Translations by Brian Friel – Study Resources
By Faber Editor, 1 September 2024
Explore a rich set of resources for Brian Friel’s play Translations from the National Theatre’s 2018 staging.
The action of Translations takes place in late August 1833 at a hedge-school in the townland of Baile Beag, an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal.
In a nearby field camps a recently arrived detachment of the Royal Engineers, making the first Ordnance Survey. For the purposes of cartography, the local Gaelic place names have to be recorded and rendered into English.
In examining the effects of this operation on the lives of a small group, Brian Friel skilfully reveals the far-reaching personal and cultural effects of an action which seems, at first sight, to be purely administrative.
Below are a series of resources – including cast videos, a learning pack, and rehearsal diary – from the National Theatre’s 2018 staging of Translations which offer contemporary insights into this classic play.
Translations | An Introduction
Courtesy of the National Theatre.
Translations | What is Brian Friel's Translations about?
Courtesy of the National Theatre.
Translations | Favourite Lines
Courtesy of the National Theatre.
Download the National Theatre’s Learning Guide for Translations
Download the National Theatre’s Rehearsal Diaries for Translations
Courtesy of the National Theatre.
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A profound political and philosophical insight into the individual lives of a small Irish-speaking community living in the townland of Baile Beag in County Donegal.
Brian Friel (9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015) wrote thirty plays across six decades and is widely regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest dramatists. He was a member of Aosdána, the society of Irish artists, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Irish Academy of Letters, and the Royal Society of Literature where he was made a Companion of Literature.
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