How the hell did it get here so fast?

December was a somewhat frustrating month for me creatively. My creative vision became completely focused on a 10-minute transhumanist science fiction play written in verse. Although I spent quite a bit of time researching it, toying with it, and eventually laying out the largest chunks of it, the play just refused to gel. And so, after having it consume all of my creative thoughts and energies for the better part of a month, I’m left with nothing to actually show for it.

Ah, well. That happens upon occasion.

And the month wasn’t completely destitute.

The American Shakespeare Repertory staged The Merchant of Venice, the 19th reading in the Complete Readings of William Shakespeare. Supporting that production, I wrote several essays: The Textual History of Merchant, Elizabethans and the Jews (Part 1 and Part 2), The Pound of Flesh, The Great Conversion, The Soul of Shylock, and The Four Sallies.

I continued my work with the South High Theater Alumni Alliance, which gives a newsletter presentation of local theater productions starring alumni from one of the premiere high school theater programs (which also happens to be my alma mater).

I’ve also been working on converting Margaret Frazer’s stories and novels into Kindle ebooks. In December that included “This World’s Eternity”, “Shakespeare’s Mousetrap”, and The Outlaw’s Tale.

I’m also been working as the dramaturg for Walking Shadow Theater’s Drakul, an original adaptation by John Heimbuch. December saw the bulk of my work on this project to date, and I’m really excited about it: The script is not only the best and most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that I’ve seen to date; it also tells a truly compelling story of the sequel to those infamous events.

The show will be running February 11th thru 26th in Minneapolis, MN. If you’re local (or passing through), you should check it out.

And I’m looking ahead to 2011. There’s some exciting stuff on the horizon.

Photo by Mark Vancleave

Back in 2009 I posted a series of essays on my work translating The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. This essay was written, but apparently I forgot to actually post it to the website. Whoops.

In Act III of The Seagull, Trigorin threatens to leave Arkadina for Nina. Arkadina, driven to desperation, succeeds in seducing Trigorin and convinces him to stay with her. (“He’s mine now,” she says to herself. And she’s right.) Trigorin then opens the small notebook that he keeps in his pocket and jots something down.

Аркадина. Как хочешь. Вместе, так вместе…

Пауза.

Тригорин записывает в книжку.

Что ты?

Тригорин. Утром слышал хорошее выражение: «Девичий бор»… Пригодится. (Потягивается.) Значит, ехать? Опять вагоны, станции, буфеты, отбивные котлеты, разговоры…

Which can be literally translated as:

Arkadina: As you wish. However, both together …

Pause.

Trigorin writes in the book.

What?

Trigorin: This morning heard the expression: “Virgin forest” … Handy. (Stretches.) So, go? Again, cars, stations, buffets, chops, talking …

The key phrase here is “Девичий бор” — “virgin forest”. It’s pretty easy to look at the juxtaposition of “I heard an expression” and “virgin forest” and leap straight to the common English phrase: “virgin wood”. And, indeed, a casual survey of translations of The Seagull reveals that virtually everyone goes for the easy solution.

But there is a problem here: Trigorin jots it down as something worth remembering; an oddity that must be recorded. Generations of English-speaking actors and their audiences have struggled with making sense out of Trigorin’s seeming unfamiliarity with a common phrase.

A quick search of Russian sources, on the other hand, reveals what I suspected: Unlike “virgin wood”, the phrase “Девичий бор” is virtually unknown outside of The Seagull. So one can immediately intuit that there is an important context for “Девичий бор” which is being lost when we translate it simply as “virgin wood”.

My next step was to pull open a Russian-to-English dictionary.

Девичий — maiden (girl’s, maidenly, virgin, maidenish, maiden-like)

бор — boron, chemical element; forest, thicket

I think we can safely discard the “boron” definition. But this may suggest that we should be wary of putting too much weight into the word “virgin” here. “Maiden” has a very different connotation to it.

Poking around the Russian Google for awhile, I dig into a few of the obscure non-Chekhovian uses of the phrase. One is a 1939 book called Montenegrin’s Tales (Черногорские сказки), which appears to be a collection of folklore by P. Stiyensky (Стийенский Р.). One of the stories has this phrase as the title, but I’ve been unable to find out any details about it.

Another reads: “Их было четверо, девичий бор, кружок, тайное общество, можно сказать. Учились в одной школе.” In English: “There were four in theдевичий бор; a circle, a secret society you might say. They studied together at school.” And the phrase is used again in the same work, once again to describe this small group of girls.

This is intriguing to me because it suggests that the use of the word “forest” or “grove” or “thicket” might be the metaphor in this phrase (rather than “maiden” or “virgin”). In other words, it is not the wood which is being described as virginal, but rather the maidens who are being described as like a forest — like a thicket of trees grouped together.

And, looking at the context of the scene, it begins to make sense why Trigorin would suddenly be struck by such a phrase: He has been beset in rapid succession by Nina and then Arkadina. He feels pulled this way and that by the women around him. They are a thicket penning him in.

I have now defined the parameters of the problem: I need a catchy turn of phrase which is (a) original rather than proverbial and (b) invokes the imagery of a covey of women.

What I eventually came up with was “girlish gaggle”. I was unhappy to lose the sense of “forest” or “trees” from the phrase, but I think it nevertheless strikes closer to home than “virgin wood”.

(EDIT: Intriguingly, a reference that has cropped up on Russian Google since I originally translated the script seems to suggest that Девичий бор might be a “paraphrasing” (typo?) of девичий вор — which can be translated as “maiden’s burr” or “girl thief”. I wish I had a better understanding of Russian to fully appreciate the argument being made, but if I accept it at face value then it raises the interesting possibility that I had it backwards: Is Trigorin actually referring to himself as a burr which catches upon women? There is invocation of both injury and clinging which I find intriguing.)

I know things have been pretty quiet around here of late. I’m afraid that’s because everything else in my life has been so ridiculously busy. So, on that note, here’s a quicky summary of upcoming projects I’m involved with:

I directed David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole for South High School. Most high school theater can only be loved by the parents, but South High Theater sets a higher standard for itself and Rabbit Hole achieves it. (I may be biased, but if it didn’t, then I wouldn’t be promoting it here.)

Rabbit Hole has two performances left: November 19th and 20th (Thursday and Friday), both at 7:30 PM. Reserve your tickets and check it out.

I’ve also founded the American Shakespeare Repertory, and we’re getting ready to kick-off our inaugural project: The Complete Readings of William Shakespeare will present every play, poem, and sonnet (along with a sampling of the apocrphya) from 2009-2011.  It represents the unique opportunity to experience in performance all of Shakespeare’s masterpieces, including those rarely or never seen, in a way that hasn’t been possible since the King’s Men originally performed them 400 years ago.

On November 23rd, the series premieres with MACBETH at the Gremlin Theater. Join us for a night of blood, murder, and mayhem as Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy is brought to vivid life.

STARRING
Macbeth – Justin Alexander
Lady Macbeth – Elizabeth Grullon
Macduff – Neal Beckman
Lady Macduff – Amanda Whisner
Malcolm – Jordon Johnson
Witch 1 – Gail Frazer
Witch 2 – Susannah Handley
Witch 3 – Hannah Steblay
Angus/Siward – Ann Gerstner
Donalbain – Kelly Bancroft
Fleance/Young Siward – Emma Mayer
Lennox – Sarah Martin
Ross – Gabe Heller
Seyton – Martha Heyl

Stage Manager: Sarah Holmberg

SPONSORED BY
Gremlin Theater’s Corleone: A Shakespearean Godfather

And coming soon…

Two Gentlemen of Verona – December 2nd – Pillsbury House Theater
Coriolanus – December 9th – Open Eye Figure Theater
Twelfth Night – December 16th – South High Skybox Theater

AND BEYOND…

In January I’ll be appearing in Starting Gate’s production of Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky!

In May I’ll be assistant directing Walking Shadow Theater’s production of Trasndimensional Couriers Union.

… AND HERE AT THE ALEXANDRIAN

I’ll be doing my best to get back to regular updates and fresh content. Promise.

Lo these many years ago I attended South High School in Minneapolis, MN. And there I was cast unto a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And thus was I bitten by the bug of the theater. Forever after would I prance upon the wooden slats of the stage.

I have spoken here previously about the excellent theater program at South High School and the huge effect it had on me as both a person and as an artist. I’m not alone: Dozens of South High Theater alumni have gone on to professional careers in the theater (as documented by the South High Theater Alumni Alliance, which is hosted on this site).

Louise Bormann, who has served as the Artistic Director of South High Theater for 17 years, is retiring. Starting next year, the program will be taken over by alumni Ellen Fenster. In celebration, we are restaging The Importance of Being Earnest (which was first produced on the South High stage in 1994). Many of the leading roles are being reprised by the original actors (many of whom are now professional actors), and I’ll be taking on the role of Merriman.

Most of you reading this have no immediate connection to South High, so this probably means little to you.

But what should mean something is that this is a rollickin’ good show. If you live in the area and you’re looking for a good dose of entertainment, then you should come and see it.

Photo by Mark Vancleave

In Act I of the The Seagull, Arkadina has become upset with her son Kostya. This prompts Dorn, a family friend, to respond in this exchange:

Дорн. Юпитер, ты сердишься…
Аркадина. Я не Юпитер, а женщина.

Which can be literally translated:

Dorn: Jupiter, you’re angry…
Arkadina: I’m not Jupiter, I’m a woman.

Wait… what?

Translation isn’t an easy gig sometimes, and it’s perhaps unsurprising to find translators struggling with this line. However, I was somewhat surprised to discover how many of them — at the end of the day — get it wrong.

Let me spoil the ending here by explaining what this line is actually all about. Its source is a Latin proverb: Iuppiter iratus ergo nefas. Literally, “Jupiter is angry, therefore [he is] wrong.” Although less known in English, this old saying was apparently quite popular in Russia (appearing, for example, in the works of both Dostoyevsky and Lenin, among others). Here Chekhov is assuming that the audience will be familiar enough with the saying that they will know what Dorn is saying even though Arkadina cuts him off.

In the end, I translated this line as:

Dorn: Jupiter is angry, therefore–
Arkadina: I’m not Jupiter, I’m a woman.

This is basically a literal translation. The significant difference is adding the word “therefore” (which I hope is enough of a clue for modern audiences to realize that Dorn is offering up a maxim) and changing the ellipsis at the end of his line to a dash (Chekhov uses ellipsis to indicate both characters trailing off and characters being interrupted; in modern usage the dash is a clearer indication that Dorn is being cut off by Arkadina).

Now, translation is more of an art than a science. There are certainly other ways a translator could try to tackle this line. But the essential elements here are (a) Dorn starts to quote a maxim and (b) Arkadina cuts him off.

Elisaveta Fen, on the other hand, translates this exchange as:

Dorn: Jupiter! You are angry, therefore…
Arkadina: I’m not Jupiter, I’m a woman.

By sticking that exclamation point after “Jupiter!”, Fen turns it into an odd ephitet quite separate from the maxim that follows.

The Marian Fell translation (which is reproduced by Project Gutenberg without proper credit) has:

Dorn: Thou art angry, O Jove!
Arkadina: I am a woman, not Jove.

This, honestly, doesn’t even make sense. Dorn referring to Arakdina as “Jove” looks like a complete non sequitur.

George Calderon, one of the earliest translators of the play, gives us:

Dorn: (singing) “Great Jove, art angry yet”…
Arkadina: I’m not Jove, I’m a woman.

Having Dorn break out into song is not as much of a non sequitur as you might think if you’re not familiar with the play: Dorn frequently interjects snippets of song into conversation.

My point with all this is not to talk about how clever I am. (Well, not primarily anyway. I have an over-abundance of ego.) But I think it’s a notable example of the ways in which translations can (and do) go astray. I’ve met lots of people who have written off Chekhov or Tolstoy or Hugo or Dumas on the basis of bad translations, bad productions, or bad adaptations.

Of course, not everyone is going to like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Hugo, or Dumas (or the thousands of other foreign authors like them). But I think it’s worthwhile to remember that not all translations are created equal. If it turns out that you don’t like the works of a foreign author, it might be worth your while to give them a second chance in a different translation. And this is a maxim that extends beyond the classical.