Theatre & Translation

I found the Pavis reading particularly interesting. I've always focused on studying translation as text -> text, so the idea of theatre from text -> performance being an act of translation in and of itself gave me new perspective and challenged my idea of what "translation" really is. As we've spoken about before, and as is discussed in the text, translation is not simply an unfeeling act of transferring meaning from one language to another, and this concept is exemplified in discussions of theatre. 

I enjoyed Pavis' ideas on mise-en-scene quite a bit. The idea that it's not simply the execution of a text, but a process of discovery, and that directors & performers together often reinterpret or even create a new text through staging and improvisation was one that I wholeheartedly agree with, and until now did not realize how hand-in-hand it went with my own thoughts of translation generally.

I also appreciated Pavis suggesting a move beyond the binary oppositions (text vs. performance, fidelity vs. betrayal), and that contemporary theatre practices challenge these binaries. Instead of zeroing in on the eternal clash between the two, we can focus on the relationship between text and performance that serves to create something new and powerful.

-Evan