GAMETES
By Rébecca Déraspe | Translated by Leanna Brodie
with British Equity WSW London Branch (London UK)
International Remote New Translation Workshop 2020
In association with
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 transmitting their extraordinary theatrical visions into the English language. 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 and I Lost My Husband!; David Paquet’s Wildfire and 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 of Théâtre Motus, whose acclaimed Baobab continues to tour China and the Americas after more than 600 performances. www.leannabrodie.com
About our partner
British Equity
WSW London Branch
The West and South West London Branch of Equity UK. Equity is the UK trade union for professional performers and creative practitioners.