The English-theatre's latest play is titled Masterclass with Shakespeare. (source: Vanda Alberty )
Bratislava prides itself on having a rich multilingual history. Well into the last century, people from across Slovakia, Austria and Hungary all saw it as their native city and lived side by side within it. Much of its population up until the early inter-war period spoke Slovak, German, and Hungarian, to some degree of fluency.
Slovak came to dominate in the years under communism, but today the city boasts an estimated 70,000-strong foreign community of varied nationalities.
For the last decade, a theatre company with a difference has been serving that community, offering drama performances in the common language most of those foreigners speak.
“Every capital city has its own English-only theatre. It is only natural that Bratislava has one, too,” Zuzana Kolejáková, manager of the Bridgin’ Drama English-language theatre, told The Slovak Spectator.
The theatre group, whose current home is the Divadlo Pavla Országha Hviezdoslava(DPOH) theatre in Bratislava’s Old Town district, has been performing for more than a decade.
Kolejáková says part of its unique appeal is that, as an activity of The Bridge language school, its performers include native-speaker teachers from the school.
