The English Language National Theatre in Wales: What is the role of language in the work of NTW?

Some members of the National Theatre Wales community have raised the question: why is there no Welsh language in the National Theatre Wales newspaper?

National Theatre Wales is officially the English language National Theatre in Wales. As most of you will know, there is already a Welsh language National Theatre of Wales: Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru.

There is nothing like the issue of language to divide a nation however and this is particularly true in Wales.

What is our role as the English language national theatre in Wales, a bilingual country?

What about the representation of ALL the languages of our communities in Wales whose first language is not English?

All thoughts wanted please!

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Thanks for this Michael. We are going to keep looking at this over the coming months, and all suggestions will be very helpful.
Hi Catherine,

I suspect people were taking bets on how long it would take for language to rear it's head on this site...I note a slight reluctance to respond?

I was at London Welsh last week having the One Wales, two languages debate; it had been a while, and although it was the same argument I have been having for the last 15 years, I took comfort in its familiarity. As you say Wales is a bilingual nation, it's who we are. Our growing confidence as a self governed country with two national languages, like so many others in the world, is something to sing about. It shouldn't divide us, in part it defines us. It's brilliant.

There are the practical legal necessities of having publicity available in both languages, which I think Michael deals with.

Personally I don't believe our bilingualism excludes other languages and cultures and obviously I think National Theatre Wales should celebrate and represent all the people here by making theatre that is brilliant and different to the rest of the UK and the World because it was made in Wales by the people who live here now, or whose heritage is Welsh, or who are excited by what National Theatre Wales means.

The need for two national theatres, one in each language, perhaps represents our youth as a confident bilingual country? Definitely English language work in Wales needed a boost, there has been pitifully little funded work around for the last ten years, (and we definitely need to hear more from the English language Welsh voices). Having a National Theatre for the English language goes some way to redressing this. However, in the future when National Theatre Wales has been a huge success, revived audiences and uncovered and developed brilliant new artists, I think perhaps we will only need one organisation?

As for, 'what is our role as the English language national theatre in Wales, a bilingual country?' In India there is an expression that the English gave birth to the English language but the Indians taught it to sing. I think this is equally true in Wales.
A unified, One Wales national theatre sounds like a wonderful and inclusive thing. But once you look at the practicalities of how such an institution might run, I'm less convinced.

When I'm working in a play Welsh, I want to work with the best directors, dramaturgs, and so on - and obviously they need to be Welsh-speakers. And when I'm working in English, I want to work with the best directors and dramaturgs - and they don't need to be Welsh-speakers.

But it's always going to be more efficient for a bilingual institution to employ staff who can work in both languages (in fact, one of the reasons most often cited for joining Welsh and English language institutions is efficiency, in terms of avoiding replication of staff). And so if I'm working on an English play with the future One Wales NTW, who am I working with? Probably not the best people available from the whole theatre community. Rather, it will tend to be the best people available from the small minority of that community who speak Welsh. I'll write a poorer play; talented non-Welsh speaking directors/dramaturgs and so on will tend to leave and their talents will be recognised elsewhere; and the non-Welsh speaking audience here gets work that is less brilliant than it could be.
I agree, this definitely could be a major disadvantage of one institution. I definitely think talent, skill and vision are miles more important, and useful, than heritage, in terms of building a successful exciting theatre.

I think I was probably being idealistic...

Also, when I said pitiful little theatre in English, sorry, I should have said for adults and in studio theatres like the Traverse, the drum, the peacock and the really famous ones in Paris I can't remember the name of...Obviously there’s lots of brilliant new work for children in English.
There is a question about the role of language in publicity material, replicating or duplicating language has been the tradition here. I think that readers and participants have different expectation these days. When marketing beyond Wales and the UK language can add a richness and sometimes a much needed parallel with other countries who are mostly bilingual and even trilingual, the UK and especially Wales can sometimes become insular in it's battle with language and their possible presentation. I think inspiration, research and even answers can be found from other countries with similar circumstances. Promoting theatre internationally requires an international perspective.
Everyone who speaks Welsh can also speak English, so they can read the whole newspaper, wheras the converse is not true ;-)

There are lots of languages other than English spoken regularly in Wales and they should be included just as much as Welsh.
No. By law Welsh and English are the official languages of Wales. An organisation such as NTW which is publicly funded needs to adhere to this. Most European countries are bilingual and so is Wales. Your argument that one shouldn't bother because Welsh speakers can understand English is irrelevant. See how the French, Germans etc would respond to a similar comparison! Ntw have to be careful with the language issue and provide all info in both languages. We are not a monoglot country and it would be great if Ntw could do some bilingual productions in the future.
Looking at it from the outside it seems strange that there are two National Theatres, one for each language. From an admin and financial point of view it would surely be more effective to merge the two, although creatively and in terms of employment I assume there would be some kind of chaos if that were to happen.

Including Welsh in an English-language National Theatre, and including English in a Welsh-language National Theatre doesn't seem to make commen sense (or any kind of sense at all) surely the way forward would be a single, bi-lingual National Theatre...I assume that that is what both entities will eventually become anyway.

At the moment though, since the English Language National Theatre seems to be quite young, it should play down the language debate until it can establish itself both as an organisation and a brand. Otherwise it may be like playing cards before your full hand has been dealt.
Does anyone else find this thread makes them want to scream?
Surely, Tim, if you're screaming - that just means you want to go faster?
People don't know what they don't know but then I don't know that I do either.
Ahhh, "the language debate". Do we have to start chasing our tails again?

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