Michel Tremblay. Michel Tremblay: Plays in Scots. Trans. Martin Bowman and Bill Findlay. Ed. Martin Bowan. Vol. I and II. Glasgow, The Association for Scottish Literature, 2023, 296 p. (vol. I); 272 p. (vol. II)

In this long-awaited two volume collection, Martin Bowman, translator, translation scholar, and theatre practitioner, masterfully recounts the journey from the stage in Quebec, to the page, to the stage in Scotland and beyond of eight of Michel Tremblay’s plays in Scots. Between 1989 and 2003, these plays were produced on main stages in Scotland, London, New York, and, in a significant U turn, in Montreal at the Centaur theatre. Through these Scots translations, rather than adaptations, Tremblay found a second home earning the honour of being named “the greatest Scottish playwright Scotland never had” (Mahoney, 2000, n.p.); the Guid Sisters, Bill Findlay’s and Martin Bowman’s translation of Les belles-soeurs was, according to a 2007 article printed in The Scotsman, one of the top twenty events in Scottish theatre history (Burnett, 2007) In the ten essays comprising over 125 pages, Bowman recounts the complex choices, strategies, trials, and eventual triumphs that he and his collaborator, the late Bill Findlay, faced in recasting Germaine Lauzon, Hosanna, Albertine, Marie-Lou, Nana, and so many others as Scots; their language and fate resonated with the same force as those of their Quebec counterparts. Tremblay and translation scholars will find of particular interest the carefully considered choice between the translation and adaptation strategy. As a native of Verdun, Quebec and, having been raised in a Scots family, Bowman was committed personally and politically to retaining, rather than erasing, the plays’ Quebec origins. Thus, he did not rely on the widely published and frequently staged translations by John Van Burek and Bill Glassco as evidenced by the following titles: The Guid Sisters, The Real Wurld?, The House among the Stars, A Full Moon in September, and If Only. The collection also includes the Scots’ translation of Hosanna, Forever Yours Marie-Lou, and Albertine in Five Times. Bowman wrote a literal translation from the original for each play and Findlay brought to the collaborative process his familiarity with, and his knowledge of, the Scots dialects and variations; Glaswegian Scots is no more universally Scottish than Tremblay’s representation of Montreal joual spoken on le plateau is uniformly québécois. Moreover, Findlay’s and Bowman’s insistence on the vernacular was no further in the interest of adding local colour than was Tremblay’s; on the contrary, the register, vocabulary, and syntax contributed to the staging of highly politicized language. Indeed, in the foreword to the collection, Michael Boyd, then artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company notes, “I do suspect Tremblay felt truly recognized and heard by the ‘English-speaking world’ for the first time in Glasgow” (p. xii, vol. I). The challenge, therefore, lay in staging recognizable Tremblay in a format that would win over a decidedly different local audience; Bowman and Findlay aimed to convey both the universality of Tremblay and the distinctiveness of Scottish theatre. As Bowman notes, “Bill and I always felt that there was a special affinity between Quebec and Scotland that allowed our translations and this astonishing speech gave us the opportunity to let Quebec speak in a Scots play on a Scottish stage” (p. 25, vol. I). In his analysis, which includes his valuable and extensive correspondence with Findlay, Bowman elaborates on the difficult choices made to achieve this goal and delicate balance. For example, the plays were staged in their original settings (i.e., Montreal, 1965 for The Guid Sisters), French accents were not used, but the original names, and, for the Scots actors, their challenging pronunciation, were also maintained thanks to Bowman’s determined coaching “in the particular sounds of joual” (p. 24, vol. I). For example, Yvette Longpré’s memorable and only significant …