When the Traverse Theatre's artistic director Orla O'Loughlin touched down in Montreal in September to take part in an international exchange between Scots and Quebecois playwrights, one of the first things she saw was a Saltire hanging from a balcony in the city centre.

A week after the referendum on Scottish independence, feelings were still raw.

Edinburgh's new writing theatre had spent referendum night itself presenting its production of John McCann's play, Spoiling, which imagined the realpolitik behind an independence win as Scotland's first minister of international affairs prepared her maiden speech. The Traverse also hosted an informal presentation of David Greig's independence-themed Twitter plays. As the referendum result became clear, however, the next night of Spoiling was by all accounts an even more emotional affair.

It was against this backdrop that O'Loughlin arrived in Montreal with Scottish writers Rob Drummond, Douglas Maxwell and Morna Pearson for a weekend of readings at the city's Theatre La Licorne. Drummond's play, Quiz Show, Maxwell's A Respectable Widow Gives Advice, The Artist Man and the Mother Woman by Pearson and Most Favoured by David Ireland were all seen and heard in new Quebecois translations.

"The referendum was the first thing people wanted to talk to us about," says O'Loughlin. "We met people in Montreal who had travelled to Scotland for what they thought would be a celebration, but who returned despondent. In that context, some of the plays we took there became redefined as something political, so with The Artist Man and The Mother Woman, which is about a domineering mother and her son, you started thinking about a big nation bullying a smaller one next door, and it made you think about this relationship in a different way."

This week, the second half of the exchange will take place in Edinburgh, when artistic director of Theatre La Licorne, Jean-Denis Leduc, will present performed readings of three new Quebecois plays in English translation. The programme will feature works by leading Quebecois writers Fabien Cloutier, Catherine-Anne Toupin and Francois Archambault, which will all be directed by Theatre La Licorne's assistant artistic director, Philippe Lambert.

"Like Scotland," says Leduc, "Quebec is a nation next to a big strong neighbour. We are proud about what we are and what our theatre and culture is. We have big spaces like you have the Highlands, and we talk about identity. All of these things are part of our theatre and what our playwrights talk about."

The theatrical relationship between Scotland and Quebec has long been a fertile one, ever since Michel Tremblay's highly poetic works started being seen in Scots translations by Martin Bowman and Bill Findlay.

While The Guid Sisters was first seen at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, the Traverse produced Tremblay's A Solemn Mass For A Full Moon in Summer as well as Ella Wildridge and Tom McGrath's translation of Stones and Ashes, penned by Tremblay's fellow countryman, Daniel Danis.

Elsewhere, the Stellar Quines have also focused on Quebecois drama since their production of Jeanne-Mance Delisle's play, The Reel of the Hanged Man, more than a decade ago. More recently, the company forged a long-term collaboration with the Quebec-based Imago Theatre which resulted in Ana, a new bilingual play co-written by Clare Duffy and Pierre Yves Lemieux.

The company also presented an acclaimed version of Linda Griffiths' audacious play, Age of Arousal, in co-production with the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. Since then, Stellar Quines have also produced two solo plays by Jennifer Tremblay, The List and Carousel.

The roots of the Traverse's New Writing Quebec programme date back several years to Philip Howard's artistic directorship of the Edinburgh theatre. This was a period when the Traverse's then literary manager Katherine Mendelsohn forged significant international links which have developed through subsequent managements, from Dominic Hill to O'Loughlin's current tenure.

Traverse plays already seen in translation at Theatre La Licorne include Gregory Burke's debut, Gagarin Way, Passing Places by Stephen Greenhorn and Midsummer by David Greig, as well as After The End and Orphans, both by Dennis Kelly. Rona Munro's version of Evelyne de la Cheneliere's play, Strawberries in January, meanwhile, was a Herald Angel winning hit at the Traverse.

"When I walked into Theatre La Licorne's brand new space two years ago was uncanny," O'Loughlin says. "The theatre is modelled on the Traverse, with two performing spaces like ours, and a big long bar.

"They have this real commitment to the work of the Traverse as well, so to see them sometimes programme two plays a year that have been on at the Traverse first was really quite moving."

Whatever the bricks and mortar of Theatre La Licorne, for Leduc, producing new work in Quebec - as independently minded in spirit as Scotland - has been affected by its own political situation.

"Before and during our referendums we had the same feeling," he says, "which was one of excitement about change, which was reflected in our writing.

"What's happened since the referendum is that writers are talking about other things, but that feeling is still with us.

"We've lost two referendums, remember, and it's very sad what's happened in Quebec since then. We were told we would have more autonomy, but that never really happened, and we're always searching for our identity. We talk about those times in our plays, but not like we did before. Now it is more intimate."

As the Traverse deals with a damaging 11 per cent funding cut by Creative Scotland which will jeopardise the amount of work Scotland's new writing theatre can programme, New Writing Quebec is a significant international collaboration for both parties.

"The will from both the Traverse and Theatre La Licorne to collaborate is so strong," says O'Loughlin. "We want to put on Quebecois work here and see Traverse plays done in Quebec, but there may also be scope for doing something brand new between us."

Leduc is equally enthusiastic. "It will be a meeting and a reunion," he says of this week's programme, "and there will be further collaborations, I hope. When we open our minds like that, we can go further and further. This relationship between the Traverse and Theatre La Licorne is part of the dramaturgy we need to do to make great theatre."

New Writing From Quebec, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, today to Thursday.

www.traverse.co.uk