On Faithfulness: The Difficulties Experienced by the Text/Performance Couple
Patrice Pavis’s article presented some interesting thoughts. While a great deal of it read as slightly verbose, stringing together a series of unanswerable questions, I enjoyed his ruminatations on mise-en-scene being the “compromise between…an immanent structural analysis and a hermeneutical relationship built with a new audience” (120). Moreover, his thoughts on the placement of emphasis, whether it should be focused on the text or on the construction of stage presence, acting, blocking, etc, were compelling. Maybe I’m being naive, but striking some balance where emphasis is distributed across both of these elements seems to be a good place to start. Pavis notes that by allowing a contemporary reading of a classic text, the filters of our existence can’t be done away with. But of course they can’t. Anyone attending a rendition of Hamlet, thinking they will experience the most pure and distilled reading of the text, as if William was pulling the strings back stage, is deluded. I know this is not entirely Pavis’s point, but a lot of this content seemed to circling around the point, rather than going for its heart. The clearest and most concise argument of the article, for me, was when Pavis quotes Bruno Tackels— that the director can try and tell you what the author thinks, or most so tell you what they think, “by exploiting in the best way possible.”
Anton Chekhov Plays by Michael Frayn
I quite enjoyed this translation note. Any introduction that regards the success of predecessors starts off the tone in a humble, and learning-centric manner. Further, I appreciated how Frayn noted Chekhov’s resistance to being translated in the first instance. I found this a rather funny and playful note to include. Considering translation for the stage is a fascinating thought; Frayn states that “there are no footnotes in theatre, and no turning back to a previous page.” The importance of clarifying allusions and nuances for the live audience becomes clear. I liked how Frayn laid out the specifics of his hurdles. For instance, the translation issue with Russian names, and how he found the best approach was to simplify ruthlessly. It makes me think about how understanding the degrees of allusion Chekhov intended is so vital when undergoing the process. This is because, in order to be successfully gleaned by an English audience, they may have to be notably hammed up. After all, the translator owes the reader/ audience a sense of access.
"Translator as Performer." a 2022 lecture by Jeremy Tiang
Jeremy Tiang quotes Derrida in saying that the process of translation is “productive writing called forth by the original text.” I find the sentiment of “productive” interesting. The thought of synthesizing a new piece of work seems to lend itself more to adaptation. I found Tiang’s discussion of “I am a seagull”, against the possible, “I am the seagull”, when discussing Chekhov’s The Seagull, fascinating. When discussing the opening lines of Chekhov’s play, Tiang notes that often translators feel a desire to stamp their own adaptation on such canonical texts, as they have been dealt with so many times, that there is a desire to subvert. It seems to me that the bandwidth in which a translator (or adaptor according to Tiang) can take liberties of interpretation widens in correlation with the saturation or frequency of a text's previous translations. I also really liked Tiang’s notes on the translator's voice within a project, and that this is something that shouldn’t be shied away from, because it is impossible to avoid.
Selling Chekhov Whole - On Translating The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov
Lawrence Senelick’s lecture was incredibly illuminating. The specificity and descriptions of certain cultural references provided a lot of context. The line, “Chekhov’s dramatic output continues to reflect back on itself”, makes me think that in the pursuit of translating such a canonical author, knowing and understanding the oeuvre of their work becomes quite important. Senelick’s statement that a translation puts a text into a state of crisis is very evocative, and makes a lot of sense. There is a sense that the dead, or resting, is being surged with energy once again. Something of a mad scientist sending electroshocks through a body. Something else to think about when translating Chekhov for next week's exercise is his propensity for colloquial language and echo.
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