Sunday, December 14, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
no name
A few of you know that I'm a fan of U2. This song has been in my head lately, it seems another take on the naming theme of Translations. Bono had this to say about writing it:
“An interesting story that someone told me once is that in Belfast, by what street someone lives on you can tell not only their religion but tell how much money they’re making - literally by which side of the road they live on, because the further up the hill the more expensive the houses become. You can almost tell what the people are earning by the name of the street they live on and what side of that street they live on. That said something to me, and so I started writing about a place where the streets have no name.”
Bono, 1987
Where the Streets Have no Name
I wanna run, I want to hide
I wanna tear down the walls
That hold me inside.
I wanna reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name.
I wanna feel sunlight on my face.
I see the dust-cloud
Disappear without a trace.
I wanna take shelter
From the poison rain
Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name.
We're still building and burning down love
Burning down love.
And when I go there
I go there with you
(It's all I can do).
“An interesting story that someone told me once is that in Belfast, by what street someone lives on you can tell not only their religion but tell how much money they’re making - literally by which side of the road they live on, because the further up the hill the more expensive the houses become. You can almost tell what the people are earning by the name of the street they live on and what side of that street they live on. That said something to me, and so I started writing about a place where the streets have no name.”
Bono, 1987
Where the Streets Have no Name
I wanna run, I want to hide
I wanna tear down the walls
That hold me inside.
I wanna reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name.
I wanna feel sunlight on my face.
I see the dust-cloud
Disappear without a trace.
I wanna take shelter
From the poison rain
Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name.
We're still building and burning down love
Burning down love.
And when I go there
I go there with you
(It's all I can do).
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sea Change
It all started a few days ago with my noticing that the stage directions mention a creel. When I looked it up, it turned out to either be a "large wicker basket for carrying fish." And it began to slowly dawn on me that these people are not only potato farmers, they are coastal people. They farm AND they fish.
Then two nights ago o I realized that I should look back at the photos I took during my 1999 tour of Ireland. We had spent some time up in County Donegal, exploring some of the islands there and checking out the Donegal Castle. And I began to realize how many of the photos show both ocean and farmland.
And I realized that I'd always visualized this barn as a farmers' barn, with scythes around and other farming implements. But now I realize there's another aspect: creels, fishing nets, etc.
Which led to a meeting today with set designer Melissa Elmore in which we reconceived a previous idea for a backdrop. It had been going to be burlap, but now will be both burlap and fishnet. The brown rusty tones of the burlap, and the bluish aquamarine color of the fishing nets.
Which made me realize that my Hawai'i connection is now richer. The ancient Hawaiians sustained themselves within their ahupua'a, their strip of land which included both farm land and ocean for fishing. From hawaiihistory.org: "Each moku was divided into ahupua`a, narrower wedge-shaped land sections that again ran from the mountains to the sea. The size of the ahupua`a depended on the resources of the area with poorer agricultural regions split into larger ahupua`a to compensate for the relative lack of natural abundance. Each ahupua`a was ruled by an ali`i or local chief and administered by a konohiki."
I remember a similar late-to-dawn realization in Streetcar that the lampshade that Stanley rips off the lamp should be globe-shaped and light-colored, to be the paper moon Blanche sings about. How many times have my eyes passed over that word "creel" without really seeing it? I love the process of SEEING every aspect of this play.
Then two nights ago o I realized that I should look back at the photos I took during my 1999 tour of Ireland. We had spent some time up in County Donegal, exploring some of the islands there and checking out the Donegal Castle. And I began to realize how many of the photos show both ocean and farmland.
And I realized that I'd always visualized this barn as a farmers' barn, with scythes around and other farming implements. But now I realize there's another aspect: creels, fishing nets, etc.
Which led to a meeting today with set designer Melissa Elmore in which we reconceived a previous idea for a backdrop. It had been going to be burlap, but now will be both burlap and fishnet. The brown rusty tones of the burlap, and the bluish aquamarine color of the fishing nets.
Which made me realize that my Hawai'i connection is now richer. The ancient Hawaiians sustained themselves within their ahupua'a, their strip of land which included both farm land and ocean for fishing. From hawaiihistory.org: "Each moku was divided into ahupua`a, narrower wedge-shaped land sections that again ran from the mountains to the sea. The size of the ahupua`a depended on the resources of the area with poorer agricultural regions split into larger ahupua`a to compensate for the relative lack of natural abundance. Each ahupua`a was ruled by an ali`i or local chief and administered by a konohiki."
I remember a similar late-to-dawn realization in Streetcar that the lampshade that Stanley rips off the lamp should be globe-shaped and light-colored, to be the paper moon Blanche sings about. How many times have my eyes passed over that word "creel" without really seeing it? I love the process of SEEING every aspect of this play.
Monday, September 22, 2008
The Irish Three Sisters
Geoff Bangs, a Theatre Major who will be playing the role of Doalty, had these observations about the play in comparison to one of Chekhov's major plays, and said I could share them:
"Hey, im reading 'The Three Sisters' by Chekhov right now. If you haven't read it and you have some time i suggest you check it out. I think there are quite a few similarities to Translations. I thought the repeated speaking in Latin, the out of towner that comes in and falls in love with the lead female who in turn falls in love with him, and the fire in Act 3. Also there may be ties with all of their glorifications of Moscow to characters’ in Translations desire to get out and see the world, and the fact that Andrei is a insecure proffessor with an unstable emotional relationship. I haven’t read Act 4 yet. I will do that tomorrow morning and let you know if I have seen any others. But right now I’m seeing so many connections that I believe it could have easily been a source of inspiration to Friel when he wrote the show. Maybe Maire, Sarah, and Bridget are the three sisters!! :D
[about 12 hours pass] I just finished the show, I forgot to point out that along with the many familiarities between Vershinin and Yolland they are both also high ranked people in the army. I discovered they are speaking French not Latin in Three Sisters. Also the Baron was murdered in the end which could relate to what supposedly happened with Yolland. One thing that became very clear was that in both plays the characters spoke frequently of wanting to escape the place they live and the value that knowledge can have in their life and some of their desires to expand their knowledge.
I am attempting to make a connection with the motifs. At the end of Three Sisters Chebutykin says 'What does anything matter, anyways?' which has a different way of expressing itself in Translations because of the different characters and cultures but i did get a sense of 'lets get drunk, history repeats itself, what does all this drama really amount to in the end' kind of vibe from Hugh at the end."
Thanks, Geoff! Very perceptive! Friel is often compared to Chekhov, glad you can see it so well.
--Lurana
"Hey, im reading 'The Three Sisters' by Chekhov right now. If you haven't read it and you have some time i suggest you check it out. I think there are quite a few similarities to Translations. I thought the repeated speaking in Latin, the out of towner that comes in and falls in love with the lead female who in turn falls in love with him, and the fire in Act 3. Also there may be ties with all of their glorifications of Moscow to characters’ in Translations desire to get out and see the world, and the fact that Andrei is a insecure proffessor with an unstable emotional relationship. I haven’t read Act 4 yet. I will do that tomorrow morning and let you know if I have seen any others. But right now I’m seeing so many connections that I believe it could have easily been a source of inspiration to Friel when he wrote the show. Maybe Maire, Sarah, and Bridget are the three sisters!! :D
[about 12 hours pass] I just finished the show, I forgot to point out that along with the many familiarities between Vershinin and Yolland they are both also high ranked people in the army. I discovered they are speaking French not Latin in Three Sisters. Also the Baron was murdered in the end which could relate to what supposedly happened with Yolland. One thing that became very clear was that in both plays the characters spoke frequently of wanting to escape the place they live and the value that knowledge can have in their life and some of their desires to expand their knowledge.
I am attempting to make a connection with the motifs. At the end of Three Sisters Chebutykin says 'What does anything matter, anyways?' which has a different way of expressing itself in Translations because of the different characters and cultures but i did get a sense of 'lets get drunk, history repeats itself, what does all this drama really amount to in the end' kind of vibe from Hugh at the end."
Thanks, Geoff! Very perceptive! Friel is often compared to Chekhov, glad you can see it so well.
--Lurana
Monday, September 15, 2008
Translations Cast
Translations by Brian Friel
CAST LIST
MANUS Brad Larson
SARAH Eleanor Svaton
JIMMY JACK Tommy Barron
MAIRE Rikki Jo Hickey
DOALTY Geoff Bangs
BRIDGET Jenn Thomas
HUGH Craig Howes
OWEN Danny Randerson
CAPTAIN LANCEY Adrian Fiala-Clark
Lt. YOLLAND Nathan Garrett
CAST LIST
MANUS Brad Larson
SARAH Eleanor Svaton
JIMMY JACK Tommy Barron
MAIRE Rikki Jo Hickey
DOALTY Geoff Bangs
BRIDGET Jenn Thomas
HUGH Craig Howes
OWEN Danny Randerson
CAPTAIN LANCEY Adrian Fiala-Clark
Lt. YOLLAND Nathan Garrett
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Translated signs
I had a wonderful meeting yesterday with Jan Fried of KCC and her friend Missy Keast who is a storyteller and has done lots of work with deaf theatre productions. We are moving forward with a plan to have all 5 performances of "Translations" interpreted into American Sign Language. Lots to figure out, grant money to apply for, seating configuration to settle on, etc, but very encouraging to hear their ideas and enthusiasm for the project. And it was fascinating to watch Jan translating my words to Missy from spoken English to ASL, and telling me in English how Missy was replying. It was a thematic enactment of the play!
Jan sees parallels in the play to the historical suppression of deaf culture and language. She also had some great comments about how Hawai'i has a different local ASL dialect, which she tries to preserve in her own signing so that it will not die out.
Jan sees parallels in the play to the historical suppression of deaf culture and language. She also had some great comments about how Hawai'i has a different local ASL dialect, which she tries to preserve in her own signing so that it will not die out.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Friel's diary notes on writing Translations
Friel kept notes during the process of writing Translations. These are excerpts:
15 May 1979
. . . One thing that keeps eluding me: the wholeness, the integrity of that Gaelic past. Maybe because I don't believe in it.
16 May 1979
I can envisage a few scenes: the hedge-school classroom; the love-scene between lovers who have no common language; the actual task of places being named. Nothing more.
22 May 1979
The thought occurred to me that what I was circling around was a political play and the thought panicked me. But it is a political play--how can that be avoided? If it is not political, what is it? Inaccurate history? Social drama?
23 May 1979
I believe that I am reluctant to even name the characters, maybe because the naming-taming process is what the play is about.
29 May 1979
. . . I am now at the point at which the play must be begun and yet all I know about it is this:
I don't want to write a play about Irish peasants being suppressed by English sappers.
I don't want to write a threnody on the death of the Irish language.
I don't want to write a play about land-surveying.
Indeed I don't want to write a play about naming places.
And yet portions of all of these are relevant. Each is part of the atmosphere in which the real play lurks.
5 November 1979
The play, named Translations, completed. . . .All art is a diary of evolution; markings that seemed true of and for their time; adjustments in stance and disposition; opening to what seemed the persistence of the moment. Map-makings.
source: Murray, Christopher, ed. Brian Friel: Essays, Diaries, Interviews: 1964-1999.
15 May 1979
. . . One thing that keeps eluding me: the wholeness, the integrity of that Gaelic past. Maybe because I don't believe in it.
16 May 1979
I can envisage a few scenes: the hedge-school classroom; the love-scene between lovers who have no common language; the actual task of places being named. Nothing more.
22 May 1979
The thought occurred to me that what I was circling around was a political play and the thought panicked me. But it is a political play--how can that be avoided? If it is not political, what is it? Inaccurate history? Social drama?
23 May 1979
I believe that I am reluctant to even name the characters, maybe because the naming-taming process is what the play is about.
29 May 1979
. . . I am now at the point at which the play must be begun and yet all I know about it is this:
I don't want to write a play about Irish peasants being suppressed by English sappers.
I don't want to write a threnody on the death of the Irish language.
I don't want to write a play about land-surveying.
Indeed I don't want to write a play about naming places.
And yet portions of all of these are relevant. Each is part of the atmosphere in which the real play lurks.
5 November 1979
The play, named Translations, completed. . . .All art is a diary of evolution; markings that seemed true of and for their time; adjustments in stance and disposition; opening to what seemed the persistence of the moment. Map-makings.
source: Murray, Christopher, ed. Brian Friel: Essays, Diaries, Interviews: 1964-1999.
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