1st Edition

New Paths in Theatre Translation and Surtitling

Edited By Vasiliki Misiou, Loukia Kostopoulou Copyright 2023
    264 Pages 26 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This collection provides an in-depth exploration of surtitling for theatre and its potential in enhancing accessibility and creativity in both the production and reception of theatrical performances.

    The volume collects the latest research on surtitling, which encompasses translating lyrics or sections of dialogue and projecting them on a screen. While most work has focused on opera, this book showcases how it has increasingly played a role in theatre by examining examples from well-known festivals and performances. The 11 chapters underscore how the hybrid nature and complex semiotic modes of theatrical texts, coupled with technological advancements, offer a plurality of possibilities for applying surtitling effectively across different contexts. The book calls attention to the ways in which agents in theatrical spaces need to carefully reflect on the role of surtitling in order to best serve the needs of diverse audiences and produce inclusive productions, from translators considering appropriate strategies to directors working on how to creatively employ it in performance to companies looking into all means available for successful implementation.

    Offering a space for interdisciplinary dialogues on surtitling in theatre, this book will be of interest to scholars in audiovisual translation, media accessibility, and theatre and performance studies.

    List of figures and tables

    Notes on contributors

    Acknowledgements

     

    Introduction: Resetting the scene: theatre translation and surtitling revisited
    Vasiliki Misiou and Loukia Kostopoulou

     

    PART I

    Rethinking theatre translation: Text, performance, translator

    1 Music and sub(sur)titling: Paradoxes and inconsistencies in today’s live performances

    Lucile Desblache

    2 Coming to terms: Towards a hermeneutics of expectation in theatre surtitling

    Sarah Maitland

    3 At the crossroad of translation and performance: Theatre translation and Practice as Research

    Angela Tiziana Tarantini

    4 Post-dramatic mediaturgy in translation: The trials of technotexts

    Titika Dimitroulia

    PART II

    Surtitle(r)s taking the stage

    5 Chicago: A musical on stage and screen in Spanish translation

    Marta Mateo

    6 Multiple voices in surtitling on contemporary Catalan stages

    Eva Espasa

    7 The acrobatics of theatre surtitling: The case of The Lehman Trilogy

    Marisa S. Trubiano

     

    PART III

    Catering for diverse audiences: Minority groups, accessibility, and immersive experience

    8 On target: Surtitles, translation strategies and audience reception

    Louise Ladouceur and Milane Pridmore-Franz

    9 From stage to screen: Digital transformations and accessibility in the scenic arts

    Estella Oncins

    10 Integrated immersive inclusiveness: Rethinking captioning for creative accessibility

    Pierre-Alexis Mével, Jo Robinson, and Paul Tennent

    11 Breaking the conventions about surtitles: The case of Buona la Prima

    Antonia Mele Scorcia

     

    Index

     

     

    Biography

    Vasiliki Misiou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Translation and Intercultural Studies at the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She is the author of The Renaissance of Women Translators in 19th-Century Greece (Routledge, 2023) and she is currently co-editing Transmedial Perspectives on Humour and Translation: From Page to Screen to Stage (Routledge, forthcoming).

    Loukia Kostopoulou is a Senior Teaching and Research Fellow in Audiovisual Translation at the School of French, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is the author of Intermediality in European Avant-garde Cinema (Routledge, 2023), co-editor of The Fugue of the Five Senses and the Semiotics of the Shifting Sensorium (2019), Transmedial Perspectives on Humour and Translation: From Page to Screen to Stage (Routledge, forthcoming) and Managing Editor of Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics.

    "A rich collection of case studies, examples of good practice and theoretical challenges found in theatre translation and surtitling, sure to captivate practitioners, trainers and researchers alike.  It covers a wealth of languages and contexts, including interventions resulting from the constraints brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak. The authors present fresh perspectives on how theatre translation and surtitling can be strengthened by innovative, collaborative, and technology-supported practices, thus continuing to foster inclusion and communication."

    Professor Alina Secară, University of Vienna