[Translations debuted in the Fall of 1980 in a Field Day Theatre production at the Guildhall in Derry (Londonderry), Northern Ireland. The following April, it opened off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club. In the following review of the Derry staging, Rushe provides a historical background to the subject of the play, noting that the cultural conflicts of the past still exist today.]

Derry is an ancient and storied city. Its history can be traced back to 546 when the great St. Colmcille, or Columba, founded a monastery at a place called Doire Calgaich, or "Calgach's oak-wood," close to the River Foyle. Today, more than fourteen centuries later, its name in English is Derry or Londonderry, largely depending on the political persuasion of the user. The Doire Calgaich monastery thrived. Indeed, it was of such importance in the 12th century that it replaced Kells, County Meath, as the metropolis of the chain of monasteries established by St. Colmcille's followers. In 1566, Derry was the scene of a fierce battle between Seán the Proud O'Neill and the English, and, in 1608, Sir Cahir O'Doherty attacked and destroyed the English garrison. And then, in 1613, King James I magnanimously granted Derry and a vast tract of adjacent estates to the citizens of London. The London companies laid out a new city on the banks of the Foyle and planted the surrounding land with Protestant settlers. Derry had become Londonderry.

In the war between the Royalists and Parliamentarians in the 1640s, Derry sided with the latter. In the struggle between the Jacobites and the Williamites in the 1680s, it staunchly supported William of Orange. A long and celebrated siege by Jacobite forces was broken on July 28, 1689, and is now annually commemorated by Apprentice Boys' marches. Down all the years, Doire, or Derry, or Londonderry, has witnessed divisions—political, cultural, religious, social. It witnesses them today.

What has all this to do with theatre? A great deal. For, on a mellow Autumn evening, Derry's Guildhall was the scene of a quite remarkable theatrical event which, at its thematic core, explored those conflicting elements etched in the city's long and turgid history. The occasion was the première of a new play by Ireland's outstanding playwright, Brian Friel. The venue was the often bombed center of civic administration—a setting, incidentally, used by Friel in his Bloody Sunday play The Freedom of the City. A new theatre company called Field Day—founded by Mr. Friel with Belfast-born actor, Stephen Rea—was making its debut, and there was no evidence of a sectarian divide in a distinguished audience. There was a generous sprinkling of artists, playwrights, poets, critics, novelists, church dignitaries and politicans from Dublin, Belfast, London and elsewhere, and the atmosphere was charged with emotion, and not a little pride, because a world première was being staged, and the author was an international figure who had once taught school in Derry. There were tears shed during the performance, and the standing ovation at the end was initiated by the Unionist lord mayor.

Translations is set in a Donegal hedge school and the time is August, 1833. It is written in the English language, yet seven of the ten characters speak in their native tongue, which is Irish. The suggestion of a paradox here does not intrude: there is no linguistic confusion on the part of the audience, for Mr. Friel is a very excellent craftsman and there is no difficulty in accepting that the language spoken is, where necessary, Irish. There are two important points in the play's construction. One is that a new system of national education introduced by the English will make the hedge school redundant and wean Irish speakers away from their native tongue. Another is that the first Ordnance Survey map of Ireland is being prepared under the control of the military, and old and untranslatable Irish placenames are being Anglicized. A culture is in a state of transition, in the process of being absorbed, and traditional values are being disturbed creating an identification dilemma. The conflict postulated by Mr. Friel still exists, unresolved. The scene, set in a Donegal townland close to 150 years ago, has a peculiar relevance to community divisions that exist today. The point was not missed by Derry audiences.

The play has historical, social, and cultural connotations, but it is also human, and, in one scene, beautifully and delicately so. A young English army officer on Ordnance Survey duty falls in love with the quiet, dreamy country-side, and also with a young peasant girl. Mr. Friel involves them in a love scene which is remarkable. He can talk only in English, which she does not understand, and she can speak in Irish, and haltingly in Latin, both of which are meaningless to him. But they articulate through the universal language of eyes and heart. It is a jewel of a scene, and significant threads lead to and from it. The girl has expressed a desire to learn English, because she hopes to emigrate to America. The boy later disappears, murdered perhaps by a jealous rival, and his commanding officer promises brutal reprisals if he is not found. Some of Mr. Friel's interweaving elements are there: an ancient tongue in decay, an imposed and resented authority, violence. The brief idyll of innocent love stands out.

To what extent a lack of knowledge of the Ireland of the 1830s may inhibit appreciation of the play is debatable. The hedge school, a unique phenomenon, flourished be-cause education had been proscribed under pain of vicious penalty by the Penal Laws. In the hedge school, elementary subjects such as reading, writing and arithmetic were taught, and then, as a general rule, there was an extraordinary preoccupation with Greek and Roman classicism. The Donegal peasant in Mr. Friel's play is as familiar with the flashing-eyed Athene of Greek mythology as with the Grainne of Irish legend. While the master and his students cannot speak English, they can converse in the languages of Homer and Virgil. They know nothing of Shakespeare, but they can quote Ovid. While this is an authentic reflection of how things were, it may raise questions of dramatic credibility. Indeed, it already has raised an objection which also has much to do with injured ethnic pride. The critic of the London Sunday Times referred to the fact that the English officers "were unable to trans-late, let alone distinguish between, the classical languages and Gaelic," and he later added:

I would have believed more readily in the historical accuracy of the picture had the English officers been less oafishly unlatined. As it was, I took the piece as a vigorous example of corrective propaganda: immensely enjoyable as theatre if, like much else in Ireland, gleamingly tendentious.

Perhaps Mr. Friel should have taken some license in relation to historical accuracy as a sop to the sensitivities of English critics. As it is, his splendid and incisive work is hardly likely to have the doors of London theatres flung open to it.