Between translations

Nepali Chimney

Published at : March 31, 2018

Updated at : March 31, 2018 08:15

The recently concluded stagings of A Marriage Proposal (directed by Aashish/Sangit at Mandala Theatre) and Three Sisters (directed by Rose Schwietz at Kunja Theatre) show that Kathmandu’s theatre circuit is becoming more vibrant. Coincidently, the two plays, which were staged at the same time, were originally written by Anton Chekhov in Russian. The plays, however, had different stories and an oceanic gap between the approaches taken by the directors. Three Sisters, a four-act play, was an English adaptation (Paul Schmidt’s translation) of the Russian play, while A Marriage Proposal was a Nepali adaptation, translated by Che Shankar. The following comparative review of the plays will focus on the gains and inevitable losses of adapting a play for Kathmandu’s theatre audience.

Adaptations, similar to literary translations, have to serve two masters. They have to remain faithful to the original story while also ferrying the story to make it palatable to an audience who are most likely unaware of the cultural context in which the original story is set in. Three Sisters and A Marriage Proposal will be examined on these criteria. However, in lieu of the original Russian texts, we have to accept the English translations used for the adaptations of the plays to be faithful, to Chekhov’s creation.

Three Sisters depicts the life of Russian aristocrats, who are stuck in a provincial town and mindset, and are desperate to get out of the town. The story has a universal appeal for it is relates to the experience of many people worldwide. However, Chekhov seems to have constructed the story by layering many cultural and religious details that were in prominence during his time. For instance, Russian aristocrats in the 19th century had at least three variations in their name. Since all the variations were used during the staging of the play, one had to stretch themselves in order to follow all the dialogues in the play. Similarly, during a dinner scene in the first act of the play, one of the characters declares, “There are 13 of us here.” That statement made me think of the Jesus Christ’s last supper with his 12 disciples. That statement could have been a foreshadowing of the crises that was to follow, but since I was not completely seeped in Christian theology, it was lost on me.

With Three Sisters, a Nepali theatregoer might not completely relate, which is required if the play is going to be an engaging process. On the other hand, an audience watching A Marriage Proposal did not face a similar cultural barrier as the play was adapted into a Nepali context. The references were Nepali; nonetheless, the Nepali version had a substantial variation to most available English versions.

In A Marriage Proposal a comic siutuation arises because two potential spouses cannot agree on certain issues about their life. At the beginning of the play, the woman protagonist gave a long intro about her life, but the details she provides does not serve any function in the comedy that follows. This addition was made by the translator, who probably included this in order to increase the time duration of the short play. Chekhov once famously remarked, “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” Had Chekhov been present to witness the Nepali adaptation, he would have been very angry, for the adaptation broke Chekhov’s golden rule. But despite the limitations, both plays were enjoyable for their personal merits.

In short, Three Sisters remained closer to the original while A Marriage Proposal made the original play more accessible to a regular theatre going audience. Thus inviting the obvious question: How can an adaptation serve both masters: the foreign author as well as the native audience?

The two Chekhov productions have helped identify two issues that need to be tackled. Nonetheless, there is perhaps no rule of thumb to make an error-free adaptation. The only way to solve the issues that arise while bringing a play from a different socio-political context is by regularly encountering the problems. If theatre productions keep hitting the wall, an organic way will evolve to break the barrier.