Back row Janet Uren, Kat Smiley, Tim Oberholzer. Front Row Michelle LeBlanc, David Whiteley, Genevieve Sirois, Alain Chamsi. (photo credit: Lois Siegel)
Capital Friel
More of the Irishman in Ottawa
by Jim Murchison
Last month I had the pleasure of seeing Translations by Irish playwright Brian Friel at the Ottawa Little Theatre. Although there was a fair bit of humour in that piece, it was largely dramatic in tone. After the success of Translations, Friel followed it up with The Communication Cord. Both plays are set in the fictional Irish town of Ballybeg and both deal with language. Although The Communication Cord takes place 150 years later in the 1980’s, the picturesque rural setting is relatively the same, as it is set in an historic home in county Donegal. That is where all similarities between the plays end.
