Michel Tremblay: Plays in Scots

The greatest playwright Scotland never had. Mark Fisher, The Guardian Michel Tremblay is considered the most important playwright in Quebec theatre history. His ground-breaking work for theatre presents Montreals working class speaking the citys vernacular French. Tremblays plays and novels create a family saga where many characters appear in more than one work. Bill Findlay, a Scot, and Martin Bowman, a Montrealer of Scottish descent, translated eight Tremblay plays into Scots. The energy, versatility, and range of the Scots language capture the essence of Tremblays drama. These critically acclaimed translations, produced professionally in Scotland from 1989 to 2003, constitute an important body of work in modern Scottish theatre. Three of this volumes translations premiered in Edinburgh: The House among the Stars and Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer at the Traverse and If Only... at the Royal Lyceum. Albertine, in Five Times premiered at Glasgows Tron, touring to eight Scottish cities. In them, Tremblay without diminishing the intensity of his dissection of family life considers possible acceptance and reconciliation in the face of the difficulties and challenges confronting his characters. Besides playtexts, both volumes of Michel Tremblay: Plays in Scots contain a foreword and introductions to each volume as well as to each play, including historical background material.