MSU Theatre and Translation Symposium

Last Friday, the MSU Department of Theatre hosted an academic Symposium on Theatre and Translation.  Three MFA students who had taken my graduate seminar on Translation and Adaptation last spring presented research on comparative analysis of translations of plays.  Zev Steinberg's paper focused on the close connection between the language of a speech in Cyrano de Bergerac and choices that might be made by a fight director in choreographing the violence for that scene.  Chris Haug discussed the pitfalls of translating cultural context with regard to Dario Fo's An Accidental Death of an Anarchist.  And Carolyn Conover offered ideas for teaching Strindberg's Miss Julie using translation as an analytical lens. 

Dassia Posner, our keynote speaker, generously discussed connections among the three graduate student papers before offering her own intervention on Vsevelod Meyerhold's cultural re-framing of Carlo Gozzi's The Love of Three Oranges.  Prof. Posner's insightful lecture gave way to a productive conversation about translation in which she drew on her experience working on a "dramaturgical translation" of Chekhov's Three Sisters for Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

Prof. Posner's lecture also offered an excellent point of reference for considering our own production of Gozzi's The Serpent Lady.  Our final panel of the day included presentations by the design and production team for the show, including a discussion of the framing device of our chorus of fairies.