Translations - Mrs. Maurin's School...

TranslationsBy Brian Friel

DirectorSean Holmes

Further production detailsnationaltheatre.org.uk

Background pack written byTom Daley (Associate Directoron this production) andMalcolm Jones

EditorEmma Thirlwell

DesignPatrick Eley, Lisa Johnson

NT EducationNational TheatreSouth BankLondon SE1 9PX

T 020 7452 3388F 020 7452 2280E [email protected]

Background pack © Tom Daley and Malcolm Jones

The views expressed in thisworkpack are not necessarilythose of the National Theatre

Translations by Brian Friel

Education Background PackCONTENTSPart 1: Friel and TranslationsPart 2: The National’s production

Part 1Brian Friel 2

The play 4

Political and historical context 5

Themes 7

Finding the dialect 10

Dialect exercises 12

Characters 13

Part 2Rehearsal Diary 15

Interview: Des James, Producer 18

Interview: Jenny Harris, Head of NT Education 19

Written work 20

Practical work: INSET workshop plan 21

Education

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"[Friel's] characters are deeply engaged inattempts to 'translate' the confused,complicated experiences of their lives intostories with shape and meaning; always inrelation to the wider history."Professor Katharine Worth – Translations ofHistory: Story-telling in Brian Friel’s Theatre

“Brian is a writer who’s always said, ‘I don’tknow.’ He hates answering questions about hiswriting, and I know that from having directed hisplays. He will not answer the questions. I thinkthat’s perfectly justifiable.”Mark Lambert, actor and director

“I have seen some non-Irish actors do his workbrilliantly. I want to say that because it’sinternational what he does.”Niall Buggy, actor

“I have not come across another playwright barShakespeare that actors cling to with suchdevotion and who is spoken so fondly of.”Connell Morrison, director

“…the text is vital. Not just the words, hispunctuation, and his semi-colons and his dots-dots-dots… and his dashes!.. it’s likeorchestration, there’s duets, there’s trios, there’squintets, there’s solos, and each of these has tobe taken on that level and each of these has tobe performed as cleanly, as unselfishly really, aspossible.”Rosaleen Linehan, actress

“Friel has a remarkable capacity to conveydialogue which actors can speak with ease andwhich yet provides a sense of beauty androundness. The rhythms of speech are not onlycreated to carefully indicate the meaning of thespeech but also to convey the essence of thecharacter. Each character is given just the rightlevel of articulateness and just the rightvocabulary to illustrate social and educationalbackground”Joe Dowling, director

BRIAN FRIEL, ABOUT WORKING ONTRANSLATIONS“The thought occurred to me that what I wascircling around was a political play and how thatthought panicked me. But is it a political play –how can that be avoided? If it is not political,what is it? Inaccurate history? Social drama?”1979

“I don’t want to write a play about Irish peasantsbeing suppressed by English sappers. I don’twant to write a threnody on the death of the Irishlanguage, I don’t want to write a play aboutland-surveying. Indeed I don’t want to write aplay about the naming of places. And yetportions of all these are relevant. Each is part ofthe atmosphere in which the real play lurks.”1979

BRIAN FRIEL’S PLACE IN IRISH THEATREIrish writers have played an important part in thehistory of British theatre over the past 400years. Heading the list among the fewplaywrights we still watch from the 18th centuryare William Congreve, George Farquhar andRichard Sheridan. In the 19th century, GeorgeBernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde; and in the 20thcentury, writers like Sean O’Casey, SamuelBeckett and Brian Friel continued the greattradition of Irish writers. In the 1990s thereseemed to be an explosion of Irish playwritingtalent as Martin McDonagh, Marie Jones,Marina Carr, Billy Roche, Conor McPherson andSebastian Barry hit the London stage withexciting new plays.

Brian Friel

photo by Bobbie Hanvey

On Friel


Brian Friel has been one of the mostconsistently successful Irish playwrights sincethe second half of the 20th century. He hasbeen writing plays for over 40 years and in 2005had two plays in London: Aristocrats at theNational Theatre and The Home Place at theComedy Theatre in the West End. Now this newNational Theatre production of Translationstours the UK. Brian Friel’s first big success wasin 1964 with Philadelphia, Here I Come!, a playabout a young man leaving claustrophobicIreland for a new life in America and all theopportunity for freedom it offered. Similarly, inTranslations, Maire dreams of leaving theconfines of Ireland to explore a new life inAmerica, with a new language.

In 1980, Friel formed Field Day TheatreCompany along with actor Stephen Rea, withthe hope of establishing an important newtheatre company for Northern Ireland.Translations was their first production. It was setin 19th-century Ireland in a period of greatchange. Friel moved even further back in time inhis 1988 play, Making History, about the 16thcentury Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill, who led aSpanish-backed uprising against the British butwas defeated at the Battle of Kinsale. The battlewas a comprehensive defeat that ended aperiod of nine years of Irish resistance.

Field Day developed and other important Irishliterary figures, such as Seamus Heaney andTom Paulin joined, creating a company capableof addressing the cultural issues at the heart ofthe ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland.

In 1990, Friel had his biggest commercialsuccess with Dancing at Lughnasa, a play witha strong autobiographical element. It is set inthe small fictional community of Ballybeg inrural Donegal, a strangely-situated county ofSouthern Ireland that on a map exists entirelyalongside the province of Ulster and NorthernIreland. It is a part of Ireland that Friel knowswell. Translations is set about 100 years earlierin the same place. Aristocrats (1979) andPhiladelphia, Here I Come! also featureBallybeg as a location and in WonderfulTennessee (1993), the action takes place on a‘remote pier in north-west Donegal’. There is

something important about locating these playsin Donegal: its odd situation in the geography ofIreland and its ambivalent location makes it aperfect place for the questions that Friel’s playsraise.

Friel has continued to produce a body of workthat marks him out as one of the great Irishplaywrights. It is impossible to sum up what hewrites about in one or two sentences, but thereare recurring themes. Friel's plays often dealwith identity, discovering what is the truth andhow we communicate with each other,particularly through the language that we haveavailable. Language, place names, names ofrituals and traditions all feature strongly in hiswork. Language, for Friel, is closely linked withthe question of who we are: the vocabulary weuse and the inflections and pronunciation of ourlanguage are part of our history, as is the waylanguage develops with the words taken fromother languages and then adapted. Memoryalso forms a vital strand of Friel’s work – not justthe individual memory, but also collectivememory, when a group of people or acommunity recall the past and the effect it hason their present. Sometimes that individual orshared memory may be false. Importantly Frieldeals with factual history, but reminds us we allhave a personal history which is equally validand may contain many different andcontradicting experiences and identities.

Friel has often been referred to as the ‘IrishChekhov’. It is slightly fatuous to make this easysort of reference but it does, to some degree,describe the essential qualities of his plays:depth of character, an unwillingness to take anobvious political or critical position on hischaracters, an ability to write with humour andsadness so close to each other and an interestin how we are all part of the moving train ofhistory.

On Friel


TRANSLATIONS PRODUCTION HISTORYFirst performance: 23 September 1980 at theGuildhall, Derry, directed by Art O’BriainThe cast included Stephen Rea as Owen, RayMcAnally as Hugh, Nuala Hayes as Maire andLiam Neeson as Doalty.

The play transferred to Hampstead Theatre,London in 1981 and then opened in theLyttelton at the National Theatre on 6 August1981, with Ian Bannen as Hugh and GabrielByrne as Manus.

There have been many revivals, but the nextmajor West End production was at the DonmarWarehouse in 1993, directed by Sam Mendeswith Finbar Lynch as Manus, Zara Turner asMaire and Norman Rodway as Hugh.

It was revived at the Abbey, Dublin in 2001.

Translations is still one of the most popular ofFriel’s plays and, along with Dancing atLughnasa, it has become a work revivedregularly in Ireland, the UK and in America.

PRESS REVIEWSNT, 1981, directed by Donald McWhinnie“Donald McWhinnie’s dynamic production inthe last mesmerising stage freezes hischaracters into postures of stillness andforeboding as if they had already dreamed thedisaster which is about to arrive. But it is allimplied rather than stated in action. Also aseries of contrasts exist and extend through theplay: the rough literalism of the soldier’slanguage compares with the romantic classical

escapism of the school teacher and hisHomeric companion, the gulf between the twotongues, the dumb girl whose every utteranceruins everything and the go-between brotherwho speaks two languages and causes thedevastating breach.”Nicholas de Jongh, Guardian

“…this is not only the finest play to come out ofIreland for years in its unfailingly theatricalinstinct and wide, warm sense of comedy. It isalso simply a very fine play, because it takes afamiliar theme – the invasion of one civilisationby another – and shows how once that hashappened the best will in the world is nosolution to the mounting resentment of thenatives. Compromise must be the only hope”Eric Shorter, Daily Telegraph

The Donmar, 1993, directed by Sam Mendes“…what began as a John Ford comedy of Irishmisunderstanding has become the tragedywhich is to last until this very day. Translations isan ordnance survey of Irish humanity, in whichthe present is shaped by the past and themakers of maps have become the destroyers ofthe land they charted.” Sheridan Morley, The Spectator.

“Friel doesn’t make statements; he explores thepossibilities. But clearly he is implying thatAnglo-Irish relationships are forever strained byhistory…

“Maire, the farm girl, (is) as much swayed by aromantic vision of England as her soldier-loveris by the mysterious otherness of Ireland.Maybe the tenacity of the myth is what thisfascinating play is finally about.”Michael Billington, Guardian

Seanachai Theatre Company Chicago, 1999 “As Friel well knows, many things are lost intranslation, some irrevocably. He alsounderstands that to hold onto the past can beself-destructive. ‘To remember everything is aform of madness,' says Jimmy Jack (a spiritedperformance by Gary Houston), the local literaryscholar fluent in Latin, Greek and Gaelic. AsMaire, who dreams of going to America,pragmatically sees it, ‘The old language is abarrier to progress.’Heidi Weiss, Chicago Tribune

Translations in the LytteltonTheatre in 1981, a visiting

production from Hampstead Theatre.

From left: Maire ni Ghrainneand Bernadette Short

photo from NT Archive

The play


England and Ireland before 1800The English relationship with Ireland has, untilvery recent times, proved a troubled, violentand controversial history. Unattached as it is tomainland Britain and yet so close, it was alwaysseen as posing a security risk to successiveEnglish administrations. The Irish werepersecuted under the Plantagenets and theTudors, although the English never found itpossible to conquer Ireland completely andwere only ever safe in an area of the countryaround Dublin known as The Pale.

After the English reformation, Ireland becamean even more threatening proposition to theEnglish. Its adherence to the Catholic faith, afterBritain had become Protestant, meant it wassuspected, often with good cause, of offeringsupport to foreign invasions and revolutionssuch as the Spanish Armada, the Jacobeanuprising and Napoleon Bonaparte.

LandownershipIn the 18th century, the Government of Irelandwas in Dublin but The Act of Union in 1801transferred political power back to London. Asthe 18th century progressed, Englanddeveloped as an industrial nation, yet Irelandremained almost totally agricultural and thepopulation relied on farming and its by-products as the source of income. Most of theland in Ireland was owned by absenteelandlords who cared little about the lives of theworkers or even the state of their farms. Themain interest lay in extracting rent from thetenants. Many of these landlords lived most ofthe time in England and left their land in thehands of agents who in turn leased out the landto managers. The system encouragedcorruption, greed and bad management of thefarms. Families were crowded onto smallpatches of land which they rented with littlechance of producing enough food to feedthemselves. Tenants who were unable to paytheir rent were ruthlessly evicted and often theagents would call in the army or the police toenforce eviction. The Duke of Wellington, notoften seen as a friend of the poor, was forced toadmit after visiting Ireland, that ‘There neverwas a country where poverty existed to theextent that it exists in Ireland’. As farmers got

poorer they were forced to sell more of theircereal crops for money, while growing morepotatoes for their own food.

The Potato FamineUncontrolled by disinterested landlords andineffective agents, the dishonest managers soldland off for profit and the result was little or noreal management of the farms and their crops.Increasingly small-holdings brought greaterincome to the agents and middlemen but it alsoled to inefficient farming methods anddependence on one crop, the potato. When adisease of potatoes called ‘potato blight’struck, there was no alternative source of food.There had been failures in the early 19thcentury, but the Great Famine came in 1845 –not longer after the setting of Translations – andwith terrible consequences struck againthrough 1847 and 1848. It is estimated thatbetween 1845 and 1848, 1 million Irish peopledied of starvation, cholera or typhoid, diseasesassociated with famine. In Translations, Doalty,Maire, Bridget and Manus discuss the cropsand the fear they all have of the “sweet smell”that precedes the coming of the famine:

Bridget: They say that’s the way it snakes in,don’t they? First the smell; then one morningthe stalks are all black and limp”

In 1830, moves to tackle poverty in Ireland ledto the introduction of the workhouse. A similarscheme existed in England where instead ofoffering money or food for poor people to live intheir own communities, it was thought cheaperand more discouraging to create local buildingswhere the poor would be housed, given aminimum of food and arduous and repetitivework to do. Families were separated on arrivaland conditions were generally very harsh anduncompromising. A total of 130 workhouseswere commissioned in Ireland in the 1830s.

Faced with death or the workhouse, a millionpeople are estimated to have left Ireland to livein America or in England. It should be said thatnot all landlords were heartless andunsympathetic: some like Lord Caledon paidthe expenses for many of his tenants toemigrate to America.

Political and historical context

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Ireland at the time of Translations At the end of the 18th century, the mapping ofBritain began and in 1824 Major Thomas Colbyand his staff moved to Ireland to begin mappingthe country and establishing a standard andanglicisation of place names. The maps werefinally produced in 1830. This work wasoverseen by the Royal Engineers of the Britisharmy.

A system of National Schools had beenintroduced into Ireland in 1831 to combat thegrowing influence of hedge schools. Hedgeschools had grown out of the need in localcommunities to combat the laws restricting therights of Catholics – Irish Catholics could notvote or hold any official position in local ornational government. They had no right topurchase land or to educate their children athome or abroad. Without a system of educationin place, the hedge schools appeared,functioning in caves, little huts, barns or anysecret location. Teachers were usually priests,storytellers, musicians or men of someacademic background, like Hugh inTranslations. The standard of education couldoften be quite high and English visitors toIreland were surprised at the knowledge ofclassical Greek stories and Latin languageamong the inhabitants they came across incountry areas. The relaxation of the lawsagainst Catholics in 1831 and the creation of a

system of acceptable education meant thehedge schools gradually disappeared. Mostimportantly, the National Schools of Irelandintroduced a system of instruction in whichEnglish was to be the only language.

Political and historical context


A Donegal landscape

Getty Images


Areas to explore:

• The importance of language in definingwho we are, including place names andpersonal names

• The means by which characterscommunicate with each other

• The attitudes which different charactershave towards language, what use it has forthem, how they apply it in their speech

• The relationship between the population ofa country and an occupying force or outsidegroup who impose rules and regulations onthe inhabitants.

• Can an occupying force ever bebenevolent?

Translations introduced many of the centralissues that would occupy Field Day'sintellectual and artistic explorations of theNorthern Irish crisis. The play examines therelationship of language to identity, memory,history, and community. It is a statement aboutcolonialism, and about the problematic andcomplex range of choices the colonised facebetween resistance and acquiescence.

Translations depicts the forces of culturalimperialism through the colonial project ofmapping Ireland. It also deals with the demiseof the hedge schools and their highly individual

form of teaching, in favour of the nationalschools that unify what is taught and mostimportantly will only use English as a medium ofcommunication and instruction.

It also deals with the need to modernise anddevelop. Maire wants to learn English to opennew worlds of opportunity to travel and work.There is also a danger of living in a past built onmyths and outdated traditions. Hugh, theschoolmaster, says “it can happen that acivilization can be imprisoned in a linguisticcontour that no longer matches the landscapeof fact.” And the question of Gaelic versusEnglish is not presented sentimentally.

The subjects of occupation and colonialrelationships are strong throughout the play. Atthe beginning, the news that British horses havedisappeared precedes the apparently friendlyrelationships between the British forces and theIrish inhabitants of Ballybeg, making us awarethat there is resentment and resistance already.But after the disappearance of Yolland, thebrutal retribution of the British army emphasiseshow impossible it is for colonial powers to be athome in the country they are in.

Brian Friel has said that "The play has to do withlanguage and only language", and the centraltheme of the play certainly revolves around thesubject of names and links between personaland place names and identity. Everything weunderstand about our community and ourculture is connected to the names we possessand the language we use to communicate with.Without the ownership that comes with namesand language we can feel disposed androotless. It is interesting to note that Sarah, whohas trouble saying her name, also has troubleestablishing her personal identity. Once thesoldiers arrive, she is silenced. Maire andYolland struggle to communicate because thetranslation of what they are saying is notenough to communicate the differences in theirculture and way of life. It is only when theymove beyond conventional spoken language inthe love scene that they achieve realcommunication. At the end of the play all thethemes converge – the brutal repression by theBritish forces for the disappearance of Yolland;the ‘sweet smell’ of the potato famine; Hugh

Themes


From left: David Ganly (Manus),

Mairead McKinley (Maire),Jane Murphy (Bridget),

Aislinn Mangan (Sarah), Billy Carter (Owen), andSimon Coates (Lancey)

photo John Haynes


being replaced by a city teacher from Cork forthe new national school; Maire returning to askHugh to teach her English for her new life inAmerica – reprising all the main themes oflanguage, cultural change, colonialism andpointing to the fact that these changes werecompounded by the disastrous years of faminethat were to follow.

NamingCentral to Translations is the cultural clashbetween the language of the native Irish people,Gaelic and the work of the Ordnance Surveygroup from England involved in not onlymapping the country, but in changing the placenames. The place names of any communitycarry its history and traditions, and the notion ofa group of strangers arriving and changing thenames for their own convenience is an act thatwould still cause conflict today. Yet Friel alsosuggests another side to the argument whenOwen infers that the naming of things may wellbe irrelevant. Owen’s name is changed toRoland by the British but he says “It’s only aname. It’s the same me isn’t it?”.

COLONIALISM Contrasting Translations by Brian Friel andShakespeare’s The TempestColonialism is a central theme in Translations.The British mappers and sappers sent to draw amap of Ireland and to anglicise the place namesfor the convenience of non-native inhabitantsand occupying soldiers, is a powerful image ofhow an outside force not only occupies acountry physically but will eventually begin toerode its culture, its language and its nationalidentity. It still happens today where native orregional dialects are banned by totalitariangovernments in order to eliminate oppositionand centralise authority.

The British were always seen as a colonialpower in Ireland, as they were in India, the WestIndies and parts of Africa. But Ireland wascloser to home. It was a physically separatecountry with its own language, music,traditions, religion myths and legends. Theperpetuation of these things was seen as anobstacle to making the Irish loyal servants ofthe British crown. The theme of colonialism indrama is not a new one and the conflictscaused by an outside authority takingpossession of an already inhabited land anddispossessing the native inhabitants of theirtraditional way of life is dealt with in the oldestforms of literature and drama. Shakespeareexplores the same theme to some degree in hisplay, The Tempest.

Translations and The Tempest raise surprisinglysimilar questions in terms of occupation andabout how the people who already inhabit anisland are treated by an incoming power andhow they react to their suppression. In bothplays, language is discussed as a tool ofcontrol.

Themes


Tony Rohr (Jimmy Jack Cassie)

photo John Haynes


Colonising the InhabitantsProspero, in The Tempest, comes not as aninvading force but as a man shipwrecked ontothe island. In fact, his initial relationship withAriel appears good and his attempts to educateCaliban before the play indicate he is a kindlymaster. We understand that Prospero hadreleased Ariel from imprisonment in a pine treeby Sycorax the witch, Caliban’s mother. ButProspero expects in return undying loyalty fromAriel. In some productions the moment whenProspero releases Ariel from his power at theend of the play is met not with thanks but withresentment and even disgust. In history thereare many instances when a force which comesto liberate a country often evolves into acolonial occupation. Caliban is at first educatedby Prospero, but after the attempted rape ofMiranda, he is punished by Prospero andreduced to a low form of life. Caliban’s speechin (Act 1 scene 2) shows his feelings about this:This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,Which thou tak’st from me.

Prospero’s troubled relationship with theinhabitants of the island parallels the question inTranslations of whether an occupying force canever be respected and achieve a benevolentrelationship with the indigent people. Yollandattempts to respect the culture and language ofBallybeg but is ultimately destroyed by thecommunity because no matter how he behavestowards them, he still symbolises an aggressiveexternal force. Similarly, the response from theEnglish military is ruthless. Yolland’sdisappearance is the catalyst for immediateviolent reprisals, slaughtering of livestock andevictions. The true relationship of the sappers tothe villagers is exposed, which is also perhapsthe inevitable relationship between colonialforces and the people of a country.

Rewriting HistoryBoth plays look at the process by which historyis often a question of who tells the story.Prospero’s story is how we usually read TheTempest. Our sympathy for Caliban is generallylessened by seeing him through Prospero andMiranda’s recollections. The story of Sycoraxand Caliban is not heard fully. If we look at whathappens in Translations from the point of view

of different characters, we can see how manyversions of history are possible.

Language in Translations and The TempestThe Tempest, like Translations, raises howlanguage can be used as a means of makingsomeone conform and removing theirindividuality. Miranda reminds Caliban that shepitied him and taught him how to speak,however Caliban challenges the value of thelanguage he learnt:When thou didst not, savage,Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabblelikeA thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposesWith words that made them known.

But Caliban responds with:You taught me language, and my profit on’tIs I know how to curse. The red plague rid youFor learning me your language.

The acquisition of language is assumed to be arefining process, but Caliban questions howmuch his life has improved and, in fact, uses thelanguage that he has been taught to attack hisoppressors. In Translations, Maire is keen tolearn the English language as it will offer heropportunities that communicating only in Gaelicnever can. But if the language is forced uponpeople as the National Schools system will, aloss of national and personal identity mayoccur.



INTERVIEW WITH MAJELLA HURLEY, Dialect Coach for TranslationsTranslations is set in a very specific part ofIreland. The chances of casting any play set in aspecific location with actors from that place arevery slim, so often a voice coach is employed tohelp actors find the right accent, whether it is aregional part of Britain, Ireland, America or anyEnglish-speaking country. Translations posesmore challenges: there are Gaelic place namesand phrases to pronounce correctly; Hugh oftenspeaks Latin, and the actor playing Yolland isactually an Irishman playing an Englishman!

For Majella Hurley, voice coach for thisproduction of Translations, the challenge ofgetting the actors to achieve the correct accentwas greatly helped by the writing of Brian Friel:“he writes in a natural rhythm and has afantastic ear for dialogue, so that offers theactors a lot of assistance.” (See also actressRosaleen Linehan’s quote on page --). “Workingwith an Irish cast is also a great help. Some ofthe cast have regional accents close to Donegaland they were almost all taught Gaelic atschool.”

To help with the work on regional Gaelic, Majellawent to an expert. There are so manypossibilities of pronunciation that the only wayto get at the truth is to go to someone whoreally knows the subject intimately. Forexample, the words Ballybeg and Maire alonemay vary in pronunciation across the country.

Eventually it is vital to come to a decision withcast and director so everybody uses the samesounds.

Ballybeg, although a fictional town, is thoughtto be located near to the actual town ofInishowen in County Donegal. Majella used thatlocal accent as the basis for how the charactersspoke and she made tapes of Inishowen localsspeaking, which the actors then listened to.Although Donegal is in the north most part ofIreland, Majella wanted at all costs to avoid anyof the more familiar urban sounds of Belfast andNewry. Added to that are the different and olderversions of the Gaelic and Latin spoken in theplay, which also need to be considered.

In rehearsal Majella usually has the actors warmup with some articulation exercises: “Gettingthe tongue and lips loose and flexible is the keyto practising a new dialect, which will demanddifferent positions for the lips and tongue.”When she begins to explore the new dialect andits pronunciation she advises the actors tobreak the words down into syllables and findout where the new sounds are placed in themouth. For example, with the Donegal accentthe tongue is lifted up in the mouth. Majella toldthe actors that when they smile they will feel thetongue move up to touch the roof of the mouth,and asked them to think about this. It’s a goodposition to begin working on the Donegalaccent.

It is also important to find where the stress isplaced on a word. Standard Englishpronunciation tends to stress the first syllable ina two-syllable word but this might differregionally, and vowels could be longer orshorter when spoken. Actors should think abouthow many words make up an average phrase ina language and count the stresses, notingwhere a certain language or dialect tends tohave pauses and hesitations. Exercises likesinging a song in a dialect can be very helpful:the voice finds a more natural rhythm thanspeaking words - and it is fun! In the end theactor has to adapt the dialect to the sound andpitch of their own voice so that it feelscomfortable in performance.

Billy Carter (Owen) andKenny Ireland (Hugh)

in rehearsal

Photo: John Haynes

Finding the dialect



Majella stresses that in a production likeTranslations it is essential that the actorspractise the dialect while they are moving andperforming actions as their character, becausethey will have to do this in performance. It is notlike learning a language for an examination: in aplay you will need to move and remember tokeep speaking with the right accentsimultaneously.

In performance there are other importantpractical considerations. Remember that theaudience may be new to the dialect or languageand therefore careful pacing is necessary tomake sure the audience can tap into the accentand understand what is being said. Most of all,Majella stresses that in striving to get anauthentic accent the actor should not lose anyof the power in the voice. It is essential to beheard and understood in a theatre. Obviouslythe most important thing is that the audiencecan hear clearly so that they can follow the play.

Majella aims to achieve a unity of pronunciationwhich is authentic but will also most importantlyallow the actors to to be understood by anaudience.

• Process – visiting a specialist who can adviseand researching the history

• Problems – which historical regional version ofGaelic to use

• Rehearsal – working with the actors;exercises; the difficulties of the actors’ ownaccents; remembering that actors will also needto move and do things when speaking

EXERCISE 11) Look at your local area. Discuss thepossibility of how places were given theirnames.

a) Are they named after local people? If so, doyou know who they were/are or why they had aroad, place or park named after them?

b) Are they named after a local landmark orgeographical location? For example ‘ford’ in aplace name suggests that at some time therewas a stream or small river in the area.

2) Take a small area of your local communityand think about how you might renamebuildings, roads or spaces.

Another way in which language featuresstrongly in Translations is when two peoplewant to communicate with each other but haveto struggle because they don’t share a commonlanguage. The scene between Maire andYolland (Act 2, scene 2) is probably the mostfamous scene in the play. Their determination tomake themselves understood to each otherovercomes the limitations that language placeson them.

EXERCISE 21) Write a short conversation between a localand a visitor to your town. The visitor speaks noEnglish. The dialogue will need to be written inEnglish so that an audience can understandboth sides of the conversation. Think oflocations where the conversation could takeplace so that there can be a theme to theconversation. For example, place theconversation in a shop where the names ofitems can be used, or at a football match ordance class where specific vocabulary can beused.

Finding the dialect



CharacterisationMost naturalistic plays use characters to carrythe ideas and meanings of the play. But theymust also function as interesting andrecognisable human beings. The job of theactor is to bring these elements together.Looking at what the character says abouthimself, what others say about him and what hesays about others is the first way of finding outas much about the character as possible. Forexample, Owen’s line, ‘Lancey’s a bloodyramrod but George’s alright’ gives us animmediate insight into how Lancey and Yollandare perceived by Owen. Something of thatneeds to be captured in the characterisation. InAct 2 scene 1, Yolland gives a detaileddescription of Lancey, calling him ‘The perfectcolonial servant: not only must the job be donebut it must be done with excellence’.

By using the text the actor can look for all theclues towards building a full characterisation ofeven an apparently minor role.

Characters in TranslationsManus is one of Hugh’s two sons. At the

beginning of the play, he refuses to apply for ajob teaching at the new national schoolbecause his father, Hugh, has already appliedfor it. Manus’ relationship with Hugh iscomplicated: as we learn later, his lamenesswas caused by Hugh falling on his cradle as ababy. He hides alcohol from his father to try tokeep him sober, and Owen mentions thatManus feels responsible for his father. Manushopes that Maire will marry him but she makesit clear that if he will not improve his situation byteaching at the national school, his proposal isnot practical. At the end, Manus’ preciseknowledge of the disappearance of Yolland isunclear, but he obviously feels he must leaveBallybeg or he will be arrested. The events thattake place lead to him finally breaking awayfrom his father. Manus offers an actor acomplex and fascinating character to play. Hisrelationships with his father and brother, Owen,his love for Maire and his care for Sarah, allreveal different facets of his personality. He isalso the character who is most suspicious andoutspoken of the English forces and the name-changing that takes place. He says ‘…it’s abloody military operation, Owen! And what’sYolland’s function? What’s ‘incorrect’ about theplace names we have here?’

Sarah is described by Friel as being ‘a waiflikecreature’ who ‘could be anything fromseventeen to thirty-five’. She is important,because in a play which is so concerned withlanguage she struggles first of all to achievecommunication in her own tongue, Gaelic.Sarah is a difficult part for an actress, as thereare so few lines to work with. But the actresshas to show Sarah’s constant alertness andreactions to everything. By telling Manus aboutMaire and Yolland, she precipitates the tragicending.

Jimmy is the oddest pupil at Hugh’s hedgeschool. He is totally engrossed in the stories ofthe Greek myths. Comedy comes immediatelyin Act 1 in the practical way in which he dealswith the story of Athene and Ulysses. Jimmy isa challenging part because the actor has to dealwith funny moments without overplaying orturning the role into something of a ‘comic turn’.

Characters


David Ganly (Manus) in rehearsal

Photo: John Haynes


Maire’s aspirations are clear at the beginning ofthe play when she says that she has receivedthe passage money to travel to America. Shetells Manus that her reason for going to Americais to support her family but she also agrees withthe politician, Daniel O’Connell, who claimed‘The old language is a barrier to modernprogress’. Maire says, ‘I think he’s right. I don’twant Greek and I don’t want Latin. I wantEnglish. I want to be able to speak Englishbecause I’m going to America as soon as theharvest’s all saved.’

She totally embraces the new culture that iscoming and sees English as her passport to abetter life. Her action of picking up Yolland’sbook of names at the end of the play isinteresting. Is it a hope that he will return orevidence of blind faith and an unwillingness tobelieve in the truth?

Doalty is, on first reading, a simple enoughcharacter, as a farmer who attends the hedgeschool, but has no great desire to improvehimself. But at the end of the play, hisknowledge of the Donnelly twins and what may

have happened to Yolland mark him out as amore complex character. Doalty’s line close tothe end of the play, ‘If we’d all stick together. Ifwe knew how to defend ourselves’ is important.Eventually in the next century the Irish did learnhow to defend themselves, and the uprising of1916 (the Easter Rising) was the beginning of anindependent Ireland.

Bridget is an example of the ordinaryinhabitants of rural Ireland whose lives would bedestroyed both by the coming of the potatofamine and the disinterest of the Britishgovernment in the disaster. Her sense of theearly warning of the potato blight at the end ofthe play is unconvincingly dismissed by Doaltyas the smell from the burning English camp.She and Doalty supply some of the early fun inthe play, but she is marked out from Doalty as amore enthusiastic student in Act 1.

Hugh requires discipline and attention from theactor playing him. It is easy to enjoy his floridlanguage and slightly exaggeratedpronunciations on Ireland, language andclassical literature. For example, whendiscussing poetry and William Wordsworth withYolland, he finishes with a flourish.‘Wordsworth?... No. I’m afraid we’re not familiarwith your literature, Lieutenant. We feel closer tothe warm Mediterranean. We tend to overlookyour island.’ This is a guaranteed comicmoment, like when the Gravedigger in Hamlettells us Hamlet has been sent to Englandbecause he is mad but wouldn’t be noticedbecause everyone there is mad. Hugh isambivalent towards the re-naming of places.His great love is Latin and the classics.However at the end of the play, he finds that thejob he was offered with the new national schoolhas been given to a schoolmaster from Cork. Insome ways his life is summed up in hisdescription of when he and Jimmy in 1798marched 23 miles to join the rebellion and then,in a pub, the group got homesick and returnedto Ballybeg. His aspirations to match theheroism of the Greeks are destroyed by reality.

Owen’s confidence when he first arrives in theplay, coupled with his ease with both the Britishsoldiers and the community in Ballybeg, give


Aislinn Mangan (Sarah) andMairead McKinley (Maire)

in rehearsal

Photo: John Haynes


him a unique position. His entrance is full ofenergy, he embraces the residents of the barnand plays games with them, challenging whatthey have learned from his father and brother.But his position is equivocal. He has leftBallybeg and is now paid by the English army totranslate. Therefore he is the link between thetwo communities. His early scene translatingCaptain Lancey’s introduction to the communityis important as it shows his ambition to keepthe two sides happy. Owen’s conversation withYolland in Act 2, scene 1 about the renaming ofTobair Vree is crucial in understanding Owen’sefforts to break away from the traditions ofIreland, while being fascinated enough to knowthe origins of all the place names.

Captain Lancey is a typical colonist, interestedonly in instigating the requirements of hisgovernment and not the local community, theirhistory or traditions. The challenge in playingCaptain Lancey is to discover what makes himtick. He may appear the closest character in theplay to a stereotype. But a stereotype is notinteresting to watch, so the actor playingLancey should endeavour to look at why he

acts the way he does towards the inhabitants ofBallybeg. In the final scene, does Lancey haveany compassion for the innocent people whosecommunity he threatens to destroy?

Lieutenant Yolland travels to Ireland to do hisjob but becomes fascinated by the culture andthe inhabitants. He mentions that he comesfrom a small English village, Little Walsingham,which is an important piece of detail for theactor because it makes the empathy he is ableto feel with Ballybeg more understandable. Hesuggests to Owen that he might like to live inBallybeg, a dream many tourists to Ireland stillhave when they visit its beautiful rural areas. Heis embarrassed by the work he is contracted todo. It would be interesting to speculate onLancey’s view of Yolland: in reverse, Lanceyreminds Yolland of his father, which would tellus something of Yolland’s traditional upbringing.His relationship with Maire is spontaneous andwithout any appreciation of the consequences.The ‘love’ scene in Act 2 scene 2 (called the‘leap across the ditch’ scene in this production)should be played with great sincerity.

Although the Donnelly twins are unseen they actas interesting characters. At first, their absencefrom hedge school classes is linked to thedisappearance of the soldier’s horses, and laterthey are suspected of the abduction andmurder of Lieutenant Yolland. Their powerfuloffstage presence suggests a more aggressiveresistance to the English in Ireland andanticipates the later violence of the IRA.


Billy Carter (Owen)

Photo: John Haynes


EXTRACTS FROM A REHEARSAL DIARYby Tom Daley, Associate Director

Monday 8 August First day of rehearsals10am. The cast and creative team ofTranslations assemble in the National’sRehearsal Room 3. First days are alwaysstrange, unnerving experiences, and there is apalpable tension in the room as each personlooks out for familiar faces or makes politeconversation with members of the team. I wasinvolved in some of the casting for the play, so Iam fascinated to see who else has been castand whether they fit my preconception. This isperhaps unfair, but it’s inevitable when youreally care about a play and its characters. Thecast are at the beginning of a long journey –both literally, as we tour all over the country, andin terms of the journey of discovering the Irelandof 1833.

Sean Holmes, the director, introduces himselfand then we all stand in a circle to introduceourselves. The National Theatre is a vast engineand I discover departments I’d never heard of.

Then we have a model box showing, led bySean and Anthony Lamble, the designer. This isa touring show so the set needs to be adaptableand, unlike most tours, will have to work inevery conceivable type of space, fromproscenium arch stages to studio spaces.

The play is brilliantly constructed – an obviouspoint, but it hits you with full force during theread-through. The shading of light and dark, theacuteness of characterisation, the theme oflanguage being eroded – all these aspects ofthe play are deeply wrought by a mastercraftsman. The actors read it beautifully andSean is visibly relieved!

There is then a discussion about the play. Seanbegins by talking about the dangers inherentwithin any production – one being that it is easyto stage the play from Yolland’s perspective. Itis a potential pitfall to romanticise Friel’scharacters, so it is crucial to understand thatthey are normal, everyday people who happento be caught in the middle of huge events. Theread-through brought out a contemporary issuethat is dominating the news headlines at themoment – the importance of assimilating into anew culture. I heard this aspect of the play moreclearly and powerfully than I had done onreading it.

Tuesday 9 AugustDialect and accentsAs the dialect and accent expert, Majella Hurleyis a key member of the Translations team. Oneof the joys of working on a play at the NationalTheatre is the opportunity to use every resourceavailable, and language is at the heart of thisplay – one of the key themes is how therichness of the language compensates for thecharacter’s material poverty. Majella talks to thecast about the danger of sounding too urban.She quotes Friel – who said that ‘each voice hasan appropriate pitch’ – and talks of the softnessof the language. We listen to tape recordings ofa Donegal lighthouse keeper, who articulatesthe various place names. Each actor is giventheir own tape for homework. A sharedunderstanding of place names is important but,as in real life, there are bound to be someinconsistencies.

Billy Carter (Owen), Tom Vaughan-Lawlor (Yolland)

and Sean Holmes (Director)in rehearsal

Photo: John Haynes

Part 2: Rehearsal diary



Soon each actor is planning their own privatesession with Majella!

Thursday 11 August Owen’s entranceI hadn’t anticipated how hard this scene is toperform. It feels very exposing because theactor playing Owen has to keep in mind twodistinctive actions – to embrace the people hehasn’t seen for six years and to prepare them tomeet the English soldiers. When Lancey andYolland arrive it is fascinating to notice that thepeople who have the power within the room arethose who can understand English. Manus ispushed further and further away by Owen’smistranslation until he has to confront him.There is a difficult balance to strike here for anydirector – capturing both the joy of Owen’sreturn but also the implicit tensions that arebrought to the surface.

Monday 15 August ‘The leap across the ditch’‘The leap across the ditch’ scene is a better titlefor the exchange between Yolland and Mairethan ‘the love scene’. To label it a love scene isreductive because although love and lust arebetween the lines, what is most shocking is thestage image. It’s powerful now, and would havebeen overwhelming to the Derry audience of1980 – an Irish peasant girl in the arms of aBritish soldier. One of the actors relates achildhood story of allowing British soldiers intoher home as a young girl and being severely

reprimanded by her Father for it. It’s importantto recover that danger – the scale of thetransgression – when playing the scene.

Friday 19 AugustTimeline/mapThere are many useful ways of examining the‘back-story’ or the off-stage life of thecharacters. It is helpful for each actor to have ascomplete a picture as possible of the time frameand period through which they journey duringthe play. Two of the most useful methods areTimelines and Maps. Sean sets each actor thetask of writing down their character’s timeline,then, as a group, we try to pinpoint the time ofthe most significant events of the play. It isinteresting to explore the years leading up to thefirst moment of the play and note whenYolland’s father was born, when Hugh andJimmy Jack went off to the battle, when Hugh’swife died and when (and why) Owen left.Immediately before the first moment of the playthere have been a multitude of events includingthe christening of Nellie Ruadh’s baby; Hugh’sencounter with Captain Lancey; Owen andYolland’s arrival and the horses being found.These events feed into the character’s ‘back-story’ and are important to talk through.

The other interesting tool for rooting the eventsof the play is to create a map of where thehedge school is in relation to the other keylocations in Baile Beag/Ballybeg. Locating suchplaces as Carraig na Ri, Cnoc na Mona, Annana mBreag’s pub and Poll na gCaorach helpseach actor to determine the overall picture. Italso dictates the time that it would take to travelaround the area.

Wednesday 7 September Run-through in the rehearsal roomAn incredibly promising run-through of the play.Sean reminded the actors of the need to keepmaking new, bold choices: there is no right way. This came across in the run-through: thenarrative was very clear and thecharacterisation was acute. After the run, Seanand I agreed that one significant aspect needsto be addressed – that in this oral culture thelove of story-telling and the delight in bantermeans that it is a cruel, quick environment

‘The leap across the ditch’,Tom Vaughan Lawlor (Yolland)and Mairead McKinley (Maire)

photo: John Haynes

Rehearsal Diary



where characters survive on their wits. Thiselement could be heightened, but there isalready much potential there.

Saturday 10 SeptemberFirst day of technical rehearsalsArriving in Tunbridge Wells, the first stop in ourtour, we see the set for the first time. Thechallenge now is to turn the set, props andcostumes into items with function. They can’tbe mere objects but they all have to meansomething and have a relationship with theperformer. The other great challenge is to makethe audience believe that there is a worldoffstage. We have been allocated two days to‘tech’ the show – to work out and plot everytechnical cue. For a tour like this with differentlights and equipment in each venue we need tohave a strong technical plan that will work invery different spaces. Most significantly of all,we’re not just telling the story of the play butwe’re recreating the atmosphere of the hedgeschool in August 1833.

Tuesday 13 SeptemberFirst performanceA packed theatre. The striking aspect of the firsthalf is how rich the play is. So much expositionis offered up and the audience has to adjust toso many different languages and dialects. Ihadn’t heard really understood this in therehearsal room. It’s thrilling when the audiencepick up on subtle aspects of the story – there isa murmur when Owen deliberatelymistranslates what Lancey says and you knowthat the audience are following every beat of thestory.

The ‘leap across the ditch’ works brilliantly. Theaudience roar with laughter at Yolland and Mairestraining to communicate and are then knockedsideways by the disintegration within the finalAct. It’s a very difficult Act for Owen – he has tofollow the disintegration moment to momentwhilst coming to terms with his own part in it.That’s a huge challenge.

By the end of the evening there is a sense ofrelief for the actors but excitement for thecreative team – we know where the play can goand we know that we have a story, a team andactors who can take it there.

Rehearsal Diary



DES JAMES, PRODUCER OFTRANSLATIONS

What’s your background?I’ve been working as a director and producer for25 years. When I started, I worked a lot withemerging writers and my passion was thedevelopment of new writing. For the past eightyears I have specialised in making Shakespeareaccessible to audiences of all ages, which hasinvolved both directing and producing. It isquite good to get back to a contemporary worknow. I’m excited by the challenge of gettingTranslations to a wide audience across the UKand in particular to younger audiences.

How did this tour of Translations comeabout?The Education – or Mobile – tour is planned afew years in advance. We try to match the mostsuitable works to the best creative teamsavailable. Translations fitted our brief perfectlyas a wonderful play that also featured on anumber of curriculum lists. It was also a playthat Sean Holmes, the director, had wanted towork on for some time. The size of the cast andthe single setting also contributed to the choice,as ideal for touring.

At what stage did you enter the creativeprocess?I was brought on board to set up theTranslations tour and to facilitate the co-ordination between the National Theatre andthe venues hosting the production. One of themost significant aspects of NT Education toursis their mobility, which allows the NationalTheatre to tour to venues and speak toaudiences who wouldn’t usually get the chanceto come to the South Bank or to see theCompany’s larger scale tours. For me, that’svery exciting.

This tour is unusual in that it covers a widerange of different spaces – many of thevenues are a completely different size. Howdo you see that working?Sean Holmes and Anthony Lamble (thedesigner) had preliminary discussions aboutdoing the play as a site-specific piece. One ideawas to select a number of real barns and buildan auditorium around each site. This was an

interesting proposition but was abandonedfairly early on because of the complexity ofcreating a theatre space from scratch. It wasalso tempered by the reality of limitedresources. Instead we decided to play to anumber of different performance spaces – fromproscenium arch stages to smaller studios andeven a thrust stage – so one of the key aspectsof the brief to the designer, was that we neededmaximum flexibility. It is up to the director andthe associate director to keep this range ofvenues in mind during rehearsals and to adjustthe production to fit into each space.

The tour is about to begin. What do you seeare the main challenges ahead?Resources available to an NT mobile productionare leaner than other productions at theNational. This means, for example, that we canonly take a small crew on the road and that nounderstudies are available for the actors.Therefore resourcefulness and team work arecritical to the success of the production andtour. I am always mindful that we will have to beflexible and adapt to unforeseen problems but Iam ‘trouble-shooting’ any potential problems aswe go. Most productions tend to expand a littlefrom conception to delivery, and as a producer Ihave to find responsible solutions to challengesin order to support the director’s vision.

Do you think Translations has dated since1980?No. Although Translations was premiered overtwenty years ago it resounds to contemporaryissues. Its central theme of how communitiesclash, struggle to live together and adapt tochange has a universality which ensures theplay’s endurance, humanity and relevance.

Interviews



JENNY HARRIS, HEAD OF EDUCATION,NATIONAL THEATRE

What are the objectives of this tour ofTranslations?There are several objectives. The first is to beflexible because this tour is able to go to placesthroughout the UK that larger-scale productionsfrom the Olivier or Lyttelton spaces can’t reach.We hope to discover – in partnership with thetheatres that we tour to – the next generation oftheatregoers. We also aim to work with Englishand Drama teachers to support what they’redoing.

We needed to find the right play for this point intime. This is always a difficult task and we wentthrough 30 to 40 ideas before we settled onTranslations.

Why did you choose Translations?Translations is a play about learning. Thisencompasses learning to speak, defining yourvoice, or learning the language of anotherculture. It features a teacher and his studentsand it features a man who is desperate to learna new language and assimilate into a newculture. There are so many examples oflearning. It is also a play about politics andpower. I think that the idea of how differentculture and ethnic backgrounds co-exist isextremely pertinent to today. It is also a playthat features young people whose struggles areeasy to identify with.

In terms of the more practical considerationsbehind why we chose this play, we could justafford to tour a play with ten characters. Wealso had to ask questions such as:

When was the play last performed?

Could we get the rights?

Could we match the right director to this play?

Does it fit the vision of Nicholas Hytner, thedirector of the National Theatre?

In all these issues, Translations seemed theperfect choice.

What do you think are the challenges aheadfor this tour?The focus of this tour is a younger audience of16 to 30 year olds, although we welcomeeveryone to the theatre. We have to send thisyounger age group out of the theatre buzzingfrom the experience that they’ve just shared.We are creating theatre in a world where there isa great deal of competition for young people’sattention, from the cinema to the increase inhome entertainment in the form of DVDs andthe internet. We have to engage with ouraudience and create an exciting live event. Ihope that we can create a fantastic memory ofthe theatre for a young person who will thenreturn throughout their life.

Interviews



WRITING A REVIEWOne of the reasons we know so little about thefirst performances of Shakespeare’s plays atthe Globe Theatre is that in the 16th and early17th centuries there were no theatre reviewers.Today, we have many critics writing for differentmagazines, but they each have a varyingamount of word space in which to do the job: ina daily tabloid newspaper, the space is usuallyvery limited, but in a Sunday newspaper or abroadsheet there is more space, so reviewerscan afford to be much more analytical. Yet theyall need to achieve the same goal of writing areview.

A review of a film or play needs somedescription of what the show is about and of itsstaging. It requires an opinion from the writerabout what is both successful and unsuccessfulabout the production. This is an area in which areviewer needs to be careful: cheap shotcriticisms with clever headlines or phrases andpersonal criticism of an actor’s appearance arenever acceptable in good writing. We often talkabout the difference between constructive anddestructive criticism. Irving Wardle, the greattheatre critic for The Times newspaper, said thathis rule was never to write anything about adirector, designer or performer that he wouldn’tsay to their face.

Adjectives should help to paint a picture in thereaders’ minds, so choose them carefully asthey are a vital part of the review. Look forinteresting ways of describing what is good

about the play and performance. If you havenegative criticisms, make them constructive;explain why staging the play in this way was abad decision by the director or writer. Considerthat sometimes an actor giving what you maythink is a disappointing performance, may havebeen asked by a director to approach the role ina specific way. It may not be the performancebut the approach to the part that is the problem.

PractiseIf you don’t have the opportunity to go to thetheatre regularly, you can still practise by writingshort reviews of a film, a television programmeor a book.

Structure of a Review1. Introduction

2. Brief outline of the plot, if necessary. It isunlikely you need to summarise the plot ofHamlet, but you may do with a more modernplay.

3. Begin to analyse what worked and didn’twork for you in the performance. Considerdirectorial decisions and interpretations. Whatchoices have been made about staging andacting? Look at actors’ performances: thephysicality of the performer; the interpretationof character. If it is a naturalistic production, arethey believable? Remember the use of lightingand set design in either contributing to orspoiling the effectiveness of the performance.

4. Finish by summarising your feelings towardsthe production and by making an overalljudgement on its success.

The text of Brian Friel’s Translations, isavailable to purchase from the NationalTheatre’s Bookshop. Secure online orderingand mail order are available.

T 020 7452 3456F 020 7452 3457E [email protected] nationaltheatre.org.uk

Mairead McKinley (Maire) andTony Rohr (Jimmy Jack)

Photo: John Haynes

Written work



Outline of the teachers’ INSET workshopCreated by Tom Daley

Participants TEACHERSWorkshop TRANSLATIONS BY BRIAN FRIEL

AimsTo elucidate Translations as a text to beperformed rather than read

Content[5 mins] Introductions. Explain the aims of workshop and highlightpractical aspect

[10 mins] Warm up exercise.Empty chair game looking at Objective; 1-10looking at Status

[20 mins] Aim: Introduction to dramaticexercises; starting to think of the play as dramanot literature, to remind participants of theevents of the playTableaux from everyday life – football matchand classroomTableaux from Translations – separated into 3groups, each given an Act3 groups create 4 stage pictures for each Actand label each tableaux to tell the story

[30 mins] Aim: To construct a timeline of theplay in order to clarify the events within it.The whole group will be separated into 3smaller groups.The 3 groups will each be given an Act anddetermine a timeline of events in each Act.The 3 groups will then reconvene and aspokesperson will talk through what they’vedone.The 3 Act timelines will be stuck to the wall.

[30 mins] Aim: To construct a literal map of BaileBeag, in order to anchor the events of the play.The whole group will again be separated into 4different groups.The 4 groups will go through the play andattempt to work out a ‘map’ incorporating thekey locations of the play.The 4 groups will then reconvene and examineany disparities.The 4 maps will be stuck to the wall.

[20 mins] Aim: To examine whether translating isa reductive exerciseThe group will be split into pairs.

One member of the pair will attempt to expressthemselves without using wordsThe other member will attempt to work out whatis being said.The results will be shared.

[20 mins] Aim: To better understand acharacter’s perspective – explain the followingUse of information from text to create drawingof characterUsing text to define different research topicsUsing text to create letters from charactersUsing text to create diary entriesUsing everything that is said about a characterto better understand him/herUsing newspapers to highlight contemporaryresonances of themes from the play

[15 mins] BREAK

[30 mins] Aim: To use improvisation as a way ofunderstanding and unlocking a sceneAct 2, scene 2 – p.57-61“O my God, that leap across the ditch nearlykilled me…”Sitting round in a circle, the group will readthrough the first pages of this scene.The group will then be split up into 4 smallerensembles.The leader will then assign the rules of theimprovisation.The groups will prepare the improvisationaround the theme of ‘the failure of language’.The groups will then act out theirimprovisations.The whole group will then read through thescene again and see what they have found out.

[30 mins] Aim: To use improvisation as a way ofunderstanding the key events in the playIn a similar improvisational exercise, the groupwill determine a key off-stage event.The leader will again set up the rules ofimprovisation for the 4 groups.One of the groups will show what they haveworked through

[END] Conclusion of workshop

Practical work


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