cd on translations

39 Friel, ‘Sporadic Diary’,
6 July 1979, in Essays,
Diaries, Interviews:
1964–1999, ed.
Murray, 77.
40 Interview with Friel in
Sunday Independent, 5
October 1980, quoted in
Christopher Morash, A
History of Irish Theatre
1601–2000 (Cambridge,
2002), 241.
41 Friel, ‘Sporadic Diary’,
9 Ocober 1979, in
Essays, Diaries,
Interviews: 1964–
1999, ed. Murray, 77.
42 FDA: G/D/Friel/Rea/5:
letter from Friel to Rea,
undated (on or near 9
October 1979). *Cyril
Cusack. **A Life, first
production: 4 October
1979.
***The letter is
addressed from Muff,
County Donegal, Friel’s
home at the time.
the play now. The play must concern itself
only with the exploration of the dark and
private places of individual souls. 39
By September, he has worked out that if
Owen were to remain a mere television host
type, then the ‘dark and private places’ of
his individual soul could not be explored. It
is a working out of Yeats’s idea that public
argument is rhetoric and private argument
is poetry. Owen’s recognition of his
compromised position as someone who has
betrayed his community, and his consequent
rejection of his British army role, leaves him
outside both groups. It is an awkward place
to be, but it is also potentially liberating.
He develops during the play from a kind
of quisling figure to a self-aware, selfquestioning
representative of a new hybrid
identity. It is through Owen, more than any
other character, that Translations asks its
audience to consider shifting its own fixed
positions so as to understand what the
public implications of private self-reappraisal
might be, and vice versa. As Friel said during
a press interview:
[F]or people like ourselves, living close
to such a fluid situation, definitions
of identity have to be developed and
analysed much more frequently. We’ve
got to keep questioning until we find
some kind of portmanteau term or until
we find some kind of generosity that can
embrace the whole island. Of course,
there is no better, no more fluid, place
to develop and to analyse identity than
the theatre, where actors transform
themselves every night. 40
In the following extract from an undated
letter, Friel announces that Act 2 is
complete, a fact that he records in his
‘Sporadic Diary’ to have occurred on
9 October 1979. 41 Given that Rea has
reported that they were in almost daily
contact during this time, and given Friel’s
stated eagerness for Rea to read the
completed script ahead of anyone else, it is
ORIGINS OF A CULTURAL EXPERIMENT
safe to assume that this letter was written
on or near that date. So, about month after
Friel’s previous letter, the title of the play
is decided and Friel is reiterating his regret
that he had first imagined Owen in such a
simplistic way.
Yes, no doubt a play — of sorts —
will be available towards the end
of the next month. Working title:
TRANSLATIONS.
Maybe a bit ‘literary’ but it conveys much
of the play’s content.
Getting worried about Hugh/The
master. What would you think of Cyril?*
(Doubtful if he’d be available. He’s in
[Hugh] Leonard’s new play** which the
Abbey talks of taking to the London
Paddy-Parade.) Owen becomes more
interesting. I regret the easy tag I gave him
when you were here.*** Act 2 written and
will require substantial reworking. 42
Three weeks later, Friel had completed the
play and was eager for Rea to read it. The
letter that accompanied the script he sent
to Rea is enthusiastic, yet the eagerness is
tempered by concerns about the potential
response of the unionist audience. Friel clearly
anticipated hostility. His unease about the
‘Belfast burghers’, as it turned out, was not
without foundation (the opening night in
Belfast was the least successful of all shows
on the tour, with only 400 of the 1,000 seats
at the Grand Opera House taken). At this
point, the Guildhall in Derry had not been
confirmed as the venue for the premiere.
The importance of the role of Hugh is
finally established in this letter, and Friel is
seeking out an actor on a par with Rea. Ray
McAnally is considered the only actor worthy
of performing it. Ann Hasson is also proposed
for the role of Sarah for the first time because
of her ‘young-old’ face. It is a measure of
Friel’s reputation that he succeeded in casting
each of the actors he proposes.
21