"H__l" and "B_____d", or, When Good People Use Bad Language

A Christian school in Alberta recently contacted me to ask if they could cut certain words from their upcoming production of my play Schoolhouse, "simply to adhere to what our community prefers." I was pretty startled by this, as this play has been done in some of the most conservative communities in Canada without incident. Furthermore – although I've fought hard my whole life to reach out to those who think differently than I do – at the time when they wrote to me, the campaign (and eventual victory) of Donald Trump had made me viscerally alarmed for the future of social justice and artistic liberty in my own society. And, perhaps unfairly, I was mentally equating the kinds of people who would complain about the word "bastards" in a play set in rural 1938, with Trump supporters. In other words – to put it mildly – I was NOT in the mood.

On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of community where I most want the story of Schoolhouse to be told. And they were ethical enough to come to me rather than just trying to make their changes in secret. Moreover, when asking if they could substitute "buggers" for "bastards", they also said: "We are absolutely open to other alternatives if there are some." (At which I thought: my preferred "alternative" is for you to just do the darn play.) So, I gave them a choice. They could either bowdlerize the offending language and indicate that they had done so in the programme… or else post a language warning, as well as the following letter. I strongly urged them toward the latter.

Hello, and welcome to Schoolhouse! I'm the playwright. From about 2002-2004, I read books, diaries, and archives, and interviewed the people of Cavan County about their experiences as students and teachers in one-room schools. This play is very closely based on those real people and their stories. The first production was, I'm honoured to say, a huge success. Since its premiere in 2006, Schoolhouse has been performed hundreds of times and seen by upwards of 25,000 people in schools, colleges, and theatres across Canada and the USA.

I have been told that some folks in your community will be bothered about the (few, isolated) uses of "h__l" and "b____d" in this play. I was kind of surprised by this, as there have never been any objections to the language in this play (including from several Christian academies): so rather than changing it, I thought I'd talk to you about why it is there.

1) Authenticity. Perhaps the primary goal of most playwrights (other than not boring you) is to tell the truth, as best we know how. In my play, one character at a Christmas concert uses the H-word at an especially unfortunate time. Like most of the episodes of my play, that actually happened. The fact that the man's language and behaviour were completely inappropriate is exactly why this incident stuck with witnesses fifty years later! If I softened his language, it would not only be dishonest, but it would also destroy the point of this scene... which is about how other grown-ups deal with an adult who is behaving boorishly around children. The few rough words of the few rough characters are not there for shock value: rather, they very much reflect their personalities, their situation, and their rural community in 1938.

2) Values. The central theme of Schoolhouse is about values. How do we transmit values to our children? How much does the school shape the community, and how much does the community shape the school? Audiences across this country have seen themselves in this narrative. They have heard, in Ewart's most objectionable words, the language of his suffering. They have watched Evie moving from disdain for a rural community to an almost painful level of empathy. These characters' stories invite our compassion... and challenge our moral priorities.

3) Cultural context. The words "h_ll" and "b____d" are mainstream in modern Canadian life, including in the kinds of texts that are studied in high school, from literature to current events. They are found dozens of times in the King James Bible. Shakespeare uses the word "h_ll" 160 times, and "b____d" 109. These words occur on a daily basis on the radio, in the most conservative newspapers, on the Internet, on primetime TV: they barely rate PG-13 in a movie theatre. However, if you are bothered by their use in a school context, please see under (4), Teachable Moments.

4) Teachable Moments. This play has been embraced by conservative as well as progressive, religious as well as secular communities, because it treats their values, and its characters, with respect. That being said, you don't necessarily have to like or accept everything that happens onstage, whether it's child-murder in Macbeth, or farm-boys swearing... and now you will have an opportunity to talk with your children about why. Just because someone says something onstage – whether it's Evie or Ewart or President Trump – it doesn't mean it's okay to say it in your home.

Over and over again, studies have shown that the arts are good for young people: they teach self-esteem, discipline, teamwork, creative problem-solving. Theatre in particular strengthens our abilities for quick thinking and resourcefulness, for courage, for understanding. In order for young people to engage with the arts, and with living writers, it is important for them to discover that you can have empathy and even love for characters who act in ways of which you do not approve. I also believe – and here we may disagree – that it's important for young people to address the ideas of artistic freedom and artistic truth; and to encounter the idea that you can engage with, and learn from, a writer's vision of the world, even if you don't share it.

I do hope that this addresses some of your concerns. I take note that your school's web site upholds the common values of Equity, Accountability, Collaboration, and Integrity... and I can assure you that those are my values, too. Speaking of accountability: I take full and personal responsibility for every word you hear onstage tonight, so if you are still angry about what you hear, please contact me through my web site at www.leannabrodie.com . That's the price of my freedom of speech... which has never felt more precious than it feels in these times.

Thank you so much... and now, I hope you enjoy the show!

YOU ARE HAPPY nominated for national prize.

You Are Happy – my translation of Rébecca Déraspe's sparkling hit comedy, Deux ans de votre vie, recently published by Playwrights Canada Press – has just been nominated for the prestigious Stage West Pechet Family Comedy Award. This national competition recognizes a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada who, in the opinion of the jury, has written the year's best unproduced comedy script.

I am delighted that the jury has recognized a play in translation, thus widening the door for the vibrant work by a new generation of francophone playwrights in Canada. I am thrilled that this exciting young woman – an award-winning writer of intelligent and original comedy whose work I deeply believe in – is now getting this kind of well-deserved recognition in our other official language. And I have renewed my determination to see this play produced in English (did I mention that it has not yet been produced?!)

Congratulations to our fellow nominees, Briana Brown and Kristen Da Silva, and to all the Tom Hendry nominees. And Rébecca, je me croise les doigts pour le 30 octobre!
 

Feed, Fight, Flee, and... Flirt: Rehearsing "And Bella Sang With Us"

In real life, fighting and making love are intimate acts: outside of whoever you're doing them with, no one else exists.

In the theatre, representing either violence or sexuality comes with a set of paradoxes.

During stage combat, your first duty is to your own safety and that of your fellow performers. Your second duty is to make it look like you're trying to hurt them.

Staging love/attraction/sexuality, meanwhile, turns one's most private moments into a PDA.

Actors love to live as fully as possible through their time on stage. In And Bella Sang With Us, I get to deduce, chase, argue, mime, sing, drink, kiss, make jokes, make a fool of myself and others, and perform heroic deeds. I'm a lover, a fighter, a friend, and (as The Wire would have it) "good police".

I knew I'd ease into the fighting slowly, able to bring the aggression only once I'm sure I know the choreography and that no one's going to lose an eye. (I'm lucky in that Sarah May Redmond and I just worked together on He Said It. In fight scenes as in love scenes, trust always helps.)

On the other hand, I was startled to hear from director Sarah Rodgers and her assistant Ian that whenever Simon Webb and I are playing ex-lovers O'Rourke and Harris, our volume drops to a nearly inaudible whisper. As Ian put it: "If this were a film and we had microphones, it would be very steamy!" Simon and I are both stage animals and, once into performance, I doubt we've ever gotten a volume note in our lives. However, this is rehearsal, and this is different. The overt sexual content of this play is pretty mild – it's essentially a buddy cop story set in 1912, after all – but Harris and O'Rourke have a pretty torrid history, even if only the tip of it is currently bobbing above the surface.

I do feel that, particularly when we play lovers with actors who are strangers, there needs to be a period (even one run-through, if the schedule is tight) where it is just for us. We need to create intimacy... because erotic and sexual material, in the context of the theatre, is not generally about exhibitionism. It's not actually a PDA. It's a very private moment... shared.

Not to worry, though, Rodge: now that Simon and I have got the hang of it, we'll bump it up a decibel or forty. Next I need to focus on improving my hand-to-hand... while wearing a long skirt. Good times.

And Bella Sang With Us plays at the Cultch Sept. 9-17. Tickets and more information here.

My comments about intimacy and privacy are obviously not universally applicable: when it comes to the Kardashian family, for example, all bets are off. However, most reality TV stars haven't seen fit to turn their talents to the stage. Yet.

First day of school.

We had our first read-through yesterday for And Bella Sang With Us at Sarah Rodgers' home. I haven't done a Fringe for a decade... but working with Sarah, one of Vancouver's most in-demand directors, on re-imagining a Sally Stubbs play that explores the fraught and forgotten history of Canada's first policewomen? How could I resist?

Maybe things are different here in Vancouver, but in my experience, it's not a typical first reading of a Fringe show when you have senior professionals – Barbara Clayden, Brian Ball – giving design presentations. First readings are always heady times, though, aren't they: full of possibility and enthusiasm; long before the realities of deadlines and budgets and our own limitations set in. And that's especially true when everyone there is doing it for love.

The cast crackles through the first read: I look forward to being in the room together. And I am very excited about fighting again. It's been years since I got to do some quality stage violence, and fight director Derek Metz is going to work with me to help blow the rust off. I've always learned choreography very very slowly, and I'm not able to really go after another actor until I'm pretty sure that (a) I know what I'm doing and therefore (b) they won't get hurt. Then, and only then, am I able to make it look like I want to kill them. Just another of the paradoxes of the theatre.

Tadoussac at the confluence of cultures

"Tadoussac, from the Innu word meaning "bosom" (refers to the capes on either side of the mouth of the Saguenay River, where the whales come to feed)"

Ah, Tadoussac: the place that nurtures both translators and whales.

When I first came to the Glassco Translation Residency, I'd already had over a decade of experience as an actor and playwright, with a sideline as a commercial translator that helped keep my fridge full and my French alive. When I left, I had the draft of my very first play translation, Philippe Soldevila's Tales of the Moon... and much had changed.

Within those ten days, I had been mentored by Linda Gaboriau, the preeminent translator of Québecois drama into English – an elegant and scintillating figure, in person as in prose. I'd shared good Charlevoix cheese, cultural insights, and theatrical war stories with some of the most exciting playwrights and translators in the flourishing theatre scene of Québec, as well as the translator and director Shahin Sayadi from Halifax, and the playwright Greg MacArthur from... pretty much everywhere. Moreover, I'd had a crash course in the thorny/ubiquitous politics of language in Québec... not merely as a topic of intellectual interest, but up close and personal. Everything about me – not only my aptitude and motivation for doing the work, but even the very way I speak the French language (halting-to-fluent mid-Atlantic diction, peppered with jarringly Québecois expressions) – was analysed and challenged. It was hard and it was bruising at times, but it left me with much greater skill, increased self-awareness, and renewed determination. Linda, thank heaven, steered me through it all.

Now, ten years later, I was finally going back, to work with Olivier Sylvestre as I translated his first play, La Beauté du monde, for Pi Theatre. Of course, things were very different this time. Linda had left the leadership of the residency in the capable hands of her protégé and friend Bobby Theodore; there was a whole new group of artists; and the languages being worked in included Cantonese, Spanish, and N’lakap’mux as well as English and French. Meanwhile our societies have (d)evolved in many ways, and our theatrical cultures along with them. Furthermore, I'm different. I'm a mid-career theatre artist now, and a translator with over a dozen plays to my credit: five of them have been produced to date, and three published. I'm no star, but I have a process, and a track record, and fewer and fewer fucks to give about what anyone thinks of my French.

What hasn't altered, is Tadoussac. Not really. It was spring instead of fall this time, so the spectacular sunsets were later every night: but the whales, the rocks, the pretty painted village on a bed of wild... the lovely and spacious old ten-bedroom cabin crammed with folk art, solid wooden furnishings, Bill Glassco's Tarragon Theatre memorabilia, and first-rate books... all were as I had left them. Like the apartment building in La Beauté du monde, the Glassco family's summer home is a character in itself... but instead of the carnivorous beast of Olivier's oneiric and haunting play, she is a gracious and welcoming small-town aunt who offers you seconds of everything.

Just as before, ten days of hard work, laughter, cultural exchange, and linguistic insights were enjoyed by all, with evenings full of good food (merci, Andrée) and good wine. It's still the way you always imagined university would be: the perfect cocktail of solitude and togetherness, communal life and the life of the mind, garnished with long, companionable walks. The sort of environment where Olivier could peaceably translate Jordan Tannahill on one end of the comfy old sofa while I was translating Olivier on the other... and we could help each other when we got stuck. Where my husband and I could both take part, thrilled to be sharing this special place, but spending most of the day delving deep into our separate projects with our separate creative partners. Where Charles could whirl Bea into an impromptu ballroom dance, while good-naturedly arguing about who was going to lead. Several of us opined that we could easily live this way for ages... except that we would miss our loved ones, actual theatre, and Asian food.

Actually, the biggest shift I noticed in the residency itself was generational. Bobby is a much more senior translator than I am, but age-wise he is more or less a peer... as were most of us this year (sparkling Alexis, profound Pascal), except for those (Olivier, Charles, rising talent Derek Chan) who were younger. On my way home, I had a wee drink in Montréal with the brilliant translator and filmmaker Shelley Tepperman, who since that first residency has become a dear friend. She said that, much as she hoped to go back to Tadoussac and felt that Bobby was a great choice to lead, she would miss Linda's stories; the breadth of her experience; her ability to draw on a lifetime of important work with the great figures of our time in order to guide the rest of us and put everything into perspective.

"Yeah," I said. "But I'm realising that, sooner or later, we're going to have to start doing that, too. Passing on whatever we know to the next generation... including Linda's stories. I mean, that's what we do, as translators, right? We transmit what we love, to the best of our ability, to the people we hope will care about it?"

"Huh," said Shelley.

"I know," I replied. "Me, too."

The annual Glassco Translation Residency in Tadoussac, Québec is Canada's only artist residency focused solely on the translation of plays. My thanks to Playwrights Workshop Montreal, Pi Theatre, and Richard Wolfe for this priceless opportunity... and to Briony Glassco and the Glassco family for opening their incredible home every year. You can read more about my translations here.