Q&A with "Elektra" Translator and Adaptor Timberlake Wertenbaker

-
Timberlake Wertenbaker

Timberlake Wertenbaker—an internationally recognized, multi-award-winning playwright, translator, and adaptor—returns to A.C.T. with her beautiful new translation and adaptation of Sophocles’ Elektra, which runs October 25–November 18 at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater. She is the author of many plays for the stage and radio, notably Our Country’s Good (1988), The Love of the Nightingale (1989), and Three Birds Alighting on a Field (1992). An American-born and –educated European (she was raised in the French Basque country and studied in the United States as well as France) who has lived in London for the past three decades, she has tremendous linguistic dexterity and is a deft translator/adaptor of the great writers of European drama, including Marivaux, Anouilh, Maeterlinck, Pirandello, Euripides, and Racine. Her previous work at A.C.T. includes translations of Sophocles’ Antigone (1993), Euripides’ Hecuba (1995 and 1998), and Jean Racine’s Phèdre (2010). Below are excerpts from past interviews we’ve done with Wertenbaker over the years.



As a playwright who writes original work, what brought you to translation and adaptation, and how is the skill necessary for translation different from that needed to write an original play?
They are actually very different, which is why I like doing both. Translating is a very good way to rest from writing plays. A translation is very technical in that you are trying to put something from one language into another. It becomes more than technical, however, because you have to understand and get involved with the play. Translating requires very different parts of the brain and the emotions. I think when you’re writing a play, you’re dealing with your own imagination. You’re dealing with your own monsters, and you’re acknowledging them as your own. When you’re dealing with someone else’s characters, you’re also dealing with their heart. What makes this playwright’s heart beat? You have to try to get to know that playwright, which is why it’s very important to be able to read the text in the original language. I think it’s very difficult if you don’t. Translation is a very good way to get to know other playwrights and how they work. I enjoy it very much, and I only translate plays by playwrights that I really admire.

Where is the line between translation and adaptation, or is it a sliding scale?
I always put “translated and adapted by” [next to my name in the credits], because I translate and then I might cut five or six lines. An adaptation is something completely different. You’re freer. You just use the material. We have only three terms: “translated,” “adapted,” and “based on.” The definitions are very wide, and one term has to include something that may just be a question of cutting a couple of lines, or a very free interpretation.

 Your translations have been praised for their clarity and immediacy. How did you achieve this?
I want ancient Greek translations to be modern. I think a lot of English translations have adopted a kind of nineteenth-century form to mirror the Greek, which I don’t think it does. The Greek is quite staccato and tough—it’s a very muscular language. I thought it would be good to use a very modern idiom, and to go for the argument, the logic, and the imagery of the Greek, rather than try to put it into poetic form. English verse is rather rounded—I don’t know how to explain that exactly, but I felt it would be hard for me to find an English verse form that had anything to do with the Greek. So I didn’t use verse here. It’s cut, with rhythmic, short lines—it’s rhythmical prose. I also felt that these works should be translated as plays, not as pieces of poetry.

Performances of Elektra begin October 25. Click here to learn more about the production and order tickets.
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

Popular posts from this blog

“To Be or Not to Be”: The Iconic Speech’s Origins, Interpretations, and Impact

-
Image
By A.C.T. Publications Staff The opening line of Hamlet ’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is theater’s most iconic, most referenced quote. What’s less known is the famous speech’s history, with Hamlet ’s earliest publications offering varying versions of its language. Also questioned is its meaning—is Hamlet contemplating suicide or is he weighing the consequences of murder? Though definitive answers are unlikely to arise, the questions “To be or not to be” asks have kept audiences, scholars, and actors engaged for centuries. Hamlet ’ s "To be or not to be" speech as it appears in the three original editions of the play. Photo by Georgelazenby. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The first edition, or First Quarto (Q1), of Hamlet was published in 1603. Because the text is much shorter than later editions and its language is less poetic, it is nicknamed the “Bad Quarto” by scholars. “To be or not to be” in Q1 reads as: To be, or not to be—ay, there’s the point. To die,
Read more

The American Sound: The Evolution of Jazz

-
Image
By Cecilia Padilla There is nothing so uniquely American as jazz music. In its simplest form, jazz embodies the essence of the American people: bold and inventive. The improvisation of the jazz ensemble can even be seen as a metaphor for the American democratic ideal: musicians playing solos have the liberty to express themselves as long as they adhere to the overall structure of the tune—individual freedom but with responsibility to the group. The evolution of jazz music also carries with it the social development of our nation from slavery to the swinging songs of World War II. Musically, jazz contributed immensely to the way contemporary musicians approach instrumentation, composition, and vocal arrangements. It is difficult to find a popular tune today that does not derive from such jazz icons as Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz is the great equalizer; for more than a hundred years, it has been the common ground between blacks and whites, me
Read more

A Hell of a Businessman: A Biography of Joe Glaser

-
By Simon Hodgson Born in 1897, Joe Glaser was the son of a successful Russian Jewish physician in Chicago. He originally intended to follow a similar career and entered medical school, but after passing out in the operating room, he realized he wasn’t cut out to be a doctor. He started off in business selling used cars, but found better luck managing prizefighters. In his biography of Al Capone, Laurence Bergreen notes, “Glaser’s power to fix fights earned him a reputation as a sage of boxing, especially among reporters.” With advanced word as to which fights were fixed, Glaser could predict the results—and even the number of rounds—of many bouts in Chicago. His connections with organized crime continued in his next career change, when he began running nightclubs and whorehouses in the South Side for the Chicago Outfit, the powerful underworld gang led by Capone. Glaser’s tendency toward illegal action nearly ended his career. In 1928, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for
Read more