Gatekeepers and stakeholders

Abstract

The translation of dramatic texts for performance in the English language frequently takes an indirect route: a mediating text – a literal translation – is employed, and sometimes specifically commissioned, for a target language writer to create a performance text. This chapter explores the roles of the stakeholders in this process, investigating how the distinct elements of their contributions to the performed text are reflected in contractual agreements and fees. Stakeholders are not understood as restricted to the source playwrights, translators and target text writers, but instead as also including theatrical and literary agents, theatre practitioners employed by the producing and commissioning theatre companies, and potentially additional funding institutions. Drawing on a project that involved commissioning four first-time literal translations of contemporary Dutch-language plays into English, the study charts the extent to which stakeholders become gatekeepers of the people, processes and products of translation in theatre. I interrogate the variations in contractual terms and practitioner fees in UK theatre translation, and what they indicate about the valorization of the different roles in the translation process, and argue that the examination of gatekeepers and stakeholders in theatre translation sheds light on issues of ownership and profession that have implications for a wider theorization of indirect translation.