My name is Lue. And when it comes to Shakespeare, I’m afraid I might be just a little bit tone-deaf.
And after working at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for more than twenty years, I am grateful that there isn’t a competency test because I would not have had the terrific career I have had. But there is much relief in finally confessing my dirty little secret.
4 comments:
This is a beautiful article, and while I may (and have) heard some purists rail against the idea, I see no reason why this exploration should not be conducted. When I initially had heard about this project (not with this article) I was confused, because paraphrased versions of Shakespeare's text have existed for reading purposes for years. However, the idea that the form and structure are to stay the same, with linguistic updates, and the purpose of stagecraft is what makes the new versions so exciting.
The implications of this have potentially DNA-altering effects for the world of theatre. Because so much of our modern understandings of theatre come from these Shakepearean texts, unpacking them in this way may yield results that grant heavy insight into what it means to tell these famous stories, as well as highlight potentially new ways that the text itself is timeless, but also how the implications of society at the time had a greater influence on the text than most may have thought. In addition, the rhetorical implications are significant as well, for we seldom have high language plays written in modern vernacular, and it may cause of resurgence of poetry as medium for character and story.
What an exciting project! I think that this has the potential to have a fantastic impact on the way that many theater artists interact with Shakespeare's work and language. I'm very interested in linguistic studies and the work of translating a text from one language to another, and I'm consequentially very intrigued by this approach. It makes so much sense, and provides a real opportunity for this project to be recognized and appreciated as an experiment rather than dismissed as a senseless simplification of the bard's work. The purpose is grounded in theater and linguistic study rather than reaching out to an audience, and that important difference is what I hope will allow this project to soar. It's also very exciting that so many playwrights are going to be working on this, and I look forward to reading more about this initiative. I would definitely be interested in reading about one or more playwright's specific process in unpacking and translating the text.
Having also read an article about this project from an outside perspective, it is interesting to read about the translation project from the perspective of the person who is leading the project. I thought the project was a good idea when I first heard about it, and Lue’s explanation even further cements my thinking that this is a helpful project, especially given how clear it is that the people involved believe in and are excited about the project. I didn’t quite realize to what degree they were modernizing the language after reading the outside-perspective article. I had sort of assumed they were modifying it to be more understandable but it would still sound Shakespearean, whereas this sounds like they are trying to more or less write what Shakespeare would’ve written if he were writing it in the modern day. I’m really amazed by how many people are involved in this process and how meticulously they are going through the text. I know I’ll want to see/read the translated plays when they are finished.
There is a use for this "translation" process, and I applaud the effort to make the text more accessible to people, including those for whom English is a second language. However, the people who opt to read or perform these "translations" will never actually be performing Shakespeare, merely a facsimile. The specific language utilized by Shakespeare in his plays is so nuanced, and precisely chosen. It gives form to characters' personalities, perhaps demonstrating keen wit through wordplay. The specific construction and scheme of the specific written dialogue differentiate between comedy and tragedy. I believe it is impossible to preserve all of the word-based structures and moods that make Shakespeare's work so lush, and enticing by "translating" his works. Something is always lost in translation.
Even so, as in an article discussing Hamlet potentially being "fat" that was featured last week, as time passes, certain words - specifically chosen by Shakespeare - have lost their original meaning. Perhaps trying to advance the language of the works with our times is a worthy endeavor after all.
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