Translations

[low_delta]

We went to a play last night. It was kind of a drag. Very slow. And nothing really happened. The acting was good, as always, and the set was impressive. But the play itself was… not particularly enjoyable. Just about everything that happened in the second act was a foreshadowing of what would happen after the play. There was no climax, really.

The play was set in 1800’s Ireland, just before the famine. The English army had come to map the country (read: take over). A young Englishman was tasked to change all of the Irish place names to English. He was falling in love with the land, and with one young woman. In the end, he went missing (likely killed by some locals) and the English captain had threatened to kill people. That was it. The fate of all was left to our imagination.

Before the play, was a discussion of the play by one of the cast. This time it was about the history of Ireland. The red-haired speaker was quite animated, and spoke very quickly because he gave the entire history of Ireland, from prehistory until the time of the play, in about fifteen minutes. It was very interesting. I never knew any of that stuff. It was more interesting than the play.

Edit: One interesting thing was that the characters all spoke Gaelic. But English was spoken by some people in some scenes. Sometimes, we knew who was speaking which language, because the character only spoke the one. Sometimes, the Gaelic was in more of a colloquial tone, where the English was spoken more properly.

Three of the four plays we've seen, were set in the same space throughout. This was the first where that element seemed a bit contrived. Like the author had to come up with an excuse to have all the action take place on the same spot. The setting was a barn. That was where they held school, the master lived upstairs, his son came home with the English army translator and that became their workspace, and it being a barn, was open enough that people could come and go. Or maybe instead of "contrived" I should say "ingenious." If I hadn't a negative attitude about the whole thing, maybe I'd be impressed by that.

Comments

[wizzy.livejournal.com]

I love a good Irish tale but from the sounds of it- I would have been disappointed too.

I've been to maybe 3 plays in my life- would like to attend more...

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Weird that they did the discussion *before*. Probably had they done it after, the play would have been more enjoyable?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. The discussion helped to set the scene and give it historical context. We would have been wondering a lot more about what was going on. Like when references to the potato famine came up, for example. And knowing the extent of England's will to control Ireland heightened the drama just a bit.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

If you have to spend 20 minutes explaining the play before the play, then either a) you think your audience is a bunch of brain dead illiterate morons or b) the script is really, really bad.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

My point was that learning the history of Ireland was very interesting. And more interesting than the play.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Then I would vote for option B. :D

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Maybe only one "really." ;-)