ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the translation and interpretation of theatrical performance texts into British Sign Language (BSL), a provision that has grown and developed in the UK over the last three decades, and which most commonly situates the BSL interpreter at the side of the stage, outside of the performance space. Despite initially appearing to be a process of simultaneous interpretation, the chapter shows that the discipline involves the audiovisual translation of a multimodal theatrical text, followed by the simultaneous delivery of the signed rendition, synchronous and co-creating meaning with the live performance. The chapter discusses the particular nature of the Deaf audience, issues facing that audience when witnessing a theatrical production interpreted into BSL, and the task of the theatre interpreter. With specific reference to the pragmatic phenomena of turn-taking and spatial deixis, the chapter explores the ways in which the performance text’s mise-en-scène has a fundamental impact on how the translation can be constructed and the interpretation delivered, due to the visual-spatial nature of signed languages.
