Translations is one of Brian Friel’s finest and most renowned works. Written in 1980, the play has been performed throughout Ireland and across the globe to huge acclaim, and has now been revived at the National Theatre by former Royal Court Artistic Director, Ian Rickson. In an Irish-speaking community in Donegal in 1833, the play tells the story of the British Ordnance Survey of Ireland, and the process of translating Gaelic names into English for a new map. The setting is a hedge-school, where adults come in the evenings to study the classics, maths and geography. The schoolmaster’s son, Owen (Colin Morgan) returns home from Dublin in the pay of the British Army, tasked with finding Anglicised names for the places he knew growing up. Accompanied by romantic orthographer Lieutenant Yolland (a supremely eloquent and sensitive performance from Adetomiwa Edun) Owen studies the names of the landscape, searching enthusiastically for new, English ways to express them. But a burgeoning relationship between Yolland and local girl Maire (Judith Roddy) sparks trouble, and when Yolland disappears, Owen's family and friends come under threat.

The play shows us Ireland on the brink of change: as well as the English map, the new, free National schools threaten to overtake the hedge-schools, providing a wholly different form of education, taught only in English. The threat of famine also looms, whisperings of the potato blight that was soon to follow, with a menacing-looking fog hovering over the boggish land that forms Rae Smith’s set. The drip-drip-drip of rain through the roof of the school echoes like a ticking clock, adding to the sense of foreboding, and the fear that something unique and precious is on the verge of destruction.

Ciarán Hinds as Hugh. Photo: Catherine Ashmore

Friel’s script is so intricate, so masterful, it could easily overtake any of the actors attempting to speak his lines. But Rickson’s cast step up to the plate, all of them delivering solid, earnest performances. Charismatic Ciarán Hinds is authoritative and imperious as Hugh, the schoolmaster and patriarch, stalking the classroom and lecturing his students on Ovid and Homer, dismissing English as a “plebian”, unrefined language. His refusal to modernise is often funny and quaint, but when he is left alone at the play’s close, desperately trying to recall translations of the Odyssey, we are reminded of the inevitable isolation caused by clinging on to an idyllic, fictional past. Colin Morgan brings youthful energy and a touch of bravado to the role of Owen, a bundle of enthusiasm and optimism. He has no interest in the poetry that his father and Yolland so romanticise in that “quaint archaic tongue you people insist on speaking” and firmly believes that English is the key to the future. But the consequences of his actions are chilling, and as Morgan translates the names of places that will be razed to the ground if Yolland is not found, he seems to crumble in front of us. Bewildered, Owen chokes on the Gaelic words, as though they have already turned to ash in his mouth.

Colin Morgan as Owen. Photo: Catherine Ashmore

Although Translations could be interpreted as a solely political play, questions of language lie at its heart. Anyone who’s ever had to study translation knows that it’s a lot more complex than looking up a word in a dictionary and writing it down. Words carry a lot more than one single definition; there is context, subtext, history, nuance and register to be reckoned with. Each significance must be identified, each angle considered before a new word in the so-called Target Language is chosen to represent the original to a new audience. But can a direct opposite really be found? Is there even such a thing as accurate translation? Or will it always be a debasement, a betrayal, of the original? For most of us, translating a text from one language to another means doing the best of an inherently flawed job, for there is no such thing as a perfect translation. The only way to do that would be to leave the text as it is. Even if changing the map into English helps to modernise and streamline Ireland and its culture, Friel’s play forces us to question whether we lose far more by sweeping the complex origins of names under the rug. They are not merely letters in order but history, culture and identity.

Friel also uses language to highlight the complexities of colonialism. The alien nature of Gaelic spelling and pronunciation to Yolland and his countrymen gives Irish an air of mystery and fantasy. Both Hugh and Yolland agree that, like Latin and Greek, Irish is a language of poetry, not practicality: it is a form of escapism, a way of keeping real life at bay. To Owen, it is similarly obsolete, but Yolland is intoxicated by it, drunk on the sound of the words, repeating them over and over like a spell. Like the renaissance poet Edward Spenser (and British colonialists ever since), Yolland feels the pull of the “other”, the fascination of the abomination, demonstrating a desire to learn the language in the same breath as his urge to control it.

Judith Roddy and Adetomiwa Edun in rehearsal Photo: Catherine Ashmore

The theory of translation is a philosophical minefield, but differences in understanding can also be very funny, and Friel’s play brilliantly juxtaposes the serious with the silly. Rickson makes the most of moments of miscommunication written in the text with brilliant physical direction: energetic sign language met with blank and increasingly concerned faces, as well as earnest and hapless attempts at imitating the “foreigners”. A particular triumph is the love scene between Maire and Yolland: neither one can understand the other, but still they talk, expressing their feelings any way they can, even through the simple recitation of place names. It is a hypnotic moment, both funny and moving, as Rickson shows that, for all its good, language is not always necessary: the lovers do not need words to understand one another. As the physical space between them decreases, the chemistry palpable, both of them murmur “I know what you’re saying”. It is the one moment in the play in which the barrier between British and Irish understanding seems dissolved.

Ciarán Hinds in rehearsal, Photo: Catherine Ashmore

Friel adds another level of meaning to the piece by writing the whole play in English, despite setting it within an entirely Gaelic-speaking community. Even when the characters are clueless as to what is being said, the audience always understands; as though the entire situation has been translated for us already. Which, of course, it has. As audience members, we must realise that what we are seeing is merely a representation and interpretation of the facts, not the facts themselves. This leads to bigger questions about the nature of language, and what it really means. For mute student Sarah (played superbly by Michelle Fox), just being able to say her own name is a victory (“there’s nothing you can’t do now”) and for Maire, speaking English means an escape from poverty and a future in America. Thus language grants control of one’s destiny, and is a source of power. But this applies to the British, too. By changing names into their own tongue, British soldiers assert their supremacy over the Irish land and culture. Ireland becomes English names on a map: not a living, breathing community. Having the playtext in English is a final, sobering reminder of the impact of the real-life events that inform the play. The verbal scars left by the British presence still remain, and may never truly fade.

Translations runs at the Olivier, National Theatre until 11 August. You can buy tickets via the official website.