STAGE REVIEW : Friel’s ‘Translations’ Speaks a Dark Language

“Translations” may be Brian Friel’s richest play--in language, imagery and metaphor.

It takes its cue from historical incident: the systematic renaming of Ireland in 1833 (from Gaelic into English) by Britain’s Royal Engineers in one of the most chilling attempts at cultural obliteration.

This act of vandalism becomes symbolic in Friel’s drama. Not only does it herald today’s Irish “troubles” (and help us understand their intensity), but it becomes the emblem for man’s dismal failure of communication. At once harsh and poetic, the play opened Wednesday as part of Occidental College’s annual outdoor Summer Drama Festival--its 29th.

Language is the crux of this piece. Everything is built around it, from the first image of the lame Manus (Tom Shelton) teaching the inarticulate Sara (Karen Musich) how to form words--to the implications of the title and the setting of events in a clandestine “hedge school” in remote Donegal.

This school (an old barn) is witness to a motley collection of students. Manus’ drunkard father, Hugh (Alan Freeman), is the official schoolmaster, but Manus is the one who keeps things going.

Aside from Sarah, there is the aging alcoholic dreamer Jimmy Jack (Morgan Rusler) bent on marriage to Pallas Athene (“decent people, good stock”) and three young villagers: Doalty (John Clancy), the pragmatic Bridget (Megan Freeman) and the irresistible milkmaid, Maire (Winifred Walsh), for whom Manus bears a contained but ardent love.

This “comical-romantical-pastoral” scene (to quote Polonius) is interrupted by the unscheduled arrival of Hugh’s second son, Owen (Michael Wright), in the company of British officers. Capt. Lancey (Kevin Pariseau) and Lt. Yolland (Jamie Angell) are his employers.

Owen, who fled his village of Baile Beag in search of a better life, found it as a translator for the British in the renaming of Ireland. Yolland, on the other hand, is a romantic who knows instinctively that the British mission is misguided. He has fallen in love with this land and its language. And now, fatefully, he falls in love with the receptive Maire.

From here to the end of the play, “Translations” becomes moving and dark. It is graced with one of theater’s most tender love scenes as Yolland and Maire, who cannot understand each other’s words, learn how to catch each other’s meaning. And it ends suspended in a mixture of despair and hope.

“Translations’ ” only other Southern California exposure was a flawed but exciting 1984 L.A. Stage Co. production.

It’s a difficult play to do, subtle and complex. Oxy’s Summer Festival was never timid, but a certain depth of approach is missed here. Language seems to evaporate in the night air. And while the acting is never less than competent (Angell’s Yolland and Walsh’s Maire are particularly evocative) and in some cases seasoned (Freeman and Shelton), the youthfulness of the company shortchanges the work’s maturity.

John Bouchard’s direction is right-headed and well-intentioned. The closing scenes approach their needed intensity, but on that attractive open set by Christa Bartels, we have, in the end, more atmosphere than depth.

“Translations” plays the Remsen Bird Hillside Theater (near the apex of the campus), 1600 Campus Road in Eagle Rock, Tuesday, July 28, 30, Aug. 7, 12 and 31. Tickets: $9-$12 (children $5); (213) 259-2772. Other shows in this summer’s repertory are “H.M.S. Pinafore,” “Twelfth Night” and “She Stoops to Conquer.”