Adapting Translation for the Stage

Translating for performance is a difficult – and hotly contested – activity. Adapting Translation for the Stage presents a sustained dialogue between scholars, actors, directors, writers, and those working across these boundaries, exploring common themes and issues encountered when writing, staging, and researching translated works. It is organised into four parts, each reflecting on a theatrical genre where translation is regularly practised: The Role of Translation in Rewriting Naturalist Theatre Adapting Classical Drama at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century Translocating Political Activism in Contemporary Theatre Modernist Narratives of Translation in Performance A range of case studies from the National Theatre’s Medea to The Gate Theatre’s Dances of Death and Emily Mann’s The House of Bernarda Alba shed new light on the creative processes inherent in translating for the theatre, destabilising the literal/performable binary to suggest that adaptation and translation can – and do – coexist on stage. Chronicling the many possible intersections between translation theory and practice, Adapting Translation for the Stage offers a unique exploration of the processes of translating, adapting, and relocating work for the theatre.

- Zackary Ross, Theatre Survey ‘Brodie and Cole’s book is comprehensive in its scope and provides a valuable and detailed look into many of the theoretical, ethical, and practical implications of staging translation in contemporary theatre’- Maria Delgado, Times Higher ‘In this timely collection of essays, theatre offers a valuable site for wider debates on the politics and crafting of translation. Valuable interdisciplinary dialogues between translators, directors, classicists and literary scholars prise apart problematic distinction between theory and practice.’

Geraldine Brodie (University College London) lectures, researches and writes about theatre translation practices in contemporary London. Recent publications include a special issue of the Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance on Martin Crimp (2016) and her forthcoming book The Translator on Stage.Emma Cole (Bristol University) lectures, researches, and writes about the reception of Greek and Roman literature in contemporary theatre. She has published on classical performance reception and the work of Katie Mitchell (2015) and Martin Crimp (2016), and has a forthcoming monograph titled Postdramatic Tragedies.