The Play out of Context Transferring Plays from Culture to Culture

This is a volume of essays, which examines the relationship between the play and its historical and cultural contexts. Transferring plays from one period or one culture to another is so much more than translating the words from one language into another. The contributors vary their approaches to this problem from the theoretical to the practical, from the literary to the theatrical, with plays examined both historically and synchronically. The articles interact with each other, presenting a diversity of views of the central theme and establishing a dialogue between scholars of different cultures. With play texts quoted in English, the range of themes stretches from a Japanese interpretation of Chekhov to Shakespeare in Nazi Germany, and Racine borrowing from Sophocles. Most of the essays are based on papers presented at the Jerusalem Theatre Conference in 1986. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of the theatre and of literature and literary theory as well as to theatregoers.

List of illustrations; List of contributors; 1. Introduction Hanna Scolnicov; 2. The play: gateway to cultural dialogue Gershon Shaked, translated by Jeffrey Green; 3. Problems of translation for the stage: interculturalism and post-modern theatre Patrice Pavis, translated by Loren Kruger; 4. Space: the final frontier Peter Holland; 5. 'If the salt have lost his savour': some 'useful' plays in and out of context on the London stage James Redmond; 6. Mimesis, mirror, double Hanna Scolnicov; 7. Greek drama in Rome: some aspects of cultural transposition Dwora Gilula; 8. Shakespeare and theatre politics in the Third Reich Werner Habicht; 9. The generation of Life Is a Dream from Oedipus the King Eli Rozik; 10. Claudel and Vitez direct Molière Yehouda Moraly, translated by Daphne Leighton; 11. The role of the target-system in theatrical adaptation: Jalal's Egyptian-Arabic adaptation of Tartuffe Carol Bardenstein; 12. Chekhov in limbo: British productions of the plays of Chekhov Vera Gottlieb; 13. Intercultural aspects in post-modern theatre: a Japanese version of Chekhov's Three Sisters Erika Fischer-Lichte; 14. Mr Godot will not come today Shoshana Weitz; 15. The adaptation and reception in Germany of Edward Bond's Saved Ruth von Ledebur; 16. Whose Life is it Anyway? in London and on Broadway: a contrastive analysis of the British and American versions of Brian Clark's play Albert-Reiner Glaap; Index.

This volume of essays examines the relationship between the play and its historical and cultural contexts. Transferring plays from one period or culture to another is so much more than just translating the words. The approaches to this vary from the theoretical to the practical, from the literary to the theatrical, with plays examined both historically and synchronically.