Can bilingual or non English productions work?

The_Morrigan

I saw this article in the Times today and it got me thinking about whether a production can be successful if the audience may not be able to comprehend the script.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/two-irish-language-productions-to-hit-dublin-s-stages-1.1893660

The inspiration behind it is that some of our best playwrights wrote in both Irish and English.

I know when you see an opera you are unlikely to understand the lyrics as they would be in Italian; most religious pieces are in latin; yet you can still comprehend the emotions behind the text due to the music.

Would the same work in an Irish language drama?

I'd be interested to hear any other thoughts on the matter.

faceman

I think it depends. I've seen a few different theatre genres bilingual and taken part in bilingual improv.

I recently saw the brilliant Nirbhaya which is in the genre testimonial theatre. Some scenes and monologues are in Hindi and most are translated to English by other actors. It worked very well in this context and given the emotional investment the audience makes with the production, you quickly forget you are at times listening to a foreign language as the actor communicates through emotion and physicality.

In contrast when I performed in a bilingual improvised theatre show, it was greatly challenging as a performer. English and Mandarin were the languages. Everyone there could speak English. We had one scene, a romantic encounter, where I was speaking English and the my partner Mandarin. While I was speaking English and could be easily understood I didn't have a breeze on understanding what I was hearing. However we engaged on a very physical, emotional scene. On paper it probably looked over dramatic but it worked on stage and we had some wonderful comments from the audience.

Flipping over to watching a bilingual improvised show, once a scene became wordy and it was unclear who everyone was, it became a write off for the audience who couldn't understand the language.

The_Morrigan

Interesting!

I'd say the English/Mandarin scene allowed for the audience to keep up, I'd have a serious fear as an audience member of ending up lost if I went to see a show I didn't understand. I would wonder if that would have an impact on selling a production that wasn't in the native tongue of the audience.

One of the shows mentioned in that IT article is purely 'as gaelige'; it will be interesting to see the reviews on that. Although I have basic Irish I would struggle to keep up with the dialogue of this show (which is a pity imo).