“What ghost are you ghoulin’ for around here?”: The haunted presences of theatre and translation

• Main Author: Alinne Balduino Pires Fernandes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2016-05-01
• Series: Cadernos de Tradução
• Subjects: theatre translation; subjectivity; theory and practice
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/traducao/article/view/39963

In this article, I examine the various subjective influences that are at stake when translating for the stage taking into consideration my own translation of Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats… (1998) into Brazilian Portuguese. What motivates this discussion is a focus on the ir-, anti-, post-rational nature of translation theory and practice, as put forth in Robinson’s Who Translates? (2001), but with specific attention paid to theatre, acting and re-enacting.  Rather than providing answers, this article intends to raise questions with regard to the “voices” or “forces” that are at stake when translating for the stage.