Translating and performing China for the English-speaking stage
Royal Shakespeare Company’s re-staging of The Injustice to Dou E
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22236529 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yangyang Long (0000-0002-5268-186X, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2024-09-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2662-9992 • E-ISSN: 2662-9992 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41599-024-03772-1 |
| OpenAlex | W4402923359 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
Contemporary China is increasingly open in its interaction with the global cultural community, generating one of the most prestigious projects—the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Chinese Classics Translation Projects” (2015–2023). This article examines this project’s first production Snow in Midsummer , a performance based on a new translation of the Chinese classic Dou E Yuan (窦娥冤, The Injustice to Dou E That Moved Heaven and Earth ). Through exploring the multiple agents involved in the RSC’s re-staging of the play, this article traces the processes of translation and performance characterised by an oft-hidden collaborative agency. It uncovers the collaborative agency at work and argues that the agency in this theatre production aims to set the conditions to make the original Chinese classic new, so as to enable its rejuvenation and transformation. Key finding of this article is that the collaborative agency of the translator, playwright, director, stage designer, and actors/actresses in re-staging has enlivened the 13th-century Chinese classic with enriched narratives and produced a performance that is nuanced and relevant to the contemporary world. This article makes a case for the paradigmatic shift from a product-based approach to theatre translation to a process-based one. It opens new avenues to future research into the question of complexity of collaborative agency in restaging the foreign classic to the contemporary English-speaking audiences for both areas of theatre translation for performance and transnational theatre production
Art · China · Injustice · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy
Multimodality
Governing Complexity
Occidentalism, A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China
Selected Plays of Kuan Han-Ching
Chinese Chuanqi Opera in English
Transnational Chinese Theatres Intercultural Performance Networks in East Asia
Reassembling the Social
The Chalk Circle Comes Full Circle
Xiqu Research and Translation with the Artists in Mind
The three-in-one role of scholar-retranslator-director
Representing China on the Historical London Stage
Performing China on the London Stage
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |