Thoughts on "Faithfulness" in Theater Translations

I began this week by thinking about Federico García Lorca, and how I have received and absorbed one of his most famous plays, "La casa de Bernarda Alba" over the years. I was first exposed to his work in middle school, through a performance directed by my older sister, who was in high school at the time and who did some of the English-to-Spanish translation herself. I watched 14-year-old girls, dressed in long black dresses, walk across the blackbox theater, pretending to be grieving, oppressed, and sexually tense older and middle-aged Andalusian women.

The next times I came across the play, I read the script as Lorca had written it in an AP Spanish class, and then at BU for a class I was taking for my Spanish major. We poured across the lines in relation to their political context, Lorca's identity, and the style of writing. I grew to appreciate the social critique and artistry Lorca expertly engaged with through this all-female play.

Most recently, I came across "La casa de Bernarda Alba" when I was studying abroad in Ecuador last year. My friend and I ran into the model for her figure drawing class, and he invited us to his production. Held in a small blackbox in a cultural center, the show inverted typical expectations by featuring an all-male cast. The actors were primarily gay middle-aged men dressed largely in black leather bondage-style clothing. There was minimal set decor and twice the production paused for a movement/dance performance. Not all the actors were off-book for the performance.

In considering Jeremy Tiang's and Patrice Pavis' ideas on translation of text and performance, these various productions were at the forefront of my thoughts. The text, each time I witnessed or read it, presented something new, but all clearly respected and revered Lorca's text. Tiang's exploration of "literal" translation as avoiding the presentation of self spoke to me because if the performances that I saw--my sister's and the Ecuadorians'--were strictly literal, I would not have enjoyed them nearly as much. 

-Lila