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Channels (France)
 

Philippe Le Moine gives Actes du Théâtre a report on Channels (France), a Franco-British exchange, for which a great deal of energy has been mustered on both sides of the Channel.

"Channels both implies a gulf and the possibility of a connection. It's nothing more than a marriage frankly."
Jack Bradley, Head of Scripts, National Theatre

Starting from a desire on the part of Jack Bradley and Sue Higginson (Director of the National Theatre Studio) to get a better grasp of contemporary French playwriting, as well as from a small grant (5 000 euros) from the French Embassy, the Channels project has since developed into the largest Franco-British exchange ever undertaken in the field of contemporary playwriting.
In January 2000, Sue and Jack entrusted me with the project, which started off with a long period of research conducted with Entr'Actes, naturally, as well as with the main figures in contemporary playwriting in France, including publishers, literary agencies, the Théâtre Ouvert and the Mousson d'été Festival. Subsequently, I was sent a huge number of plays to read, while the project's main focus and the plans for carrying it out were gradually being more sharply defined.
Translating has traditionally been a domain for playwrights in Great Britain, where a dearth of organisations - such as the Maison Antoine-Vitez - and audience expectations have produced an illustrious line of playwright/translators including Tom Stoppard, Martin Crimp and Christopher Hampton, as well as David Lan and Nicholas Wright. The National Theatre Studio, created in 1984, is like a springboard, a place where most young British playwrights have come to and been in residence at one time. Thus the idea arose of finding the future translators for Channels among those playwrights. Beyond its role of translating plays, we feel that Channels is a unique opportunity to develop exchanges between French and British playwrights, and to provide them with a chance to explore other writing styles, approaches and issues.
In choosing the French plays we naturally turned to living playwrights whose work had not been translated in Great Britain before, and to their most recent plays. I chose twenty from among a hundred texts before putting together a reading committee whose weighty task was to select the three plays for the project - so weighty in fact that we ended up choosing four! Faire Bleu by Jean-Paul Wenzel, Hilda by Marie NDiaye, Combats de possédés by Laurent Gaudé and Habitations by Philippe Minyana.
We immediately commissioned the annotated literal translations - giving Jack and Sue a chance to read the plays - which would be used later on as a starting point for the playwright/translators. Before choosing the latter, Jack, Sue and I decided to meet with the French playwrights in Paris, in order to take things a step further than the text and to grasp their worlds, their personalities and their ways of working. We also began to discuss the possibility during that trip of working together on projects with Véronique Bellegarde from the Mousson d'été Festival. Feeling confident after this first exchange, we then contacted the four British playwrights: Lin Coghlan, Sarah Woods, Mick Mahoney and Steve Waters. For all four of them it was their first translating experience. In October 2000, we organised a two-day seminar at the Studio, during which the four playwright/ translators had a chance to become familiar with the world of translating and to benefit from the experience of Nicholas Wright and David Lan before getting down to work.
Once the first drafts were finished, we began the most exciting phase of the project - the residences. In turn Jean-Paul Wenzel, Philippe Minyana and Laurent Gaudé came to spend a week at the Studio with their British translators and the authors of the literal translations. Sarah Woods went to Paris with Rachael McGill to work with Marie NDiaye in a room at the sacd's Maison des Auteurs on rue Ballu. It is hard to sum up in a few words the importance of the work accomplished there, the many moments of rare delight, and also the difficulty in getting to know one another and in exploring common ground, areas of understanding and exchange. At times the work was very technical and amounted to systematically dissecting the plays. A great deal of time was also spent on comparing how the language of theatre functions in the two countries. Thus French allows neutral writing, while English is obsessed with regional and class-related accents that force you to "situate" the language right away within a certain context or voice. Then there is the influence on the writing itself caused by a difference in the relationship between playwright and director down to the very essence of the latter's role, which is hegemonic in France and text-oriented in Britain. There is a marked contrast in the use of and need for scene indications. Finally, there are basic choices regarding cultural specificity and questions of transposition. What is the best way of handling the many references to cities in the French provinces in Habitations? Would it be better to move Faire Bleu to the north of England?
Translating is about making choices, listening and having confidence. These few days spent together made it possible to go beyond the words to explore the most secret and personal places in the language (rhythms, colours, contrasts, intentions, memories, imagination, etc) which are the source of one's delight in writing and one's need to do it. These areas that are so difficult to translate are the very places where the two playwrights will ultimately be able to find each other, to validate the accuracy of their intentions and to cement feelings of mutual trust. The work done on Faire Bleu is an excellent example of this: "The project was a rather new experience for me. It was a rich and extraordinary one", said Jean-Paul Wenzel. "We didn't speak the same language, yet we managed to understand each other at some mysterious level that is hard to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it," replied Lin Coghlan. Philippe Minyana, Steve Waters and Christopher Campbell also got on well, as did Marie NDiaye, Sarah Woods and Rachael McGill. The only fly in the ointment was Mick Mahoney, who didn't succeed in devoting the time and attention required for the preparatory work on Combats de possédés. After his meeting with Laurent Gaudé we decided to start from scratch and commission a new translation. That's only one failed marriage out of four, so we're still below the national average!
In March 2001, Habitats, Hilda and Rising Blue were completed and we organised some small readings at the Studio so that the translators could hear their work before making the final corrections and submitting the definitive text. Jean-Paul Wenzel came for the occasion. Michel Didym and Véronique Bellegarde were also there to talk about the meec project (Maison des écritures européennes contemporaines). As our approaches and aspirations were similar, we decided to work together. The Studio will commission the translation of a fifth play chosen from the repertoire of the Mousson d'été. The meec will undertake its first bilateral exchange with the translation of three British plays chosen with the help of the Studio. The two projects will end with public readings: the three British plays at the Studio Théâtre de la Comédie-Française in February 2002, and the five plays from the Channels project at the National Theatre in June 2002 as part of its gigantic Transformation project. Now we're in the process of sending off new plays, and also looking for new support. The French Embassy in London and the Institut français have decided to continue their support for the French playwrights' residencies; the British Council in Paris has done the same for the British playwrights in France; and the afaa is providing assistance for hosting the French playwrights and professionals during the readings in London.
The meec first chose The Mentalists by Richard Bean and Lionel Spycher and Chris Campbell for the translation. The Channels model had to adapt to particularities and habits in France, where this kind of "work for four hands" is very rare and frowned upon by translators. The next play was Gagarin Way by Gregory Burke, entrusted to Dominique Hollier, and Mother Clap's Molly House by Mark Ravenhill, tackled by Gérard Watkins. While choosing the translators turned out to be difficult at times, the residency concept proved to be vital. It took place at Pont-à-Mousson in the snowy month of January 2002 and was an indispensable starting point for the work undertaken by Lionel Spycher, Dominique Hollier and Gérard Watkins. Meanwhile at the Studio, David Greig - who took over the translation of Combats de possédés - got along perfectly with Laurent Gaudé. Finally, I loved Poeub and had to hand Serge Valletti and his 65 characters over to Richard Bean. The Journée britannique on 23 February, organised by the meec, was a huge success brought off by great actors in the presence of the British playwrights. It was an opportunity for a first meeting between Valletti and Bean.
The Channels (France) readings series, a first at the National Theatre, were off for another three weeks on Wednesday and Friday afternoons in the Lyttelton Theatre. Each play was entrusted to a director who formed his own group of actors, and they rehearsed at the Studio for two days. All of the playwrights (except for Marie NDiaye) came to the readings. The main French partners (the meec, the Maison Antoine-Vitez and Entr'Actes-sacd) and British theatre professionals were invited, including heads of theatres, directors, dramaturgs, producers, agents and academics. There was an average of a hundred people attending every reading, and projects are already in progress with theatre companies and with the bbc (radio and television). Oberon Books has published all five plays (unusual for works that have only been staged as readings), thus extending the Channels (France) project into the future and promoting the plays throughout the English-speaking world.
Channels (France) ended with a reading of Le Pub! (the first full-length reading of Serge Valletti's play) with 60 actors, giving a "gargantuan" final touch to a project that had begun two years earlier on a much smaller scale. The French adventure at the Studio is continuing through long-term ties with the meec and other European partners. As for the Channels adventure, it is to be continued in Argentina and in the Balkans.

Philippe Le Moine, International Projects Manager at the National Theatre Studio

For more information about Channels and the nt Studio, contact: plemoine@nationaltheatre.org.uk www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/backstage/studio
To order the 5 translations: www.oberonbooks.com