Way to Heaven, David Johnston’s translation of Juan Mayorga’s award-winning play Himmelweg (Camino del cielo), comes to Sydney’s SBW Stables Theatre between 14 April and 8 May 2010. Directed by Tanya Goldberg, the play is a collaborative production between the Ride On Theatre and Griffin Theatre Companies:

‘The curtain falls and, suddenly… that whole world disappears.’

1942. The heart of Europe. An orchestra performs in the village square. Two boys play with a spinning top. A young couple quarrel on a park bench. And a ramp rises from a deserted train station where the clock is frozen at six o’clock. An ordinary town goes about its ordinary day. People perform for their lives.

Way to Heaven ventures deep into the fracture between appearance, performance and the terrible reality of Theresienstadt – the concentration camp notoriously presented to the outside world as a model Jewish settlement.

From renowned Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga comes a searing examination of fear, control and the power of performance.

See a trailer for the production here: Way to Heaven Trailer.

Tanya Goldberg, director of the production, gives her thoughts on the production here: Tanya Goldberg discusses Way to Heaven.

PERFORMANCE DATES

Preview 14 April
Season 16 April – May 8

PERFORMANCE TIMES

Monday – Saturday 7pm
Saturday Matinee 8 May 2pm
School Matinee 4 May 12:30 pm

PRODUCTION NOTES

Translated by David Johnston

Director Tanya Goldberg
Set Designer Simone Romaniuk
Costume Designer Xanthe Heubel
Lighting Designer Verity Hampson
Producers Esti Regos, and Viv Rosman
for Performing Lines
Associate Producer Joanna Fishman
With Lexi Freiman, Nicholas Hope, Marko Jovanovic, Nathan Lovejoy, Terry Serio, Tami Sussman

VENUE

SBW Stables Theatre
10 Nimrod Street
Kings Cross NSW 2011

More information on this production can be found by clicking on the Griffin Theatre Company website.

Jo Clifford, translator of Gil Vicente’s ‘Don Duardos’ which was recently staged as a rehearsed reading at the Burton-Taylor Studio Theatre in Oxford as part of our Symposium, has been interviewed on Start Talk:

Interview with Jo Clifford

Tuesday 30 March:

STRANGERS (written 2004)
by Spanish playwright Sergi Belbel; translated by Sharon Feldman
directed by Franko Figueiredo

STRANGERS is a GRIPPING TALE charting the disintegration of two generations of a Spanish family where the seeds of narrow-minded hatred that was planted bear BITTER FRUIT forty years later.

Strangers was first staged in Barcelona in 2004, and made into a film by Catalonian director, Ventura Pons in 2008.

agbaje, belbel, french, richter, srbljanović and ting StoneCrabs Theatre presents
ORIGENS/ORIGINS 2010-Vol. 1 Staged Readings Festival of Contemporary Plays from Europe
Soho theatre (Upstairs Studio)	Tuesday 30th March Thursday 1st April Thursday 8th April @ 7pm
	BOOK ONLINE NOW www.wegottickets.com tickets £5 *please note that there is a 10% online booking fee

Professor Lawrence Venuti, Queen’s University Belfast 8–9 March 2010

The Queen’s Research Forum for Translation and Cultural Encounter is hosting two seminars by Lawrence Venuti. Lawrence Venuti is Professor of English at Temple University. He is also a translator and has written and edited a number of books on translation theory. The following two seminars will take place on 8 and 9 March 2010.

All are welcome to attend.

Monday 8 March, 7.00p.m.

Queen’s University Belfast. Seminar Room, Postgraduate Centre, 18 College Green. This seminar will be followed by a wine reception.

Genealogies of Translation Theory: Jerome

This lecture offers an historical examination and ideological critique of Jerome’s famous Letter to Pammachius (395CE), exploring its relation to Roman imperial culture, on the one hand, and to an emerging Christian culture, on the other. Jerome’s letter is the most influential statement of what can be called the instrumental model of translation, the notion that translation is the reproduction or imitation of an invariant contained in or caused by the source text. Jerome’s effort to sketch a Christian translation tradition is considered as a means of legitimizing his own translation practices, but attention is also given to modern developments like Eugene Nida’s concept of dynamic equivalence. The aim is to formulate and argue for the comprehensiveness and ethical value of a hermeneutic model, the notion that translation is a variable interpretation that is culturally and historically contingent. The ethics of translation to be proposed here will draw on the work of Alain Badiou, specifically his concept of a truth‐based ethics that challenges institutionalized knowledges and communitarian interests. The instrumental model as formulated and applied by Jerome is affiliated with a Roman Christian elite whose interests are masked by its translation theory and practice.

Tuesday 9 March, 5.00p.m.

Queen’s University Belfast. Lanyon Building, Room G09

Ekphrasis, Translation, Critique

Translation theory enables a rigorous critical methodology that can advance thinking about ekphrasis, the verbal representation of visual art. The relation between such a second‐order work and its source material is not instrumental, not a reproduction or transfer of a formal or semantic invariant, but rather hermeneutic, an interpretation that varies source form and meaning through the application of an interpretant. The hermeneutic relation must be viewed as transformative because a key aspect of any interpretant is its relation to cultural traditions and social situations that differ from those of the source material. As a result, the hermeneutic relation can be treated not only as interpretive, a variable attempt to fix source form and meaning, but as interrogative, exposing the cultural and social conditions of the source material and of the second‐order work that has processed it. The critic in turn applies an interpretant, whether a critical methodology or specific interpretation, to formulate the hermeneutic relation and its interrogative effects. The lecture will review the literature on ekphrasis from the vantage point of translation theory and then develop a translation‐oriented method for reading ekphrastic texts. The case study is Rosanna Warren’s 1984 poem, “Renoir,” which is based on Renoir’s painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881).

For further information contact Professor David Johnston at d.johnston@qub.ac.uk

Dear Symposium Delegates, Speakers and Participants,

2010 Symposium: ‘Spanish Golden Age Drama in Translation and Performance’

at Merton College, Oxford, 18-19 March 2010

This blog post is your one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about your journey to Oxford for the Symposium. If you require any additional information, please email me and I’ll post info as and when it’s needed.

TRANSPORTATION TO OXFORD

Airports

The easiest airports from which to reach Oxford are Heathrow and Gatwick. Luton Airport is about two hours away and Stansted is a three-hour journey from Oxford.

There is a direct bus from London Heathrow and Gatwick to Oxford.

The Airline

National Express offers bus service from Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted.

National Express

Travel from London by Train or Bus

Oxford is one hour’s train journey from London’s Paddington station.

National Rail

For travel to London from Oxford there are two competing bus companies, the Oxford Tube and the Oxford Express (note London’s underground metro system is also called the ‘Tube’, although the Oxford Tube is a bus company, confusingly)

The Oxford Tube

The Oxford Espress

Roadways – approaching by car

Oxford is connected to London, the M25 and the Midlands by the M40 motorway. Junctions 8 and 9 link directly to the city. The Oxford ring road provides direct access to the south and west coast ports of Southampton, Portsmouth and Bristol via the A34.

ACCOMMODATION

Single ccommodation for symposium delegates, speakers and participants is available at Merton College. Registration is essential; if you would like accommodation please fill in the Registration Form and send it back to Kathleen Jeffs with payment (if applicable). Rooms for the symposium are available as ensuite rooms (£70) or with shared bath (£56.50).

Check-in is from 3pm, although your room may be available earlier, please phone the Lodge to check if you will be early: (+44) (0)1865 276310

Breakfast is included in the room rate and is served in Merton College Hall from 8-9am for guests staying in College.

Internet is available in the rooms via a data cable which is provided.  Please read the instructions in the welcome pack in the rooms or phone the lodge on the number above if you have problems connecting.

Note: The Merton College Lodge has informed me that if you are planning to arrive late (or stay out late) and would like to be let in to the college after about 11pm, it may be best to ring the Lodge to make sure that the porter has not gone on his ‘night rounds’ and will be there to let you in. They are normally there 24-hours, but just in case he goes walking to check the college etc, the phone number to call if you’re going to be late is: (+44) (0)1865 276310.

Alternative accommodation can be booked via the following links:

Official City of Oxford Tourism

Hotels in Oxford

Hostel and B&B bookings

CATERING

Breakfast is included in the room rate for delegates staying at Merton College, and is served in Hall from 8-9am. A day rate for catering will be applicable for both Thursday and Friday which will include tea and coffee during the breaks, as well as a sandwich lunch on both days.  Registration is again essential to take advantage of the Symposium catering.

CONFERENCE DINNER

There will be a conference dinner held in Merton College on the evening of Thursday, 18 April. Two rates are available:  an option with and without wine. Vegetarian options are also available; please indicate any dietary requirements on the Registration Form to join us for the Symposium dinner.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Now that you know how to get to Oxford, where you’re staying, and where your next meal is coming from, you’ll be ready to take part in the Symposium! You can peruse the Provisional Programme, which, as its title suggests, might be subject to change.

REHEARSED READING

Out of the Wings is dedicated to including the practice of theatre in all our events, as our principal aim is to provide scholars and practitioners with the tools to read and stage Spanish theatre. Central to our programme is thus our rehearsed reading of Gil Vicente’s one-act play ‘Don Duardos’, in Jo Clifford’s translation, directed by Poppy Burton-Morgan. The reading will take place at the Burton-Taylor Studio at the Oxford Playhouse, located on Gloucester Street in Oxford.

Handy map of the Train Station, Merton College, and the Burton-Taylor Studio

EXTRA-SYMPOSIAL ACTIVITIES

During your stay in Oxford you may wish to take advantage of the cultural life of the city; there is much to do and see. Within walking distance of Merton College you will find a wealth of artistic and theatrical entertainments. Such as:

Our main theatre is the Oxford Playhouse, and on the Wednesday before the Symposium begins there is a one-man show about Richard Burton being staged at our Burton-Taylor studio, where our rehearsed reading will be held on the Thursday, and which was originally funded by Burton himself. In the larger, adjoining house there is another mainstage production simultaneously.

Here’s the link for what’s on Wednesday at the Burton-Taylor Studio and Oxford Playhouse

There are other theatres in Oxford, as well as a wealth of musical entertainments, most of which locals will find out about on the Daily Info website.

There are also wonderful museums in the area. Check out the:

Newly Remodelled Ashmolean Museum

Or the fascinating Museum of Natural History where they have a model of the Oxford Dodo bird

Don’t miss the idiosyncratic Pitt-Rivers Museum inside (where they have a collection of shrunken heads worth seeing just to say you’ve seen real shrunken heads)

And don’t forget to visit Oxford’s Colleges

UCL Spanish and Latin American Studies Department Presents:

El método Gronhölm

in Spanish, based on the play by Jordi
Galcerán adapted by
Mateo Gil & Marcelo Piñeyro

4th and 5th FEBRUARY 2010, 7.30pm
Tickets £7, £5 concessions
Contact: Bloomsbury Theatre Box Office
15 Gordon Street London WC1H 0AH
020 7388 8822 – boxoffice@thebloomsbury.com

EL MÉTODO GRONHÖLM Poster

Black and White Rainbow theatre company present our own David Johnston’s translation of this ‘mad’ play at the Trafalgar Studios in the New Year.

For more information see the London Theatre Guide article here.

Radio New Zealand currently has 4 short programmes on translation available to download on its website. They include items on literary, poetry, and cultural translation. There is also an item on the relationship between the author and the translator.

Click the ‘Download MP3′ link below each item if the title links don’t load.

Go to Literary Translation: Art or Echo?

Translating Golden Age drama brings up many questions of interpretation, form and meaning; but whether to translate the comedia in rhyming verse or not is still a heated debate. One translator, Gregary Racz, believes strongly that the comedia should be translated in verse, a view which has also been taken by Philip Osment in his rhyming, metrical Pedro the Great Pretender for the RSC’s Spanish Golden Age season, and by Victor Dixon in both his translations and his scholarship. Some translators, such as David Johnston, invent their own forms, keeping a regular metre but rhyming only in selected passages, such as sonnets. I invite your comments and views, readers; here is an article by Racz to get the conversation started (see p. 4-6 of this issue of ‘The Gotham Translator’).

The Case Against Preserving Meter and Rhyme in Poetic Translation: Theory or Practice?

‘Leave me in peace, brother’, begins Fergal Keane at the start of Radio 4′s ‘Taking a Stand’ this week. He suggests that this line from one of Federico García Lorca’s poems might now ‘usefully serve as a kind of epitaph’ for the poet and playwright’s family. Lorca was shot by Franco’s forces in August 1936 – at just 38 years old. His body lies, most probably, alongside tens of thousands of others in mass graves around Spain.

This week’s ‘Taking a Stand’ invites Lorca’s niece and President of the Lorca Foundation, Laura García Lorca, to explain her family’s decision to stand against the push in Spain to unearth the past – quite literally – through the disinterment of remains. For Laura and the Lorca Foundation, however, the wish to leave undisturbed the mass grave just outside Granada where Lorca is presumed to be buried is literal in another way. As she explains, it has nothing to do with a desire to forget or ignore what happened: it is quite literally a desire to leave human remains where they lie. ‘We don’t want the past to be buried’, she states, ‘we just don’t want the bones to be moved’

While some families, then, see disinterment as symbolic of reconciling past and present through the exposure and recognition of the crimes of the Francoist regime, Lorca’s family view it as a ‘very disturbing’ physical violation of the dead. Metaphor and literalism combine on the one hand; they exist in tension on the other.

‘He should not be singled’ out, Laura explains, regarding her qualms about the media’s particular focus on the Lorca family and their moral opposition to the disinterment (which seems likely to go ahead; the family never legally opposed it). Strangely, however, like the best historical theatre, the interview does give us a very visceral, yet still understated, impression of the singularity of one family’s suffering at the brutal murder of a son, brother and uncle during the Spanish Civil War.

You can listen here by clicking below for the next seven days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00h6tpm