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De Francisci, E. and Shisheng, L. (2024) Introduction: Theatre Translation

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https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/334926/

Deposited on 11 September 2024

Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of

Enza De Francisci (University of Glasgow)

Lu Shisheng (Beijing Languages and Cultures University)

Abstract

The Introduction centres on the thematic continuities that underpin all of the ensuing

articles and addresses the layout, organisation, and purpose of the special issue,

outlining its overall vision. It raises a series of questions about the types and critical

implications of the various Eastern and Western theatrical and performative

exchanges traced over the collection and ventures a series of paradigms or models for

thinking about how to classify and understand these encounters. In addition, it breaks

new ground in its invocation of the point of contact between the East and West on

stage, rooted in a new research perspective that is sensitive to the processes, networks,

and agents who have enabled minoritized performance cultures to cross borders.

Keywords: intercultural theatre translation; Eastern and Western theatrical and

performative encounters; agents and networks; ‘other’ and ‘otherness’.

1
Introduction: Intercultural Theatre Translation

This interdisciplinary, transnational special issue brings together international scholars

from Chinese Studies, Translation Studies, Opera, Theatre Studies, English Literature,

Performance History, and Comparative Literature to offer new perspectives on the

vibrant engagements between Eastern and Western theatrical and performative

encounters. The chapters address the intricate, two-way exchange between Sino and

Western hemispheres: how the artistic and intellectual culture of Western theatre has

shaped Chinese-language drama, and how Chinese theatre has permeated Western

drama and opera. Contributions include not only those working in China, but also

those working on encounters in the wider Chinese-speaking world.

The articles in this special issue, ranging in methodology, are unified by an

interest in how Eastern and Western stage works represent and enact exchanges across

the linguistic, cultural, and political boundaries separating both hemispheres.

Contributions address historically-contingent cultural negotiations: from networks,

intertextual dialogues, exchanges of ideas and people, to questions of authenticity,

formations of Eastern and Western cultural and national identity, and problems of

originality and ownership in theatre translation. This special issue thus seeks to

capture, define, and explain these lively, shifting currents of cultural interchange.

Intercultural theatre, as a medium for intercultural exchange, encompasses

diverse cultural elements and serves as a significant platform for ‘the continuing

renegotiation of cultural values, as well as the reconstitution of individual and

2
community identities and subject positions.’ 1 The encounter of Eastern and Western

theatrical traditions exemplifies this unique form. When these two distinct theatres

intersect, it becomes imperative to surmount cultural disparities, with translation

playing an indispensable role in bridging these gaps. Consequently, the study of

theatrical translation has perennially remained a focal point in intercultural theatre

research.

Throughout the history of global theatre development, intercultural theatre has

been categorized into various classifications based on the source culture, such as

Eastern theatre presented on Western stages and Western theatre performed on

Eastern stages, as well as adapted or translated theatres. This confusion surrounding

terminology arises from a lack of comprehension regarding the essence of translation.

Traditionally, translation has been understood as the cross-linguistic transfer of

meaning, divided into intralingual translation, interlingual translation, and inter-

semiotic translation. 2 Theatre translation typically falls under the second and third

categories. However, this concept fails to fully explain the practice of theatre

translation because it often involves more than just an equivalent conversion of the

original theatrical language or other symbols. This is where the divergence lies in the

concept of theatre translation. The accurate conceptualization of the complexity of

theatre translation practice necessitates a thorough re-examination and re-evaluation

of this concept.

1
Ric Knowles, Theatre and Interculturalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2010), 4-5.
2
Roman Jakobson, ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation,’ in Translation Studies Reader, ed.
Lawrence Venuti (New York and London: Routledge, 2012), 127.
3
In Alvin Eng Hui Lim’s article titled ‘Translating Spirits for the Stage: Shakespeare’s

Spirit Worlds in the Southeast Asian Context’ published here in our special issue, we

witness a reinterpretation of King Lear’s afterlife and his reincarnation during

performances in Malaysia and Singapore. The presentation of Shakespeare’s plays

undergoes alterations when presented within different cultural contexts, and Steiner’s

concept of translation can elucidate this ‘change’ as an aspect of cross-cultural

‘inheritance’ of Shakespearean drama. This type of transformation can be

encompassed by a broader notion of translation or even referred to as cultural

translation, while still preserving the underlying themes and main characters from

Shakespeare’s original works. George Steiner perceives the transmission of

civilization as a process akin to translation, asserting that ‘by far the greatest mass of

the past as we experience it is a verbal construct. History is a speech-act, a selective

use of the past tense’. 3 He further expounds that ‘every generation uses language to

build its own resonant past’. 4 In short, the existence of art and literature, the reality of

felt history in a community, depend on a never-ending, though very often

unconscious, act of internal translation. It is no overstatement to say that we possess

civilization because we have learnt to translate out of time. 5 The development of

civilization is the outcome of cultural heritage, which involves a continuous process

of reading, comprehending, and interpreting. This process can be seen as a form of

3
George Steiner, After Bible: Aspects of Language and Translation (New York: Open & Road, 1998),
27.
4
Ibid., 28.
5
Ibid., 29.
4
translation that extends to intercultural relationships, a notion explored by each of the

ensuring articles.

Methodology

The process of translation, according to Steiner, entails the conversion between

languages, meaning, and culture. The concept thus transcends a mere linguistic

exchange and evolves into a cultural action. The idea that translation is a cultural

transformation revolutionizes our understanding of its essence. The analogy Steiner

uses to explain cultural transformation in relation to translations is life processes. The

essence of life encompasses inheritance and variation; considering translations as life

processes involves integrating variation into their conceptual framework. The source

language remains unchanged in the target language through inheritance, while

variation leads to changes in how the source language appears.

We expand our definition of translation, or more precisely of theatre translation,

to move beyond familiar questions about influence, location, and adaptation to

propose instead a new, evolving paradigm of cultural interchange. At a time when

translation studies is expanding across the East and West, this special issue makes a

significant and unique contribution to the discipline. We see translation as a form of

‘creating re-writing’, taking our cue from Andre Lefevère and Susan Bassnett (1990),

that moves a work from one culture to another to meet a new audience. 6 For this

6
André Lefevère and Susan Bassnet, ‘Introduction: Proust’s Grandmother and the Thousand and One
Nights. The ‘Cultural Turn’ in Translation Studies’, in Translation History and Culture, ed. André
Lefevère and Susan Bassnett (London: Routledge 1990), 1-13.
5
special issue, this process entails the act of moving a theatrical piece of work from the

East or West to meet the needs of a new audience from Western and Eastern

backgrounds respectively, an act aligned with the notion of ‘writing forward’ to use

the words of David Johnson. 7 Any such movement forward inevitably requires an

element of refashioning and reworking to help the work fit into its new context. The

process of translation is never black or white. Instead, it rather involves layers of

manipulation to help shape it for its target audience. In the same way as readerships

change over time, so too do theatre audiences, and the language used in theatre

audiences. Dialogue on stage is based predominantly on contemporary spoken

language which is constantly evolving with new terms and phrases, particularly a

lingua franca like English which is prone to change owing to the fast-changing words

used on social media. 8 Stage translations therefore need to reflect the ever-changing

trends, standards, and practices that emerge in different cultural moments of time.

Scholarly literature on theatre translation is large and ever-growing. The body of

critical works devoted to this field is vast, and can be broadly separated into three

categories. First, there is a range of works focussing on exploring the relationship

between translation and theatre practice through a range of case studies. 9 Secondly,

7
David Johnston, ‘Introduction: Theatre, translation and writing forward’, Target 25.3 (2013): 365–
384.
8
See Susan Bassnett, ‘Note on translating Un padre ci vuole’, in All You Need is a Father, Stefano
Pirandello, trans. Enza De Francisci and Susan Bassnett, ed Sarah and Enzo Zappulla Muscarà (Imola:
Cue Press. 2022), 12-16.
9
Roger Baines, Cristina Marinetti, and Manuela Perteghella, eds, Staging and Performing Translation:
Text and Theatre Practice (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Silvia Bigliazzi, Peter Kofler, and
Paola Ambrosi, eds, Theatre Translation in Performance (New York and London: Routledge, 2013);
Geraldine Brodie, and Emma Cole, eds, Adapting Translation for the Stage (New York, London:
6
there are specific publication projects assessing different forms and contexts of theatre

translation. 10 Thirdly, there is a variety of works which construct themselves around

the exploration of translation in relation to other performance genres: opera, music,

song. 11 In addition to these three categories, there are research projects and works in

progress which attempt to harmonize such layers. 12

This special issue thereby expands the reach of the above translation scholarship

by bringing it into dialogue with wider discussions around previous work arguing for

Routledge, 2017); and Robert Stock, Celebrity Translation in British Theatre: Relevance and
Reception, Voice and Visibility (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). For specific case studies, see for
instance, Sh Lyu, ‘The Double Constraints on the Translation of Chinese Drama for the Foreign
Audience’, Chinese Translators Journal, (5) 2015: 83-87; Sh Lyu, ‘Transition from misinterpretation
to comprehension of Chinese traditiona plays in the Western world from 18th to 20th century’, Journal
of Foreign Languages (2) 2017: 92-97; and Enza De Francisci, ‘Translating and Rewriting Ferrante’s
My Brilliant Friend at the National Theatre’, The Translator, 29 (3), 2023: 281-296.
10
Katia Krebs, ed. Translation and Adaptation in Theatre and Film (New York and London:
Routledge, 2014); Geraldine Brodie, The Translator on Stage (London: Bloomsbury, 2017); Edwin
Gentlzer, Translation and Rewriting in the Age of Post-Translation Studies (New York and London:
Routledge, 2017); and Margherita Laera, Theatre and Translation (London: Red Globe Press,
Macmillan, 2019).
11
Dinda L. Gorlée. Song and Significance: Virtues and Vices of Vocal Translation (Netherlands: Brill,
2005); Helen Julia Minors, Music, Text, and Translation (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); Adriana Serban
and Kelly Kar Yue Chan, eds, Opera and Translation: Unity and Diversity (Amsterdam: John
Benjamins, 2020); and Kelina Gotman and Avishek Ganguly, eds, Performance and Translation in a
Global Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023). See also Huijuan Ma, ‘S-I Hsiung and
Cultural Translation of Peking Opera Lady Precious Stream’, Foreign Language Journal, (2) 2017: 85-
91; Linda Liao, ‘The First Encounter of Chinese Opera with Europe: Translation and Study of
Prémare’s The Orphan of Zhao’, Theatre Studies: Journal of Central Academy of Drama, (4) 2022:
150-167; and Lisa Xu and David Johnston, ‘Between safeguarding and translating: Chinese classical
opera and Spanish Golden Age theatre’, Special Issue ‘Translation and Performance cultures’ ed. Enza
De Francisci and Cristina Marinetti, Translation Studies 15.3 (2022): 323–339.
12
See the research project led by Shi Lyu funded by the Nationa Social Science Foundation of China,
‘Translation and Rewriting of Chinese Drama: “Going Global”’ (2014). See also Enza De Francisci
and Cristina Marinetti, eds, Translation in the Performing Arts (New York and London: Routledge,
forthcoming).
7
the value of a performative understanding of translation. 13 Cross-cultural encounters

and transnational exchanges have characterised theatre history from its inception 14,

but little attention has been paid to the human agents (e.g. playwrights, composers,

and performers) and non-human agents (e.g. the staging materials, images, and props)

mediating those encounters, and to the multiple forms of translation they engender. In

paying attention to a new research perspective that is sensitive to the processes,

contexts, and individuals that have enabled different forms of theatre to cross borders,

we align ourselves with the social turn in Translation Studies, 15 the special issue

advocates for a more agent- and network-driven type of research. Such a broadening

of research perspective reveals agency and networks which go beyond the translation

field and allow us to piece together ‘the process of assemblage’ 16 at work in the

translation of Eastern and Western cultures.

From this, we can say that the translation of Chinese and Western theater

represents the meeting of two cultural dramatic hemispheres, where diverse elements

13
Cristina Marinetti, ‘Transnational, Multilingual and Post-Dramatic: Rethinking the Location of
Translation in Contemporary Theatre’, in Theatre Translation in Performance, ed. Silvia Bigliazzi,
Peter Kofler, and Paola Ambrosi (New York and London: Routledge, 2013), 27–37; Cristina Marinetti,
‘Theatre as a “translation zone”: multilingualism, identity and the performing body in the work of
Teatro delle Able,’ Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication 24.2 (2018): 128-146; Enza De
Francisci and Cristina Marinetti, eds, ‘Translation and Performance Cultures’, Special Issue,
Translation Studies, 15. 3 (2022).
14
Knowles, Theatre and Interculturalism.
15
Moira Inghilleri, ‘The Sociology of Bourdieu and the Construction of the “Object” in Translation
and Interpreting Studies’, The Translator 11. 2 (2005): 125–145; and Michaela Wolf, ‘Introduction:
The Emergence of a Sociology of Translation’, in Constructing a Sociology of Translation, edited by
Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2007), 1–36.
16
Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), 5.
8
are brought together into a functional network by one or more elements from the

target culture, achieving intercultural integration. This process can be explained using

Bruno Latour’s actor-network-theory (ANT) as an network-associating process which

can be applied to theater translation. According to ANT, a social phenomenon is

ultimately the result of connecting various heterogeneous elements forming a

network. These elements, also known as ‘actors’ or ‘actants’ which, in semiotic terms,

can be “human beings or non-human objects and are any individuals or entities […]

that acts or to which activity is granted in general.” 17 In other words, “the actors

(mediators) transform, translate, distort, and modify the meaning or the elements they

are supposed to carry.” 18 Such actors are mobilized around a common goal and

thereby form a functional network.

This network is constantly changing, shaped by the actions of its participants

rather than fixed paths or structures. Each new iteration of the network is unique, with

different goals and associations among the actors involved. Theater translation can be

seen as the creation of a new actor network, representing a social and cultural

phenomenon. This offers a unique theoretical perspective for approaching theatrical

translations. ANT suggests that the actors within the network embody various social

forces, whether latent or manifest, human or non-human, and are all active agents.

This encourages us to shift our perspective of theatre translation research.

17
Bruno Latour, ‘On Actor-Network Theory: A Few Clarifications’, Soziale Welt 47.4 (1996): 369-
381 (373).
18
Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford
University Press, 2005), 39.
9
 Subsequently, in paying attention to these processes in theatre and opera, as well

as interrogating the influential power of often ‘hidden’ agents who have intervened in

the process, this will enable us to identify the multiple forms of labour that

characterise translation practice. The special issue thereby maps the various

‘processes of fabrication’ 19 that emerge when adapting and translating Eastern and

Western performance cultures, giving a fuller insight into the unique set of

circumstances that drama and opera have undergone before reaching international

audiences. In reconstituting the often concealed but powerful influences of these

‘invisible’ agents, the special issue offers new and original insights into the labour of

the theatre/opera/musical translator and their collaborators. Our approach

subsequently enables us to put ‘human agency back at the heart of structural

processes’ 20 to voice the silenced individuals at the heart of translational dramatic

and musical practices, and provide fresh perspectives into the transnational circulation

of performance cultures. The case studies in this special issue are based on the

application of this model to explain social states and artistic and creative processes.

Our focus on Eastern and Western encounters aims to promote wider advances

in knowledge, understanding and debates around translation as well as the specific

positionings and forms of knowledge engendered by Eastern and Western cultural

contexts. With this direction of travel in mind, it investigates a series of questions that

19
Hélène Buzelin, ‘Translation Studies, Ethnography and the Production of Knowledge’, in
Translation. Reflections, Refractions, Transformations, edited by Paul St Pierre and Prafulla C. Kar
(Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007), 53.
20
Rebecca Braun, ‘The World Author in Us All: Conceptualising Fame and Agency in the Global
Literary Market’, Celebrity Studies 7.4 (2016): 457–475 (472).
10
relate to the powerful influence of a variety of ‘invisible’ agents: Who are the agents

that have been shaping the translation of Eastern and Western performance cultures

through time? How have they been exerting their influence over the translation of

different performance cultures? And how have they been facilitating different cross-

cultural encounters and transnational exchanges in the performance-making process?

The rationale behind this approach subsequently enables the volume to examine

the agency and networks involved in cultural transmissions. In investigating the

agents and networks involved in these negotiations, an integral part to all the articles,

the special issue provides new insights on performative-sensitive approach to the

field. By revealing the networks of agents responsible for the multiple forms of

negotiations that occur when translating and circulating Eastern and Western forms of

plays, the special issue shifts away from text-based approaches to theatre history and

initiates a new conversation about the contexts, material conditions, and individuals

that enable the international stars, their repertoires, and performance tradition to cross

borders. In so doing, the collection calls for a research perspective that is sensitive to

the processes, contexts, and individuals who have enabled diverse performance

cultures to cross borders and develops an agent-driven research perspective that

foregrounds an examination of the agency and networks involved in cultural

transmissions on stage. Such a widening of perspective will help to interrogate the

different forms of labour that have characterised the adaptation and translation of

Eastern and Western theatrical encounters to uncover the behind-the-scenes theatre-

making processes; contribute to a micro-history of the cultural mediators that

11
intervened when exporting the theatrical tradition abroad; and inspire new models to

follow on contemporary stages.

In spotlighting the various agents in the translation of Eastern and Western

theatrical and performative encounters that have been overlooked thus far, we

question the often-concealed influence groups and languages exerted in the

performance-making process, and use these to advance research around complex, if

uncomfortable, issues and controversies surrounding the hidden trajectories that have

shaped the translation of Eastern and Western performance cultures through time.

Importantly, an analysis of this nature allows us to rethink questions of racial

stereotypes, and reconsider emergent debates around the representation of the ‘other’

in theatre and performance. Drawing on the extensive scholarship around

‘orientalism’ and ‘exoticism’, 21 and the rise in different views on the portrayal of the

oriental ‘other’, particularly the portrayal of China on the Western stage, 22 aligned

with Edward Saïd’s perceived dichotomy between ‘advanced and backward, or

European-Aryan and Oriental-African’, 23 we hope to bring these areas together to

offer new insights into the different processes involved in translating and circulating

21
Claire Mabilat, Orientalism and Representations of Music in the Nineteenth-century British Popular
Arts (New York, Routledge, 2008); Ralph P. Locke, Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections)
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); and Nicholas Tarling, Orientalism and the Operatic
World (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers), 2015.
22
See, in particular, Chi-ming Yang, Performing China: Virtue, Commerce, and Orientalism in
Eighteenth-Century England, 1660-1760 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011); and
Dongshin Chang, Representing China on the Historical London Stage: From Orientalism to
Intercultural Performance (New York and London: Routledge, 2015).
23
Edward Saïd, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 2003 [1977]), 207. See also Robert Young, Torn
Halves: Political Conflict in Literary and Cultural Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1996); and Robert J. C. Young, Empire, Colony, Postcolony (Oxford: Blackwell, 2015).
12
such Eastern and Western images. Our goal is to broaden our understanding of the

representational, sociocultural, and ethical dynamics invoked by such encounters on

theatrical stages. Individual chapters put exoticized branding and images of the

‘oriental’ at the centre of the analysis, and challenge constructs drawn exclusively

from mainstream experience, such as institutional discourse, canonical culture, and

published texts. In so doing, we enhance understanding more widely of the key

challenges and ethics involved when representing and interpreting Eastern and

Western cultures on stage by interrogating the ethnographic branding involved in such

theatre translations.

In a rapidly changing socio-political landscape, uncovering the individuals

responsible for the translation in theatrical and performance cross-cultural contexts

makes explicit the crucial role played by agents and networks in processes of cultural

transmission and works towards affirming the capacity of theatre translation to foster

cultural transfer and collaboration. It is hoped here that, in drawing attention to the

forgotten individuals responsible for the translation and circulation of Eastern and

Western encounters, this will work towards affirming the capacity of translation to

forge intercultural contact and understanding, and, ultimately, give visibility to hidden

influence of theatre translators.

Structure of Special Issue

We open our Special Issue with Josh Stenberg’s ‘Avenues of Dramatic

Transadaptation for Chinese Stories: Euro-American and Inter-Asian’. This article

13
reviews what is called ‘transadaptations’ from Chinese sources of two prolific

dramatist-directors, the German Sinophile Vincenz Hundhausen (1878-1955), well

known for his lyrical German versions of plays such as The Western Chambers (1926)

and The Lute (1930), and the Indonesian director Nano Riantiarno (b. 1949), whose

Jakarta’s Teater Koma has made a half-dozen popular and acclaimed musical

adaptations of stories including The Butterfly Lovers (1988) and White Snake (1994).

While Hundhausen’s versions were based largely on the oral translation of the

Chinese original by German-speaking poet Feng Zhi, Riantiarno based his versions on

Indonesian retellings and dubbed television versions. The historical and geographical

gap between the two oeuvres is used to consider the different pathways of adaptation

from the Chinese world into European and into Southeast Asian contexts, and

suggests that transadaptation into Western languages has largely been elite and

Sinological, while that into the Southeast Asian world was and remains vernacular

and migrant. This is both important for understanding how translational flows are

sensitive to geopolitics and for the different positions occupied and reputations

associated with Chinese culture (and by extension, people) in multiethnic societies in

the West and in Southeast Asia.

Anna Stecher’s ‘Theatricality in Translation: Der Bockerer, the Story of an Anti-

Fascist Butcher in China’ focusses on the Chinese translation of The Bockerer—Tufu,

a black humour grotesque play written in German by Ulrich Becher and Peter Preses,

which premièred in Vienna in 1948 (no English translation is available). In China it

debuted in 1982 through a performance by the National Theatre of Mannheim at the

14
Beijing People’s Art Theatre (BPAT). Due to its success, BPAT made their own

production, in Chinese, the same year. This production was staged innumerable times.

It has since become part of the Classics of the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, and, more

widely, an important production in contemporary Chinese theatre. By working with

Chinese and German text material from the 1980s, as well analysing the drama and

performances through video footage, this article aims to underpin academic interest in

the translation of comedy. The article approaches ‘Bockerer in Beijing’ as an example

of theatricality in translation. It does not focus only on texts—be they printed drama-

texts or performances—but also on these texts’ interconnections with their contexts:

audiences, historical situations, international diplomacy, and others. The aim is not

only to discuss a hitherto neglected case, but also to contribute to broadening the field

of theatre translation in the Chinese-European context, which still mostly focuses on

the translation of the literary aspect of theatre.

From the comical genre, we move onto Shakespeare. Alvin Eng Hui Lim’s

‘Translating Spirits for the Stage: Shakespeare’s Spirit Worlds in the Asian Context’

provides a broad examination of Asian adaptations of Shakespeare that turned to their

respective local religious context to restage the spirit and supernatural worlds of

Shakespeare. Focusing on two examples in the Malaysia-Singapore context, the

article further investigates the colonial legacy of English and how the translation of

Shakespearean English into a local language extends to transposing Shakespeare’s

spirit world from a Western one to a complex tapestry of borrowings, cultural hybrids,

and creolised codes. Enacted as a Mak Yong performance, The Actors Studio’s Mak

15
Yong Titis Sakti (2009 and 2018) reimagines the fairies of A Midsummer Night’s

Dream as spirits revered by the ancient practice of Mak Yong. In Nine Years

Theatre’s Lear is Dead (2018), the dead Lear’s characters find an afterlife in which

they must re-enact their past lives. These translations show how the process of

rewriting of Shakespeare may involve a translated spiritual context often performed

as ritualised behaviour on stage, as opposed to merely finding equivalents or

translating the names of Western/Roman/Greek gods. The examples discussed here

epitomise how translation occurs at the level of embodying Shakespeare’s spirits that

have perhaps lost their religious significance in the source culture but become relevant

to the target culture and audiences.

From Shakespeare, we move to images of women in Ting Guo’s ‘Dancing in her

seven veils: Translating Salomé in the 1920-30s China’. This article revisits China’s

Salomé-fever in the 1920s-30s and explores the theatrical translation of Salomé in the

Republican period (1911-1945). There are two strands of research in existing

scholarship on the reception of Salomé in China. One strand conceptualizes Salomé as

a fashionable commodity and the craze of Salomé as an expression of a lifestyle

associated with aestheticism and decadence in Shanghai. 24 The other strand stresses

the political side of this play in China, viewing Salomé as a passionate and

insubordinate woman with a strong urge to pursue her love and sexuality. 25 Starting

24
Zhou Xiaoyi, ‘Salomé in China: The Aesthetic Art of Dying’, in Wilde Writings: Contextual
Conditions, edited by Joseph Bristow (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 295–298.
25
, Tao Guan, Shalemei xingxiang de lishi yanbian ji wenhua jiedu 莎乐美形象的历史演变及文化解
读 [The Evolution of Images of Salomé and Its Cultural Interpretation] (Beijing: China Social Science
16
from a range of visual presentations of Salomé in artwork such as woodcuts, film

and photography, this article brings these two strands of research together and

examines how Salomé was presented to Chinese audiences and how the dramatic

representation of Salomé intersected with discourses of sexual liberation, aesthetics

education, and the experimental theatre movement in China at that time. Through a

case study of the performance of Salomé by the Nanguo Theatrical Group led by

Tian Han in 1929, Guo argues that Salomé materialised and facilitated a cosmopolitan

vision promoted by Chinese intelligentsia and mainstream media, and highlighted the

negotiation between local and global at different levels in theatre translation.

Continuing the conversations based on gendered-based works, Lisha Xu’s article,

‘Exploring Feminism in the Translation of Rescuing One’s Sister in the Wind and

Dust for the London Stage’, addresses the importance of theatres as sites of

welcoming Eastern-Western cultural encounters through translation. This article

examines Amy Ng’s recent translation Rescuing One’s Sister in the Wind and Dust

(2021), a play based on a 13th-century classical Chinese opera Zhao Pan’er Jiu Feng

Chen (赵盼儿救风尘) by the notable playwright Guan Hanqing (1225-1320). The

article examines how the translator treats feminism in her translation as a means of

negotiating classical Chinese theatre on the contemporary London stage. The wider

context for this translation is that China is consciously ‘telling China’s stories well’

Press, 2014); and Liang Luo, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the
Intersection of Performance and Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014).
17
both in and out its geographical borders, while Chinese cultural plays remain radically

‘Othered’ or unfamiliarized on the anglophone stage.

By bringing such an ancient play that is eight centuries away from the

contemporary world, Ng’s translation deeply embeds her audience’s complicity of a

classical Chinese opera in the ongoing feminism movement across the world by

sharply touching many pain points of today’s gender political issues, such as

sisterhood, domestic violence, chastity, and the human rights of sex workers. Apart

from re-historicizing the gender politics of the past in the wider picture, Ng’s

translation also indicates that translation in theatres inevitably works as an activist

site of resistance to the anglosphere’s routine cultural appropriation of China,

especially as a cultural practice that, by promoting the conditions of an encounter

between both worlds, might serve as a source of more equitable recognition of

classical Chinese culture.

Finally, we turn to Opera in Kelly Kar Yue Chan’s ‘Familiarizing a Literary

“Otherness” in Cantonese Opera: The Peony Pavilion and The Reincarnation of the

Red Plum.’ The field of translating Cantonese opera into English has rarely been

explored when compared with that of other literary genres, as, arguably, a relative

displacement is seen when transferring the content and aesthetic notions of Cantonese

opera lyrics. The lyrics in Cantonese opera, with no doubt, serve significant poetical

and rhetorical functions when translated. Familiarizing an ‘otherness’ in translation

firmly corresponds to the oft-mentioned theories of domestication and foreignization.

That said, it is suggested here that a certain portion of foreignized elements in the

18
process of Cantonese opera translation should be evident. To this end, this article

analyses two popular operas, The Peony Pavilion 牡丹亭驚夢 (1956) and The

Reincarnation of the Red Plum 再世紅梅記 (1959), both produced by the writer

Tong Dik-sang 唐滌生 (1917-1959). The two operas, in their original versions, deal

with the contemplation of human desire (versus that of the underworld) and offer an

unusual perspective into love through life and death. As notions of familiarity and

‘otherness’ depend heavily on a range of translation strategies dealing with cultural

concerns, the present article aims to reveal the degree of literary ‘otherness’ when the

operas were adapting into English.

The six articles collectively underscore the multifaceted nature of translation in

Eastern and Western stages, encompassing linguistic, cultural, and historical

dimensions. They highlight how translation practices can promote cultural exchanges,

upset norms and conventions, and, above all, and drive artistic innovation. Through

these varied approaches, translation emerges as a dynamic and diverse force in the

landscape of East and Western cultural encounters on stage.

Conclusion

To finish on the note of Knowles, 26 performance is always negotiated historically,

geographically, and semiotically. The articles collected here invite a dialogue about

the ways in which processes of translation are constitutive of the shaping of Eastern

and Western cultural encounters on stage. Each contribution mobilises translation

26
Knowles, Theatre and Interculturalism.
19
sociology to reveal the human and non-human agents and networks which are

responsible for these negotiations. The studies highlight the diversity and uncover the

agents and processes that have led to the production and circulation of translated

theatrical, musical, and operatic texts. In giving voice and visibility to such Eastern

and Western encounters, the articles develop a ‘performance-sensitive’ approach to

the field of theatre translation.

We hope that the articles collected here contribute to translation studies by

introducing new paradigms that appreciate the dynamics involved when translating

drama from Eastern and Western contexts. We encourage all who engage with such

cultural encounters to consider the profound ways in which these two worlds meet and

merge on stage. Precisely because there has been no other attempt at bringing together

such Sino and Western encounters in this way, we hope this will inspire new ways of

thinking about what aspects of performance cultures are negotiated when they are

textualized through translation and, ultimately, contribute to a new way of writing

forward. 27

27
Johnston, ‘Introduction: Theatre, translation and writing forward’.
20