Process, practice and landscapes of reception: An ethnographic study of theatre translation

Abstract

This article discusses the reception of translated literature in the theatre by reflecting on an innovative theatre translation project. Drawing on the notion of landscapes as spaces of cultural flux (Appadurai 1996), the authors offer an analysis of the multiple agencies that mediate such reception. By reflecting on their own experiences of translating Rani Moorthy's play A Handful of Henna for the Italian stage, the authors propose a view of translation as a social dialogue making visible the multiple negotiations and conflicts that characterize the process of translation. While there is ample precedent of reflective accounts of translation practice (Booth 2008; Venuti 1998) and ethnographic approaches in translation studies (Buzelin 2006; Sturge 2007), this article brings together for the first time self-reflection and ethnography offering “a view from the agent” (Simeoni 1995, 457) that acknowledges and foregrounds the scholar's own “participation and involvement” (448).

Keywords:

• self-reflexive translation
• ethnography
• theatre translation
• migrant communities
• reception

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the British Council Italy for sponsoring the Intercultural Dialogues project, the Università Statale di Milano for offering the use of its facilities and staff support and the Erasmus exchange programme for travel grants.

Notes

1. Rani Moorthy is of Sri-Lankan Tamil origin. While her family is from Sri Lanka, she lived in Malaysia and Singapore before moving to Manchester, where she directs her own Arts Council-funded company Rasa; see http://www.rasatheatre.co.uk.

2. We have, of course, asked permission from everybody involved for recording student discussions, presentations, rehearsal discussion and the rehearsed reading. Versions of this article have also been given to both Moorthy and Teatro i. Moorthy has responded saying that the article made her aware of “the importance of the project to so many people” and how the process of translation itself gave her “great insights” into her own work, something often lacking in interactions with theatre critics (personal email, 16 August 2012). Teatro i's response was also very interesting, as it revealed yet another constraint of collaborative translation that appears only marginally in our account. For actors and director the main difficulty was the time frame for the rehearsals, which they felt was too short and made it impossible for them to “do justice to the complexities and richness of the text” (personal email, 2 February 2013).

3. Although here we focus primarily on the first part of the project, the continuation of the project in 2012 and further collaboration with migrant actors have undoubtedly informed our understanding of theatre translation and our view of collaborative practice in ways that remain difficult to articulate or quantify. For more information on the wider context and impact of the project, see http://www.britishcouncil.org/italy-arts-newconnectionstheatre.htm.

4. See www.teatroi.org.

5. For a critical discussion of the multiculturalism agenda of the Noughties and its impact on the arts, see the podcast of “A National Narrative” discussion at the British Theatre after Multiculturalism Conference held at the University of Warwick in 2009 http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/podcasts/culture/70-national-narrative.

6. In the English translation of the dialogue, all the different Italian options for “tarted up” mentioned have been left in Italian to avoid confusion.