Lost & Found in Translation | Unloving | Loan Word Theatre | Etcetera Theatre

When a newly formed theatre company launches its debut production on the London fringe, success is fiercely chased but rarely guaranteed. Yet, Loan Word Theatre has achieved exactly that with their inaugural production, Unloving.

Currently staging a deeply compelling run at Camden’s renowned ‪Etcetera Theatre, the play—a poignant translation of a contemporary Bolivian script—has clearly struck a nerve with London audiences. In fact, it has resonated so strongly that its initial run has just been officially extended due to overwhelming popular demand.

Bringing a nuanced international voice to a UK stage is a complex undertaking, blending the challenges of cultural translation with the raw vulnerability of a premiere production.

To unpack the journey of Unloving, we sat down with the creative forces behind the breakout hit: Miriam Price, Artistic Director of Loan Word Theatre, and Daniel Krmpotic, who delivers a captivating performance in the play. In the conversation, we discuss the intricacies of adapting a Bolivian narrative for a London audience, the emotional landscape of the play, and what it means to set up a brand new company in London.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLiPcGwBhL8

TRANSCRIPT

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

(0:16 - 0:41)

What is your professional origin story and what did you do to pull over it? Gosh, what is my professional origin story? So, it's not a straight path I would say. I've had a few lives but I guess one of the origins would be in university. So I studied languages at university but I was very involved in the theatre society at the time and I got to direct a little bit and produce a little bit and I always loved doing that.

(0:41 - 1:13)

But then I sort of departed from theatre land after graduation and did corporate life, various different jobs, different industries and then came back in the last couple of years. Started training as an actor and then one thing led to another and here we are. How does your background in translation and languages influence the company? Yeah, so it is a company focused on translated scripts so I suppose it wouldn't have happened without that.

(1:15 - 1:48)

It influences the kind of work that I want to do and I guess my... Honestly, what happened was we found the script for this show first and it started out not even necessarily intending to put it on but I found the script in Spanish when I was researching Latin American plays and loved it, wanted to show it to my theatre friends who didn't speak Spanish. I was like, well I'll have to translate it for them and then after I'd done that one of them said, why don't you put it on? And I said, that seems a bit much. And she was like, why not? And I didn't have an answer.

(1:48 - 2:17)

So yeah, ended up putting it on and now we're hoping to put on more. Was there one specific moment, was that the moment you decided to launch your own company when your friends said, just go and do it? It was a bit after that. So I was then looking for options for venues and dates and thought we might give ourselves a good six month run up and then this chance came up with the Et Cetera at their Women's Writers Festival and it was kind of an unmissable opportunity.

(2:17 - 2:56)

So six months became two and I said to myself, well if we're going to do this, if it's going to be over by March then what am I going to do with the rest of the year? So start a company, it gives us the runway to then do more after Unloving. Do you have any professional training within the creative industry at all? Other than, mainly as an actor. So I trained with City Academy and been in some shows with them and done different workshops and short courses around London and I did do a short sort of director's course last year just to check if there was anything obvious I was missing but not really, we are learning as we go.

(2:57 - 3:43)

And have any of those courses sort of set you up for how to actually run a business or something? No, none of those have been business management specific. So what was the hardest part of getting your company off the ground other than the fact that you only took two months to do it? I think just convincing myself that it was okay to do it. That sounds like a cop-out answer but once you've done it and you're online on social media, it's like, well it's real now so we just have to make it a thing and it kind of, the to-do list never stops growing but you get through it and each day it grows and you're like, well yeah it's happening now and oh the tickets are on sale and we got a cast and yeah.

(3:43 - 4:37)

So the longest bit, I took a full week to decide after I got the contract from the theatre to then actually sign it and say, okay this is happening and that week I didn't really, I wasn't really doing much except battling with myself in my head so that was the hard bit. In your experience, is it more difficult starting a theatre company or directing or acting in a play? Ooh, starting a theatre company, yeah. Having just said that, yeah it does take a lot of hours and things that you don't know you need to think about until you're doing it and there's so many different aspects to running any business and you learn what your strengths are as you go and your weaknesses and I've discovered some things that's like, well I'd rather not do this part next time if I can find someone to help me, so yeah.

(4:37 - 5:04)

I think you also figure out how to prioritise certain things over others, right? Absolutely, yeah. Like you said, your to-do list never finishes so you've got to figure out a way to get the most out of everything by doing not as little as possible, but it is that because otherwise you won't sleep. Yeah, and just the ability to make decisions more quickly and trust your judgement on things where you're like, we don't have time to think about this for a week.

(5:06 - 19:14)

What's the biggest hidden cost of running a theatre company? I guess time, it's probably not very hidden, probably anyone can guess that it takes a lot of long hours and stuff but as with anything, it's time you don't get back but we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't love it so it feels like time well spent so far, I won't speak for you. You want to push the boundaries with the stuff that you're making and you want to bring new translations of different works over here which hasn't necessarily been done before so there's going to be a certain amount of chance with theatre venues and the money that you put behind it that potentially you won't get the audiences so how do you balance, I'm going to put this amount of money in and hopefully get this experience or this break-even or what's the goal? I'd say two parts to that one. Firstly, Unloving as a script lends itself really well to minimalist style of staging and directing and all of that and to fringe theatre as well, it's a two-hander, the set is very flexible so in terms of the artistic workload, it's very adaptable, which helps also, credit to the Et Cetera, they offered us a chance without asking many questions so that was very fortunate and we're looking forward to hopefully building on that maybe working with them again or taking it somewhere else, we'll see but for me personally, from a producing angle in terms of the finances and stuff I went into it with the mindset of knowing everything that I've paid for the acting training I've done in the last couple of years, and it's not cheap, especially in London I said to myself, if I can pay similar to what I've paid for those other things where I've had a great time and learned stuff, but actually for something that's my own then that's a great deal for me in terms of return on investment as an experience How do the rights work if you're pulling a foreign piece? Yeah, there's a lot of information out there and it's not one single answer but I was in touch with the writer early days and Lara, she's lovely and has been super supportive of the whole process, we've been talking since September last year and basically she and I have an agreement that I've got the rights to put this on and as a translation, it becomes a new piece in itself, so we have, for the purposes of this show we share rights, but after we're done here, we want to talk about submitting this script elsewhere for other English competitions or publishing and that sort of thing and we're going to work that out as we go What drew you to translating the script and tell us a little bit about what Unloving is about Yes, what is Unloving about? Well, I'll start with the other one What drew me to the script, so I mentioned I was researching Latin American plays generally I lived in Latin America when I was a student of Spanish and never really touched the theatre scene while I was there so it kind of occurred to me after getting more involved that I hadn't merged those two parts of my life so I was like, I want to see what's out there and found this great library from an Argentine drama school and Unloving was in there, in the pile but it stood out for the sort of abstract nature of it it's a very original style of storytelling, I think and it's a really relatable story although it's a Bolivian play and we've sometimes marketed it as a play that's come all the way from Bolivia you wouldn't necessarily tell from watching it there's no need to speak Spanish or understand anything about Bolivian culture the story itself is universal so that was another thing where it's nice that we can show people something from the other side of the world that's every bit as relatable to us here in London as a story from here and then what is it about? Well, without spoilers, I think to me Unloving is about two people trying to get closer together as they explore two other people moving further apart That's a great one, so deep Yeah, can I quote you on that? What's the rough budget for this show and is it self-funded or did you get some funding from Etcetera, from the Women's Theatre Festival? How did it work? Yeah, so the budget, roughly, is under two grand Bloody impressive Okay, I have no idea Some of that is support from the Arts Council which went direct to Etcetera so that allowed them to give us venue space and tech support which has been invaluable and then yes, the rest has been privately funded, self-funded How did you recruit your lovely cast? Well, Daniel here I met at an acting workshop last year and he did a fantastic monologue and I actually followed you out of the room I think you were trying to leave I cornered you on the street and said, I'm casting something, let's stay in touch Hannah, I've known for a long time We went to school together but we'd never worked together as creatives before She is very successful in her own right as a performing artist and so it was just really nice to find a reason to be able to work together for this How long have you spent rehearsing? Is the opening day today? And where are you rehearsing now? It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks So the funny thing is that as of right now on a Friday morning it's less than two weeks since Daniel has been fully in the cast Wow So we've done, and the rehearsal schedule wise, it was like about four days Four days of rehearsal over the last two weeks Oh is that, yeah, four days, okay, yeah How did you learn everything in two weeks? Support and repetition and hiding lines in my jacket or during my workplace or whenever I could really And where have you been rehearsing? We've split our time between studios in Bermondsey and Dalston Where did you go to drama school or train or do any of that? I went to drama school in Toronto, Canada at the Toronto Metropolitan University That was a four year programme And then after that I was lucky enough to do, there's a place called the Stratford Festival It's a large regional theatre there And they run their own school called the Birmingham Conservatory I did another two years there, but that's a paid programme So they kind of paid to train me, which was invaluable And then what brought you over to London? The possibilities, I think the top here is very interesting and kind of the amount of things that you can do So it's not that I was looking for a fresh start, but I wanted to kind of expand my horizons So a bigger art scene in here than Toronto? Both, different and bigger So yeah, different and bigger And did any of your training throughout that six years teach you how to survive as a freelancer or an actor? Well, as was kind of alluded to, I was approached to do this project in December But for reasons I couldn't start until two weeks ago So I think my training taught me how to text analyse and access the script fast So that part was done by my training But in terms of being a freelancer, no I think the training is more focused on doing the acting But less successful in teaching you what to do when you're not acting Which is a lot of what the actor's life is How easy are you finding playing your character and acting out sort of a breakup? I think I'm finding it easy because the writing is so good I think the more I look at the script, the more I go Oh, there's moments of that in me or moments of my past partners in that So it's almost like the script is reflecting back onto me What we all have experienced in some way, at some point And how close to the original is it? It's pretty close, yeah I don't think this is a spoiler There's one niggle in the translation I remember where I went back and forth with Laura a bit As with any translation, there's a few idiomatic expressions or metaphors That you will have to change when you translate them because they don't work in English But there was one in one of your lines Where your character says something about a pillow being thrown And I translated it as a pillow because I read the sentence And I was like, yeah, he's talking about a pillow And Laura came back to me and said, no, no, no, that's a mattress I was like, oh, this man is throwing a mattress? How does he even do that? And she was like, yeah, no, that's the point, he's throwing a mattress I was like, okay, if you're sure So that was one where it took a while for that to come out in the wash But yeah, otherwise, it's basically as close as it can be How are you finding working with Etcetera, both of you? Good, yeah They've been actually incredibly responsive the whole time It's been very quick and easy, I would say, overall Which not everybody has experienced But from the word go, when I first contacted them to say Would you consider this show? That afternoon, the contract was in my inbox So it's kind of like that with them, I think In general, I get that impression They want to get as many shows on as they can Yeah, and I think for me, Etcetera, I haven't yet played in the space I haven't done the show yet But seeing it, that is kind of what I've come to London for I think a lot of theatres elsewhere is regional theatres outside of the city Whereas this is just above a pub It's in the community And that's something I think is actually really special here Yeah, that's a good point What's the biggest challenge you face being a creative freelancer in London? I'm not sure I would have identified as a freelancer Before you sent me those questions I was like, oh, that's me! And also, I've not yet left my corporate life behind entirely So I feel like I'm on the edge of the cliff Looking out, being like, I want to be there But I haven't made the leap yet So you work part-time? Yeah, yeah And that's still in the safety net But no complaints so far I mean, ignorance is bliss, right? And how are you finding being a freelancer in London from Canada? It must be pretty complicated Well, similarly so I never really attached myself to the word freelancer But I think that it's true I think so much of it is what I hearkened earlier That it's really how you spend your time when you're not doing a show Is really the hard part When someone generously asks you to be part of something That's when it's easy But when you're balancing the work life and not doing anything Then you're having to follow your interests I think that's it Following my interests in a city this big That's kind of the key And just trusting that something will come from following that Do you have another job on the side? Yes, I currently work as a concierge at a hotel in Soho Do you have any other projects of the day? I'm going actually back to Canada to do a show with Drayton Theatre An Agatha Christie play And then there were none How do you stay organised with your life admin? Taxes and accounts and all the boring stuff in between gigs? I live and die by Google Calendar Excellent And post-it notes everywhere On my body parts, on my notebooks, on all surfaces in my home Have a good accountant who understands I think the artists struggle the artist's life And kind of nudges you maybe At least for me who's not necessarily the most Not money savvy but numeric savvy Who can nudge you in the right direction I think has been also crucial for me I think that's key as well Because accountants will always save you money They will always find stuff in your bag of receipts But actually you can fax them that as well It's a good lesson What is your one piece of advice for starting out in this industry? Just don't think about it too much Just do it Make it happen and then it's real And then once it's real, you've done it Does that work? Yeah Do you have any advice for budding actors starting out? I think two things Understand that every piece of advice Is just advice from the past But the world is changing constantly So what you experience and the advice people give you Is two different things And also to understand the difference between An artistic pursuit and a business pursuit So if you're doing something via social media Or something to help yourself grow career-wise That's great But that is a different thing than focussing on Your craft and learning how to grow Internally as an actor And to just understand those two And when you're doing one and the other If that makes sense Obviously you're performing today Today is Friday the 13th of March But when else are you performing here? Yes, we'll be on again on Monday the 30th of March At 7 o'clock And that is our one and only evening show That is selling out fast That is selling out fast There's actually two tickets left So get them before they're gone And where can we find you on social media? We're on Instagram at lonewordtheatre Where can we find you on social media? Instagram? Daniel Kropotk, Instagram handle Thank you very much Thank you.