Title: WORD > <STAGE Stage words: inter-semiotic and inter-linguistic translation of dramaturgic, literary and theatre theory texts
Edited by: Donatella Gavrilovich and Gabriella Elina Imposti
Year: 2021
Pages: 200
Editor: UniversItalia
ISSN: 2421-2679
Editorial
Il paradosso della cultura contemporanea è quello di essere sempre più specialistica e settoriale e, al contempo, di porsi come obiettivo fondamentale la trasversalità delle competenze e l’interdisciplinarietà. La folle corsa avviata nel Novecento dagli umanisti e dagli artisti per gareggiare con le scienze dure, rivendicando a sé pari caratteristiche di scientificità, ha dato luogo a un processo di contaminazione linguistica e di distorsione terminologica di molte parole derivate, ad esempio, dalla fisica, matematica, chimica ecc. Questo innesto ha prodotto l’alterazione del significato originario e ha contribuito a rendere ‘astrusa’ per il lettore medio la lettura e la comprensione di gran parte della cosiddetta produzione scientifica umanistica. A ciò si aggiunge la creazione di neologismi, la commistione e l’improprio ‘arrangiamento’ di termini traslati da lingue straniere e dal linguaggio informatico, l’artificiosità nella costruzione delle frasi. Tra l’altro, oggi, tutto ciò è in assoluta controtendenza rispetto allo sforzo di incoraggiare lo sviluppo e la diffusione della cultura e di contenuti liberi in tutte le lingue su web, avviato da organizzazioni e fondazioni private senza scopo di lucro (ad es. Open Knowledge International Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation ecc.), supportato di recente anche dalle politiche della Comunità Europea (Open Access, Open Science).
È sorprendente pensare che già nel Trecento Dante Alighieri, di cui proprio quest’anno si celebrano i settecento anni dalla morte, si sia posto il problema della diffusione e condivisione del sapere e abbia compreso che, per superare il divario culturale esistente tra saggi e vulgo, la chiave di volta era trasformare il veicolo stesso della conoscenza: il linguaggio.
E io adunque, che non seggio alla beata mensa, ma, fuggito della pastura del vulgo, a’ piedi di coloro che seggiono ricolgo di quello che da loro cade, e conosco la misera vita di quelli che dietro m’ho lasciati, per la dolcezza ch’io sento in quello che a poco a poco ricolgo, misericordievolemente mosso, non me dimenticando, per li miseri alcuna cosa ho riservata, la quale alli occhi loro, già è più tempo, ho dimostrata; e in ciò li ho fatti maggiormente vogliosi (Convivio, I, 1, 10).
Dante s’immagina non di essere seduto a mensa tra i sapienti, ma ai loro piedi. Si raffigura intento a raccogliere le “briciole” del “pane degli angeli”, frammenti del sapere che desidera condividere con il vulgo. Nel suo Convivio egli apparecchia un banchetto metaforico con la consapevolezza di dover trasformare quel cibo prezioso in altra vivanda per poterlo somministrare ai suoi ospiti. Per questo motivo Dante traduce la lingua dei colti, il latino, nella lingua parlata, nel volgare, così da rendere la mensa della conoscenza accessibile a tutti.
Per che ora volendo loro apparecchiare, intendo fare un generale convivio di ciò ch’i’ ho loro mostrato, e di quello pane ch’è mestiere a così fatta vivanda, sanza lo quale da loro non potrebbe essere mangiata. Ed ha questo convivio di quello pane degno, co[n] tale vivanda qual io intendo indarno [non] essere ministrata (Convivio I, 1, 11)
Per provare l’efficacia espressiva e la duttilità del volgare, non quello illustre ma quello proprio del dialetto fiorentino parlato e letterario, Dante lo usa per scrivere la Divina Commedia, poema che è sintesi altissima dei modelli culturali, storici, filosofici, cosmologici e teologici della civiltà medievale del suo tempo. Il linguaggio della Comedìa è nuovo, vario, ricco ma anche ‘economico’, perché ogni parola ha in sé una molteplicità di significati. In questo egli sembra gareggiare con l’economicità dell’arte di Giotto e di Arnolfo di Cambio, che rinunciano ai preziosismi e alla ieraticità dello stile greco-bizantino per ritrarre le forme, desumendole dall’osservazione della natura oltre che dai modelli della scultura romana tardo antica.
Se il fine è la diffusione dei valori morali, civili e religiosi, il linguaggio da utilizzare deve essere semplice, diretto e facilmente comprensibile da tutti, come quello mimico dei giullari. Sin dal XII secolo la Chiesa, che condanna e perseguita i saltimbanchi, comprende la potenzialità comunicativa del linguaggio performativo e incarica l’ordine dei mendicanti di imitare le doti recitative dei joglar per diffondere la parola di Dio. E joculator Domini è San Francesco che ben prima di Dante, Giotto e Arnolfo scopre l’economicità del gesto e lo sostituisce alla parola nei suoi sermoni. I gesti si traducono in una predica muta, teatrale, con la quale il ‘giullare di Dio’ attira, diverte e stupisce la povera gente, ma anche Santa Chiara e le sue consorelle presso la chiesetta di San Damiano ad Assisi. Semplificare il processo di ‘trasformazione’ significa garantire la recezione corretta del messaggio e permetterne la più vasta e capillare diffusione. D’altronde, la traduzione del pensiero in parola o del pensiero in gesto è il ‘mezzo’, antichissimo, di comunicazione. Parafrasando la celebre frase di Marshall McLuhan, «The Medium is the message» potremo dire che ‘tradurre per comunicare’ con parole o gesti non significa parlare per dire qualcosa, ma saper trasmettere correttamente un messaggio ben costruito, perché si conosce il mezzo di comunicazione e si è in grado di utilizzarlo. Se si limita l’ambito di questa trattazione al teatro, potremo affermare che l’attore, il cantante e il ballerino è il medium per eccellenza di questa traduzione intersemiotica. Nella produzione di uno spettacolo teatrale, di qualsiasi genere esso sia, il ‘tradurre per comunicare’ è di fondamentale importanza in tutti i campi artistici, pratici e teorici, che concorrono alla creazione dell’evento performativo. Quest’argomento ha suscitato l’interesse di studiosi di ambiti disciplinari diversi: storici del teatro, filologi, musicologi, letterati e anche performer. I loro contribuiti, qui raccolti a comporre il presente numero della rivista, aprono nuove prospettive d’indagine, fanno luce su temi che hanno dato adito a fraintendimenti, propongono modalità diverse di approccio critico e forniscono i risultati delle loro ricerche scientifiche.
Index
Il paradosso della cultura contemporanea è quello di essere sempre più specialistica e settoriale e, al contempo, di porsi come obiettivo fondamentale la trasversalità delle competenze e l’interdisciplinarietà. La folle corsa avviata nel Novecento dagli umanisti e dagli artisti per gareggiare con le scienze dure, rivendicando a sé pari caratteristiche di scientificità, ha dato luogo a un processo di contaminazione linguistica e di distorsione terminologica di molte parole derivate, ad esempio, dalla fisica, matematica, chimica ecc. Questo innesto ha prodotto l’alterazione del significato originario e ha contribuito a rendere ‘astrusa’ per il lettore medio la lettura e la comprensione di gran parte della cosiddetta produzione scientifica umanistica. A ciò si aggiunge la creazione di neologismi, la commistione e l’improprio ‘arrangiamento’ di termini traslati da lingue straniere e dal linguaggio informatico, l’artificiosità nella costruzione delle frasi. Tra l’altro, oggi, tutto ciò è in assoluta controtendenza rispetto allo sforzo di incoraggiare lo sviluppo e la diffusione della cultura e di contenuti liberi in tutte le lingue su web, avviato da organizzazioni e fondazioni private senza scopo di lucro (ad es. Open Knowledge International Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation ecc.), supportato di recente anche dalle politiche della Comunità Europea (Open Access, Open Science).
È sorprendente pensare che già nel Trecento Dante Alighieri, di cui proprio quest’anno si celebrano i settecento anni dalla morte, si sia posto il problema della diffusione e condivisione del sapere e abbia compreso che, per superare il divario culturale esistente tra saggi e vulgo, la chiave di volta era trasformare il veicolo stesso della conoscenza: il linguaggio.
Il presente numero della rivista, dedicato a PAROLA > , trae origine da una serie di discussioni avvenute a margine di convegni e di incontri di lavoro tra studiose di teatro, lingua e letteratura russa negli ultimi cinque anni. Il nocciolo della questione verteva sul problema della traduzione di termini tecnici, di espressioni verbali, di parole, di concetti estetici e filosofici propri della pratica teatrale in Russia che, applicati in altri contesti culturali, avevano prodotto fraintendimenti e interpretazioni errate. Nella diffusione teorico-pratica del sistema di Kostantin Stanislavskij, ad esempio, la traduzione dal russo di una parola-chiave come pereživanie ha dato adito a svariate interpretazioni storico-critiche a seconda della lingua e della cultura nazionale di ricezione, producendo a cascata una serie di problemi sia nella sfera accademica e sia nella pratica teatrale a livello internazionale. In Italia Ettore Lo Gatto, illustre russista, fu il primo a cercare di rendere al meglio in italiano il verbo pereživat’ e il sostantivo deverbativo pereživanie nel suo libro Storia del teatro russo (1952). Negli anni Trenta Lo Gatto aveva conosciuto personalmente Stanislavskij, assistito agli spettacoli allestiti al Teatro d’Arte di Mosca e dialogato con i suoi stretti collaboratori e allievi.
This essay offers an overview of Edward Gordon Craig’s pioneering contributions to the process of theatre reform and to the role realism and an a priori text should play in a mise en scène. Craig’s position on the need for the elimination of realism and the necessity of creating an autonomous language of the theatre, freed from the intrusion and oppression of the playwright, is central to this analysis. The study presented here is based almost exclusively on Craig’s opus available in the first quarter of the 20th century. These works consist mainly of articles from «The Mask» and his books that generated discussions and debates at the time of their publication and continue to provoke controversy and stimulate discussions to this day.
Keywords: Craig. Realism. Performance. Voice. Acting.
English translations of the terminology of the Stanislavsky System, in particular the concepts of perezhivanie, obraz, affektivnaya/emocional’naya pamiat’, svekh/pod-soznanie have given rise to serious epistemological and practical misunderstandings. We will give some examples, based in particular on Strasberg’s interpretation of the Stanislavsky System through the teaching in poor English of Boleslavsky and Uspenskaya at the American Laboratory Theatre.
Then we will show that the methodological interpretations that resulted from these approximate translations did not concern only the Anglo-Saxon countries. We will recall Meyerhold’s deliberately reductive interpretation of perezhivania in the 1920s in order to impose its own method of working based on biomechanics. Finally, we will talk about the years 1938 and 1953, when the Soviet doxa also severely distorted the Stanislavsky concept of “linija fizicheskih deistvii”, making it a rigid materialistic “method” and inventing terminological links between Stanislavsky and Pavlov.
Keywords: Stanislavsky’s System, Russian theatre, Boleslavsky, Ouspenskaya, Strasberg
The paper intends to highlight how in Stanislavsky’s system the scenic obraz (scenic image) was the ultimate goal of his work. An analysis of the term obraz will be proposed in the aesthetic and theatrical field. Later we will deal with the question of the actor’s work on the role, crucial to the creation of the scenic image, demonstrating that it is not the character that is the reference point of the Stanislavsky technique, but the action in the drama of the latter, to realize the purpose of the system. The paper tries to restore the original meaning of the Russian theatrical terms obraz, scenicheskij obraz and rol’ and to indicate their place in Stanislavsky’s system.
Keywords: scenic image; role; physical actions; Stanislavsky; character.
This paper explores Evgenii Vakhtangov’s artistic method of fantastic realism and traces the evolving interpretation of this term over time after his death. First, it discusses how Vakhtangov applied this concept in his final two productions – An-sky’s The Dybbuk in the Jewish Habima Studio and Carlo Gozzi’s The Princess Turandot at the Third Moscow Art Theater Studio. These two plays were produced almost simultaneously in 1922, and reflected the quest of Konstantin Stanslavsky’s rebellious disciple to unite East and West: the world of Jewish mysticism with a Chinese fairytale produced in the commedia dell’arte style. This paper then addresses interpretations and misinterpretations of fantastic realism by Vakhtangov’s pupils, Soviet theater historians, and more recent scholars. During the Soviet era the term was frequently presented as imaginative realism, deliberately misrepresenting the transcendental theatricality and fantasticality of Vakhtanov’s directorial style and instead suggesting a closer connection to Stanislavky’s acting method with its attention to actors’ imagination. More recent scholarship redefines Vakhtangov’s legacy by placing the term into a biographical and cultural context. Finally, this paper presents new findings about the activities of the Knights Templar in Vakhtangov’s close surroundings and suggests a new perspective on fantastic realism in light of the spiritual and artistic quests of the Russian Templars.
Keywords: Vakhtangov, fantastic realism, Russian Knights Templars, transcendental theatricality.
This paper attempts to provide a better understanding of the aesthetic nature and cultural function of the (Avto)instsenirovka genre in Late-Imperial and Revolutionary Russia. Widely spread at the end of the 19th century in the context of working-class theatres and temperance reform, theatrical adaptations of novels often served lowbrow audiences as first approaches or ‘surrogates’ for the reading of source texts. Rejected by cultural elites of the 1910s, who perceived it to be a violation of the concept of authorship, in the new political landscape of the 1920s the genre contributed to the birth of a new kind of ‘peasant’ theatre that was shifting from orality to literacy. It is within the theoretical framework of popular culture, in its receptive aspects more than in its ways of production, that this common (yet so far little-analysed) theatrical genre can today give insight into the changes in mass taste and cultural consumption of pre-revolutionary and Soviet society.
Keywords: Literary adaptation; Russian theatre; Popular culture; (Avto)instsenirovka.
This research focuses on the contemporary American play translated in Russian by key figures of the Soviet underground, Elena Shvarts and Boris Ostanin, exclusively for Bolshoi Drama Theatre in Leningrad. The author of the paper makes an attempt to find out if Georgy Tovstanogov’s ideas of “translation of the reality” on the stage had the long-term impact on poets’ translating strategies and transformations. David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre written in 1977 and firstly translated in Russian in 1983 is considered to be a prominent example of such influences. Comparative analysis of different variants of the play and methods of close reading are used to reveal aesthetic connections between stagecraft theory of Russian theatre and translating practices.
Keywords: Elena Shvarts; Boris Ostanin; David Mamet; Georgy Tovstonogov; BDT.
For much of his short life (1920-1959), the French writer Boris Vian will pay the price of a sin of youth: the pseudo-translation of an American novel, full with eroticism and violence, J’irai cracher sur vos tombes (1946). On the one hand, the novel will be the only commercial success obtained by the French author during his life; on the other, it will be repeatedly charged for offense against morality, forcing Vian to undergo several trials, with significant economic losses. Vian will also adapt his text for the theatre (1948), producing a version which could be labeled as an intersemiotic self-translation. In my paper, I will study the relations between the two texts: the “pseudo-translated” novel and the play. The analysis will show the desire to “redeem” the novel through its rewriting / manipulation: eroticism and violence will be largely mitigated, while the anti-racist theme will be brought to the fore.
Keywords: Translation; Adaptation; Self-translation; Intersemiotic translation; Boris Vian.
The use and the reinvention of Ovidian images and erotic mythology in Shakespeare’s work is the object of the analysis, which focuses on three main themes that contradistinguish both authors’ works: myth, metamorphosis, sexuality. First, the paper presents the points of similarity between the two writers and the close association proposed by them between eroticism and theatricality. Then, it explains how the allusions to Ovidian characters are endlessly reinvented and translated by Shakespeare. Finally, the focus will be put on the transmission, intersemiotic translation and reinvention of Ovidian eroticism in Shakespeare. The violent relation between rhetoric and sexuality is codified, translated and rewritten in an Ovidian mode by Shakespeare, who explains the perverse nature of sexual love by using the art of language. The Ovidian fondness for transgression and the dissolution of the conventional barriers of gender is also explored by Shakespeare through the expedient of cross-dressing.
Keywords: Shakespeare; Ovid; Myth; Theatricality; Sexuality; Metamorphosis.
The paper aims to reconsider the innovative work of Edmond de Goncourt and its adaptation of the novel Germinie Lacerteux for the stage in order to establish the elements which led to the formal creation of a pièce naturaliste. Through the analysis and the comparison between the novel and the play, the paper examines the positive and the negative aspects of the structure of the play, especially for what concerns the adaptation of the time from the novel to the play. Even if the tableaux formal structure of the play allows a realistic representation of time and place of the story, the discourse maintains a narrative mode which generates a contrast in the rhythm of the play and consequently a failure of the realistic intent of representation.
Keywords: Theatre; Naturalism; Goncourt; Germinie Lacerteux; Time; Reality.
La Dame aux camélias (1848) by Alexandre Dumas fils is a novel that has been a remarkable success on the theatrical scenes. Above all, its fame was owed to the interpretations of two outstanding actresses: Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse. The main goal of this study is to investigate the evolution of La Dame aux camélias on the Twentieth-Century stage in Italy with a particular focus on the protagonist. For this purpose, the interpretation of Maguerite Gautier offered by Lilla Brignone in 1960 in a radio drama directed by Mario Ferrero and translated by Massimo Bontempelli (1924) will be examined. In her interpretation Brignone on the one hand incorporates the scenic lessons of Eleonora Duse into her acting techniques. On the other hand, her performance, in concert with Mario Ferrero’s working method, determine an operation of further rewriting the dramaturgical text, also exerting repercussions on the novel transposition.
Keywords: La Dame aux camélias; Massimo Bontempelli; Lilli Brignone; Eleonora Duse; Mario Ferrero.
On the occasion of the 69th edition of the Festival d’Avignon (2016), Belgian director Ivo Van Hove presented a dramatic translation of Luchino Visconti’s film The Damned (Italian title: La caduta degli dei, literally “The Fall of the Gods”, 1969). The peculiarity of the mise en scène coincides with its phenomenology. By using the screenplay of the Italian filmmaker, Van Hove creates a hybrid between theatrical performance and filmic realization; a process which leads to a semiotic reformulation of the theatrical code. The aim of this paper is to analyse Van Hove’s play in order to inquire into some of the features that characterize not only the chosen pièce but also the contemporary theatre in general. The connection between theatre and cinema, the difference between adaptation, rewriting, translation and the interconnexions between audience and stage will be the key points of this contribution.
Keywords: Van Hove, adaptation, contemporary theatre, semiotics of theatre, theatre and cinema.
A Bed Among the Lentils is a television play written in 1980 by Alan Bennett. Bennett’s style focuses on his very subtle use of British humor, which makes him particularly difficult to translate in other languages. This paper aims to analyze the Italian printed translation of A Bed Among the Lentils, in the version published by Adelphi (2002) and compare it with a previous Italian translation, published by Gremese (1996). Moreover, Anna Marchesini’s adaptation of the play in her show Parlano da sole (1998) will also be investigated, highlighting how she put in place a process of cultural appropriation which deviates radically from the indications given by Bennett himself for the staging of his piece. Drawing on the concept of performativity in translation, this paper will show how translation is always a creative process which must tackle linguistic and cultural changes, considering the different audience for which that specific translation is intended.
Keywords: Theater Translation; Adaptation; Appropriation; Performativity; Cultural Translation
This article investigates Sergey Rakhmaninov’s opera The Miserly Knight (op. 24, 1906), an opera based on the homonymous little tragedy by Aleksandr Puskin (1830). The analysis is led in the light of the different expressive means and fruition between the opera and the literary source, considering the transformations that occur in the passage from the page to the music stage. The objectives are three: to reconstruct the logic that guided the composer in the inter-semiotic translation; to highlight the strong relationship existing between word and music in the context of an operatic text; to pinpoint, in the coeval European theatrical context, a possible aesthetic model pursued by Rakhmaninov in his composition.
Keywords: Sergey Rakhmaninov; The Miserly Knight; Pushkin; Inter-Semiotic Translation; Polyphony.
After a brief introduction dedicated to the Russian musical transpositions of the ‘Francesca da Rimini legend’, I will focus my attention on the eponymous opera by Sergei Rachmaninov (1906). The melodramatic adaptation of the subject will be analyzed as a peculiar example of intersemiotic translation. In fact, the dramatic action is framed by a prologue and an epilogue set in Hell – an almost literal translation from Dante’s IV and V cantos of the Inferno – and takes the form of a modern cinematic flashback. Moreover, elements from the symphonic-choral and oratorio genres combine to create a hybrid operatic form, thus giving life to a peculiar lyrical-dramatic ‘intonation’ of Dante’s cantos, which leaves aside the costume drama’s conventions, instead preferring to focus on the outburst of passions and their psychological reverberation. A courtly love tragedy is thus transformed into a late-Romantic (melo)drama, filtered through the tradition of Russian literary culture.
Keywords: Francesca da Rimini; Rachmaninov; Tchaikovsky; Intersemiotic translation; Intercultural translation.
This paper deals with the musical translations of Russian literary texts for the Italian opera.
In particular we analyse the opera Gypsies by Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1912), based on the poem by A. Pushkin and the libretto of Risurrezione (1904) by Franco Alfano, which is based on the drama by Henry Bataille and also includes four key scenes from Resurrection by L. Tolstoy.
From the textological point of view, we note that realia are translated or adapted; cuts are made, and individual phrases are reconstructed in the new context in order to be understood by the Italian public. From the intercultural point of view, we highlight the choice of lexicon and idioms which are relevant for the Italian public. A further point of interest is how the original material was adapted to the vocal standards of the Italian opera, taking into account the counterpoint between words, musical semantics and theatrical action.
Keywords: Opera, Russian literature, Italian composers, libretto, translation and adaptation.
In this paper the author analyses problems arising in translating Russian texts concerning dance, ballet and music. After a short introduction on translation problems in general, the options in translating technical terms are discussed. Besides terminological questions the author also considers some examples related to the French vocabulary used in ballet and transcribed phonetically in Russian, and the denomination of musical notes and the differences between the Anglo-German system and the system adopted in Romance countries, which were both used in Russia.
Keywords: Translation problems; Russian technical terms; Dance; Ballet; Music.
The article examines the translation of some plays by Ivan Vyrypaev (Irkutsk, 1974) and is divided into three parts: the first investigates the peculiarities of the dramatic text and of its translation in terms of stageability, speakability and performability. The second part focuses on the geographical and historical context of Vyrypaev’s work, highlighting the specific features of his poetics and language. The third part is a reflection stimulated by the encounter with the Russian playwright and focuses on the approach to the texts in the translation process. Vyrypaev argues that «the theatrical text is literature that you do not read but watch». Through some examples we will show how such an assumption has often guided the choices made, in order to provide a translation of Vyrypaev’s plays for the theatre.
Keywords: theatre translation, Ivan Vyrypaev, speakability, stageability, performability.
This paper, with a journal diary format, fucuses on my research about Yiddish Theatre, that lasted from 1987 till 2012. Alessandro Fersen gave me the initial input and, as a result, the research was widespread in West and Est-Europe, USA, Israel. In 2001 I was able to project and organize in Rome the first Italian International Congress on Yiddish theatre and Klezmer music. I also worked on Habima, thanks to precious documents I received from Sandro d’Amico; on performances based on Bashevis Singer’s tales; on Marc Chagall and his relationship with GOSET; on Bruce Myers’Dybbuk and finally on Moni Ovadia. In 1993 I publicated a volume dedicated to Abraham Goldfaden, with Goldfaden’s opera Di kishufmakerin translated from Yiddish into Italian by Marion Aptroot and me. This paper gives some few examples of the translation work. My purpose is to underline the scenic cosmopolitism and intermediary function (linguistic, spatial, cultural) of Yiddish Theatre.
Keywords: Yiddish Theatre; Abraham Goldfaden; Bruce Myers; Moni Ovadia; Marc Chagall.