By Chantal Lapicola
Tony award winning British playwright David Edgar spoke Friday, Oct. 31 at the first lecture for the Center for the Study of Europe.
Edgar is best known for his adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel 'Nicholas Nickleby.'
Edgar''s speech, 'Pentecost to Babel,' focused on a play he had written about Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
His play focuses on how countries in Europe wanted to be unified, but continued to segregate those that were ethnically different from them, Edgar said.
His play takes place in a church built during the Italian Renaissance that has changed for different uses based on the occupants.
At the time of the play, the church is a potato store, and the workers of the store are taken hostage by 12 asylum seekers. While the hostages and seekers are in the church, they gradually uncover a fresco that was painted there when the building was first a church, Edgar said.
Throughout the play, the occupants try to figure out who had put the painting there, Edgar said.
The asylum seekers speak different languages, and the play shows how these people communicate without really knowing one language.
There is not only an art metaphor in the play, but also a language metaphor, Edgar said.
Edgar called his play 'Pentecost' because in Genesis, when the people built the Tower of Babel their language was confounded, but on the day of Pentecost the prophets were able to speak to everyone in their own language.
Edgar said Communism in Eastern Europe tried to suppress ancient tongues by making the people speak one universal language to mask the clutter of the past.
He said English is becoming that universal language. English is spoken more as a second language than by people who speak it as a first language.
English is becoming the universal language because it is a hybrid language, and is adapted to fit with different cultures, Edgar said.