About the play
One resorts to translation in order to reduce the risk of misunderstanding to the smallest possible degree. This is one of the aspects important for our play. Secondly, the word ‘translation’ has another, indirect, meaning in our language, that of ‘taking someone across’, e.g. taking someone across the river without quenching their thirst (as the saying goes). The basis of our word is the notion of ‘across the water’- meaning: crossing from one bank to another, changing the point of view, gaining a different perspective. The ironic connotation comes from the verified belief that every understanding, conversation or discussion does not occur in order for people to understand each other, but rather for everyone to stick to what they were saying, and at the same time convince the others to give up their own ideas, with a profound and onerous conviction that everyone knows and understands what the others think, feel, want and do. Finally, I like plays touching on issues from the sphere of language. Because language, especially this spoken language, is a field for covering and uncovering. Verbalising human potential has many secrets and is a treasury of tragic misunderstanding. Understanding is a different phenomenon for each of the agents involved anyway. Understanding more often than not does not mean comprehending. At any rate, the conflict is impossible to avoid. It’s a paradoxical situation that we are granted along with the gift to communicate with each other through speech.
Dejan Mijač
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Friel was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone in 1929, and in 1939 moved with his family to Derry. He has published two collections of short stories, 'A Saucer of Larks' and 'The Gold in the Sea.' In 1980, Brian Friel co-founded the Field Day Theatre Company in Derry. Brian Friel served in the Senate from 1987 to 1989. He has received honorary doctorates from NUI, TCD, DCU, Magee University and Queen's University. He is an Honorary Fellow of UCD, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Plays: The Enemy Within (1962), Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1964), Translations (1980), Dancing at Lughnasa (1990)...
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REVIEWS
Living in Homer
Friel’s story takes part on the border between desires and helplessness of inhabitants of a small Irish village in which English soldiers arrive to establish order: to measure the land, map it and slice some taxes. Some of them, like Maire (Milica Mihailović), madly clairvoyant and with inclinations towards English soldiers, have foreseen the advantages of having some English, others, such as Owen (Gordan Kičić), who after attaining education comes to his homeland as an employee of the English invaders, are soon to be assured of how ‘soft’ the crown is, others still are fundamentally against collaboration with the English, as is the touching Owen (Petar Benčina), whilst the ones in the higher spheres of the spirit, like the fascinatingly cynical Jimmy (Predrag Ejdus) or the resigned school master Hugh (Mihailo Janketić) defend themselves from the invaders and local primitivism by living in Homer.
Ultimately, it is clear why this play stirred spirits in the English speaking countries. But what is important for us here is the fact that from the play by Brian Friel one can gain insight into how important the knowledge and an idea of what a nation wants and what sort of culture it creates is, if we failed to grasp it a long time ago.
Željko Jovanović, Blic, 10 March 2009
Why Don’t We Understand Each Other
Predrag Ejdus as Jimmy Jack and Mihailo Janketić as Hugh represent the undermined Irish wisdom and lore. They are the support but also remnants of everything that is old Irish, everything this nation has turned itself into through history and mythology. Goran Susljik as Manus is somewhere right in the middle of the field and the road, the one who would like to cultivate his fellow countrymen, but also preserve their independence. Anita Mančić (Sarah) is dumb, but her tenderness and love seem to say all even without words. Igor Djordjević (Lieutenant Yoland) and Milica Mihailović (Maire) convince us that love goes beyond words and has no limits, save for the great and tragic ones! It’s not force and power that can unite the world and the people, but rather understanding, love and kindness. Somewhere ‘in between’, a place where it’s not easy to be, stands Gordan Kičić as Owen. If one must, he’d like to collaborate! Energetic, reasonable, lost between two sides – whom should he pledge allegiance to?
It is not possible, except when it is, to reduce all cultures, languages and lifestyles to a single mode of expression! We cannot do that without violence! And why would we? People are, as set design by Juraj Fabry suggests, entrenched in their past, in their mythology, their song and tales and they can’t just be plucked out of this archaeology and be ‘translated’ into larger and more powerful peoples, languages, cultures. Costumes design by Maja Mirković, music by Orthodox Celts. Dramaturgs – Ivana Dimić and Miloš Krečković. Cast also includes Hristina Popović, Dragan Petrović, Petar Benčina.
A play that is current, close to our viewers, albeit reluctantly so, economic, with a Slavic softness even for us, and especially so for the Irish.
Muharem Pervić, Politika, 8 March 2009
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CAST
