This document discusses adaptation and translation in creative works. It provides definitions of translation as transferring content literally from one language to another, while adaptation involves reinterpreting or rendering the original work in a new cultural context. Examples are given of adaptations in film and theater that update original stories for modern audiences. The challenges of adapting works to include diverse representations are also addressed, noting the lack of translations and multicultural stories presented in UK theater. Adapting narratives allows stories to reach new audiences and share different cultures and languages.

1. ADAPTATION AND
TRANSLATION
TAHYS RODRIGUEZ

2. A CREATIVE TRANSLATION METHOD THAT MAKES THE TEXT CULTURALLY
APPROPRIATE, ACUURATE AND UNDERSTANDABLE
KEY WORDS
TRANSLATION
ADAPTATION
ADAPTATION
TRANSFERRING CONTENT LITERALLY FROM THE SOURCE
LANGUAGE TO THE TRANSLATED LANGUAGE
A REINTERPRATATION OF THE ESTABLISHED OR
ORIGINAL TEXTS

3. ‘RENDERING THE MEANING OF A TEXT INTO
ANOTHER LANGUAGE IN THE WAY THAT
AUTHOR INTENDED.’
Newmark, P. (1987) A textbook of translation. New Jersey: Prentice
Hall Longman ELT.

4. WHAT ADAPTATIONS/
TRANSALTIONS CAN WE THINK
OF?
Ariana DeBose and Sharks in West Side Story directed by Stephen
Spielberg, 2021.
Sharks in West Side Story directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert
Wise, 1961.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet directed by
Baz Luhrmann, 1996.

5. Brontë, E. (2015) Wuthering Heights. London: Vintage
Classics.
Bush, K. (1978) Wuthering Heights. EMI Records.
‘Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I’ve come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I’ve come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window’

6. THEORY
Umberto Eco
Benjamin Walter
Jacques Derrida
Paul Ricoeur
Jacques Lecoq
Kenneth Goldsmith
Mona Baker
Margherita Leara
Anne Dacier
Emily Wilson
Timberlake Wertenbaker
Julie Sanders
Linda Hutcheon
Frances Babbage
Bert Cardullo
Dominic McHugh
Jane Barnette
Margherita Leara
Gerard Genette

7. JULIE SANDERS
• Pinpoint Words: version, variation, interpretation, continuation
• All adaptation is interpretation.
• Sanders states that adaptations are a revised point of view from the original.
• Adaptation is a process that takes place from one genre to another.
• Exploring the relationship between the adaptation and the original work- There
are always going to be different views and why someone did or did not like it. A
great deal of it can depend on what was the original text for that person, what are
they comparing every adaptation they see to? How does this differ from someone
who has no connection to the original text?
Sanders, J. 2006. Adaptation and Appropriation. London:
Routledge.

8. CASE STUDY:
CABARET
Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey in Cabaret directed
by Bob Fosse, 1972.

9. Kander, J, Ebb, F and Masteroff, J. (1966) Cabaret.
Van Druten, J. (1951) I am a Camera. New York: Random
House.
Isherwood, C. (1939) Goodbye to Berlin. London: Hogarth
Press.

10. Goodbye to Berlin is set during the waning days of the Weimar Republic, a
series of sketches depicting a disintegrating Berlin. The novel recounts events
from Isherwood’s life and most of the characters are based on actual
people he met in Berlin.
Set just before the Nazis ascend to power in Berlin, Chris an aspiring
novelist from England meets Cabaret entertainer Sally Bowles and a
friendship unfolds. Everything seems hedonistic and fun until their Jewish
friend Fritz encounters trouble.
Set in 1929-1930 Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age as the Nazis are
ascending to power, the musical focuses on the Kit Kat Klub where American writer
Clifford Bradshaw meets English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and they begin
a whirlwind romance. A subplot involves the romance between rooms owner
Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz a Jewish fruit vendor. Overseeing the
narrative is the Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub, and the club itself
serves as a metaphor for ominious political developments in late- Weimar
Germany.

11. CASE STUDY:
AN
OCTOROON
Jacob Jenkins, B. (2014) An Octoroon directed by
Sarah Benson.

12. Boucicault, D. (2018) The Octoroon. London: Forgotten Books,
Classic reprint edn.
Jacobs-Jenkins, B. (2017) An Octoroon. London: Nick Hern Books.

13. Set on the fictional Terrebonne Plantation in Louisiana, The Octoroon depicts life in the American
South with honesty and empathy. The conflict centers around Zoe, “the Octoroon”, a term used at
the time to describe a person who was 1/8 African, 7/8 Caucasian. An extremely beautiful
young slave girl, who is treated like a member of the family, Zoe is kind, generous, and adored
by every man who lays eyes on her. One man, Jacob M’Closky, is driven into such a frenzy by
Zoe that he is willing to lie, cheat and kill in order to own her. Because of a nefarious plot by Mr.
M’Closky to buy the plantation out from under its inheritor, Mrs. Peyton, the estate is put up for
auction along with all of the slaves, including Zoe. Here we see the first theatrical depiction of a
slave auction on stage. Melodramatic and tragic, the events of The Octoroon unfold in a
politically charged race to see if the plantation and Zoe can be saved from the clutches of
Jacob M’Closky.
An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; it follows a black playwright (BJJ) struggling to
find his voice and navigate what it means to be a ‘black playwright.’ When his therapist
recommends adapting his favourite play, The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault, he quickly
realises that getting white male actors of today to play evil racist slave owners is arduous,
so he decides to play the white male roles himself. A theatrical, melodramatic reality is
created to tell the story of an octoroon woman (a person who is 1/8 black), the evil
M’Closky who murders and lies to purchase the plantation and all its slaves and George,
who reveals M’Closky’s actions and saves the day whilst declaring his love for Zoe.

14. BILLINGTON NAMED [AN OCTOROON] A ‘TUMULTUOUS PIECE, [IT] IS BOTH
AN ADAPTATION OF THE OCTOROON, A POPULAR 19TH- CENTURY
MELODRAMA BY DION BOUCICAULT, AND A POSTMODERN CRITIQUE OF IT.’
Billington, M. ‘An Octoroon Review- Blackface Meets Whiteface
in Quicksilver Drama’, The Guardian, 26 May 2017

15. WHERE TO BEGIN ?
NURSE
O how I wish that ship the Argo
had never sailed off to the land of Colchis,
past the Symplegades, those dark dancing rocks
which smash boats sailing through the Hellespont.
I wish they’d never chopped the pine trees down
in those mountain forests up on Pelion,
to make oars for the hands of those great men
who set off, on Pelias’s orders,
to fetch the golden fleece.Then my mistress,
Medea, never would have sailed away
to the towers in the land of Iolcus,
her heart passionately in love with Jason.
She’d never have convinced those women,
Pelias’ daughters, to kill their father,
and she’d not have come to live in Corinth
with her husband and her children—well loved
in exile by those whose land she’d moved to.
She gave all sorts of help to Jason.
Medea by Euripides, 431BC. Production of
Medea at the National Theatre, directed
by Carrie Cracknell, 2014.

16. QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
• What is at the crux of the story?
• Are there elements that should be updates or removed?
• What draws people to the original story, is it plot? A
specific character?
• Cultural implications
• Why does it matter?
• Why now?

17. • IN 2013 ONLY 3.8% OF ALL PLAYS
IN THE UK WERE TRANSLATIONS.
• 14% OF THE POPULATION ARE
MIGRANTS
• 40% OF THE POPULATION IN
LONDON ARE MIGRANTS
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
STATISTICS FROM The Project- Translating
Theatre, Translatingtheatre.Com.
https://www.translatingtheatre.com/the-
project/

18. ’HOW CAN ONE PRESUME TO
TALK ABOUT
INTERCULTURALISM… IF ONE
HASN’T BEGUN TO ENCOUNTER
THE DIVERSE SOCIAL AND
ETHNIC COMMUNITIES
INHABITING ONE’S OWN
PUBLIC SPACE? ‘
THE ARTS REFLECT THE SOCIETY
THEY SERVE, IF THE UK IS SO
MULTICULTUAL AND HAS
AVAIRTY OF CULTURES LIVING
ALONGSIDE ONE ANOTHER,
WHY IS THAT NOT REPRESENTED
IN THE WORKS OF THEATRE WE
ARE SEEING?
Bharucha, R. (2000) The Politics of Cultural
Practice: Thinking Through Theatre in an Age of
Globalization. London: Athlone. p.2.

19. TRANSLATION AND ADAPTATION ARE ESSSENTIAL; THE RETEELING AND
RESHAPING OF STORIES ARE PREVALENT IN SOCIETY AND CAN BE
SEEN ACROSS DIFFERENT MEDIUMS. THE ADAPTATION AND
TRANSLATION OF STORIES ALLOWS FOR NARRATIVES TO BE RETOLD
AND DISTRIBUTED TO AUDIENCES WHO MAY HAVE NEVER
ENCOUNTERED THE ORIGINAL; IT KEEPS STORIES ALIVE. IT ALSO
ALLOWS FOR NEW CULTURES AND LANGUAGES TO BE SHARED AND
FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING TO BE FOUND BETWEEN CULTURES.