ABSTRACT
Theatre translation is a complex phenomenon, involving many significant issues, such as intercultural interactions and intracultural and theatrical systems. Tracing the choice of Egyptian dramatic translations from Arabic into English between the two revolutions of 1952 and 2011 reveals unsystemic selection, yet exposes interesting politics of choice, which favored works of certain playwrights and of certain dramatic types, to the extent of having several retranslations of texts by Tawfīq al-Ḥākīm, while neglecting some other works — such as those of Alfred Farag and Nu‘mān ‘Āshūr — until later times. looking through the lens of cultural theories, it appears that the selection of Egyptian dramatic texts to translate into English was thus ruled by both intercultural factors, governing the relationship between source and target cultures, as well as intracultural forces and theatrical systems within each culture.
