Woven throughout Brian Friel's 1980 play Translations is the profound matter of language itself. But the viewer's experience of the  production is more likely to focus on the 10 characters whose hopes and foibles propel the play's comedy and drama. The story unfolds in the small County Donegal village of Baile Beag in 1833, and the period comes to life through the rustic set, evocative props and expressive clothes. Friel captures the satisfying rootedness of people whose identity is built on where they live, and director Cristina Alicea emphasizes their warmth and humor. The setting is a rural hedge school for adults, a quasi-illegal operation at a time when England only permitted Anglican schools. This one is in the barn of the schoolmaster, Hugh, and his son Manus. The curriculum runs deep into Latin and Greek, the better to give Hugh occasions to quiz students on word origins and to afford the aged, perpetual student Jimmy chances to lose himself in the stories of Athena and Dido. The story begins with language conjured from a woman with a speech disorder. With lovely patience, Manus coaxes Sarah to say her own name. Manus teaches in his father's shadow and keeps his Irish nationalism quiet as the Protestant and Catholic tensions simmer. Britain's political initiatives reach the village in the form of an army ordnance crew that arrives to map the district and translate the Gaelic place-names into "the King's proper English." Friel uses a historical event to distill England's effort to subjugate Ireland, erasing names and thereby erasing history, memory and a cultural sense of self. With the army comes Owen, Hugh's other son, now serving as the military's translator. Owen left the small village for the stimulation of Dublin and returns in fashionable clothes and with an ability to justify his work for the British, imagining he's staying one step ahead of his bosses. The British Captain Lancey, his very mustache stiff with protocol, speaks English with a clipped cadence, so unlike the serpentine rhythms of the Gaelic-speaking residents. Lancey never cares that he doesn't know their language, but his lieutenant, George, finds the language and the countryside beautiful. George shows the humility of an outsider, not the bravado of a conqueror. Owen's translations minimize the threat to the village that the army poses, a point not lost on Hugh and Manus, who speak both languages. Though Homer…