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ABIR:ana ma baAra. ma baakker ee hattaree'a. bihimmish. wa

kamaan aal innu wajhit nazarak raheebeh. (I dont know. I dont

even think o it that way. It doesnt matter. He also said you

have a unique scholarly voice.)

ADHAM:Aashaan bahki maA lahjeh. (Because it comes with

an accent.)

ABIR:ana mish Aareh leish inseet addeish inta zaki. al rujjaal

illi baArau(I dont know why youve orgotten how smart

you are. The man I met)

ADHAM:al rujjaal illi ibteAraee!(The man you met!)

ABIR:kan zaki, wa mit'akkid min nasu, wa ma ihtammish

eish al naas biakru ee. (Was smart, and sure o himsel, and

didnt care about what anyone thought.)

ADHAM:yumkin haada al rujjaal mish ana. (Well, maybe thatwasnt really me.) [He looks at her.]yumkin haada ana. (Maybe

thisis me.) The Hour o Feeling

WHENMoNAMANsoURWRoTEThe hour of

Feeling, a play about a Palestinian couple that travels to

London, she wanted to have her characters speak Arabic while

abroad. But being an American playwright, she unknowingly

put words in their mouths that were decidedly non-Palestinian

in sentiment.

In a sel-analytic moment in the play, Adham, a poetry

scholar, says to his wie Abir, Well, maybe that wasnt really

me. Maybe thisis me. But when Hadi Tabbal, the Lebanese-born actor playing Adham in the plays premiere production,

encountered these lines in rehearsal, he told Mansour straight

out, We dont have a translation or that.

That notion o malleable identity is a very American-

English concept, Mansour learned. Whatare we saying,

then? she wonders. It makes you think about what you

have written.

The double-sided question o what is being said and how

to say it is popping up more requently these days in bilingual

plays, which dier rom standard plays in a key respect: They

bring in another language to help get the point across.

For Mansours play, which debuted at the 2012 Humana

Festival o New Plays at Actors Theatre o Louisville in

Kentucky, the playwright was assisted with Arabic translation

and dramaturgy by Ismail Khalidi (the Lebanese-born son oPalestinians). The characters native tongue becomes a tool

to delineate cultural boundaries, and to convey the sense o

alienation that Adham eels as he delivers a lecture in London

on William Wordsworth. It also allows Mansour to present

Arabic in a rarely heard context, to l isteners more used to

hearing that language via newsreels o Middle Eastern unrest.

I loved the idea that American audiences were hearing a

man doubt himsel, be rude to his wie or tell her that shes

beautiul, all in Arabic, declares Mansour.

And sometimes when working in another language,

how something is said suddenly becomes more important

than the words themselves. In Chinglish by David HenryHwangwith translation by Candace Mui Ngam Chongthe

Stephen Pucci, James Waterston, Angela Lin, Larry Zhang and Jennifer Lim in David Henry Hwang's Chinglish, at Goodman Theatre in 2011.ericy.exiT

ts All to Me!n the name of realism, American playwrights are making

adventurous use of languages other than nglish

BYDIEpTRAN

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character Daniel Cavanaugh, an American

businessman who travels to China, asks Xi

Yan, the Chinese woman he loves, how to say

I love you in Mandarin. The correct term is

. But Cavanaugh mispronounces the

phrase tonally, moving comically rom varia-

t ions such as (snail loves cow) to

(rog loves to pee).

I you get something wrong in English,

chances are the mistake is grammatical,

because pronunciation is not dicultits

the grammar thats hard, oers Hwang, who

admits hes not fuent in Mandarin. But i

you get something wrong in Chinese, its

probably the word itsel, because Chinese

grammar is easy. I you grew up in the West,

you dont understand tonality, so chances are

youre not saying the right word.

Traditionally, plays in which a oreign

language would be appropriate have simply

ignored its usage in avor o English, or

oreign words and phrases are sprinkled

intermittently throughout as a tokenreminder.Miss Saigon, or example, eatures

an American soldier stationed in a Vietnam

where the natives all conveniently speak

perect English. In West Side Story, the lm

and the stage show, Puerto Rican characters

speak in heavily accented English, even to

each other, with the occasional Spanish term

thrown in (who could orget Natalie Woods

Bernarrrdo?). Though the 2009 Broadway

revival attempted to be more realistic

Spanish was added to the book and a number

o the songs were translated into Spanish byLin-Manuel Mirandathe bilingual concept

did not last the entire run o the show, and

the all-English score was restored or the

touring production.

We always have these movies and

plays where we just duck the questions o

language, notes Hwang. An American will

go to another country and the people in that

country will speak English with, whatever,

Brazilian accentsits not that experience

at all in real lie.

So in Chinglish, Hwang has Cavanaugh sit

in scene ater scene as the dialogue proceeds

in Mandarinand he, as the archetypicalmonolingual American, cannot understand a

word. Conusion ensues.Chinglish is arguably

the highest-prole bilingual play o our day,

having premiered at Goodman Theatre in

Chicago in 2011, hit Broadway and generated

talks or a lm adaptation. It ran at the Lyric

Stage Company o Boston in late 2012 and is

currently playing at Caliornias South Coast

Repertory, in a co-production with Berkeley

Repertory Theatre, through Feb. 24. That

production will also tour next month to Hong

Kong (see page 58).

ATTHEIRBEsT,BIlINgUAl plAYs

eschew the traditional signiers o oreign-

ness or multiculturalism by opting or ul l-

on realismcharacters speak in another

language and switch tongues eortlessly

when its called or. They dont settle or a

FEBRUARY13AMERICANTHEATRE 37

rin Gardner, left, and Alexandria Wailes communicate via ASL in Aditi Brennan Kapil's LovePerson, at Minneapolis's Mixed Blood Theatre in 2008.

AnnMArSDen

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one-o, as in West Side Storyinstead, these

other languages are a consistent presence

throughout the play, popping up within

English dialogue, in whole scenes and in

monologues. These plays are multicultural

in language and scope.

The story o America is one o melding

races and cultures. Considering the myriado languages that immigrants brought with

them, it should be no surprise when oreign

words show up on the American stage rom

time to time. Besides, what is English i

not a language based on a patchwork o

etymologies? And what is a play i not an

interplay o language?

Guapa, by Caridad Svich, is about a

mixed-race Latino amily living along the

Texas-Mexico border. Its characters are

bilingual, with the title character hersel

being trilingual in English, Spanish andQuechua, the language o the indigenous

people in the central Andes o South America.

They speak to each other and sing in Spanish

and requently pepper their English phrases

with Spanish words: Rolanda calls the young

people under her care mija, a contraction o

mi hija (my daughter), a term o endearment

used or children.

The play is acknowledging that all

o these languages are here, and thats how

we live on a daily basis , with constant code-

switching, whether were in a barrio setting

or not, suggests Svich, who is fuent in

Spanish. And with the history o Texas

being so multi-everythingFrench, Spanish,et ceterathe mix is an essential part o

the cultural history. Guapa had a National

New Play Network rolling premiere at

Borderlands Theater in Tucson, Ariz., and

Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, Ind., and

is slated or production at Miracle Theatre

Group in Portland, Ore., March 21April 13.

Playing with English and Spanish words

is nothing new or Svich, who created a

bilingual version (as well as al l-Spanish and

all-English versions) o Isabel Allendes

The House o the Spirits. Svichs bilingualadaptation o Julia Alvarezs In the Time o

the Butterlies premieres at Mixed Blood

Theatre in Minneapolis April 527 (where

her bilingual Spiritsalso premiered in 2010).

For Guapa, Svich chose to not only

incorporate Spanish but also Quechua.

She does her own translations. In Latin

American culture, indigenous languages

are brushed aside oten, especially in

representation onstage, Svich points out.

What about all o these other languages that

people still speak and that dont get heard?

oFCoURsE,lANgUAgEIsNoToNlY

a spoken construction. Playwright AditiBrennan Kapil, who has experience doing

voicing (vocally interpret ing sign language)

or dea actors, was researching Sanskrit

when she realized that there was an anity

between that language and American Sign

Language. The play that ensued rom that

discovery was Love Person; the title is the

literal translation o the ASL term or lover.

Love Personwhich premiered at Mixed

Blood in 2008, where Kapil is a resident

artist, and was most recently produced at

Company One in Bostoncontains scenesin which a lesbian couple, Maggie and her

dea partner Free, converse in ASL, as well

as scenes where Maggie is acting as her

love persons interpreter. Supertitles are

projected or those not fuent in ASL, and

the show also contains passages o Sanskrit

poetry. In the play, the language di erences

38 AMERICANTHEATREFEBRUARY13

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Directed by Caleb Hammond (MFA 14)

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are a metaphor or the stagnation that tends

to happen in long-term relationships.

I youre Maggie, an English proessor,

and you cant communicate with your lover

because she lives in ASL, that situation

becomes more intense than a man and a

woman just growing apart, says Kapil, who

is amiliar with but not fuent in ASL. Using

these language variations allowed me to tell

the story o communication and to take it to

another level.

For plays presented in ASL, t ranslation

occurs primarily during rehearsals, a

collaborative eort between the sign

master and the actors (or the Mixed Blood

production, Raymond Luczak was the sign

master). Because ASL is communicated

through the hands and ace, it cannot be

written down. Thats largely why its not

diluted, says Kapil. English has more words

than most languages because it absorbs moresynonyms. But there is an incredible poetic

quality and simplicity in Sanskrit and ASL

signing is so specic. I love watching ASL

onstage.

Do audiences respond the same way?

Love Person has long scenes in ASL, during

which its completely silent, and theatregoers

need to read the actors acial expressions

and the supertitles. The rst silent scene is

where people start to shufe, realizing its

going to be really quiet in the theatre, says

Kapil with a laugh. The play asks or a loto active listening. But I have yet to see an

audience that is not on board ater the rst

ew moments.

WHENCAsTINgBEgANFoRChinglish

at the Goodman,the trickiest parts to cast

were not the Chinese charactersinstead it

was Peter Timms, who is written as a British

Caucasian male in his orties (no problem)who is (heres the kicker) fuent in English

and Mandarin.

You could write a whole dierent play

about trying to nd a Caucasian male who

could speak fuent Mandarin, jokes Robert

Falls, the Goodmans artistic director. We

worked on that or months, and ound two

men in Chicago, our in Australia and two in

London. We ultimately narrowed it down to

Stephen Pucci, who was not as experienced

an actor and was not 40 years old.

More oten than not, in order to speaktwo languages onstage comortablyand

sometimes interweave themthe actors

playing those roles need to be fuent in both

languages as well. I we were going to have

any credibility whatsoever with the people

who spoke the language, we had to hire

actors who were legitimately bilingual,

asserts Hwang. During the initial Goodman

production, I was rewriting until the end.

What happens when I give them three new

pages and they have to put it in that night?

Unless you actually speak the language, its

really unlikely that you could learn three

new pages by rote.

Svich admits that the requirementto hire bilingual actors can make a play a

hard sell to theatres. I spent a whole year

pitching Guapa! she exclaims. And oten the

response I would get was, Yes, we do Latino

work, but we dont have actors. Really!?

Yet when it workswhen the words fow

naturally o the actors tonguesbilingual

theatre can make or a transormative

experience or the audience. Mansour

recounts seeing Tabbal, who is fuent in

Lebanese and classical Arabic, and Rasha

Zamamiri, who knows Palestinian Arabic,rev up the energy in The Hour o Feelingat

Humana. It was electric, she says, slapping

her hands together, because they were

speaking in their frst language. It had all

this visceral eeling!

Sarah Wallis had a similar experience in

the Alliance Theatre o Atlantas production

FEBRUARY13AMERICANTHEATRE 39

Hadi Tabbal, foreground, and asha Zamamirias a Palestinian couple visiting London,

in Mona Mansour's The Hour of Feeling, at

Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky.

ALAnSiMonS

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o Meg Miroshniks The Fairytale Lives o

Russian Girls, which contains Russian words

and phrases within English dialogue and

required the actress to switch between the

two languages, oten in the same sentence.

The catch is t hat Wallis d idnt know Rus-

sian, so the Alliance brought in a dialect

coach. Once I gured out how to shapemy mouth, I couldnt sayzhili bylianymore

without going in the back o my throat, says

Wallis, describing the process o learning

the Russian term or once upon a time.

Russian culture is a very di erent culture

rom Western culture. Theres so much

darkness and humor in their airy tales, so

saying once upon a time in English doesnt

give you the right eeling. The Alliance

also recently premiered a bilingual play or

its young-audience program, an English-

Spanish variation on Waiting or Godotroma clown angle, called Waiting or Balloon.

With the popularity o international

estivals such as Under the Radar at the Public

Theater or the Spoleto Festival in South

Carolina, where shows are oten presented

entirely in another language, it seems that

audiences are game to go beyond English.

For the Goodman, Chinglish was the best-

selling new play in the theatres history.

And at Mixed Blood, where 35 percent o

the audience sel-identiy as being bilingual

in English and Spanish, every season since

2005 has eatured bilingual works, and the

shows in Spanish and English continue to be

the theatre's most successul every season.Artist ic director Jack Reuler believes that

putting dierent languages onstage is a way

to attract a new crowd.

As the American theatre is nding new

markets, as the old audiences are dwindling,

there are huge populations o people waiting

to be invited into the theatre, and language

is one way o doing it, Reuler believes.

And i a theatre does a show in a language

other than English, its probably the only

entertainment in that language in that

community. It immediately expands to anaudience who are hungry to see themselves

onstage. He also adds a disclaimerthat

attracting a new audience should be the

product, not the why.

For Hwang, the most satisying part

oChinglish was seeing the diversity in the

house during the shows run on Broadway.

You had non-Asians, Asian-Americans,

Chinese nationals and people rom Taiwan,

and they all laughed together, Hwang recalls.

I thought that was moving.

Hwang believes multilingual plays mark

a generational change, a sign that current

playwrights are more comortable with their

diverse backgrounds and more willing to letthose infuences seep onstage. When I was

coming up, the tendency was that Asian-

Americans didnt want to be associated with

the root culture, he says. But nowadays,

I think theres more o an acceptance o

those dierent infuences. Everybody is more

transcultural now.

And multi lingual plays show that even

though the words may be dierent, the

emotions and predicaments that theatre

examines are universal. Being able to hear

dialogue in another language is to understandthat theres not only one way o speakingor

thinking. Its the world, Kapil says simply.

And the world involves having to deal with

people who dont speak your language, who

dont have the same worldview that you

do.

40 AMERICANTHEATREFEBRUARY13

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