Negotiating the translation zone: Invisible borders and other landscapes on the contemporary “heteroglossic” stage

Abstract

This article aims to negotiate the landscape of contemporary theatre translation, focusing on the translation and reception of Catalan theatre. It explores the problems faced by minority or minorized languages and cultures in achieving visibility on the international stage, showing how this impacts on notions of translatability. I analyse and contextualize perceptions of translation failure as regards the Catalan textual theatre tradition beyond its borders, comparing it with the relative success of Catalan visual performance internationally. This allows me to identify how market forces construct and limit intercultural theatre and spectatorship, and provides a window onto the specific problems faced by literary translation in a culture dominated by visual channels of communication. Combining insights from theorists of cultural transfer with work in intercultural theatre and performance studies, I highlight the ways in which theatre translation creates, engages and shapes intercultural spectatorship and I explore reception as an embodied phenomenon.

Keywords:

• theatre translation
• reception studies
• intercultural theatre and spectatorship
• Catalan literature
• Catalan theatre
• minority languages and identity