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It Ain't English:
Reflections on Staging Original American Plays in Britain

Manchester, England

By Jeff Johnson..The Global Guy..page3

But this total restructuring of the text may retain more of the intended essence of the play than by trying to remain "true" to the original script. And this is the problem when trying to present an American play to a British audience. A play written by an American for Americans in a strictly American context will probably have more chance of success if translated and staged in a foreign language than if it is staged, in its original context, in, say, England - just as many typically English plays will not succeed in America. The differences in the "common language" are too severe, the cultural references too localized. These comments, obviously, are restricted to regional productions and fringe theatre, the heart of the local dramatic communities, and are not relevant to the interchangeable Broadway and West End musicals or "drawing room plays" popular with the "Masterpiece Theatre" crowd. I'm also discounting the luxury of bringing an American company to Britain, which even then does not remedy the problems of localized references and difficulties with the language, and, besides, most of us will not find ourselves being invited, expenses paid, to the National to amaze the critics with our talented all-American all-star cast and crew, not to mention overcoming strict union regulations, etc. So, in the real world, an American playwright interested in working in Britain has two options when it comes to realistically staging her work. First, she can play it "as is" with a British cast. Or, she can take her original idea and "Anglicize" it.

Playing it "as is" offers obvious advantages. Foremost, the writer has the privilege of maintaining the integrity of the original idea. The play is produced as it was conceived. Staging this version, assuming the play is socially realistic (if abstract, as mentioned above, the problems with production are diminished), offers the British audience the novelty of glimpsing a "slice" of American life. On the other hand, the disadvantages are serious, and in practice not so easily overcome. British actors vary in their ability to speak in convincing American accents, so often the production will feel uneven, as one actor delivers a fairly credible American voice while another will sound, at best, as if he's in a parody skit. Affecting Southern accents seems easiest for the actors who can't quite manage, as the open vowels of a drawl are closer to generic English than, say, a flat Midwestern twang. If your characters are not from the American south, this treatment can be disheartening. American rhythms and syntax also present problems for British actors without lots of practice, and still, even after rigorous exercises and reading sessions, the original pace of the play may suffer, the lines may sound forced, the flow fractured, because the intuitive ear is simply different and difficult to correct. A monologue, for instance, in which cadence is crucial, that sounds crisp and poetic in American, can sound wet and sluggish in English. Finally, local, cultural and political references which an American audience takes for granted may well be lost on an English audience, and the actors themselves, even after tireless coaching, may not feel able to allude to unfamiliar references with the necessary authority to earn the audience's trust. I remember one play in which I could not teach an actor to pronounce "kahlua" properly, and because he'd never tasted it, and was hearing the word (incredibly enough) for the first time, it was just too foreign for him ever to get comfortable with. And after each subsequent reading he lost more and more confidence until the word turned into a literal rut in the road of his delivery. So I changed it to whiskey, a word and drink with which he was terminally intimate, and we never had a problem with those lines again. So one remedy is to revise the script slightly, without too much added exposition, hoping the references can be explained within the context - an awkward exercise, but effective given the fact that the audience cannot re-read a passage, so if they miss the idea when it's delivered, it's lost for good. Too much of this and the audience tunes out and begins thinking of their prudent foresight in pre-ordering interval drinks and of an early exit for last orders at the pub.

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