Canadian Theatre in Latin America: Translation and Dissemination

Canadian theatre has achieved a high level of popularity in Latin America and is now widely translated both for production and publication. Much of this success has been a mutual affair, the result of exchange programs between theatre companies in Mexico, Argentina, and other countries with those in Canada. This initiative largely originated in Quebec, which established bilateral agreements with theatre groups and cultural agencies from other countries in Latin America, especially Mexico, as early as the 1980s, and followed them up with theatre festivals, tours, and a continual stream of funding for translations. English Canadian dramatists as varied as Judith Thompson, Steve Galluccio, and Michael Mackenzie have been translated into Spanish, as well as a plethora of Quebec playwrights, from Michel Tremblay and Evelyne de la Cheneliere to Chantal Bilodeau and Suzanne Lebeau. Latin Americans living in Canada have also played a role. A whole generation of experienced Latin American translators has arisen to meet this challenge, many of them in Mexico encouraged by the French playwright, actor, and translator Boris Schoemann, who immigrated to Mexico twenty years ago. This essay, then, will give an overview of the development and diffusion of Canadian theatre in Latin America, with particular attention to the cultural exchange between the two regions and to the crucial role that translation has played in the evolution of Latin American interest in Canadian drama.