ABSTRACT
Translating for performance is a difficult – and hotly contested – activity.
Adapting Translation for the Stage presents a sustained dialogue between scholars, actors, directors, writers, and those working across these boundaries, exploring common themes and issues encountered when writing, staging, and researching translated works. It is organised into four parts, each reflecting on a theatrical genre where translation is regularly practised:
- The Role of Translation in Rewriting Naturalist Theatre
- Adapting Classical Drama at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century
- Translocating Political Activism in Contemporary Theatre
- Modernist Narratives of Translation in Performance
A range of case studies from the National Theatre’s Medea to The Gate Theatre’s Dances of Death and Emily Mann’s The House of Bernarda Alba shed new light on the creative processes inherent in translating for the theatre, destabilising the literal/performable binary to suggest that adaptation and translation can – and do – coexist on stage.
Chronicling the many possible intersections between translation theory and practice, Adapting Translation for the Stage offers a unique exploration of the processes of translating, adapting, and relocating work for the theatre.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section 1|55 pages
The role of translation in rewriting naturalist theatre
chapter 2|10 pages
Total translation
section 2|60 pages
Adapting classical drama at the turn of the twenty-first century
section 3|66 pages
Translocating political activism in contemporary theatre
chapter 12|15 pages
Handling ‘Paulmann’s dick’
chapter 14|13 pages
Domestication as a political act
chapter 15|15 pages
Theatrical translation/theatrical production
section 4|75 pages
Modernist narratives of translation in performance
section |11 pages
Afterword