{"title":"BÜCHNER, BORDERS AND THE CONVERGING OF ‘CROWDS’: JACK THORNE'S WOYZECK (2017)","authors":"Joseph Prestwich","doi":"10.1111/glal.12391","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>As an important site of cross-cultural exchange, theatre translations performed in Britain form key routes for international writers to be introduced to, and to influence, British audiences and theatre-makers. This article introduces Jack Thorne's 2017 adaptation of <i>Woyzeck</i> by Georg Büchner, performed at the Old Vic Theatre in London, as a case study to trace how British theatre practitioners and institutions frame and utilise German texts and playwrights to construct an image of German (theatrical) culture in Britain. I will focus on institutional practice in the first instance, tracing how the Old Vic Theatre framed this production as appealing to two different ‘crowds’ and how <i>Woyzeck</i> relates to the Old Vic's stated institutional aims. This will be combined with performance and textual analysis that draws out the ways in which the production thematises borders and cultural difference. While theatre in translation can be seen as a bridge between different national cultures, I ultimately argue that this <i>Woyzeck</i> adaptation highlights, and indeed propagates, divisions between British and German (theatrical) cultures.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/glal.12391","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/glal.12391","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, GERMAN, DUTCH, SCANDINAVIAN","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As an important site of cross-cultural exchange, theatre translations performed in Britain form key routes for international writers to be introduced to, and to influence, British audiences and theatre-makers. This article introduces Jack Thorne's 2017 adaptation of Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, performed at the Old Vic Theatre in London, as a case study to trace how British theatre practitioners and institutions frame and utilise German texts and playwrights to construct an image of German (theatrical) culture in Britain. I will focus on institutional practice in the first instance, tracing how the Old Vic Theatre framed this production as appealing to two different ‘crowds’ and how Woyzeck relates to the Old Vic's stated institutional aims. This will be combined with performance and textual analysis that draws out the ways in which the production thematises borders and cultural difference. While theatre in translation can be seen as a bridge between different national cultures, I ultimately argue that this Woyzeck adaptation highlights, and indeed propagates, divisions between British and German (theatrical) cultures.
作为跨文化交流的重要场所,在英国演出的戏剧翻译为国际作家介绍并影响英国观众和戏剧制作人提供了重要途径。本文介绍了杰克·索恩2017年在伦敦老维克剧院演出的乔治·比奇纳(Georg b chner)改编的《沃泽克》,作为一个案例研究,追踪英国戏剧从业者和机构如何框架和利用德国文本和剧作家来构建英国的德国(戏剧)文化形象。我将首先关注制度实践,追溯老维克剧院是如何将这个作品框定为吸引两种不同的“人群”,以及沃泽克是如何与老维克剧院所陈述的制度目标联系起来的。这将与表演和文本分析相结合,得出生产主题边界和文化差异的方式。虽然翻译中的戏剧可以被看作是不同民族文化之间的桥梁,但我最终认为,沃泽克的这部改编作品突出并实际上传播了英国和德国(戏剧)文化之间的分歧。
期刊介绍:
- German Life and Letters was founded in 1936 by the distinguished British Germanist L.A. Willoughby and the publisher Basil Blackwell. In its first number the journal described its aim as "engagement with German culture in its widest aspects: its history, literature, religion, music, art; with German life in general". German LIfe and Letters has continued over the decades to observe its founding principles of providing an international and interdisciplinary forum for scholarly analysis of German culture past and present. The journal appears four times a year, and a typical number contains around eight articles of between six and eight thousand words each.