Not lost in
translation

>> Anglo playwrights on the French stage
and the English critics awards

MOMMY DEAREST:
Pascale Delhaes and Jeanne Ostiguy in Bonne nuit, je pars

by AMY BARRATT

Among the many treats on the French theatre scene this season are quite a few English plays in translation. Three are already up and running.

Independent company Triangle Vital takes over the Petite Licorne space with Trains fantômes, by English Canadian playwright Mansel Robinson. It’s a poetic account, with music, of a meeting between a prodigal son and a dying father.

The Théâtre de l’Esquisse launched its season last week with Bonne nuit, je pars, a French version of Marsha Norman’s ‘night, Mother. After it won the Pulitzer in 1983, this play about an adult daughter who informs her mother that she plans to commit suicide became a favourite of student actors everywhere. Bonne nuit continues until Sept. 29. NB: Rumour has it there will be an English production of the play, by a different company, at the MainLine in the new year.

Also up and running is Le Doute, the version française of Moonstruck screenwriter John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, sometimes subtitled “A Parable.” This play, about a Catholic school principal who suspects her resident priest of sexual misconduct, won the Tony, and just about every other award they give out in New York, in 2005.

The new year will bring at least two Canadian playwrights in translation: The currently itinerant Théâtre de Quat’Sous (they are borrowing space from several other theatres while their home, a former synagogue on Pine, undergoes a “reconstruction”) will be presenting John Mighton’s Possible Worlds in French at Théâtre Prospero in January. Théâtre du Nouveau Monde offers Elizabeth ROI d’Angleterre, a translation (by René-Daniel Dubois) of Timothy Findley’s Élizabeth Rex.

Théâtre du Rideau Vert will begin 2008 with Les grandes occasions, Michel Tremblay’s translation of Bernard Slade’s Same Time, Next Year, starring Louise Marleau and Gilbert Sicotte. Compagnie Jean-Duceppe’s Christmas offering (opens in December, takes a break and comes back after the holidays) is La Casta Flore, which is translator Daniel Roussel’s take on Peter Quilter’s Glorious. English audiences saw the play, based on the highly unlikely singing career of Florence Foster Jenkins, last season at the Centaur. The high-octane Duceppe cast includes Pierrette Robitaille as Florence and Benoît Brière as her long-suffering accompanist.

Bon spectacle!

MECCA nominations out and online

As you may have heard, the Montreal English Critics Circle has released its list of nominees for awards in English Theatre for the 2006–07 season. Productions considered ran between Sept. 1, 2006 and Aug. 31, 2007. The big change this year is that we’ve condensed “best professional production” and “best independent production” into a single category. The reasoning is that the old structure might have made the independents look second best, whereas in recent years, some of the best work has come from those smaller companies. Whoever wins this year (and as I write, the voting has not yet been done), they will be able to boast winning “Best Production”—no qualifiers! You can read all about it on our spanking new Web site at www.meccaawards.com.