BYU-Idaho’s Department of Theatre is excited for the opening of its upcoming play “Translations.” This will be the second winter semester play from the Theatre Department. The play is set in the 1830s when the British military arrived to survey the land in County Donegal, Ireland, to map and anglicize Irish place names. The Ireland natives who had their own language and schools were taken away from them, then forced to learn English by British soldiers.
“I actually have family heritage in Donegal, which is the county, where this play takes place,” Jennie Pardoe, the director for the play said. “So, I traveled out there and was able to see a production of this show, in Dublin, and was really moved by it and felt this very personal connection to it. And so, I brought it back here and showed it to the other theater faculty, who also found it incredibly moving and relevant to today.”
This is what led the university to put on the play. Pardoe also said, her trip helped with the creation of the set design.
“A lot of our design ideas, a lot of our ideas for the production came from photographs and experiences that I had in my travels that I was able to share with them,” Pardoe said.
Pardoe wants to convey a unique message for those who attend the production.
“I hope our audiences take away the idea of language and what words mean and how important they are,” Pardoe said. “It's interesting because in (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and in the doctrine, we learn so much about language, and words. But we don't think about language and words often, as being so central to the way we understand the gospel, to the way we understand life and everything.”
The play will open on March 20 and run through March 30. Every show will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre inside the Eliza R. Snow Building, except for the show on March 30, which will start at 2 p.m. in the same location. Tickets are now available for purchase at the ticket office in the University Book Store inside the Manwaring Center or online at www.byui.edu/ticket-office/.