Workshop: Introduction to the Practice of Theatre Translation

Using the Example of “Die perverse Margaret” by Tomáš Dianiška
Part of Ein Stück: Tschechien: Nachlese 2024

With Barbora Schnelle and Henning Bochert

When: 9th October 2024, 2:00–5:00 pm

Venue: Theater unterm Dach, Danziger Str. 101, 10405 Berlin

Description

In a three-hour workshop, translators Barbora Schnelle and Henning Bochert will give a general introduction to the practice of theater translating (description of the work field, prerequisites, acquisition, finances, etc. In the second part, they will examine their collaboration on translating the play Die perverse Margaret by Tomáš Dianiška: how they worked with the author, how they worked together as native speakers of two different languages and the translation from Czech. They have been organising the festival Ein Stück: Tschechien together for ten years and continue to refine their collaborations in translating and editing.

Topics of the workshop

What kind of language does the author choose in his play? How can an equivalent be found in German? What factors need to be taken into account? What are the differences between translating performative language and other genres, such as prose? How should the production process be taken into account when translating theater texts? What do spoken text and stage directions, character speech, attitude and situation mean? And how does communication flow in a play? How does working in tandem work when the partner does not speak the source language? How do the positions complement each other?

The workshop will be open for up to 20 participants and will be held in German.

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Tomáš Dianiška (*1984) studied acting at the Theater Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and became a member of the ensemble of the F. X. Šalda Theater in Liberec, where he played more than 30 roles. He is the main author and actor of the F. X. Kalba Theater, which was originally founded as a “punk offshoot” of the F. X. Šalda Theater, but later became independent and merged with the Palmovka Theater. As an author, he participated in the productions Zvrhlá Margaret (The Perverse Margaret) and House of Love 2: Návrat hezkých hochů (House of Love 2: Return of the Beautiful Boys) at the A studio Rubín Theater. For the F. X. Šalda Theater in Liberec he wrote Googling and Fucking, Mickey Mouse je mrtvý (Mickey Mouse is Dead), LSDown, Logo, Dianiška je Bůh (Dianiška is God) and Atomová kočička (Atomic Cat).

Barbora Schnelle is a Czech-born theater translator, dramaturge, theater critic, cultural manager and editor. She studied theater studies and aesthetics/cultural studies in Brno, Berlin and Vienna. In 2001, she completed her PhD at the Institute of Theatre Studies at Masaryk University in Brno with a thesis on Elfriede Jelinek’s plays (as a book: Elfriede Jelinek a její divadlo proti divadlu/Elfriede Jelinek und ihr Theater gegen das Theater, Brno, 2006) and worked here as a university assistant. She is co-founder of the “Internet theater magazine of factual rage” Yorick. She has been living in Berlin since 2001, working as a freelance translator (plays by Elfriede Jelinek, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Werner Schwab, Maxi Obexer, Kathrin Röggla, Mehdi Moradpour, Wolfram Lotz, Sivan Ben Yishai and others into Czech and plays by Roman Sikora, Eva Prchalová, Kateřina Rudčenková, Tomáš Dianiška and others into German). In 2009, together with Antje Oegel, she founded the association “Drama Panorama: Forum for Translation and Theater”, where she has been organising events and workshops ever since. In 2014, she founded the festival of new Czech drama “Ein Stück: Tschechien” in Berlin, which she has been directing and curating ever since. She teaches as a guest lecturer at Masaryk University in Brno and Humboldt University in Berlin. Her anthology of contemporary Czech drama, Von Masochisten und Mamma-Guerillas, was published by Neofelis Verlag in 2018.

Henning Bochert. After graduating in acting at the University of Arts Berlin in 1994, Henning acted in productions in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Zurich. He has worked as a freelance translator since 1996, mainly in the areas of film and dramatic literature, inluding plays by Eve Leigh, Dawn King, Carlos Murillo, George Brant, Dead Centre, Adam Rapp, Neil Simon, Martin Heckmanns, Christoph Hein, Ingrid Lausund. He has been on the executive committee of Drama Panorama since 2013 and since 2014, he has directed – together with Barbora Schnelle – the festival Ein Stück: Tschechien (New Czech Theatre). In the panorama #1: übertheaterübersetzen series, he organised events on Multilingualism in Theatre, again with Barbora, and in 2023 with Katharina Rösch. Henning Bochert is a certified translator. In 2023, he was co-curator of the literary translation festival the translationale berlin 2023. He spent several years in Los Angeles, where he gained experience as dubbing translator and director for feature films. He has received numerous grants from the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds, the Goethe Institute, VG Wort and the Berlin Senate. A few years in Los Angeles brought experience as a dubbing translator and feature film director. He is an executive committee member of the artists’ network raum4-netzwerk für künstlerische alltagsbewältigung, mainly as a dramaturge for international productions, and also a member of VTheA, Weltlesebühne, The Fence, VdÜ, BDÜ and the International Susan Glaspell Society. He writes poetry, prose and texts for theatre, such as Permeance (2021), Viktors Visionen (2017) and Aschenputtel (2008). Most recently published: Die Rose im Sand (Dörlemann, Zürich 2023). More information at: www.henningbochert.de; translation agency: www.bochert.com

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Produced by Drama Panorama: Forum für Übersetzung und Theater e. V. in collaboration with the Theater unterm Dach Berlin.
Supported by the German-Czech Future Fund and the Senate Chancellery.