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'Translations'.
"... a year and a half in the planning and it's gone," muses
David Mealor, a bare week before opening night of 'Translations',
the play he is directing as part of Holden Street Theatre's
'Director's Choice '05 season. 'Translations', the work of Irish
playwright Brian Friels, was selected by Mealor as the first
script he wanted to bring to the stage in his new role as theatre
director.
"It couldn't have gone better for me; we're right on schedule. And I've been loving it, so for the moment I'll take it," he says enthusiastically.
Having met - and chewed the fat - with Mealor on a few occasions I can attest to the fact that his interest - and ability - to talk about the theoretical in drama is without bounds, so it must have come as something of a relief for all concerned that he had some hard work to get stuck into.
"I quite like it when things are this busy, and everyone's got the momentum of things. The accents are dropping in now during rehearsals and it's all very exciting."
'Translations' was first performed in 1980, which was at the height of the last terrorist conflicts between the IRA and the English. It was a time of The Maze, hunger strikes, and Bobby Sands.
The play, says Mealor, suggested a new understanding in the dilemma between England and Ireland, even though it's set in 1833.This was a time of hardship and potato blights. Mealor gives me some of the background to this most Irish of plays, including the movement known as the 1798 Rising of the United Irishmen a mere 35 years previously. In this, he explains, was the first real floating of the concept of an Irishman.
"Throughout the play, what is about to take place is referenced a great deal, and that is the new English school system, replacing the hedge school system, and hastening the destruction of the Irish language. Really, what Friels examines is the potential and limitations of language itself. He's drawing a line on the damage to a community by changing language, and the cultural attachments of that."
The English embarked upon a deliberate policy of attempted ?? to de-Irish the population by destroying their culture, which included the banning of the 'hedge schools', which taught the Irish language. Looming large in the background is our understanding of the historical consequences of the time: mass emigrations and hardship. In the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, over 10% of Ireland's population died of famine and more than 15% emigrated, most to the United States. It was a modern day diaspora.
I change direction: what are the actors saying of Mealor's style? Do they seem happy with the process and his style? "Very encouraging I think. The greatest compliment is that no one has bothered saying anything, they just seem to accept that I know what I'm doing."
Having spent the last five years or so as an ensemble member of Brink Productions, Mealor knew who he was looking for when he was casting for 'Translations. Truth be told, he hasn't strayed too far from home... there's Michaela Cantwell, William Allert and Rory Walker, all Brink alumni, joined by other well known names such as Lizzy Falkland, Andrew Martin, Stephen Sheehan and Geoff Revell.
This is not to mention music from The Audreys, who presumably turn their talents on this occasion to a more traditional reel than usually they might.
In a way it's probably quite reasonable to describe Mealor as an 'actors' director', even though the both of us have no real idea what that means. Mealor, who's acted in nearly all the performances staged by Brink Productions over the past three years or so (including 'The Caretaker' during the last Fringe) suggests such a grounding allows him to be more knowing in what's helpful in sparking reactions for the actors.
Hmmm, 'from actor to director' I think out loud. "It really has been easy enough," he laughs. "I went back and did some part time study, and I was thinking about the bigger picture, and about elements of production and the team. So when we got into the idea of the developmental workshop for 'Translations', for me it's been almost seamless."
I wonder at this play's links to the present, and why it remains of relevance. "There's a couple of things, I guess," he begins.
"It talks to everyone. It asks what role, legitimate or otherwise, does violence play in a country's social change. It explores the idea of terrorism. Ghandi is mentioned in so many of Brian Friels plays that he clearly is exploring the ideas of violence versus pacifism. And it seems to me that Ireland has won so many of its freedoms through violence that you have to ask whether a real and lasting peace can be built like that."
Alex Wheaton
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'Translations opens at Holden Street Theatres on Sat 24 Sept - see the Prize Frenzy(tm).
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