Credit: Paul Cantillon, Lidecphoto.com
Presented by Bad Habit Productions
by Brian Friel
directed by M. Bevin O’Gara
August 2-17, 2014
Boston Center for the Arts
Calderwood Pavilion
Boston, MA
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Review by Gillian Daniels
Cultural erasure and the silencing power of colonialism—Translations is not a play that minces words. It’s a tragedy of linguistics. During the 19th century, the English army seeks to map out the Irish countryside, specifically the town of Baile Beag. In order to have unified names for the maps they draw, the soldiers end up Anglicizing the Gaelic names of rivers, roads, and mountain ridges. Staged by Bad Habit Productions, this play rages at the disappearance of local tradition in the name of Imperialism. Continue reading
