Translationality: Theatre

In the UK theatre system, the translation and staging of plays originally written in languages other than English is a marginalised practice that produces an average of under 4% of the total annual production output in England and Wales (British Theatre Repertoire 2013). By contrast, in countries such as Romania, plays in translation are highly sought after and form more than half of the annual output. How are such disparities possible, and what discourses and ecologies sustain such marginalisation in the UK? My research into the social attitudes, systems and conventions that enable cultural attitudes towards theatre translation in various European countries will serve here as a contextualisation for an intervention to change attitudes in England, starting from secondary schools.

Performing International Plays (PIP) is an impact project based on my research into the translation of international plays and their untapped potential to teach young people the intercultural competencies needed to navigate globalised societies. In 2022 I launched a website of learning resources designed to encourage more teachers to include contemporary plays originally written in languages other than English in the school curriculum, thus increasing the representation of minoritized identities in the UK Drama classroom. In Autumn 2023, I started collaborating with theatre company, Foreign Affairs, to offer in-person school enrichment workshops on contemporary international plays in order to make meaningful interventions in underserved schools with high levels of diversity. Since then, we have received ACE funding and our trained facilitators have carried out over 45 workshops based on contemporary plays from around the world in 18 schools in London and Kent, engaging over 500 pupils.

This chapter reflects on the impact of our pedagogical approach, inspired by bell hooks’ ‘engaged pedagogy’ (1994), during a workshop delivered in Kent. In June 2024, we worked for two days with Ukrainian refugee students at Archbishop’s School in Canterbury. On the first day, the students translated into English the unpublished Ukrainian children’s play, Litter: Ball, Straw and Shoe by Katerina Penkova, about the importance of friendship and recycling. On the second day we presented it to the school community as a staged reading. Our facilitators positioned the Ukrainian children as experts of the language and culture represented in the text – a gesture designed to flip the classroom hierarchies established by a school system that understands the condition of EAL students as disadvantaged vis à vis English native speakers. During the workshop, we boosted students’ engagement and wellbeing through positive representation of linguistic and cultural diversity, developing skills such as self-confidence, literacy and what Ofsted calls ‘cultural capital’.