BARBED WIRE
By Annick Lefebvre | Translated by Johanna Nutter
with WSW British Equity London Branch (London UK)
March 2020
BARBED WIRE
By Annick Lefebvre | Translated by Johanna Nutter
with WSW British Equity London Branch (London UK & Montreal)
A strand of barbed wire has started to grow inside you. You’ve got about an hour before your lips are sewn shut. What will you say while you still have the time? What will be your last word? This play is written with gender fluidity in mind.
This March, we were kindly invited by the British Equity WSW London Office to lead some new play development activities. Taking advantage of this opportunity to introduce British artists to francophone Canadian works in translations. Barbed Wire translator, Johanna Nutter, joined us from Montreal via skype.
Special thank you to actors to Stevie Skinner and JD Hunt and organiser Lola May!
About the playwright
ANNICK
LEFEBVRE
Before completing her degree in criticism and dramaturgy, Annick Lefebvre had placed her buttocks in Wajdi Mouawad’s Rehearsal Hall for Incendie (Scorched). In 2012, Annick founded Le Crachoir, a company that examines the role of the author in the process of creating, producing and presenting theatre. She is the author of Ce samedi il pleuvait (Marc Beaupré, Le Crachoir, Aux Écuries, 2013), La machine à révolte (Jean Boillot, Le Préau / NEST-Théâtre, 2015), Barbelés (Alexia Bürger, Théâtre de Quat’sous et Théâtre La Colline, 2017) and ColoniséEs (René Richard Cyr, CTD’A, 2019). Her play J’accuse (Sylvain Bélanger, CTD’A, 2015) received the BMO Dramatic Writing Award, was a finalist for the AQCT Critics’ Award, the Prix Michel Tremblay and the Governor General of Canada Literary Award in 2015. Annick is currently adapting J’accuse for France (Sébastien Bournac, compagnie Tabula Rasa). Her work is published by Dramaturges Éditeurs.
About the translator
JOHANNA NUTTER
Johanna Nutter is artistic director of creature/creature, a polymorphic company born of Nutter’s passion for blurring lines between established divisions. Her work has toured extensively throughout her home province of Quebec, across Canada and internationally, in both English and French, to such venues as Soho Theatre (London), The Pleasance (Edinburgh), Les Halles (Brussels), and La Licorne (Montreal). Known for her intimate and personal collaborations, recent works include Tree Hug, OSCAR, and the multi-award winning my pregnant brother/my playwright sister (2009 – 2018). She won the PWM/Cole Emerging Translator award and brought CHLORINE (Longpré & Michon), which produced and directed at The Centaur (Brave New Looks 2016). She is currently working on texts by Annick Lefèbvre, Guillaume Corbeil, and Étienne Lepage.
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.