This volume focuses on the highly debated topic of theatrical translation, one brought on by a renewed interest in the idea of performance and translation as a cooperative effort on the part of the translator, the director, and the actors. Exploring the role and function of the translator as co-subject of the performance, it addresses current issues concerning the role of the translator for the stage, as opposed to the one for the editorial market, within a multifarious cultural context. The current debate has shown a growing tendency to downplay and challenge the notion of translational accuracy in favor of a recreational and post-dramatic attitude, underlying the role of the director and playwright instead. This book discusses the delicate balance between translating and directing from an intercultural, semiotic, aesthetic, and interlingual perspective, taking a critical stance on approaches that belittle translation for the theatre or equate it to an editorial practice focused on literality. Chapters emphasize the idea of dramatic translation as a particular and extremely challenging type of performance, while consistently exploring its various textual, intertextual, intertranslational, contextual, cultural, and intercultural facets. The notion of performance is applied to textual interpretation as performance, interlingual versus intersemiotic performance, and (inter)cultural performance in the adaptation of translated texts for the stage, providing a wide-ranging discussion from an international group of contributors, directors, and translators.

This book examines the effects of translation on theatrical performance. The author adapts and applies Kershaw et al.’s Practice as Research model to an empirical investigation analysing the effects of translation on the rhythm and gesture of a playtext in performance, using the contemporary plays Convincing Ground and The Gully by Australian playwright David Mence which have been translated into Italian. The book is divided into two parts: a theoretical exegesis encompassing Translation Studies, Performance Studies and Gesture Studies, and a practical investigation comprising of a workshop where excerpts of the plays are explored by two groups of actors. The chapters are accompanied by short clips of the performance workshop hosted on SpringerLink. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of Translation Studies (and Theatre Translation more specifically), Theatre and Performance, and Gesture Studies.

This book focuses on the various problems in the verbal and nonverbal translation and tranposition of drama from one language and cultural background into another and from the text on to the stage. It covers a range of previously unpublished essays specifically written on translation problems unique to drama, by playwrights and literary translators as well as theorists, scholars and teachers of drama and translation studies

This book provides a pioneering and provocative exploration of the rich synergies between adaptation studies and translation studies and is the first genuine attempt to discuss the rather loose usage of the concepts of translation and adaptation in terms of theatre and film. At the heart of this collection is the proposition that translation studies and adaptation studies have much to offer each other in practical and theoretical terms and can no longer exist independently from one another. As a result, it generates productive ideas within the contact zone between these two fields of study, both through new theoretical paradigms and detailed case studies. Such closely intertwined areas as translation and adaptation need to encounter each other’s methodologies and perspectives in order to develop ever more rigorous approaches to the study of adaptation and translation phenomena, challenging current assumptions and prejudices in terms of both. The book includes contributions as diverse yet interrelated as Bakhtin’s notion of translation and adaptation, Bollywood adaptations of Shakespeare’s Othello, and an analysis of performance practice, itself arguably an adaptive practice, which uses a variety of languages from English and Greek to British and International Sign-Language. As translation and adaptation practices are an integral part of global cultural and political activities and agendas, it is ever more important to study such occurrences of rewriting and reshaping. By exploring and investigating interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives and approaches, this volume investigates the impact such occurrences of rewriting have on the constructions and experiences of cultures while at the same time developing a rigorous methodological framework which will form the basis of future scholarship on performance and film, translation and adaptation.

This exploration of the territory between theory and practice in contemporary theatre features essays by academics from theatre and translation studies, and delineates a new space for the discussion of translation in the theatre that is international, critical and scholarly, while rooted in experience and understanding of theatre practices.

This text compares theatre texts to apartments where tenants may make considerable changes. Translated texts should be seen in relation to the tenants, who respond to various codes in the surrounding societies in their effort to integrate the texts into a sociocultural discourse of their time.

Moving Target offers a rigorous exploration of the practice of translating for the theatre. The twelve essays in the volume span a range of work from Eastern and Western Europe, Canada and the United States. For the first time, this book draws together existing translation theory with contemporary practice to shed light on a hitherto neglected aspect of the production process. How does the theatre translator mediate between source text, performance text and target audience? What happens when theatre is transposed from one culture to another? What are the obstacles to theatre translation, and what are the opportunities? Central to the debate throughout is the role of the translator in creating not only a linguistic text but also a performance text, as the contributors repeatedly demonstrate an illuminating sensibility to the demands and potential of theatre production. Impacting upon areas of (inter)cultural theory as well as theatre studies and translation studies, the result is a startling revelation of the joys, as well as the frustrations of the dramatic art of the translator for performance.