Task: Account for the popularity of the play ‘Translations’ by Brian Friel.
The play Translations was written by Brian Friel an Irish playwright and a founder of the ‘Field Day Theatre Company’ who, for their first production, presented ‘Translations’ in 1980. The popularity of the play was so that productions were the staged regularly within England and Ireland through out the 1980’s but what was it that made the play so popular.
Within the 1980’s troubles had sparked within Northern Ireland, the horrific ‘Bloody Sunday’, civil rights marches and the formation of the terrorist group calling themselves ‘The Provisional IRA’ created a deeply divided nation. These political troubles echoed those of Irelands past when the divide between the protestant landlords and the Catholics who worked the land and were heavily taxed, like the occupants of Baile Beag in 1833, for this reason the play would have been of interest to audiences in the 1980’s as a historic background to the current events. But the play was not historically correct although it was based loosely around historic fact there were major deviances for which the play was criticised. For instance the Sappers Yolland and Lancey who are mapping Ireland using English place names, although they may have been employed by the army to map the landscape they were not soldiers and would never have had the man power to destroy the village as Yolland threatened.
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Peer Reviews
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Quality of writing
The Quality of Written Communication needs some work. There is a frequent mishandling of the English language with erroneous uses of grammar, spelling and punctuation, though not to the extent the the answer the candidate is trying to write becomes ambiguous of difficult to understand. I would advise that the candidate reads and re-reads their work after every paragraph, to ensure clarity in their written expression.
Level of analysis
The Level of Analysis here is average, but the extent to which it explicitly answer the question is limited. It could also be argued that the analysis is not a sufficient depth to gain higher than a C grade. This is because the candidate comments on that which can be considered obvious, such as why a certain audience may enjoy certain parts of the play, rather than crossing these demographics over and such. I do however, love the attention to detail with regard to attitudes and values of the audiences of the time. Though sometimes unconvincing, the recognition of attitudes to theatre in all ranks of society improves this answer on the basis that there is evidence of contextual appreciation that some candidate miss. If only this level of attention to detail was used throughout the rest of the answer, this candidate could easily see themselves achieving a whole grade higher.
Response to question
This is a response to a question that asks about the popularity of the play 'Translations' by Brian Friel, and why the candidate themselves believe the play to be considered such a successful one. The answer given appears very unconvincing at times and also poorly evidenced (with regard to actual quoting from external sources, which is a good practice for any question on popularity). There is a sound understanding of the events of the novel, but only a surface-level understanding of the connotations and the sensitively interwoven themes and allegories that also exist. It is nice to see that there is a clear attempt at answering the question, but even though is is on the short side, it does address a number of different audiences and the cross-cultural appraisal the play has received (very implicitly) and thus has somewhat considered the play's popularity, though more explicit means would harbour more marks.
