TRANSLATIONS by Brian Friel Audrey Morrow discusses her production for Tynemouth Priory Theillre. In an impoverished Hedge School in County Donegal in the year 1883, the lives of the mature students and their teachers are suddenly disrupted by the arrival nearby of a detachment of British Royal Engineers whose task it is to translate the local Gaelic place names into English for the purpose of making the first Ordnance Survey for Britain. Grumbles and irritation at the inconvenience turn into something mu ch mor e ugly when , un expectedl y, one of the female students and an R.E. officer faJl in love. The cast of 7 men and 3 women comprise of Sarah, an almost mute young s tudent in love with her tutor Manus, who in turn is in love with Maire, another student, who falls in love with Lt YoUand of the Royal Engineers. His senior officer Captain Lancey has employe d Owen, a wealthy, educated young man from Dublin to be hi s inte rpreter. Owen turns out to be the prodigal son of Hugh , the headma ster, and brother of Manus. The other students are Doalty and Bridget from neighbouring farms, and Jimmy Ja ck, the erudite village tramp. The younger members of our Group were conspicuous by their ab se nce at the auditions for TRANSLATIONS. On the other hand, I had some excellent readings from our older, experienced actors who showed great enthusiasm for the play, so I decided to cast them by "upping" the ages of most of the characters. They repaid me by giving some first-rate performances. We had 18 rehearsals in aJl over a five week period, which is about the norm for Tynemouth Priory Players. The first hill to climb was for all the school characters to speak with the Sa me Irish dialect, as they all belonged to a tight village community. Early rehearsal s brought forth accents ranging from Welsh to Hindustani , but eventually everyone settled into a sort of mid-Iri sh dialect which was well sustained and easy on the ear! Gaelic name pronunciations were authenticaJly supplied on tape by the Irish relatives of one of the actors. The next difficulty was learning to convince the audience that, although the actors were in fact all speaking English, the school st ud e nts were supposedly speaking Gaelic and could not und e rstand the English soldiers and vice-versa. We discovered that by overlapping each other's dialogue and frequently interjecting with "what?" and "so rry?" , w e managed to achieve the desired confusion, and appreciative laughter from the audience convinced us that they comprehended the situation earlier than we thought. Also giggles and nudges from the female characters helped the reception of Captain Lancey's long speeches in Act I. For this particular play I found it more beneficial to devote a whole week to rehearsing a single act, leaving run-throughs of the whole play until the week lea ding up to opening night. I also had a dedicated cast who helped tremendously by learning their lines early in the rehearsal period. After browsing round old farm buildings during the s ummer 'break and getting some helpful pointers from a local farmer who turned out to be a keen amateur historian, I began sketching a set plan suitable for our stage (c. 22 ft sq). Sight- Lines are always a problem for us, also wing space, consequently sets have to be angled to approximately 12 ft wide for the back flats. The author's suggestion for "the remains of cow byre tails" had to be dismissed, as did "a double door Stage Left large enough to allow a cart to enter"! I decided for our stage it would be advantageous to erect a rostrum 12 ft wide x 8 ft deep x 2 ft high, pushed up against the back flats, from which a short flight of unrailed wooden steps could lead to the Living quarter s Offstage Right in the loft. The Master's table and chair could be Up Centre with plenty of room in front of it for speec hes and business, thus alleviating ma sking problems when 10 characters were on stage at the same time. Centre steps could lead down to the floor level where four benches could represent the students' "patc h" during lessons. "A small window Stage Right, a door Stage Left and, if possible, a skylight window set in the suggestion of a roof Upstage Centre would make me very happy," I told our Stage Director and Set Designer, Steve Arnott, handing him my grubby, badly drawn plan of the set . Two weeks into rehearsals we were presented with a superb replica of an 18th century barn complete with beams, stone tilted roof s t backstage fl at" wide skylight an old wind o\ Right (both plasbc typical farm\· ar Left and a ca filment. 10 . to s uggest a August aftern DO"' genera I stag were lit Fresnels. We tried Stra \V bu the fairly light stonewor k of the set, the overall effed bght. We ended up wi th Straws , rounded off w it offstage in 30 Yellow to pr \ s unshine effect throu " window (Stage Right) a _ Upstage skylight. schoolroom set and leafy glade in moonlig'" lovers' tryst. We had groundrow against wh i r the moonlight. A pa ir Windsor profiles on t he -::- Hou se bar in Deep BI lle the basic evening effect, Eo a pair of leafy gobos in give the "moonlight th n:_ trees" outdoor effec t. Fresnel on Bar 1 in highlighted the wall to r the setting. Act 1II was set against a evening ou tside, so the . was "lit" by three hanging 10 the main, the evening , achieved by using the g ' from Act I, but at a Il supple mented by the F Hou se Blues from Act IJ :: Blue floods replaced tn through the window and skylight. Light ru _ flashed through both \ using SOOw flood s in 0 Flickering fires outsidl. created by Flame offstage operated \-ia s tepped chases on our _ 16 KilL