ABSTRACT
Drama is a field of activity so deeply associated with and embedded in translation that its metamorphosis, from its source language and culture to other manifestations which may, occasionally, be almost unrecognisable, is something that theatres and audiences take for granted. Drama translation is, however, a complex business: the adaptor more often than not is given credit for work that the translator has done, and the wording and mise en scene of the original may be radically altered. Translators of drama are scandalously under-or unrecognised (Hale and Upton 2000; Espasa 2000; Bassnett 1991; Brodie 2012), yet they underpin international creative industry. Johnston has written of the ‘infinite Shakespeares’ (2007: 84), and most of the world’s core, established drama has been subject to varied and innovative treatment, starting, of course, with translation of the script into a target language. Academic discussion of drama translation often hinges on the ‘literary’
versus ‘performance’ dichotomy, and Bassnett notes that ‘a notion of theatre that does not see written text and performance as indissolubly linked, will inevitably lead to a discrimination against anyone who appears to offend against the purity of the written text’ (Bassnett 1980/2002: 120). That kind of discrimination ignores the fact that plays in their original language are written to be spoken, and ignores the fact that speech varieties are part of the literary canon. Bartlett, interviewed by Johnston, said ‘I don’t translate plays to get them onto the page. I translate plays to get them into the mouth’ (Bartlett 1996: 68). There is a wide spectrum of adaptation, re-writing and borrowing in the
theatre, and variety is not necessarily undesirable: Johnston suggests that perhaps, ‘as English-speaking audiences’ own ability to understand Shakespeare’s language continues to erode, the future of vivid and meaningful Shakespeare productions lies within the cultural and post-colonial re-animations of translators abroad’ (ibid.: 84). The business of theatre is to make ‘the strange familiar and the familiar strange’ (Hale and Upton 2000: 8). Drama is by its very nature creative, and to deny breadth of vision in its transfer from one culture to another would be to imprison that creativity; to encourage innovation and difference may be to preserve and enhance the original. Cameron (2000: 17) takes up Lepage’s coining of the term ‘tradaptation’
applied to old texts in new contexts. Cameron, discussing English productions
of Indian and Pakistani dramas, calls into question the assumption that cultural borders are to do with national borders and geography, and that some received notions of indigeneity exclude the contexts of migration (ibid.: 19). In an increasingly globalised world, drama in translation can belong to everyone. Bowman, seeing no distinction between translation and adaptation, claims that ‘the practice of theatre rules’ such that translation or adaptation, for example into a vernacular language, is perfectly possible (2000: 28). Bowman illustrates through examples of culture-specific items how some (such as Lucozade and Scottish Football Today) may be kept, and some (such as Coca-Cola and baloney) have to be jettisoned (ibid.: 30). The issues that beset any translation work are compounded in drama
translation by the destination of the target text: production on stage. Bassnett (1980: 121) shows how the translator of drama is faced with a multiplicity of considerations not found in the task of translating texts that are designed purely for reading. While actors must first read a script, it is only once they have internalised it and begun to act it out that the meaning of the script takes shape. Hale and Upton note the ‘several dimensions’: the visual, gestural, aural and linguistic signifiers that have to be integrated into the translation and ultimately the production (2000: 2). Beyond these relatively graspable aspects of an actual stage situation, which is a tangible representation of an implied reality, is the suspension of disbelief that the actors aim to provoke in the audience. The dialogue exists in a world of sound and vision, rather than text; the inaudible, invisible stage directions contribute to a new three-dimensional and visual reality into which the audience is transported by means of the dialogue and the action. In terms of working practice, these considerations force the translator into
certain decisions about rendition. The work of the great dramatists of the world (Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Racine, Molière, Goethe, Chekhov, Ibsen, Lao She, Havel, Pinter) is usually regarded as literature, and studied by school and university students in its written form. It is very often held in worshipful respect by theatre audiences, who would be horrified by the thought of a translation that was anything less than ‘faithful’. This is the great dichotomy in drama: it is thought of as literature, yet it is intended to be a transient, malleable and provocative entertainment in the hands of the actors. A translation presents a new ‘framework for mise en scene, guiding director, actors, designers and finally audience towards a particular spectrum of interpretation’ (Hale and Upton 2000: 9).
