International Theatre Conference: Directing and Authorship in Western Drama

Panel Six
Saturday October 25th,11-12:45pm

Dr. Glen Nichols, U of Moncton
Abstract: Let's Play Together: A Collaborative Approach to Theatre Translation

The practice of translating plays for the theatre is fraught with contradictory theories and approaches. In particular, the question of "performability" is often cited as if it were the only criterion for theatre translation to the neglect of all other text elements. In my current translation and production work on five contemporary Acadian plays, I have found that the process requires a much sharper critical tool that the rather woolly concept of "performability." Using Susan Bassnett's arguments against "performability" as a starting point, I propose an approach to theatre translation which links the practical concerns of production and direction with the considerable technical skills of translation, treating the relationship of director and translator as homologous to that of director and playwight. Drawing on the work of David Johnston, Patrice Pavis, Sherry Simon, Umberto Eco, Barbara Godard and Jane Koustas, among others, I first synthesize two widely-held, but contrasting concepts of translating for the stage which are based on diametrically opposing views of the relationship of text to performance: translation OF performance, which assumes the supremacy of text, and translation FOR performance, which assumes the virtual irrelevancy of text. I propose a third way, translation THROUGH performance, which puts the responsibility for text and performance on the collaborative and equal but very distinct roles of translator and director, parallel to the way playwrighting and directing are seen as collaborative but distinct.