ONLINE STAGE READING FROM DILIA TRANSLATION WORKSHOP 2020
Barbora Haplová
The DILIA translation workshop focused on Polish took place for the 15th time despite the obstacles. The output is three translations of unconventional Polish plays and all of them are available upon request in DILIA. The introductory meeting took place in June, this year’s tutors were Jan Jeništa, Irena Lexová, and Pavel Peč.
The introduction presented the specific features of theatre translation and its function on the stage. Each of this year’s plays (Fashion Victim, Yemaya – Queen of the Seas, Sam or Family Education) had its specific language the participants managed to perfectly deal with. The intro session also covered the issues of the legal protection of translators and authors. We met again at the beginning of September and discussed our experience with translation, specific difficulties the scholarship holders and tutors encountered, we reflected upon the work on the translation and recommended further steps.
The workshop should have ended with a stage reading, which is a nice reward for the participants, as well as a festive publication of their work of several months. We were happy that it was possible to organize reading by the LETÍ Theatre online on the theatre’s Youtube channel on 15 December.
The project was supported by DILIA Supervisory Board and Fabulamundi Playwriting – Europe.
PROGRAM OF DILIA TRANSLATION WORKSHOP 2020
Director: Marie Špalová
Dramaturg: David Košťák
Actors: Nataša Bednářová, Milada Vyhnálková, Lucia Čižinská, Jan Hofman, Jan Mansfeld and Michal Lurie
FASHION VICTIM
Sandra Szwarc
Translator: Tereza Agelová
Tutor: Irena Lexová
Mirek is a man experiencing a midlife crisis. He decides to go downtown one day and buy something ordinary to wear. He is seduced by all the discounts in shops, and it looks like Mirek is in heaven! However, he is chased by a group of children from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar and Brunei since the moment he bought the ordinary shirt. A contemporary play by a young Polish author beseechingly comments on the dark side of the fashion industry and remembers the real event in 2013, when hundreds of working women and children died under the roof of the collapsed factory.
SAM OR FAMILY EDUCATION
Maria Wojtyszko
Translation: Sandra Ort Feyglová
Tutor: Pavel Peč
Thirteen-year-old Sam looks like a typical outsider: his parents are intellectuals, he wears glasses, does not do any sport, but plays the piano. A stereotypical image goes askew rather rapidly. The tough guy in the class, the ideal family, and the conservative teacher in this play are not what they seem to be at the beginning. A bitter satirical play refers to the deficiencies in the education system that should educate for exams and grades, but real life in a family and society as well. Loneliness is not an individual story of the hero, but a collective story of the generation with the traditional values going adrift.
YEMAYA – QUEEN OF THE SEAS
Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk
Translation: Alžběta Jilečková
Tutor: Jan Jeništa
Six-year-old Omar loves his father, who does not understand or accept the complicated spirituality of his children’s world. This is why Omar talks to plants on the balcony, pieces of earth, stones. A new world opens under the water surface for him. Yemaya is a play for children and adults, which presents a story about friendship and love illustrated in the current social situation. Omar’s world is an infinite world of children’s imaginations, where good and evil clash in an imaginary colorful mosaic.
