P.E.I.'s Watermark Theatre to offer Mandarin, French surtitles

The Watermark Theatre in North Rustico, P.E.I., is looking to attract new customers this summer by offering surtitles in Mandarin and French for some performances of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

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Surtitles, common in opera and kabuki theatre, are like subtitles in film except they are projected on a screen above, not below, performers on the set.

"I think it's really important. If this works, we could say we're going to do this in Arabic maybe," said Andrea Surich, the general manager of the Watermark, adding the theatre's goal is to make classic theatre accessible to more people.

Last year, the theatre experimented with surtitles in French and English for its original bilingual production, Canada 300.

'We know how to do this'

"That kind of sparked the idea of, we know how to do this, why don't we think about doing it in Mandarin? Because there are so many newcomers on the Island," Surich said.

The theatre has hired a Mandarin and a French speaker to create slides in a computer program. An employee will manually load the slides as the play unfolds.

The Mandarin surtitles will be offered for three performances on August 3, 11 and 19, andare being sponsored by Respon International Group. French surtitles will be offered July 29 and August 1.

"It's a lot like watching a foreign film," said Surich. "It becomes just part of your peripheral vision, right? After a while, you stop even noticing that you're reading and watching at the same time."

The theatre has advertised to P.E.I.'s Chinese community and told the Island's visitor centres.

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