Steven Sabel — 'Translating' the Bard to Modern English Corrupts Performance & Conceals the Author

To Modernize or Not To Modernize: Why “translating” the Bard’s text into modern English corrupts the performance of the works and further conceals the true author.

It is a recent trend among certain theatrical Shakespeare companies and annual festivals to “modernize” or “translate” the texts attributed to Shakespeare for modern performance. Beyond conceptualizing the plays for production, such as setting “As You Like It” in the American West, or creating a 17th century pirate theme out of “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” these Shakespeare companies have set about changing the words in the text to eliminate more antiquated words, and insert more contemporary language. Oregon Shakespeare Festival is one such entity garnering a considerable amount of press through their commissioning of current playwrights to prepare “translations” (as they call them) of 36 titles in the Shakespearean canon. Some of those “translations” are now being performed in venues across the country.

In this presentation, excerpts from original texts will be compared, showing the textual changes we know about through study of folio and quarto versions of some of the plays. We will also look at new modern “translations.” Further examples of other published conversions of the texts will also be used to highlight the vast differences in meaning and changes to performance resulting from these corruptions of the text.

This talk was presented on October 11, 2018, at the SOF Annual Conference in Oakland, California.

Steven Sabel is the producing artistic director of Archway Theatre Company, headquartered in Burbank, California. He was the founder of the Redlands Shakespeare Festival, and served as producing artistic director of that organization for nine successful seasons, before moving to the Los Angeles area. He has produced more than 57 full-scale Shakespearean productions in both classical and conceptualized styles, including 21 different titles in the Shakespearean canon. The full extent of his classical theatre production repertoire includes plays by Marlowe, Ford, Moliere, Machiavelli, Goldoni, Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw, and the Greek masters.

[duncanmckeown]

Great presentation! "The authorship question making things new again!" Absolutely my own experience. Once I became an Oxfordian, I read again "The Merry Wives of Windsor"; a play that in orthodox terms is often criticized as rather unfunny with dated language. Once you see Page as Burghley, Anne Page as Anne Cecil, Slender as Philip Sidney, and Shallow as Leicester the play is transformed...it becomes not just a slapstick vehicle for Falstaff...but a hilarious satire...and Fenton's (Oxford's) scenes with Anne extremely touching.

[tomgoff]

Magnificent harangue, deftly aimed at not only the Stratfordians but the whole make-a-buck-off-Shakespeare industry. A richly deserved scolding of these fellow-travelers of the professional De Vere Deniers, propping up their shaky poster of the flat-as-a-playing-card Stratford dweller, with most feeble spear. Turn the Bard's words upside down: in these "modernized" renditions, "Bottom, thou art translated" would read, "Translator, thou hast bottomed."

[rooruffneck]

I'd agree with this. If somebody treats these learning aids as if they are the plays, they are making a massive error. I have benefited greatly from deeply dumbed down Shakespeare study guides (Like No Fear). These will undoubtedly be misused by many organizations. And, as hard as it is to believe, they will open the door for many others to step eventually into the actual texts.

[apollocobain]

The challenge is that Shakespeare reads well but is tough to listen to. It suffers on the stage. All acting is reacting and Shakespeare performances demand that nonspeaking actors hold a kind of frozen reaction during the long recitations and soliloquies. On the page it works perfectly well as written but listening to it, memorized and recited, is an acquired taste; a ritual that can be improved.