A chara, – Caomhan Keane’s assessment of the difficulty in staging plays in Irish is fair-minded and comprehensive (Life Culture, June 13th). Apart from literary skills, the writing of credible drama makes other heavy demands on the writer. I think, in particular, of stagecraft and linguistically realistic dialogue. In Irish language drama at all levels we see fluctuations in the linguistic capacity of the cast and much diversity in their background, from native and competent speakers of different varieties of Irish to shaky cúpla focal actors. Too often this results in an unrealistic stage presentation attempting to reflect a non-existent sociolinguistic world.
The empty theatre or uncomprehending audience are also problems. To be able to fill or almost fill a moderately sized theatre for a play written in non-“dumbed down” Irish should be a marker of the general level of Irish language competence in the community. It seems to me that this was achieved more often some decades ago than it is nowadays. However, the optimism of people in the field quoted in Mr Keane’s article will give hope for the future.
Incidentally, Mr Keane’s swipe at “the poisoned tome” of Peig Sayer’s autobiography was quite gratuitous; it belongs to the stable of juvenile criticism. In a less culturally fractured society this work would be generally seen for what it is – one of the first attempts by an ordinary member of a rural community to portray the joys and tribulations of life from a woman’s perspective. – Is mise,