ABSTRACT
Don Paterson draws a useful distinction between translating and versioning. The adaptor as theatre-practitioner model relies wholly on a largely unsung hero: the literal translator. This three-way relationship – source text, literal translator and adaptor – is a relatively recent phenomenon, born of the adaptor’s lack of lingual knowledge. The director and creative team impact on the text of original plays too, but with ‘physical’ or ‘modernist’ adaptations, the impact is integral to the work’s health. Garcia Lorca, Eugene Ionesco, Luigi Pirandello, Virgilio Pinera and other modernists, were playwrights with elbows they lifted and dug into the corners of their time. Breaking loose from more realistic, cerebrally contained stories, they embraced less naturalistic dimensions, utilizing choreography, design and other symbolic elements. David Johnston describes the inherently collaborative path of adaptation; this is never more pertinent than in these dramas. The creative team are utterly reliant on each other to tell the story, every element has huge and subtle impacts.
