2/25 Readings - Lane

     All of these perspectives on the translation of Chekhov's plays have helped to elucidate my perception of play and drama translation. Translation of plays now seems to me as though it is a theatrical perfomance in itself---Frayn notes the necessity to "inhabit" the character to know what they would say in that moment and how it would read on stage. Senelick saw the plays in Russian to feel the laughter and emotional responses that a Russian audience would, and paid close attention to tics of repetition that defined the characters' themes and relationships with each other and the world, themes that served to create an "illusion of reality" on stage. However, Senelick and Frayn both speak from the perspective of Russian speakers, ones who can immerse themselves in the play and its characters in the source language and inhabit them by absorbing their Russian self. Many translations of Chekhov's The Seagull, as discussed by Tiang and Pavis, were written by famous playwrights who worked from a literal English translation; they were essentially translating English into English. Pavis even notes that these playwrights often approach a play translation with the perspective of: "I am going to try to tell you what I want to tell you, by exploiting in the best way possible what he wanted to say." In doing this, certainly these playwrights act not as translators but as writers, and this, too, is a sort of embodiment or inhabitation of the characters and the world. Still, there are downsides to this approach---playwrights may end up "de-Russifying" the text by localizing cultural details or character names, smoothing over humor or adding it in other places, and so on.

    In any case, to return to the idea of drama translation as a type of theatrical performance: as Tiang notes, we as translators all give a text our own voice when translating, even though we may try to suppress it. But we function like actors, in this way---every actor gives their own unique take on a role; fans of drama will lord one actor over another, or discuss how wonderful an actor's take was on a given role. As translators, we too are playing roles; we are acting as though we are the author, the characters, the world of the text when we translate. Senelick notes that translating Chekhov's plays means translating Chekhov's Russian, not Russian---and as we inhabit the role of translator, we translate into our English. Perhaps, given that plays are so embedded in performance, acting, and unique voices making their way into the legacy of the play through different performances, it is more acceptable to make the text say what you want to say?