AUDITIONS COMING UP: Translations by Brian Friel

30/06/24

Our November play by the highly regarded Irish playwright of Dancing at Lughnasa and Philadelphia Here I Come!

 

READING:  TUESDAY 9 JULY 

AUDITIONS: THURSDAY 11 JULY - BOTH AT 7.30 PM

PERFORMANCE DATES: SATURDAY 9, MONDAY 11 TO SATURDAY 16 NOVEMBER AT 7.30 PM

Cast:  7 males and 3 females

The Cast:

Hugh - a school master.  Sixties.  Keen on Latin, Greek.  Likes his whisky

Jimmy Jack - Sixties plus.  Knows Latin and Greek.  Loves the world of the gods and goddesses

Hugh's sons:  Manus - late twenties, early thirties - an unpaid teaching assistant to Hugh.  Slightly lame.  Loves Maire.  

                     Owen, a younger son.  A charming man.  Has left home but returns as a translator for the English soldiers

Doalty - (20s) local Irish lad;  a pupil at the school;  a bit of a tearaway.

Maire - (20s or thereabouts)  a strong bodied, strong minded woman.  

Bridget - (20s) a vain young woman;  has "a country woman's instinctive cunning"

Sarah - (20s, 30s) a shy woman;  struggles with a speech impediment

Captain Lancey - an English officer;  middle-aged, conscientious but very strict.

Lieutenant Yolland - English, young.  First posting;  falls in love with Ireland.

 

Synopsis:

Translations, regarded as Brian Friel’s finest play, gives us an insight into Ireland in 1833, a time when the English army were mapping the island.  National schools, ordered by Parliament, were made compulsory, with lessons taught in English only. 

In Baile Beag, a rural village in Donegal, English soldiers are anglicising Irish place names with some local help.  This brings an opening up to friendship and understanding.  But a brief romantic assignation arouses anger and tension on both sides – a tension which develops into violent action.

For more information, please visit the website: www.chesterlittletheatre.co.uk and follow the links to Auditions or send a message to Jane at info@chesterlittletheatre.co.uk