Intersemiotic Translation in Adaptation: The Case Study of the Adaptation of Narrative Poem The Tale of Kiều (Nguyễn Du) to Cải lương Film Kim Vân Kiều (Nguyễn Bạch Tuyết)

Abstract

We are living in the age of adaptation. In contemporary art, the power of adaptation is evidenced by the fact that a textual semiotic system is continuously passing through the different genres and means to establish new texts. Adaptation is also an intercultural translation as each work adapted experiences a cultural shift so as to adapt to the target culture. Although The Tale of Kieu (Nguyen Du) made use of the plot of Kim Van Kieu, written as the pseudonym Qingxin Cairen (青心才人, Pure Heart Talented Man), in the Vietnamese artistic context, the tale can be considered as the “original text” that provides superabundant materials for other adaptations. The Tale of Kieu is one of the Nom poetries that has been most adapted to other art forms, particularly “cải lương” (reformed theatre). In this study, we analyze the case of video-cải lương Kim Van Kieu (directed by Nguyen Bach Tuyet), to determine modes of semiotic transposition from the narrative (narrative poem) to the performance/showing (video cải lương). This inter-semiotic translation process requires that the author adapts, selects, renounces, transforms as well as encodes/decodes, as semiotics, genre, and materials belonging to the verbal semiotic system to the nonverbal semiotic system, or vice versa. To concretize this, we analyze factors that were involved or omited during the adaptation of The Tale of Kieu to Kim Van Kieu.