Western plays have been the main material for teaching Modern Theatre in Thailand. However, the literary translation approach, employed in translating most of these plays, seems to create an unnecessary gap between the source text and the target audience. Therefore, this research aims to explore translation methods and the translator's role in helping a play communicate effectively as a performance. This project is practice-based, in which I act as a translator/director translating Joe Orton's Loot into Thai. I domesticate the play by means of recontextualising it to a contemporary Thai context. My translation was staged in Thailand in 2012. With reference to a semiotic viewpoint, I propose that a theatre translator needs to be aware of the connotations of realia and bodies in a play text as theatrical signs. A functional equivalence approach is required to retaining the Ortonesque effect through the translation process, and in producing this effect the theatre translator is taking the position of a creative writer of the target text. Theatre translation is concerned as much with theatre practice as with the translation. The mise-en-scene process is a crucial stage where the contributions of other theatre practitioners can help determine a successful theatre translation. I point out that actors are the co-writers of the performance text, and the director is required to act as the mediator, negotiating the cultural-theatrical differences between the source and the target culture. I argue that foreignisation and domestication are inseparable, especially in theatre translation. It seems rather unhelpful, both in theory and practice, to treat them as separate activities. Finally I recommend various approaches to overcome some of the challenges of the problematic term 'performability', that a theatre translator needs to consider in translating future Western plays for performance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:658196 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Rattanachaiwong, Nataporn |
| Publisher | University of Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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