The play takes place in a “hedge” school for illiterate adults, run by a crippled man and his father, the presiding professor. When the professor’s other son returns unexpectedly, he is a respected member of the British army who has come, with another lieutenant, to map out the town and its adjacent countryside and standardize these places' evocative but irregular Irish names. Cultural, romantic, and familial clashes ensue, most notably between the English lieutenant and a young Irish woman, who fall in love despite not understanding any of each other’s words.

One could compliment this production with any number of superlatives, but what struck me most was its insistence on taking its time and allowing the audience members to bring themselves into the world of the play. So much theatre is so afraid to lose the attention of the audience that every scene, every moment, every exchange becomes, in effect, an advertisement for the play at large. This production was unafraid to let its audience consider and chew the meat of the play during the actual production, not only afterwards. The script itself allowed textually for a large amount of observation and meditation before a truly emotional connection was demanded, and the production definitely capitalized on Friel’s slow burning structure.

One scene in particular stood out for its immediate, visceral emotion that frankly caught me off guard as I returned from intermission. The two lovers (who are both speaking English for the sake of the audience, but in the world of the play are incomprehensible to one another) struggle to communicate their feelings. The ensuing complications and frustrations only deepen their nonverbal connection and cause some humorous misunderstandings. But the play will end on a somber note, as the lieutenant goes mysteriously missing and violence is stoked by the imperial British movement. The scene was overwhelmingly romantic and quite erotic, in its way; and unbearably sad.

The production was beautifully spoken and a real joy to listen to. Capitulating on the subject of cultural invasion and unwanted, insidious change, Ms. Hynes and Mr. Friel made overtures toward the increasingly disastrous, imperialist war in Iraq – but the argument was subtly done and emerged quite gracefully from the prescient and immediate nature of Mr. Friel’s thoroughly undated play.

This was theatre that, yes, was realistic/naturalistic, but never to a fault, as so much television-theatre is. It elevated the unfortunate lives of the poor and illiterate to a place of poetry and illuminated our most universal, desperate, and basic needs in a way that eschewed condescension and invited disagreement and disappointment: which, being allowed to experience, I did not.