GAMETES
By Rébecca Déraspe | Translated by Leanna Brodie
with British Equity WSW London Branch
(London, UK)
Special thanks you to actors Miranda Heath, Jessica Ellerby, Clive Greenwood and the lovely Lola May for making it all happen.
How do modern young women negotiate love, ambition, and reproduction? What are the lines we can never cross, not even for a friend? In this age of trolling and tribes and irreconcilable views, do we ultimately love our opinions more than we love each other? Acclaimed Québec writer Rébecca Déraspe tackles female friendship, sexuality and fertility, self-fulfillment, and other stuff that shouldn’t be so damn funny, as Anne’s pregnancy threatens her relationship with her lifelong friend Lou. This poetic yet no-holds-barred two-hander features virtuosic transformations as two actresses play both the BFFs and all the people who have shaped their lives over the years. Another comic triumph from the author of You Are Happy, Gametes won the Montreal critics’ prize for best new play of the 2016-17 season.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT: RÉBECCA DÉRASPE
A leading new voice in francophone playwrighting, Rebecca Déraspe is a graduate of the french language writing program the National Theatre School. She is the author of several plays performed and translated around the world including Two Years of Your Life, More Than You, Bear Skin, Gametes, Nino, I Am William, The Wonderful Journey of Réal de Montréal, Everywhere Else, Our Little Fingers. She is also author-in-residence at the Théâtre la Unicorne. She won the Critics’ Award for “Best Young Audience Show 2018” for her play I Am William, Best Drama Montreal 2017 for her play Gametes and the 2010 BMO Playwright Award for her play Two Years of Your Life.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: LEANNA BRODIE
Leanna Brodie is an actor, playwright, and translator whose passions include lifting up the stories and voices of women, and championing a new generation of French-Canadian playwrights by. Her original plays The Vic, For Home and Country, The Book of Esther, and Schoolhouse (Talon Books) have been performed across Canada. Her translations include Christian Bégin’s After Me and Why Are You Crying?; Louise Bombardier’s My Mother Dog; Annie Brocoli’s Stardust; Rébecca Déraspe’s You Are Happy, I Am William, and Gametes; Amélie Dumoulin’s Violette; Sébastien Harrisson’s From Alaska and Two-Part Inventions; Catherine Léger’s Opium_37; David Paquet’s The Shoe; Olivier Sylvestre’s The Paradise Arms; Philippe Soldevila’s Tales of the Moon; Larry Tremblay’s Panda Panda; and multiple plays by Hélène Ducharme.
The translation of Gametes was supported by Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal’s Glassco Translation Residency.
