Polymetric Verse on Stage in Translation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Jeffs
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
English Language ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
Form Change ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Verse Form ◽  
Verse Forms

The translators, actors, and directors working with the RSC on their 2004–5 Spanish Golden Age season faced a particular challenge in mounting four full English-language productions of plays written originally in a variety of Spanish verse forms. As script consultant for The Dog in the Manger and Pedro, the Great Pretender, the author discussed the plays’ polymetric structures with members of the company in rehearsal. The influence of the original Spanish versification could be seen, felt, and heard in all four of the English productions, whether or not the translator used verse, due to the structural and dramaturgical function of verse-form change. This chapter shows how a consultant working from the initial phases of translation through to stage production can make full use of the texts’ polymetry in the translation and performance.

Staging the Spanish Golden Age

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Jeffs
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
Collaborative Model ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Collaborative Strategies ◽  
And Performance

This book offers first-hand experiences from the rehearsal room of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2004–5 Spanish Golden Age season in order to put forth a collaborative model for translating, rehearsing, and performing Spanish Golden Age drama. Building on the RSC season, the volume proposes translation and communication methodologies that can feed the creative processes of working actors and directors, while maintaining an ethos of fidelity with regards to the original texts. A successful theatrical ensemble thrives on the mingling of these different voices directed towards a common goal. The work carried out during this season has repercussions in the areas comedia critics debate on the page; each of the chapters engages with one area of these overlapping disciplines. Now that the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Spanish Golden Age season has closed, this book posits a model for future productions of the comedia in English, one that recognizes the need for the languages of the scholar and the theatre artist to be made mutually intelligible by the use of collaborative strategies, mediated by a consultant or dramaturg proficient in both tongues. This model applies more generally to theatrical collaborations involving a translator, writer, and director, and is intended to be useful for translation and performance processes in any language.

Metatheatrical Staging

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Jeffs
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
And Performance

Over the course of the RSC season of Spanish Golden Age plays, metatheatre emerged as a common element of all four productions, one that challenged and bolstered the company at all phases of the plays’ translation, rehearsal, and performance processes. Using the varieties of metatheatre established by Richard Hornby, this chapter shows how the RSC capitalized on the metatheatrical devices in the four plays, and in doing so made direct contact with their audiences, drawing them in by linking multiperspectivism endemic to Golden Age playwriting styles with an audience living in an age characterized by self-consciousness on and off the stage.

Pre-Rehearsal Questions of Performance Tradition and Play-Selection

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Jeffs
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
The Public ◽  
Performance Tradition ◽  
Performance Traditions ◽  
Public Consciousness

This chapter asks the questions: ‘what is the Spanish Golden Age and why should we stage its plays now?’ The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Spanish season of 2004–5 came at a particularly ripe time for Golden Age plays to enter the public consciousness. This chapter introduces the Golden Age period and authors whose works were chosen for the season, and the performance traditions from the corrales of Spain to festivals in the United States. The chapter then treats the decision taken by the RSC to initiate a Golden Age season, delves into the play-selection process, and discusses the role of the literal translator in this first step towards a season. Then the chapter looks at ‘the ones that got away’, the plays that almost made the cut for production, and other worthy scripts from this period that deserve consideration for future productions.

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