Theater, beyond paper
Garazi Ugalde Pikabea

Abstract

Early in the summer of 2016, a group of translators and theater enthusiasts met with professor Julia Marin at the Tolare house, the present headquarters in San Sebastian of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, in order to delve into the details of theater translation. The workshop, entitled «Antzerkia itzultzen» («Translating Theater»), took as its point of departure a monologue by playwrights Franca Rame and Dario Fo: Abbiamo tutte la stessa storia [The Same Old Story]. At the professor's request, the participants had worked on the text and translated it into Basque before the workshop, and were thus able to begin immediately their dissection of the nature and peculiarities of theater translation. The suspicion arose immediately: theater translation is a genre that goes beyond paper, and the task of the translator is not limited to solitary work at a computer. That is where it all begins.