Some aspects of the play are revealed in the comments below. If you’d rather form your own opinions, please consider reading this review after watching the production.

* Potential Spoiler Warning*

Dear Alvin:

Unfortunately there are aspects of the play which escaped me as well, until I did some research online regarding the plot. My companion has seen the play before and knew many of these aspects, which she shared, but sadly because of the sound issues, there were places where I was just as lost as you, thanks to acoustic issues.

The playwright leaves Lt. Yolland’s disappearance and Manus’ relationships with both Sarah and Maire intentionally ambiguous. I believe Sarah’s presence is intended to illustrate some of the issues the Irish population faced with the loss of Hedge schools (she was being drawn out of her shell only to lose the connection to her teacher by his abrupt departure) as well as another problem with communication (her character is generally non-verbal).

At least, that’s what I perceived to be the case while watching the production.

Also unfortunately, body microphones are often quite finicky and can sometimes cause more problems than they cure. Depending on them to reach all ears is a tricky proposition at best. And finally, if I understand the problem correctly, because of the shape of the audience seating area, sound is absorbed by portions of the middle-range rows, leading to a “dead zone” where the sound simply doesn’t reach properly.

I hope this helps clarify the situation. This is the first performance I have seen by RLT and the first in this space, so I have no basis for comparison as to whether they did better or worse than other productions held there. I hope to review other productions at the theatre, so I can have a better understanding of the challenges inherent in the space.

Thank you so much for your comments!

Betsy

My lady and I saw the play on Friday, Feb. 4, 2011. We have season tickets, and have seen all of the plays and musicals of the RLT and the musical group this season.

About the sound:
I am under the impression that a big reason that the sound is a problem, is that they are using microphones suspended from the ceiling to pick up the sound of the actor’s voices. I was told that the FSF Theater owns the more modern way of sound pickup, which is a FM wireless microphone worn by each actor, but for some reason, there are people associated with the productions who refuse to use them. I hope that you can get to bottom of this, and get them to use FM wireless microphones. Additionally, in Evita, they had a live orchestra, which was wonderful! I thought that they were going to use recordings. However, the orchestra was loud (of course that’s they way live music is) and the sound control had the sound of the voices at a lower volume, so that we rarely could understand the words while the music was playing. They need a better sound board technician.

About the productions:
The ones we saw were outstanding. We could see that everyone on stage and everyone off stage were working their hearts out. Besides the audience, those people who do so much work to make it all happen, deserve to have a sound system equal to all of the effort and caring which goes into the productions.

About Translations:
Because of the sound issue, we were confused about some aspects of the play.

When Lt. Yolland and Maire were observed kissing, I couldn’t see or understand who the observer was. Was that intentional?

When Lt. Yolland appeared to be missing, I thought that he and Maire had run off together. Later, when Maire came on stage, I realized that Lt. Yolland had been murdered, and that Manus was probably the murderer, as it was obvious that he was in love with Maire. Was my confusion intended, or was it just me?

Earlier in the play, it seemed that Manus was also in love with Sarah, but nothing came of that – except later in the play Sarah made the motions of rocking a baby in her arms. Was she pregnant with Manus’s child? If not, what did the character of Sarah mean in the play? It seemed to us that her character made no difference at all, except perhaps to confuse the audience about who Manus cared about.

I do hope that you will answer my comments and question.
Thanks.