I returned recently from Alicante, where I and four translators from around Europe were the guests of the Spanish city’s 30th annual festival of contemporary playwrights. As well as appreciating the sunshine, we had a fantastic time being introduced to twenty playwrights from across Spain, including some faces familiar to me as well as writers whose work I had never encountered before.
Where’s William? Group photo at this year’s Muestra de Alicante
This was the fifth time I had been invited to take part in this kind of ‘speed-dating’ session by the Spanish theatre world. In previous iterations, I met Víctor Sánchez Rodríguez, whose Cuzco I went on to translate for its UK premiere production at Theatre503 and publication by Oberon, and whose stunning, smoky, So-Cal-inspired noir La Florida is about to open in Madrid. With the support of the Valencian government I have translated La Florida in full. I don’t think the madrileños know what is about to hit them and I’d love to see this cast of characters – a jaded detective, a faded chanteuse, a clairvoyant and a fitness instructor on the run (‘I’m a Zumba instructor: I’ve seen it all’) – take to the stage here in the UK.
Also at such an event I met Mafalda Bellido, author of the brilliant three-act exploration of historical memory, The Earth-Eaters. With support from the Fundación SGAE, the foundation of the Spanish Society of Authors, I have also translated in full this important play exploring the memorialisation of national trauma, and look forward to its journey in English into the new year.
SGAE funding also supported the translation of Borja Ortiz de Gondra’s A Basque History, one of five plays published in The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Plays. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this multi-generational saga of a family buffeted by over a century of conflict was the first in a trilogy exploring Basque identity and one writer’s attempt to account for it. I have since translated parts two and three, with the journey of the Gondra family and its reluctant chronicler coming right up to the present-day. Borja’s trilogy has won a string of awards and toured throughout Spain to great acclaim and I would love to see this ambitious work brought to life here in English. Anyone up for a marathon read-through some time?
Back to this year’s festivities in Alicante and the 20 writers I met with. They included some authors whos work I have already translated, such as Lucía Carballal (An American Life, Agency) or Antonio Rojano, a participant at the Royal Court International Residency some years ago. I also reconnected with Denise Despeyroux, whom my friend at Out of the Wings (OOTW), Sarah Maitland, has translated for the London Spanish Theatre Company, and with María Velasco, whose stunning I Will Wipe Men off the Face of the Earth featured at this year’s OOTW festival in Kelsi Vanada’s brilliant translation. Also in attendance was Paco Bezerra, one of Spain’s leading playwrights whose long trajectory of acclaimed plays includes The Little Pony, translated by the late Marion Peter Holt for the London Spanish Theatre Company. Paco will be in London next week for the opening night of the second Festival of Queer Spanish Literature in London. Victoria Szpunzberg, also an alumna of the Royal Court International Residency, was another of the writers I met with, and last but certainly not least, Alberto Conejero, whose acclaimed play The Dark Stone was produced by Sergio Maggiolo at the London Spanish Theatre Company.
An impressive line-up, then of Spanish writers whose work has been seen in the UK; not for nothing is there a mood in Spain that playwriting there is on a roll. I have come back with a pile of reading to do, but as I work my way through it, do check out these writers and the others whose work I was excited to have the chance to encounter for the first time: Laura Aparicio, Llàtzer Garcia, Clara Gayo, Avelina Pérez, Marta Barceló, Aina Tur, Sergio Martínez Vila, Antonio Tabares, Luisma Soriano, María Goiricelaya, Guadalupe Sáez and Sergio Serrano. I certainly won’t be able to translated them all, but I know there is a large and growing community of Spanish-to-English theatre translators out there. Do feel free to contact me about anyone you’d be interested in connecting with.
And thanks, again to the organisers of the festival for inviting me.
Back in London and after months of anticipation I am thrilled to announce that the film of Pablo Manzi’s A Fight Against…, which played at the Royal Court Theatre over December and January, will be available for streaming worldwide for two weeks, starting December 1. This play was a gift of a way to start 2022 and as this year, which has proven tumultuous and challenging to say the least, draws to an end I am so happy to be sharing the work of this brilliant creative team once again. Booking is open now.
‘A Fight Against…’ returns. Streaming December 1-14.
Other highlights from recent weeks have included being invited by English PEN to deliver a theatre translation workshop for their annual International Translation Day event in September, and continuing to work with the excellent folks at Foreign Affairs on this year’s iteration of their theatre translation mentorship programme. This year, the translators are working from Spanish, Italian, Hungarian and Norwegian: look out for a showcase of their work in the new year. Thanks too to Foreign Affairs for having me along to host the post-show at their showcase of Flemish playwriting at Soho Theatre this month. Some great plays! And what fun we had at Southwark Playhouse with the English-language premiere of The Bit-Players by the legendary Spanish playwright José Sanchis Sinisterra! An absolute treat to watch the tag team of Sergio Maggiolo and Pepa Duarte direct this mad-cap political farce for the Southwark Playhouse Young Company. I delighted in the opening night: what a troupe!
And, of course, Out of the Wings continues to meet every month to read a play in translation, and everyone is invited. Last month we read a play from Honduras for the first time, this month we welcome back the Cuban playwright Abilio Estévez, whose Pandemic Ceremonies were a highlight from our activities during lockdown.
As I write there is speculation that Twitter is about to disappear and the outlook for UK theatre and the UK as a whole looks challenging. I hope somehow we can all stay in touch and that the Anglophone theatre world will still find ways to stay open to plays that happen not to have originally been written in English. You can find me on Mastodon at @williamgregory@mas.to, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook. The work continues…
