Rewriting for the Spanish Stage

Abstract

[EN] In the course of my research on translations of English drama into Spanish, I have dealt with a variety of target texts considered, and many times labelled, "translations" or "versions". In most cases the translator presents a play originally written in English to the Spanish audiences in their own language. There are sorne translators who are allegedly faithful to the original, some others who claim they have "adapted" the play to a stage or audience, and there is a small group of so called translators who rewrite the original and make the play their own. The purpose of this paper is to discuss those instances of rewriting in the light of the results of a large scale research work, just completed this year, in which I have studied 150 translations Of English drama into Spanish. A case in point is Alfonso Sastre 's version of Langston Hughes' play Mulatto. This "version" poses questions related to the very notion of equivalence in translation and brings to the fore the questions of rewriting, or as Milan Kundera puts it, the "demon of rewriting" which affects literature and, more specifically, theatre. I shall discuss this notion of rewriting in relation to the concept of adaptation and translation, always in the context of foreign theatre texts presented in a different culture and language. The way this process of rewriting is undertaken and the "methods" used by certain playwrights when rewriting a play will also be discussed. The status of the original text and other translated texts will also contribute to clarify the way rewriting takes places and the extent to which this way of importing plays may affect the reception of certain playwrights in the Spanish theatrical system.