February 2005

Translating for the stage
Michael Ewans , Associate Professor of Drama and Music,
University of Newcastle , Australia

In his monumental work After Babel , George Steiner proposed that we should regard translation as the attempt to achieve an almost impossible synthesis: between the literal version, which ideally represents all that is in the source text, and the literate version, which is a satisfying work of literature in the target language. All too often translators have headed too far towards one or the other of these two ideals; we have on the one hand literal cribs with no literary pretensions, such as the majority of the en face translations in the Loeb series; on the other we have poets of eminence in their own right, imposing their own style and their own imagery. Often their 'translation' is so free from the sense of the original that it would be better described as an adaptation (Ted Hughes' encounters with Seneca, Aischylos and Euripides come to mind; his Alcestis should in my view be billed as ' Alcestis by Ted Hughes [after Euripides]'.

The main reason for this divergence is the professional background of the translators. The more literal translators tend to be classical scholars, and the more literate ones tend to be poets, often working, if they do not know classical Greek, from a literal version made by somebody else. Playwrights, dramaturgs and directors are relatively under-represented. This is regrettable; after all, the three tragedians and Aristophanes wrote texts to be performed, not to be read or studied.

I would therefore reconfigure Steiner's paradigm; the 'impossible' ideal for drama, towards which the translator must strive, is a version which is accurate – a representation of as much as possible of the meaning(s) with which the original playwright imbued his Greek text – and also actable , capable of being delivered effectively by an actor on the modern stage.

As soon as we demand accuracy or fidelity to the source text, practical problems arise. Athenian tragic language was a Kunstsprache , heightened by a vocabulary and syntax elevated above those of everyday speech, as well as by being in verse; by contrast the modern actor rarely speaks verse at all – and the delivery of Shakespeare, the only verse drama which is compulsory repertory in modern English-language theatres, has sometimes been censured even at the RSC; can we achieve an English idiom which conveys the trenchant power of Aischylos, while not being too high-flown for the modern actor to deliver? It must also not sound over-poetic to an audience of modern theatregoers who, unlike the original audience, are unused to verse drama.

Some brave souls have even translated Greek drama using the original metres. This seems to me to be a very limiting and unnecessary constraint, since modern English has no equivalents to the Greek metres, and their patterns of long and short syllables will therefore not make any impact on actors or audiences; and other, more important kinds of fidelity have to be sacrificed to fit the straitjacket of the Greek verse forms. My preference is for a five to seven stress English blank verse line for iambic trimeters, and a shorter three to five stress line for lyrics.

How far do we take fidelity to the syntax? I believe that this is well worth preserving where possible; Aischylos, for example, normally composes speeches in syntactical units of one to three lines, occasionally making use of enjambment for special effect; there is no reason why this distinctive feature of his style should not be carefully reproduced in translation, and then we can preserve the emphasis on those lapidary moments when the playwright stretches his actor by composing a sentence of several verses (in this example, seven). This speech demands strong breath control to achieve the build-up to and beyond the climax at 'killed his own daughter':

KLYTAIMESTRA

So now you judge it right that I be exiled from this land
and have the hatred of the citizens and people's curses,
who never showed the slightest opposition to this man
when he, not caring much about it, just as if an animal was dead
out of abundant flocks of fleecy sheep,
killed his own daughter, dearest fruit sprung from
my labour pangs, to charm away the winds from Thrace.
Should you not rather then have driven him out of this land
to expiate that crime? But when you come to look               [1420]
into my deeds, you are a savage judge.               ( Ag 1412 ff.)

A text for acting must at all costs preserve the 'hooks', the turning points which allow an actor to sink his or her teeth into the text and build a compelling interpretation. A marvellous opportunity comes two speeches earlier, as Klytaimestra describes the murder of Agamemnon:

I stand just where I struck; the deed's been done.
And I will not deny that I made sure                [1380]
he had no chance to escape or ward off his fate.
I cast an endless mesh around him, like
a net for fish – a rich and evil robe.
I strike him twice, and with two cries
his limbs went slack, and when he'd fallen
I give him a third…                (Ag 1379ff.)

Aeschylus: Oresteia trans. M. Ewans (Everyman Classics, 1995), pp. 42-43.

 

Amazingly, several major translations fail to preserve Aischylos' thrust into the historic present at 'I strike him twice'. But it must be there, to convey the extreme vividness with which Klytaimestra is reliving the murder. Accompanied by a savage gesture with the bloodstained sword which she should wield in this scene, the moment is electrifying.

Tragedy is full of pitfalls: words whose meanings are so rich that no one English word will capture them all, and patterns of imagery which need to be preserved by the use of the same or cognate English words; but Aristophanes is far more difficult. Puns are rare in tragedy, frequent in comedy, and they are of course the hardest single feature of any text to translate from one language to another. The many contemporary allusions in Aristophanes have led to translations festooned with footnotes; but no one can act a footnote. Aristophanes and his audience also believed in the unquestioned superiority of those who speak Attic Greek, and does not hesitate to caricature Megarians and Boiotians in Acharnians , and Triballos, the barbarian god in Birds ; the Scottish, Irish, deep Southern and Russian forms of speech which have been used in some translations strike a politically incorrect note in these days when the superiority of characters who speak the English of south-east England, or that of WASP New England, over people from other regions and ethnicities cannot and should not be assumed.

Aristophanes makes life difficult for his translators, but some have in my view made it worse for themselves. Many seem to feel compelled to add touches of their own humour to what the source text provides; why do they have so little confidence in the playwright? Aristophanic lyrics are also often forced into rhyming English verse, again at the expense of accuracy; but why should comedy be allowed to be more freely translated than tragedy, and why should rhyme be imposed on texts from a culture in which it did not exist? Finally, even more recent translations are sometimes surprisingly inhibited in the face of Aristophanes' sexual and scatological freedom.

Tragedy tends to have a single, unifying and normative tone of voice, whereas in Aristophanes the tone can move in an instant from the (mock) sublime to the obscene, and the translator must do his or her best to respond:

 

1 OLD WOMAN. LYSISTRATA

1 OW Queen of our mighty enterprise,
why have you come forth frowning from the temple?

LYS The deeds of wicked women and the female mind
have made me lose my courage, and I wander restlessly.

1OW What are you saying? What are you saying? [710]

LYS It's true. It's all too true.

1OW What is so terrible? Please share it with your friends.

LYS It is shameful to speak, and difficult to be silent.

1 OW Please do not hide from me this evil we have suffered.

LYS We need a fuck. That's it in short.

1 OW Oh Zeus!

LYS Why call on Zeus? Here's how it is.
I just can't keep them away from their men
any longer. They're deserting… ( Lys 706ff.)

That's actually not too hard, since the contrast at 715 is so sudden and so total. But it's much more difficult to give the actresses the 'hooks' which they need, to get the laughs they deserve, in a sequence of shifting moods and interactions like this one:

[LYSISTRATA, KALONIKE, MYRRHINE, LAMPITO, ATHENIAN WOMAN]

[ LYS ] …So if I find a way, d'you want
to help me end the war?

KAL Yes,
count me in, even if I have to pawn
my finest dress – and drink the proceeds that same day.

MYR And me – I'd cut myself in two
like a flatfish, and give half to the cause.

LAM And I would climb up Mount Taïgetos ,
to see if I could catch a glimpse of peace.

LYS All right. The truth must not be hidden any more.
If we are going to force [120]
the men to sue for peace,
we must give up –

KAL - what, tell us –

LYS - will you do it?

KAL We'll do it, even if we have to die.

LYS OK; we must give up the prick.
Why do you turn away? Where are you going?
You, why purse your lips and shake your heads?
Your skin's turned pale, you're crying.
Will you do it or won't you?

KAL I won't do it. Let the war go on.

MYR Me neither. Let the war go on. 130

LYS Is that what you say, flatfish?
You just said you'd cut yourself in half.

KAL Anything, anything you want. If I have to,
I'll walk through fire. But not the prick.
There's nothing like it, dearest Lysistrata.

LYS What about you?

1 ATH Me too. I'd rather walk through fire.

LYS Then the whole female sex is stuffed.
No wonder the tragedies are all about us;
we just fuck and have children. ( Lys 110ff.)

That's the best I can do; I'll find out in March whether it will work for my actresses, and if it doesn't then I shall just have to rewrite it.

Matt Neuburg, trans. Lysistrata (Hackett 2003), Bacchae (unpublished; available for download from http://www.tidbits.com/matt

Aeschylus: Oresteia trans. M. Ewans (Everyman Classics, 1995), pp. 42-43.

Lattimore, Raphael and McLeish, and Tony Harrison.

I have published ten translations of Aischylos and Sophokles, but have not ventured to submit my two attempts at comedy ( Frogs and Lysistrata ) to a publisher. The extracts below are the first public sighting of any of my new Lysistrata .

Cult titles and other allusions, obscure to the modern audience, can be dealt with by inserting a gloss, either to replace the god's name ('The Kyprian, the Paphian' could simply become 'the goddess of love') or to supplement it ('Apollo, god of healing').

Lysistrata is the most popular Aristophanes play today not just because of its sexual subject-matter but because the mê onomasti komôidein rule in force in 411 makes the number of references to named contemporary individuals very small, in contrast to most of the other ten surviving comedies. It is easy to simply write 'a poof' when Kleisthenes makes his almost inevitable appearance ( Lys 1092).

I don't believe a translation of drama should ever be published before it has received at least one production. The rehearsal process is from the translator's point of view an invaluable workshop, in which passages which don't work for actors will be discovered and can be modified.

RESPONSES:

Alberto Begal
The Open University, Italy

The terms 'accuracy' and 'actable' are the key words in Michael Ewans ' paper. I will limit these few considerations to tragedy, since comedy is a far too complex topic.

I wonder whether a theatregoer would or would not be interested (or delighted?) in watching a Greek tragedy in which accuracy is rendered in poetic form, so as to re-create that sense of beauty which every tragedy conveys in the original text. The term poetic should not be seen in isolation as the product of a single mind, but as the final result of different specialistic approaches. We should remember that the three great Greek tragedians who composed their plays for the stage were primarily poets themselves and spent eight months in rehearsing with the chorus and the actors. We don't know if, during such rehearsals, they changed part of the text because it was not sufficiently actable. Nowadays, we need a sort of active cooperation between poets, classical scholars, and playwrights in order to achieve an accurate and actable translation for the stage. A poet would have the task of rendering the text in poetic form, a classical scholar would keep the poet accurate, while the playwright will judge about the actability of the text.

Robert Davis,
Royal Holloway, London University , UK

The dualistic formulation of 'literate' and 'literal' may be of limited use when describing translation for the stage. Both of these qualities are primarily literary, and do not aid in evaluating or creating text which is inscribed with a 'performative' or 'theatrical' dimension. Professor Ewans correctly notes the absence of the dramatic element in Steiner's model. His proposition to replace Steiner's polarities with a new paradigm, that of 'accurate' and 'actable,' is a valuable step towards recognizing the performative undercurrents of language in a dramatic translation. However, Ewans might perhaps repeat a flaw in Steiner's formulation: that there must be two poles to negotiate. This is most felt in Ewans's broad definition of the concept of 'accuracy,' which is based on rendering 'meaning.' But there are many kinds of meaning, such as lexical equivalence, cultural significance, metrical form, and the performative aspects of language that render indications for stage movement, action, and dance.

While I would be interested in hearing Professor Ewans expand on his definition(s) of meaning, I would like to focus on concept of 'actability' in translation. Thankfully, many translations (or versions) today are written for performance, an act that raises a great deal of questions, some of which I hope Professor Ewans might comment on. Making a text 'actable' plays into a range of ambiguity perhaps even more varied than shifting norms of readers or audiences: the relative standards of acting values, training, and style. Professor Ewans has the benefit of being able to stage what he translates, making his definition of 'actable' necessarily specific. What is actable in Australia is not the same as what is actable in England , or America , even though all three countries share the same language. I am curious to know if Professor Ewans tries to translate for a general English-speaking actor, or for specific Australian actors and voices? What about other English-speaking audiences?

Lorna Hardwick, The Open University, UK :

Many thanks to Michael for opening up this subject afresh for us. I have been thinking about the vexed question of translation FOR staging and its relationship to the more metaphorical translation TO the stage (with all that that implies about the relationship between verbal and non-verbal aspects of communicating the meaning both of the ancient text and of the modern director's approach) and I'm sure that other participants are raising just that kind of issue. However, it seems to me that there is also an issue about the status of the receiving language itself, in this case English, which is to some extent regarded as a source of 'authority', if it is 'accurate', 'faithful' etc.

This got me wondering whether there is relevance to be found in any of the current debates about 'translating' Shakespeare into an English that is considered more modern and 'speakable (ie by modern actors). I recently came across an article by Susan Bassnett in (ed.) Ton Hoenselaars, Shakespeare and the Language of Translation , London , Arden Shakespeare, 2004. Bassnett's article is 'Engendering anew: Shakespeare , gender and translation, pp 53 -67. She starts from the assumption that translation is about textual continuity (rather than disruption and loss) and talks not only about translation for the stage and the problems of concepts of speakability and actability as themselves cultural constructs (a favourite theme of hers) but also about the processes of crossing time and cultural boundaries within the same language - which is what various kinds of English translation have to do. It would follow from this that comparison of different translations within the English language (or other receiving language) might show that there are issues about how to communicate not just Greek to English but also the movement across cultural and linguistic bands within English. So my question to Michael is whether translators of Greek into English (whether or not for the stage) need to be sensitive to the idiom and rhythms of different varieties of English, both in order to communicate with English-speaking readers and audiences and also, in some cases, in order to correspond with movements across (sub) cultural and linguistic boundaries within the source texts.

Rodney Merrill
University of Michigan , USA

The topic by Michael Ewans has some interesting and worthwhile things to say. However, I don't agree with him about the impossibility of using Greek lyric meters; I believe he seems just to give up when he says a 'three to five stress line,' and that in general he makes too little of the pleasure of the fulfilment of formal expectations. I do believe that the formality, and the subtle variations in it, are at least as important to Greek tragedy as to Homer--I don't see why actors can't be trained to make something of it which is new and strange, and by that very token lovely and engrossing. The lyrics of Aischylos don't vary only in syntax--he does want to keep that, so far as possible, and I'm with him there--but as I hope my efforts show to some extent, English too can achieve that variation in formality. He seems to think that we must proceed quantitatively if we use Greek meter; that's certainly not so--a stress-based meter can work. An actor, or at least the 'choregos' who trains her or him, must be strongly aware of the meter to make it work, but that must have been every bit as true of the original productions--I'm sure you know how controversial the prosody of some lyrics in Greek tragedy is, with consequent variations in collometry--I don't think the ancient chorus members would have been able simply to read it out in the proper rhythms. If there were suitable music, that would make it easier--this is music, and there is enough music on the American stage to make that an advantage, rather than the reverse. I'm not sure the chorus would have to be composed of good singers, but they should be able to carry a tune and hear and produce musical rhythms. None of it is easy, but I envision a beauty beyond compare if it could be realized.

I also think his dialogue is too irregular. I like his diction, but I don't see what differentiates the overall feeling from that of heightened prose. Only lines with a uniform length and a discernible and regular metrical 'beat' can provide a real sense of formal verse dialogue, ESPECIALLY when they are spoken on stage. Shakespeare does provide a kind of model--not exact, but the iambic hexameter in English seems to provide a formal satisfaction similar to that of blank verse, without sacrificing oral qualities. Again, to get the actors themselves to feel the strength of that formality might not be easy, but it isn't always easy to get them to speak Shakespearean verse with accuracy and conviction, --mumbling, stiffness, dislocations of all kinds occur to make them fall short of the ideal. It should still be a part of their training.

I really feel that Greek tragedy requires us to transport ourselves to a different frame of mind, even more, perhaps, than Greek epic does, and that the formal qualities are an important way of bringing that about--aside from the great pleasures that they themselves afford, just as the dactylic hexameter is beautiful in itself beyond the 'content' it gives us.

A prime example of the way rhythm reinforces meaning to the point of becoming the meaning, and quite a specific rhythm is the famous refrain of the parodos in the Agamemnon,

ailinon ailinon eipe, to d'eu nikato

where the passage from dactyls to spondees conveys the shift of feeling from dolor to determined hope almost more than the content, so I translate it

sorrowing sorrowing tell it, but may good yet win.

This is pretty obvious, but you might have to help the actors understand the meter and use the right intonation. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the play of emotion elsewhere too has quite a specific rhythmical--musical--embodiment, one which can be conveyed in English verse also, I believe.

Those are my thoughts; I realize they are not those of a dramaturg who works with actual stage conditions, so I don't expect you to agree with them all. But they actuate everything I do as a translator.

Yukiko Saito
Japan

It was very interesting indeed. I just wonder if there is an absolute clear borderline between literal version and literate version. Maybe this is a silly question and maybe because I come from a different background of language, it seems that some sentences could be both...? For example, Japanese language has polite words much more than English; we have many different ways to say and write 'you'. We would not use the same 'you' to friends and to teachers in school, for instance. Thus, even if we try to translate in the literal version, it could end up to be the literate version, or the mixed version...?

Cara Sheldrake
Reading University

The key issue this raises for me is why translate for stage, if by translate you mean to achieve the accuracy/actability balance? If the aim is accuracy why not leave it as academic text for reading. If the translator does not feel that his readers/audience can cope with poetic forms, then why use any form of verse metre? A play to perform should have relevance to both the actors and the audience and a literal rendition cannot recapture ancient Greek performance but an adaptation can bring out original spirit as well as modern issues. Whilst I believe there is a case for translation for the stage the borderlines between translating and adapting should be further debated.

George Theodoridis
(for Translations by George Theodoridis please see http://www.tonykline.co.uk/Browsepages/Greek/Greekhome.htm)

When one tries to explain a translator's work one invariably falls into the grips of some simile or other. This is because it is near-impossible to explain the steps a translator must go through in a tangible, palpable way, since the whole act is one which must, by necessity navigate the translator from one area of expertise to another: from grammatical concerns to questions of morals, of history and of much else.

I chose the following simile: Translating one modern text into another is like a chef being asked to cook a meat dish using only some meat but mainly vegetables; Translating an ancient text into a modern language is like a chef being asked to cook a vegetarian dish using ingredients not easily identifiable. The simile becomes even more complex when the text is a work for the stage and particularly one by Aristophanes or by a poet, say like Sappho whose 'poikolothron Aphrodita' has yet to see its equal in English.

The works of the tragedians do not pose as great a difficulty as do those of the Comedians because the language of three extant tragedians are though 'lofty,' quite legalistic and precise in their meaning, since they are there mostly to answer questions similar to those one does in a modern court of law. There is a stock of vocabulary (as well as a stock of emotions, in fact) which has been used often enough for us to know their precise meaning. Eurypides might be a little bit more troublesome, since the language, morals and emotions he discusses are often much closer to ground level.

With Aristophanes, however, the task is far more complex, for not only was he much 'closer to the ground,' his plays depict the very essence of what is going on below the ground, deep inside the belly of the human; and he does this, not because he is enamoured by this darkness but because he wishes to tell his people that what he's depicting upon his stage is not dark at all. At least not the phallic or scatological or sexually explicit language or behaviour. What is dark is the way the politicians behave.

All this poses great problems for the translator. Yet would be no problems at all were it not for the ethical and marketing protocols of the publishing houses, the universities and the theatre companies.

It would be a very interesting exercise for one to compare translations of Aristophanes done prior to, say the 1950s with those closer to the present.

All this weight is thankfully removed when one translates for the internet and allows for free downloads and for questions to be asked of the translator again, free of charge.

I suggest, finally that, though this exercise of translating works and raising them up onto websites is without financial reward, the reward the translator receives is a much more fulfilling one: not only is he, himself liberated but he knows he is also liberating the arts themselves

D.P.M. Weerakkody
University of Peradeniya , Sri Lanka

Prof. Ewans says: 'The main reason for this divergence is the professional background of the translators. The more literal translators tend to be classical scholars, and the more literate ones tend to be poets, often working, if they do not know classical Greek, from a literal version made by somebody else.

Playwrights, dramaturgs and directors are relatively under-represented. This is regrettable; after all, the three tragedians and Aristophanes wrote texts to be performed, not to be read or studied.'

This broad division, I believe, has exceptions. The late Prof. Gilbert Murray is one that readily comes to mind.

Steve Woodward, The Open University, UK

Michael, I very much enjoyed reading your stimulating piece. You highlighted the ongoing problem of striking a balance between faithfulness to the original and the production of a 'literate' version. It was also a good idea to reformulate the tension in terms of 'accurate' and 'actable'. I would like to make a few observations. I am always interested and often puzzled by translators' claims to translate, adapt, recreate etc. without divulging method. Don Taylor, for example, as translator/director of the Theban plays for BBC TV (Sophocles (1986), The Theban Plays , tr. D. Taylor, London, Methuen), describes how he worked towards a version that could be acted convincingly in English with the assistance of a language adviser, but does not divulge details of exactly how this worked. Others are less forthcoming. Taylor is also interesting in his explanation of choice of verse form, preferring a four-foot line with one strong beat after T.S. Eliot, rather than the iambic pentameter, which he sees as 'no longer a possibility in drama.' In advocating a five or seven stress pattern you propose a. I would also like to mention Tony Harrison's translation of the Oresteia in this respect (Aeschylus (1981), The Oresteia , tr. T. Harrison, London, Rex Collings). He goes for a line with four stresses too but very positive ones, which suit his employment of a form of English heavy in Anglo-Saxon compounds, e.g. 'she-child' as in 'the she-child I laboured to launch on her life-lot. I would, therefore advocate caution in adopting too rigid an approach. This also applies to syntax. Again Harrison is instructive. In his version of lines 1412 ff. he keeps more or less the same number of lines but breaks the flow with an ironic rhetorical question ' and how did you punish this murderer here?', which is effective in building tension, especially as it is picked up again five lines later with 'You should have banished him for pollution.' So, whilst I am interested in your attempt at laying down some ground rules on stress patterns and syntax, I would warn against excessive rigidity in the light of two attempts which both come from successful performance, the one on TV and the other in the live theatre.

Final Response from Topic Leader Michael Ewans

Dear eseminar members, thank you very much for your responses. I am delighted that my piece has stimulated so much debate, and contributions from so many lands.

I wish I could agree with Alberto Begal that collaboration between poet, scholar and playwright is the answer. The track record is not all that good – both poets (e.g. Hughes) and playwrights (e.g. Taylor) [1 below] tend to ride roughshod over the classical scholars from whose literal versions they have apparently worked.

I entirely agree with Robert Davis that actable/accurate is an excessively simple bipolarity. But an easily understood Skylla and Charybdis can be of great practical value to the translator, as he or she faces a blank sheet of paper surrounded by lexicons, Greek texts, commentaries, thesaurus, and perhaps even other people's previous English versions. At least there are two known extremes between which to navigate. I also entirely agree that I failed to define ‘meaning', a polymorphous term to which I did not do justice. Let me just say briefly that my loyalties are (as might perhaps be expected) primarily to lexical equivalence and to performative aspects.

Acting values do indeed vary, adding to the imponderables of the translator's position; but whether the actors are amateurs, students or professionals some values remain constant; the need for clarity, for example – so often neglected by poet-translators. And to Robert's direct question, also raised by Lorna's very interesting comments, I reply that I translate primarily in and for my own and my performances' geographic location, which is a particular Australian city. But my translations are not excessively culture-specific (there are no overt Australianisms); and the idiom I have adopted does seem to have a wider resonance, as witness the widespread use of the Everyman Aischylos and Sophokles both in the UK and in the USA.

With Rodney Merrill I will have to agree to disagree. You plainly prefer a more formal English verse than I do, and this needs an amount of work with the modern actor which I think you underestimate. The version you offer of ailinon ailinon eipe... certainly has a good metrical correspondence with the original Aischylos, but in my view (sorry!) it's not good English and not very actable. You will undoubtedly find hopelessly prosaic my own simple rendering: ‘Cry sorrow, sorrow – yet may good prevail!'

Cara, with respect I think you have slightly missed my key point. Translation, I am saying, needs to be as accurate as possible while also being actable . This results in a version which is very different from an ‘academic text for reading' – but which is equally far from a free adaptation ‘bringing in modern issues'. I am probably in a minority these days, but I think that if an adaptor wants to bring in modern issues (as opposed to bringing out the relevance to the modern audience of C5 Athenian issues, an enterprise which I thoroughly support), then the modern playwright should write his or her own new play, rather than riding to fame (and good box office) on the shoulders of Aischylos, Sophokles, Euripides or Aristophanes by claiming to present one of theirs.

And finally special thanks to George Theodoridis , for being the only seminar participant to comment on my thoughts about, and examples of, translation from comedy. As you note, Aristophanes is far harder to translate than tragedy, and indeed he presents problems in areas from which translators of the loftier medium are blessedly free. This week two people who had taken the new Lysistrata script home overnight to study returned it to me, and withdrew from their scheduled auditions, because the language of the translation, as one of them put it, ‘conflicted with [her] personal beliefs'. My quest for a sexually explicit (i.e. lexically accurate) translation of Aristophanes has already come up against actors – and may therefore also encounter audiences – for whom the verbal freedom of Old Comedy is too much. Should they prevail, or should the translator-director persist in trying to ‘tell it like it is'?!

[1] I do not respect Don Taylor as much as Steve Woodward does, since I find his Sophocles versions quite loose and undramatic, for all the apparent success of the to my mind quite problematic BBC TV productions (a chorus of nineteenth century gentlemen and a Theseus out of Startrek!)