Grappling across the Pond with the question of independence

Three-year cultural exchange between Quebec and Scotland results in bilingual play about national identity

IN a theatre in Montreal, an imaginary family sit around an imaginary table trying to imagine how the future looks. There are arguments over the past and disagreements over the present. The woman at the top of the table appears weary as discussion takes flight around her, a discussion about how her belongings will be broken up.

Who gets the paintings? Who gets the house? What becomes of the land?

What will tomorrow look like?

Moments later, the scene shifts to

Scotland and the now defunct Arches nightclub, where a Glasgow boy is falling for a Quebecois girl on the night of the 2014 independence referendum. He’d heard the rumour of a result for No; she was still dancing over the possibility of Yes. The pair come together united by politics, in more ways than one, their question the same: what will tomorrow look like?

Canadian actors are speaking in French about Scotland, and Scottish actors are speaking in English about French Canada.

The language might be different, but the subject spans the Pond.

Across both of these lands, people have grappled with the question of independence.

And across both of these lands, people have rejected the option.

It’s this unique commonality that lies at the heart of a new collaborative production between the National Theatre of Scotland and Quebec’s Theatre PAP and Hotel Motel.

First Snow/Premiere Neige is a bilingual play at the Edinburgh Fringe, performed by an ensemble cast from both sides of the Atlantic.

On the surface, it’s a story about a family struggling to come to a shared vision for their ancestral home.

Beneath that, it’s a rumination on two nations grappling with the question of independence.

“It’s a project which has evolved from a three-year artist and cultural exchange between Quebec and Scotland, which came about through an initial conversation between artists from both companies at the time of the Scottish independence referendum,” says Caroline Newall, National Theatre of Scotland’s director of artistic development, backstage at Montreal’s Theatre Quat’Sous, when I visit during rehearsals.

“There was originally no sense that there would be a show at the end of it, it was really an opportunity for artists from both nations to come together and have a conversation about why our nations had sought independence.

“It didn’t become clear that there could be a show until November 2016. Every time we met, whether in Scotland or Montreal, we always asked the question about whether there could be a piece of theatre in this.

“The question then was about what would we want it to say, and what the artists would say about the issue of sovereignty. It’s so complex, so diverse.”

Writer Davey Anderson is one part of the three-nibbed team, along with Scottish writer Linda McLean and Montreal-based Philippe Ducros, charged with steering a story which takes in both Quebec’s referendums, indyref 2014, the French and British influence on Canada and the impact of Brexit and Donald Trump on the wider political identities in Scotland and Quebec.

“When there are three playwrights who want to take control of the words, it means you really have to justify and fight for how the text should be,” he says.

“It has been amazing to learn how to come to a common style and have the vocabulary to speak to each other about all the things you take for granted as a writer, putting things which are normally unspoken into words.

“On top of that, you have two languages, two different continents. Philippe very graciously agreed to work with us in English. He had the tricky mental gymnastics of thinking in French, writing in English and then translating it.”

Quebecois actor Isabelle Vincent plays the mother at the centre of the gathering. Having been attached to the project for the duration of its three-year gestation, her personal experience proved pivotal in the initial stages of development.

Anderson explains: “There was something Isabelle brought into the room which led to the idea of her character struggling to see the future.

“She said something that really stuck with me, that she was scared of losing her political enthusiasm. She was saying she was struggling to be hopeful about there being progressive change, about us being hopeful of being able to work collectively towards a better future. And that comes from our context of multiple political defeats.”

Vincent’s character was a visual artist who lived in Scotland, had a child there and returned home to Quebec.

“She’s at a stage in her life where she feels she is losing her fire, losing what is driving her for living,” she explains. “She is questioning her sense of existing and is wondering what to do