Great writing is good, in any language

This year I received the honour of being the recipient of the Lennox Robinson Bursary from the Abbey Theatre, the national theatre of Ireland. The bursary is enabling me to research theatre practise in the Irish language, a minority activity but a vibrant one none the less.

 

Last week, I took myself into the west to the city of Galway and the Irish speaking area, or Gaeltacht, beyond in Connemara, to meet practitioners for whom Irish is their native tongue and who try to eke a living out of their theatre craft. The Irish language doesn’t really have a theatrical heritage. The Gaelic culture is an oral culture, of course, and the language lends itself beautifully to storytelling and sean nós or old style songs that have epic tales weaved into them. But there’s precious few Gaelic playwrights that have come to any prominence.

 

At the turn of the 19^th century, there was a great push from the intelligentsia and literati of Ireland to reclaim the rural, oral culture as the country attempted to regain its independence from Britain. The playwright John Millington Synge became well known for his plays that depicted rural Irish life. He wrote in English but used the patterns of the Irish language to inform how his characters spoke, literally translating from Irish into English.

 

So you had an exchange like this between Nora and the Tramp, at the opening of the play In the Shadow of the Glen;

 

            TRAMP: Good evening to you, lady of the house

NORA: Good evening kindly, stranger; it’s a wild night, God help you, to be out in the rain falling.

TRAMP: It is, surely, and I walking to Brittas from the Aughrim fair.

 

A contemporary playwright, Martin McDonagh has had success writing plays that use this ‘stage Irish’ to great comic effect. His plays The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Cripple of Inishmaan have all been produced to critical, if controversial, acclaim. Controversial, because some believe that as an English man, albeit with Irish parents, he’s mocking the Irish and lampooning them in an old fashioned caricature. 

 

Last week in Galway, I saw a production of The Cripple of Inishmaan translated into Irish for the first time. I’d seen Druid Theatre Company’s acclaimed production in English last year and it was well done although I found the heightened stage Irish vaguely annoying, losing its comic appeal very quickly. In Irish, the play is a revelation. Hilarious, irreverent and engaging, the strengths of the writing really came to the fore because no one was laughing at the way the characters spoke. Instead of Gaelicised English distancing us from the story, we were drawn straight into the drama.

 

This week I started rehearsals on the Irish language version of In the Shadow of the Glen by J.M. Synge and once again the strengths of playwright’s craft are so much more obvious. The play is only one act long. It’s short and to the point, there is nothing superfluous and every line earns its place in the script. The scenes turn gracefully, the story is engaging. The characters are well rounded with clear intentions and needs. The translation in to Irish is beautifully handled and the play feels like it could have been written in this language from the start. Is that just good translation or does all good writing transfer so easily?

 

Synge is said up there with the great 20^th century playwrights like Anton Chekov and Tennessee Williams. As I begin to go deeper into his play, easing my way into the feisty, practical and brave character of Nora, even in a ‘foreign’ language, it’s easy to see why.

 

Melanie Clark Pullen is playing ‘Nora’ in ‘ Uaigneas an Ghleanna’ by J. M. Synge at the Culturlann McAdam O Fiach on the Falls Road in Belfast from the 2^nd to the 9^th of August.

 

 

 

Comments

[one billion daleks]

Good writing transcends language, and Synge's play is a fine example.

Note that the play is abrupt, in Truth barely more than a single scene in some grander work. It is abrupt because it only has one thing to say. And even if it were translated into Swahili, this one thing - it's essence - would not be lost.

So ... in the case of "Uaigneas an Ghleanna", what is the essence of it, the meaning that will always transcend language, that can never be 'lost in translation' ...?

Well, it is a one-act play both literally, and figuratively too ...

... the figurative 'one act' is of course - Nora's Act of Faith.

[Jeanne Damoff]

Congratulations, Melanie! Sounds wonderful! I'm excited for you.

Grace visited Galway and the islands off the coast during her two-month, post-college European adventure. Her photographs were spectacular. If you ever need a photographer to document your research, give me a call. I'd be willing to "sacrifice" some time for the cause. ;)

Love, Jeanne