During a two-week residency at the Maison de la littérature in February, Bobby Theodore and François Archambault worked together on Bobby’s translation into English of François’s Pétrole, a play commissioned by the Compagnie Jean Duceppe in Montreal. The play is scheduled for production in French at the Jean Duceppe in September 2020.
On the last day of their time together in Quebec, Bobby and François offered a glimpse of their long-standing collaborative process and discussed various challenges of translating for the stage, including the somewhat unusual problem of rendering a play written in French which features American voices. The conversation was hosted by Sonya Malaborza, LTAC representative for Atlantic Canada, and was recorded in the hope that it might be broadcast more widely in the future.
The event was generously supported by the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s PlayConnect program, as well as the Maison de la littérature and the Literary Translators Association of Canada, founding partners of this unique translation residency.