Muriel Gold : Experiment
in two
tongues at the Saidye Bronfman Centre Theatre
"When
the lights go up next Wednesday on the open stage of the Saidye
Bronfman
Centre, spectators will be watching, for the first time in Canadian
drama
history, Theatre Rencontre, an evening of two one-act, original plays
in
English and French....it does come as a surprise that the experiment
under way
at the Centre is a first." (Lawrence Sabbath, Montreal Star,
March
16, 1973). So began the collaboration
between Allied Jewish Community Services, Saidye Bronfman Centre,
Playwrights'
Workshop, and the Centre d'Essai des Auteurs Dramatiques "to develop
ways
of rapprochement between Anglophones and Francophones and to sensitize
the
Jewish community to the importance of the French language and culture".
As
A.D., I included in our five-play season on the main stage, one
Québecois play
in translation to expose audiences to Québecois plays and
artists. The Saidye
Bronfman Centre, a unique regional theatre housed in a cultural centre,
itself
an adjunct of a Jewish Community Centre was, from its outset, dedicated
to
building closer relationships between the various ethnic groups. "Its
balanced repertoire of international and native scripts, its support of
Canadian artists, its bilingual and bicultural experiments...make it a
dynamic
regional playhouse and a treasured national resource" (John Ripley,
1976).