7 - Translations, the Field Day debate and the re-imagining of Irish identity

Summary

Translations occupies a place apart, both among Brian Friel's dramatic works and in the history of theatre in Ireland. It is Friel's best-known play - a title it may now have to share with Dancing at Lughnasa. If it is true that the fate of every play is its first production, then the specific circumstances surrounding the opening night of Translations on 23 September 1980 deserve some discussion. Brian Friel had agreed to team up with Belfast-born actor Stephen Rea in order to set up a new Derry-based theatre company, christened Field Day (a phonetic pun on the two names, but also a phrase with both military and festive connotations), with the aim of touring Ireland, North and South. Some funding had been secured from both the Northern Irish and the Irish arts councils, eager to support community theatre and a touring company. The civic authorities in Derry had allowed the Guildhall, long a symbol of Unionist domination in a city notorious for its gerrymandering, to be turned into a theatre since this was seen as a great occasion, a source of pride for the local population and their representatives. The first night proved a great success and Translations went on to triumph at the Dublin Theatre Festival, toured a number of venues in Ireland, and transferred to London. Since then, Translations has been widely hailed as a masterpiece, a watershed in Irish theatre, has enjoyed countless revivals, has toured extensively - in 2001, for example, the Abbey took Translations to the US but also to France and Germany as well as Barcelona, Prague, and Budapest - and has been translated into several languages. Beyond its stage success, Translations has proved of abiding interest to academics and intellectuals in Ireland and abroad.