Appunti esame Lingua inglese, prof. Carosso, dispensa consigliata Translating for the theatre, Susan Bassnett

Translating for the theatre

(Susan Bassnett)

Challenges in translating theatre texts

Less has been written on problems of translating theatre texts, because of the nature of the theatre text, which is in a dialectical relationship with the performance of the same text, and is therefore read as something incomplete. The performance represents the spatial/gestural dimension of the written text. The translator’s task becomes impossible, because he has to treat a text that is part of different sign systems (including paralinguistic and kinesic signs) as if it were a literary text created for the page. According to Patrice Pavis, ‘real translation’ takes place on the level of the mise en scene, so a theatre text in an incomplete entity.

Power relationships in translation

Translation is a question of power relationships and the translator has been placed in a position of economic inferiority (ex. In some cases, translators are commissioned to produce literal translations and the text is then handed over to a well-known playwright the translation is then credited to that playwright). The key factor is the size of the audience and the price they’re willing to pay for tickets, not certainly the ethics of translation. Texts are cut, reshaped, rewritten and still described as ‘translations’. (sometimes the word ‘version’ is used instead of ‘translation’).

Performability in theatre translation

Performability is the term used to justify substantial variations in the TT (cuts, additions) and to describe the existent concealed gestic text within the written. It hasn’t been clearly defined and does not exist in most languages. If a set of criteria ever could be established to determine the performability, they would vary from culture to culture, from period to period. This term first makes its appearance in the 20th century and in connection with naturalist texts.

Naturalist drama and its impact

Naturalist drama imposed the idea of the scripted play, the text that actors and directors have to study in detail. In Hamlet and a Midsummer night’s dream, Shakespeare uses performers that improvise, create a playtext from a combination of the written text and the physical, the new and the memorized. The notion of the fixed playtext, with its stage directions, didn’t at that time exist. When we come to the great wave of naturalist playwriting (19th century) the role of the author increases growth of the convention of the detailed stage directions, which at times become prose narrative or interior monologue. This kind of writings has different functions: it may be an instruction to the actor, to the director, or it may be a prose narrative that assists with the reading of the text on the page. Post-naturalist playtexts are made of the psychological realism of the characters, and the text is read as a piece of prose narrative is read.