Despite the dangers inherent to going to see one of your favourite plays with the knowledge you turn around an opinion on it, for Translations, it doesn’t matter, because the play itself is so good. Don’t miss the opportunity to go. Though the production was hardly flawless, it will do little to dent Translation's (deserved) reputation as one of the best pieces of English-language theatre ever written. Go and see what you think. 

The English Touring Theatre, now 21 years old, has brought a production to Cambridge that is fairly new, having begun in Sheffield in mid-February. Its strength will surely prove to be its cast, who manage brilliantly to balance the banal, the cerebral and the political. A particular stand-out is Roxanna Nic Liam as Sarah, whose presence on stage was very well judged, as was her authenticity and skill portraying a mute learning to speak. Also admirable was Cian Barry, who proved a great anchor for the play with his presentation a character that is the same person even as the world changes around him. However, the star of the show was certainly Niall Buggy as Hugh. He was at once bitterly funny, uncomfortable and abusive, intelligent and astute, and self-deluding. His movement on stage managed to communicate so many of these contrasting impulses, presenting a character that was believable, and one so easy to care about.

Though the performances didn’t falter, the production was let down by its second half. Several of the directorial decisions seem to suggest a lack of confidence in the play: in a play that so interested in language, and so brilliantly written, the language of the play should be allowed to tell the story. The second half begins with a dance on stage, where Yolland arrived, learnt to dance like the Irish, and was off with Maire in the space of four minutes. The sequence seemed discordant when set against the pace of the play and its general tone. At a set piece, it seemed a little cheap, and points to a real problem in the production's attempt to elicit a contrast between the comic and tragic elements of the play.

Though the use of music to jar was very successfull at points, in the second half, it contributed to what seemed to be an attempt to stress a strained contrast between the two halves of the play, and build up to a 'big reveal' when politics overtakes idealism. But there’s no real reveal in the play: though there is a shift from comic to tragic, it’s latent in the language all along, and isn’t meant to surprise the audience when it comes to the fore. This meant the severity of the play didn’t get across. By building up this contrast so strongly, the tone of the play was strained: for the audience, the play was confusingly tragicomic. At the end, the audience still laughed at the ridiculous things said by Jimmy Jack. The words were funny, but the message was tragic; the number of shocked pauses from the audience suggested this balance so integral to the play had unfortunately not got across.