English spoken -- and Spanish heard

A recent news release from San Diego Repertory Theatre asked, “¿Habra lugar para romance en la vida de una madre soltera?” -- Is there room for romance in the life of a single mom? -- in the theater’s current attraction, Theresa Rebeck’s “Bad Dates.”

The line was in Spanish because San Diego Rep is providing live Spanish translation over headsets for nine performances of Rebeck’s comedy.

It’s a pilot program instigated by marketing director Michael Gepner, who arrived in San Diego two years ago and heard that 40% of county residents speak a language other than English at home and that most of that 40% speak Spanish.

Working with hardly any money, he prevailed on Yolanda S. Walther-Meade to translate “Bad Dates.” As a solo show, it seemed easier to handle than a play with many roles. Theater students from San Diego City College are providing the live translation, working from backstage video monitors.

Unlike some San Diego Rep programming, nothing about Rebeck’s script is Latino-specific, but Gepner says that’s part of the point of the program. While it’s easy to attract Latinos to a Luis Valdez play, he wants to make “the broader mix of shows more accessible, to focus people’s attention on going to the theater instead of this show or that show.”

The play’s title in Spanish is “Citas Saladas,” which, to the literal-minded, might look more like “Salty Dates” than “Bad Dates.” But Walther-Meade notes that the use of saladas in this context is a colloquialism easily understood by the regional Spanish-speaking audience. The use of the Spanish word for “bad,” malas, would be far too literal, she says.