ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the practice of drama translation by Elizabeth Inchbald, one of the most emblematic figures in the late eighteenth-century British theatrical panorama. Actress, dramatist and theatre critic, Mrs Inchbald was perfectly familiar with the dynamics underlying the London theatrical market: her adaptations for the English stage are the products both of a complex adjustment of the original to the constraints of practical stage conventions and an in-depth reformulation of the culture-bound qualities of the source dramas to the advantage of the social and political representation of her own culture. Mrs Inchbald, as an experienced actress and dramatist, was obviously aware that the main task of a dramatic author is the success of theatrical communication. Mrs Inchbald’s critical observations are substantiated by her consolidated experience in adapting foreign plays according to the demands of the British theatrical market.
