MCI Academic Journal #6: Translations

Dr. Rank jokes that our group will all be Brian Friel experts after all the material we'll read and have read so far in class, and after seeing the first of two stageplays from him, I certainly felt rather confident in that assertion, and even more so after watching Molly Sweeney, which will have its own post later.

Reading the text by Friel is a far more enigmatic experience than the stage show, for obvious reasons. Every director and every actor who does the show will offer a different interpretation of the text, which I am sure Friel expects as a playwright. The text is in black and white, with the shades of grey created by a particular performances' nuance provide a concreteness that the subtlety the text lacks. And just as the lack certitude in an actual translation, Translations as a text deftly plays with ambiguity.

Just as Superman has his Smallville, Friel has his fictional town of Baile Beag (small town) in County Donegal. Not only does the town represent the "everytown" akin to "Smallville, Kansas," it serves well as the setting for a play about the natural ambiguity of translation. We often discussed the idea of "no true synonyms" since culture is as inseparable from language as breathing is to living. It is impossible to have one without the other, and both are dependent on the other in order to survive.

This is no more clear than when Yolland and Máire escape the local dance and perform a beautiful yet sometimes painful exchange of the tussle of emotions that happen upon love at first sight. Infatuation, passion, confusion, and frustration are all rolled into a complicated scene that requires the dexterity from actors performing the scene. The text layers this is a melancholy sadness filled with wont and determination to forge this blossoming love, yet the staging we watched at the theatre two weeks ago was played for uncomfortable laughs. Yolland repeatedly explodes in joy, ecstatic to be in Máire's presence, perhaps combining his infatuation for the Ireland with the beautiful farm girl who has captured his imagination. The uncomfortable laughs were as much about laughing at this ridiculous Red Coat in his fumbling affections as the innate sense that perhaps this isn't meant to funny.

It's much like the scene in Pulp Fiction when Marvin is shot in the face. You laugh, but feel uncomfortable in doing so as you realize you're laughing at someone's demise; it's a bit disconcerting really.

In class we talked at length about the representations of Cathleen Ní Houlihan in the play, the notion of what is civilized, and generally what bastards the English were.

Though the play is set in 1833, there are still reverberations of the colonists actions in Irish culture today. One of these ways is with the remnants of class, very much an English institution. In traditional Irish culture, everyone plays a part in the household or the community, yet is never derided for fulfilling their role. There's a sense of liberty in everyone doing what they must to complete the tasks at hand and for working hard for the betterment of society.

In Translations, we have a highly educated group of people in an agrarian state, but derided as foolish farmers and hicks because they do not speak English. It's not just that the English are egotists and brutes for holding a sense of superiority, that's far too easy an assertion. It is compounded by the fact the Irish have a civic pride, but yoked with a healthy sense of inferiority. It's an odd duality, and I am just starting to process this idea as a thesis for my cultural experiences here. More on that in a later blog. Thanks for reading.