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34 Journal of Italian Translation
Stefano Boselli
35
order to emphasize brevity or length, emotions, and so forth. A long,
very emotional line by actor 1 could be paired with a matter-of-fact,
much shorter version by actor 2, who would then look at the other
actor waiting for him to finish. That “play” between performers
would be an indication of the “play of translations.” The furthest
experimental reaches of a project like this would imply more pairs
of actors, each responsible for a single translation, appropriately emphasized
through the variety of sign systems available at the theatre.
Ultimately, there is the option of producing a new translation just
for the purpose of enhancing the contrast with another.
A theatre of translations thus produces a series of general effects:
it deconstructs the assumption that a single version of a play
should be presented at any one time; it offers, in the target language,
a visible parallel to the less apparent instability of the original text;
it demonstrates the liberation of the potentials of a text through the
expressive range of a language other than the original; it allows a
creative recovery of older translations; and it foregrounds an intertextual
net among translations that usually remains out of the
picture. In sum, it makes the translators visible by allowing them to
take center stage.
For this one-act, in particular, the multiplication of translations
in performance also ties in nicely with what takes place in the
play. When the Man with the Flower attaches himself to the lives
of others, those lives become distractions but also extensions of his
experience playing out in his mind. Any sort of repetition is a way
for him to diversify and intensify his sensations. When it comes to
his own life, without much hope for the next world, he can multiply
each instant by repeatedly switching between the variable words
of the translators. Needless to say, the Peaceful Customer(s) will be
left flabbergasted.
1 It has been widely noted that, in an attempt to appeal to the largest
possible audience, theatre “in survival mode” needs to privilege acculturation,
rather than adopting a foreignizing, source-oriented approach.
In addition, the here and now of the production allows no footnotes and
requires maximum immediacy.
2 Theorists and practitioners have emphasized the satisfaction for the
translator who is willing and able to collaborate tightly with the entire
creative team. This engagement, in itself quite rare, is probably the highest
level achievable in the “real world” of theatre as business. However, by
doing their rightful job and adding further layers of interpretation, actors
and directors necessarily blur the relevance of a translation, for better or for
worse. Therefore, theatre critics tend to overlook the role of the translator
unless a glaring transformation takes place.
3 The method has been developed by several dance and theatre practitioners
over the years. An overview is in the volume by Anne Bogart and
Tina Landau.
4 This overall number counts each play in multiple-bill performances
and includes Pirandellian productions in general such as dramatizations of
short stories or letters, for the stage, radio, or televison. Notably, the play
was the first in the world to be broadcast by television (BBC 1930).
5 For a thorough history of the play’s productions in Britain until 1999,
see Hampton 67-71. For more detailed accounts of single shows, see Firth
(“La fortuna”), Chapman (for the period 1924-45 in Oxford), and Cornwell
(for the period 1924-33 in Cambridge).
6 Unless otherwise indicated, translations are my own.
7 In addition to changes by the author following the first edition, no
original is ever completely definitive owing to the constant movement of
language, so that the same words lose old meanings and acquire new ones
over time (see Apel’s Sprachbewegung).
8 Corriere della Sera, 14 Oct. 1966, now in Patti (42). A dialogic short story
modeled on Luigi Capuana’s experiments (Ghidetti 136), (All-Night Café
(Caffè notturno) had been published in Rassegna italiana (15 Aug. 1918),
then in the volume Carnival of the Dead (Il carnevale dei morti), and finally
reprinted as La morte addosso in Short Stories for a Year (Novelle per un anno),
Vol. VI, In Silence (In silenzio), Bemporad, 1923. The play in its final form
was published in 1926, again by Bemporad.
9 d’Amico notes that the volume with red pencil additions cannot be
found in the Bragaglia Archive (551) and Ghidetti points out that the title
of the short story cited by Patti refers to the original (1918) and not to the
one Pirandello would have found in the 1923 Bemporad edition (135).
10 The only variants I could find are usually due to a mistake or lapsus:
see “The Man with the Flowers [sic] in His Mouth” in a review by Harold
Hobson (qtd. in Chapman 38) and “The Man with a [sic] Flower in His Mouth”
(Hampton 63). But there is also a real variant in an Oxonian student production:
The Man with the Blossom in His Mouth (Chapman 45).