Lost in translation

The performance goes really well. Standing ovation.

We then settle down to watch the Portuguese version of my play. I watch the actor, and listen to the script via a translator.
What a strange experience, seeing such a familiar story to me played out in another language, performed in a different way to our version, but compelling, funny, and poignant.

I laugh at moments that have passed and Ioan tells me to stop laughing so loudly. I forget there is a delay.

I say to myself , you must savour the moment. Seeing my play being performed in a theatre in Rio, with people listening and enjoying the performance.

Feel very overwhelmed that from an initial idea told to me by Roy Davies, all those years ago, to this, an appreciative and enthusiastic audience half way around the world.

Luisa Massarani, the director of Museu Da Vida invites us to speak about the work of Theatr na n'Óg, and to a discussion about science and art, concentrating specifically on theatre as a resource to teach science.

It is an extremely knowledgeable audience, who talk passionately and eloquently about the power of theatre in illustrating quite complicating theories and processes.

It is fascinating and so inspirational. I start to think about a possible performance of our production to scientists and educationalists back home, to open up the debate on how to use theatre to teach science.

I have never really experienced simultaneous translation before, being a welsh speaker, I have never had the need to use the headphones in meetings or conferences.

A physicist asks me a question. I still have my headphones on, so as I answer, I'm hearing the Portuguese in my ear. I start to speak like Dory in Finding Nemo, speaking Whale, slow and deliberate. I take the headphones off.

And I'm off. The translator keeps up, and I think they get what I'm trying to say. We have created a play for young people about the man who co-discovered the theory of evolution by natural selection, so they will possibly struggle with the actual complexities of the theory, but for me it is more about introducing them to an exciting world of exploration. The story, the play is a springboard into that world, ready for them to investigate further. A play for curious minds.

We finish by presenting Luisa with a photograph of Sgwd yr Eira in the Neath Vale. A place close to Wallace's heart.

There is then a reception of guava juice, cake and an abundance of mosquitoes!