Collaborating with Shakespeare: Recent Rewritings of ROMEO AND JULIET on the Romanian Stage

Article Sidebar

Open / Download PDF
Published: Jun 30, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/lincu-2023-1-0333
Keywords:
Romeo and Juliet contemporary Romanian productions rewriting translation appropriation

Main Article Content

Mădălina Nicolaescu
University of Bucharest, Romania
Oana-Alis Zaharia
University of Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The paper investigates the factors contributing to the recent surge in popularity of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on the Romanian stage.  One possible explanation lies in the play's adaptability and relevance to present-day concerns coupled with the opportunities for creative reimagining offered by its canonical Romanian translation. The article posits that directors and playwrights have engaged in a fruitful "collaboration with the dead" (Leitch 19), breathing new life into the classic text by means of different forms of rewriting. Specifically, the paper discusses two recent versions of Romeo and Juliet staged in Bucharest, at Teatrul Mic in 2018 and at Teatrul Odeon in 2021, and focuses on the process of rewriting Shakespeare’s text in the form of a theatre adaptation and of a radical appropriation. 

Article Details

How to Cite
Nicolaescu, M., and O.-A. Zaharia. “Collaborating With Shakespeare: Recent Rewritings of ROMEO AND JULIET on the Romanian Stage”. Linguaculture, vol. 14, no. 1, June 2023, pp. 121-35, doi:10.47743/lincu-2023-1-0333.
Issue
Vol. 14 No. 1 (2023): In Honorem Professor Michael Hattaway
Section
Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Author Biographies

Mădălina Nicolaescu, University of Bucharest, Romania

Mădălina Nicolaescu is professor at the English Department - University of Bucharest. Her books on early modern theatre include Meanings of Violence in Shakespeare (2004), Ec-centric Mappings of the Renaissance (1999); she has edited collections of essays such as (In)hospitable Translations: Fidelities, Betrayals, Rewritings  (2010)  Shakespeare Translations and the European Dimension (2012), Shakespeare 400 in Romania (2016)  Perspectives on Shakespeare in Europe’s Borderlands (2020).  Further recent contributions on Shakespeare have also been published in International Shakespeare Yearbook (2020), Cahiers Élisabéthains (2019, 2020), SEDERI (2017) and in volumes like Proceedings of the Ninth World Shakespeare Congress, (2014), Great Shakespeareans (2012), Visions of Shakespeare (2011). 

Oana-Alis Zaharia, University of Bucharest, Romania

Oana-Alis Zaharia is Lecturer of English at the English Department of the University of Bucharest. She is the author of the monograph Cultural Reworkings and Translations in/of Shakespeare’s Plays (Bucharest, 2015). Her recent work has been published in prestigious international journals: Cahiers Élisabéthains, SEDERI Yearbook, Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, etc. She has co-edited and contributed to several volumes on Shakespeare and translation/adaptation: Perspectives on Shakespeare in Europe’s Borderlands (co-editor, Bucharest 2020), Shakespeare 400 in Romania. Papers Commemorating the 400th Anniversary of William Shakespeare's Death (co-editor, Bucharest, 2017); Shakespeare, Translation and the European Dimension (co-editor, 2012) and Inhospitable Translations: Fidelities, Betrayals, Rewritings (Bucharest, 2010).

References

Cerdá, Juan F., Delabastita D.,Gregor, Keith. ‘Introduction: European households, alike in dignity?’ Romeo and Juliet in European Culture, edited by Cerdá, Juan F., Dirk Delabastita and Keith Gregor, 2017, pp. 177–196.

Cinpoeș, Nicoleta. ‘Pyramus and Thisbe 4 You or a ‘Wondrous Strange’ Tale of Contemporary Romanian Theatre’, Arrêt sur scène / Scene Focus, 1, 2012, pp. 117-125.

---. Chapter 9. ‘Romeo and Juliet – The East Side Story: A note on Romania’, Romeo and Juliet in European Culture, edited by Cerdá, Juan F., Dirk Delabastita and Keith Gregor, 2017, pp. 177–196.

Dabija, Alexandru. Interview. https://www.money.ro/alexandru-dabija-caderile-din-comic-sunt-mult-mai-dure-decat-caderile-din-tragic/. Accessed 23 April 2023.

Grady, Hugh. Shakespeare and Impure Aesthetics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Hand,J. Richard. ‘Half masks and stage blood: Translating, adapting and performing French historical theatre forms’, Translation and Adaptation in Theatre and Film, edited by Katja Krebs, Routledge, 2013, pp.143-161.

Hoenselaars, Ton. ‘Introduction’, Shakespeare and the Language of Translation, edited by Ton Hoenselaars, London: Thomson Learning, 2004.

Johnston, David. ‘Securing the Performability of the Play in Translation’. Drama Translation and Theatre Practice, edited by Coelsch-Foisner, Sabine & Klein, Holger, Peter Lang Publishing, 2004, pp. 25-38.

Kidnie, Margaret Jane. Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation. London: Routledge, 2009.

Komporaly, Jozefina ‘Radical Revival as Adaptation: Theater, Politics, Society, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Kottman, Paul A. ‘Defying the Stars: Tragic Love as the Struggle for Freedom in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’’ Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 63, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–38. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41350167. Accessed 20 May 2023.

Leitch, Thomas. ‘Collaborating with the Dead: Adapters as Secret Agents’, Adaptation Considered as a Collaborative Art. Adaptation in Theatre and Performance edited by Cronin, B., MagShamhráin, R., Preuschoff, N., Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 19-35.

Lupton, Julia Reinhard. Romeo and Juliet: A Critical Reader, Arden Shakespeare, 2016.

Maguire, Laurie E. Shakespeare’s Names. Oxford Shakespeare Topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Shakespeare. William. Romeo and Juliet, Third Series, Arden Shakespeare, edited by René Weis, 2012.

---. Romeo si Julieta. Translated by Adrian N. George; adapted for the stage by Victor Ioan Frunza, Teatrul Tineretului Metropolis, Bucuresti, 2015.

---. Romeo si Julieta. Translated by St. O. Iosif, Bucuresti: Editura de Stat pentru Literatura si Arta, 1955.

Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation, Routledge, 2005.

Saunders, Graham. Elizabethan and Jacobean Reappropriation in Contemporary British Drama: ‘upstart crows’, Springer, 2017.

Snell-Hornby, Mary. ‘Chapter 7. Theatre and Opera Translation’. A Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Piotr Kuhiwczak and Karin Littau, Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, 2007, pp. 106-119. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781853599583-009

Upton, Carole-Anne. ‘The translator as metteur en scène with reference to ‘Les Aveugles’ [The Blind] by Maurice Maeterlinck’, Staging and Performing Translation: Text and Theatre Practice, edited by Roger Baines; Cristina Marinetti; Manuela Perteghella. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. pp. 31-48.

Vișniec, Matei. ‘Richard III Will Noy Take Place’, How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients and Other Plays. Edited by Jozefina Komporaly. London, New York and Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2015.