Stages of the loss: translation as dramaturgical mediator at the Royal National Theatre, London

This paper focuses on the practice of translating Brazilian playwright Samir Yazbek’s play The Ritual for the Royal National Theatre, as part of its 2012 Connections season. The paper charts the course of the translation through its different stages, and through the different drafts of the play as they emerged, and examines the way in which translation itself can become a mediator for dramaturgical support, development, enquiry, and critique. Through an interrogation of not only what is retained by the playwright but also what ultimately falls by the wayside, what is lost, the peculiarly British notion of “workshopping” new writing is examined in its linguistic mediated form of translation and the role of the translator as cultural mediator. Ultimately, the paper points towards an international economy of playwriting products where translation becomes a means of mediating cultures through particular and specific frames that remain largely unchallenged