代写留学生论文PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
This article was downloaded by: [Monash University]
On: 16 June 2009
Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 907465088]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Intercultural Studies
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713432188
The Comic Voice in Translation: Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Brigid Maher
Online Publication Date: 01 November 2007
To cite this Article Maher, Brigid(2007)'The Comic Voice in Translation: Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist',Journal of
Intercultural Studies,28:4,367 — 379
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/07256860701591201
代写留学生论文Full terms and conditions of use:
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
The Comic Voice in Translation: Dario
Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Brigid Maher
This paper deals with the interplay between culture and humorous style by examining
Gavin Richards’s translation/adaptation of Dario Fo’s play Morte accidentale di un
anarchico (Accidental Death of an Anarchist). The analysis compares the original and
the translation, focusing in particular on the text’s oral humour as it comes across in the
main character’s way of speaking. The main character is the Madman (or ‘Maniac’ in
Richards’s version), whose wild comic expression, with its roots in the Italian theatrical
and comic traditions, is crucial to conveying Fo’s political and social message. It is
demonstrated that the changes Richards makes to the Madman’s discourse style result in
a change in the character of the Madman and in the play’s brand of humour and its
message.
Keywords: Dario Fo; Humour; Humour Translation; Theatre Translation
There is a widespread folk perception that styles of humour differ across cultures, and
this has been backed up by numerous scholarly investigations, including, to name just
a few, those by Consigli; Goddard; Nilsen, Nilsen and Donelson; Palmer; and Ziv.
Arthur Asa Berger (28) talks of the ‘‘cultural code’’ humour draws upon, ‘‘the
assumptions people make about time and space, [. . .] the values they hold, [. . .] their
historic experience’’. He adds that while we may be able to understand and enjoy the
humour produced by members of a different cultural or national group, we will
probably not relate to it in quite the same way as those who live within the group and
consider that cultural code their own. The links between humour and culture are
especially relevant to the question of the translation of humour, since today it is
generally acknowledged that translation, particularly the translation of literature, is a
cultural act as well as a linguistic one.
Brigid Maher is a doctoral candidate in the Translation and Interpreting Studies Program at Monash University.
Her thesis is on the translation of humour in Italian and English literature. Correspondence to: Brigid Maher,
School of Languages, Cultures & Linguistics, Building 11, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Email:
[email protected]
ISSN 0725-6868 print/ISSN 1469-9540 online/07/04367-13
# 2007 Centre for Migrant and Intercultural Studies
DOI: 10.1080/07256860701591201
Journal of Intercultural Studies
Vol. 28, No. 4, November 2007, pp. 367 379
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
Cultural differences in humorous style mean that humorous or comic writing in
translation will not necessarily fit neatly into the comic tradition of the target culture.
This can be of particular concern in theatre translation a comic source text needs to
be comic in translation, too, or it will fall terribly flat in performance. Thus, the
translator is faced with those two opposing translation strategies Lawrence Venuti
calls domestication and foreignisation. Domestication means translating in such a
way as to disguise those features of the text that might mark it as coming from a
different language and culture, so that it reads almost as though it were originally
written in the target language, rather than being a translation. A foreignising method,
by contrast, makes those elements of difference visible, challenging the reader to come
to terms with the foreign identity of the text (Venuti Ch. 1). If two cultures have
different literary traditions when it comes to humour in the theatre, it is likely that a
translator will wish to domesticate a text to some extent, so as to produce a target text
that works in performance in the target culture. The question then becomes a thorny
one of how much domestication is too much how can a play be made to work in
the target culture while still retaining some of those qualities that make it a part of the
source culture?
In this paper I wish to address these issues through an examination of Gavin
Richards’s English version of a masterpiece of Italian comic theatre, Dario Fo’s Morte
accidentale di un anarchico (Accidental Death of an Anarchist ). Particular attention
will be devoted to the relationship between humour and culture, and that between
discourse style and characterisation especially with respect to the main character
and their contribution to the play’s comic and satirical features. Richards changes the
protagonist’s way of speaking considerably, thereby changing both his character and
the play’s brand of humour, and this means that ultimately the impact of the play is
changed considerably.
The Playwright and the Play
Dario Fo is one of Italy’s most important playwrights and a brilliant comic actor.
He was born in 1926 and has been active in theatre and politics in Italy since the
1950s, along with his closest collaborator, his wife Franca Rame, herself a talented
actor and writer. In 1997, Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his
life’s work, through which he ‘‘emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging
authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden’’ (Swedish Academy).
Many of his works are political farces; they are always a response to the current
political moment, but have their roots in historical performance traditions such as
those of the giullare (in medieval times, a kind of travelling player, fool or jester)
and the fabulatore (a kind of storyteller), as well as of commedia dell’arte and
ancient Roman theatre (Scuderi). Improvisation is a crucial part of Fo’s theatre
this makes a work still more up-to-the-minute, incorporating references to very
recent events, and makes each performance function in constant dialogue with
audience response (Jenkins). Another characteristic of performances by Fo’s theatre
368 B. Maher
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
companies has been the so-called ‘‘Third Act’’ an open-ended discussion between
actors and audience following the play, based on the play’s main themes and the
current political climate, and often lasting well into the night. These strong links
with Italian cultural and theatrical traditions, and the engagement with current
issues in Italian life, make it a considerable challenge to translate Fo’s plays for a
different audience.
Morte accidentale di un anarchico was written in 1970, and it is thought that about
a million people saw it during its first four years (Stuart Hood, in his introduction to
Cumming and Supple’s English version of the play, xii). It is a farce inspired by a reallife
tragic event. In December 1969, after bombs exploded in Milan and Rome, a
number of suspected anarchists were arrested in Milan. One, the railway worker
Giuseppe (Pino) Pinelli, died after 48 hours of interrogation having ‘‘flown’’ from the
fourth floor window of the police station. During this period, Italy was plagued by
terrorism. Many attacks originally attributed to the Left by the authorities, at least
were later proven to have formed part of a right-wing ‘‘strategy of tension’’ aimed at
destabilising the government and bringing about an extremist right-wing crackdown
or even the installation of a military regime (Ginsborg 33334; see also Behan Ch. 3).
It is against this background of fear, distrust, corruption and state lies that the play
was conceived. It is extremely funny, but it is above all a political play, whose primary
aim was to provide ‘‘counterinformation’’ and leave audiences with a residue of anger
(‘‘il sedimento della rabbia’’) (quoted in Meldolesi 179), which they would take away
with them and use actively in the struggle against injustice.
In the play, a character called ‘‘Il Matto’’ (‘‘The Madman’’) interrogates the police
officers who were present when a suspect, the anarchist of the title, ‘‘flew’’ through the
fourth floor window of the police station to his death on the pavement below.
The Madman is posing as an investigating judge trying to help the police come out of
the scandal unscathed. In the second act of the play, a journalist comes to interview
the officers; the Madman-Judge stays in the room to help them out, now disguised as
Captain Marcantonio Banzi Piccinni of Forensics (though he later reveals that he is
actually a bishop disguised as Captain Piccinni!). The journalist is the voice of reason,
and is witness to a series of confusions, debates and revelations that are at once
hilarious and deeply disturbing.
Antonio Scuderi has pointed out that as a theatrical type, the character of the
Matto, who was originally played by Fo himself, can be traced back to the zanni of the
commedia dell’arte and, even further, to the ‘‘clever slaves’’ of Roman theatre. His
exuberant flights of satirical comic genius constitute carefully targeted attacks on the
police, the judiciary, the class system, workplace relations, and more. He exposes the
outrageous inconsistencies in the police officers’ (clearly fabricated) accounts, and
makes fun of them relentlessly, but so subtly that they often barely notice. His mad,
unstoppable logic has them behaving as though they were the Madmen we see
them arguing about whether the anarchist could have been wearing one shoe inside
another on one of his feet (given that it is agreed he did not have three feet), they even
sing an anarchist anthem and very nearly throw themselves out of the window.
Journal of Intercultural Studies 369
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
Morte Accidentale in Translation
One key issue that distinguishes theatre translation from other kinds of literary
translation is the notion of performability. As Susan Bassnett has pointed out, this is a
rather hazy notion, but it often underlies decisions about how different parties are
involved in the translation of a text. For example, it is not uncommon for an
established playwright, director or actor from the target culture to adapt a so-called
‘‘literal translation’’ of the source text. It is worth noting that in this context ‘‘literal
translation’’ is very often prefaced by the word ‘‘so-called’’, and with good reason: the
notion of a ‘‘literal translation’’ betrays a rather misguided and simplistic view of
translatability between languages that there is such a thing as a simple, machinelike
transfer of meaning which requires no creative judgement on the part of the
translator. Thus, most of the credit goes to the ‘‘adapter’’, the ‘‘creative’’ party, while
the ‘‘literal translator’’ is seen as simply a technician who uses his or her language
training to produce the basic building blocks. Such methods are often dictated by
financial concerns: the name of a playwright who is well known in the target
language’s tradition is more likely to draw an audience than that of a translator
(especially if they are translating a foreign playwright who is not widely known in the
target culture). Naturally, all too often, this only adds to the translator’s invisibility
and low status (cf. Venuti), and to the misconception that translating is simply a trade
that can be carried out by anyone who knows a foreign language. The practice
of adapting so-called literal translations, where the adapter has little or no knowledge
of the source language and culture, leads almost inevitably to some degree of
domestication.
Morte accidentale di un anarchico has been translated or adapted into English seven
times. These versions include fairly close translations by Suzanne Cowan in 1979 and
by Ed Emery in 1992 while these are ‘‘speakable’’ versions and could be staged, they
were not written expressly for staging and were intended primarily to be close
renditions of the Italian original. The year 1991 saw the publication of a version by
Alan Cumming and Tim Supple, in which the adapters sought to retain the play’s
‘‘alien, rambling form’’ (xxiv), while at the same time substituting British political
references for those of the original and seeking as far as possible to bring the content
of the play closer to the British situation and audience. Other versions include an
adaptation of Cowan’s translation by Richard Nelson and an unpublished Australian
adaptation of Cumming and Supple’s by Robin Archer. The most recent translation
of the text is Simon Nye’s updated version from 2003, which includes contemporary
references and which adapts the humour of the text considerably (for a more detailed
discussion of some of the different versions to have appeared, see Lorch, and
Fitzpatrick and Sawczak).
The adaptation to be discussed here was first performed in 1979 and published in
1980. It was written by Gavin Richards, based on a translation by Gillian Hanna, for
Belt and Braces Roadshow Company, a politically engaged touring theatre company.
This version is by no means the best one indeed, it has been said that on opening
370 B. Maher
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
night, Dario Fo, the guest of honour, was so appalled by it that he had to be
‘‘restrained’’ during the interval (Joseph Farrell, in his commentary on the Nye
translation, lxii) but it is significant because in Britain it has had a major influence
on what people think of as the style of Dario Fo (cf. Lorch).
Richards’s version of the play differs from the original in many respects, and gets its
laughs in a very different way. In this version, the Matto is called the Maniac, rather
than the Madman an unfortunate exaggeration that takes power away from the
character. A maniac’s actions are completely unpredictable and inexplicable, whereas
in the folk imagination at least we are inclined to allow the possibility that a
madman may at least have moments of reason. A madman can be like a fool he can
at times speak truer than sane, intelligent people. As another great madman Don
Quixote put it: ‘‘The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the
man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton’’ (Cervantes 479).
Richards’s inappropriate translation of the Matto’s name as ‘‘Maniac’’ is the first hint
of his failure to engage with Fo’s comic and cultural background, and with the role of
the Matto in the play. This paper will look at three main areas in which Richards’s
changes affect the humorous style of the play, and more specifically, the Matto’s
comic voice: cuts to the Matto’s use of irony and logic, the addition of swearing and
the use of a very ‘‘wordy’’ discourse style.
1. The Loss of the Matto’s Irony and Logic
The Matto uses a mix of irony and perverse, yet strangely compelling, logic to show
up the hypocrisy, corruption and unscrupulousness of the police. Richards, who cuts
out a lot of the dialogue, not to mention many of the monologues, is especially
ruthless in removing these sorts of pieces. His intervention is excessive he goes far
beyond making only the unavoidable cuts that a translation of this kind requires,
hacking away at the play to such an extent that he effectively gags the playwright’s
main mouthpiece, the Matto. Perhaps this is due in part to a misunderstanding of the
importance of irony and mad logic to the Matto’s character, to his discourse style and
to the play’s message. It probably also results from a desire to fit the play into a more
familiar style of comedy for the target audience, so that it will appear less foreign to
them.
After listening to their garbled and contradictory accounts of the anarchist debacle,
the Judge (the Madman in disguise) succeeds in persuading the policemen that he is
on their side, and that he wants to help them get their story straight. He feigns
exasperation at their many different accounts, and puts forward a hypothesis of his
own about why the anarchist jumped: he committed suicide kamikaze-style, in order
to inflict as much damage as possible on the police. The anarchist’s cunning plan was
that the police would relate to the media exactly what had happened, and because
none of it would make any sense, they would end up getting blamed for his death,
while the evil anarchist lay sneering in his grave (Fo Commedie 44). This section
constitutes an ironic comment on society’s all-too-frequent tendency to blame the
Journal of Intercultural Studies 371
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
victim: the preposterous suggestion that the anarchist killed himself expressly to make
the policemen’s lives difficult is simply an exaggerated version of this tendency. This
piece is left out of Richards’s version completely, a decision which suggests a lack of
reflection on the role of the Matto to criticise harshly and ironically the misdeeds of
the authorities both in the Pinelli case and in general.
In the scene where the Matto nearly gets the policemen to jump out the window
(Commedie 2932), Richards makes another cut that shows an indifference to the
Matto’s mix of irony and logic, and detracts from the didactic aspect of his character.
In the original, the Matto is cleverly persuasive. He tells the policemen that the
Ministries of Justice and Internal Affairs want to make them scapegoats, that Rome
has incontrovertible evidence against them and they are to lose their jobs. ‘‘Mondo
bastardo, governo bastardo’’, he cries, and adds that if he were in their position he
would see nothing else for it but to throw himself out the window to his death. The
distressed and rather suggestible officers very nearly do jump; they only come down
from the windowsill because a constable comes into the room wondering what on
earth is going on. Then the madman teaches them the lesson: that it was entirely his
fault that they nearly killed themselves (not the government’s or anyone else’s), and
that he made up the whole story about the ministry wanting their heads. It was all
just one of those tricks magistrates use to show police how criminal their methods
are. The policemen have previously admitted to using similar techniques to drive the
anarchist to the edge in order to induce him to confess the irony is delicious.
In Richards’s version this scene is far less subtle (1820). The ‘‘Maniac’’ bullies the
police onto the windowsill much more forcefully and obviously, swearing and
seeming almost to lose control. Most significantly, in this version, the policemen
come down from the window not because they are interrupted, but because one of
them has the idea of cooking up another version of events, and cries ‘‘I’ve got it!
Don’t panic! I’ve got it!’’ (19). From there, the action moves straight on to the
construction of this new version, with no mention made at all of the Matto’s clever
mind games. In this way, the whole moral lesson is lost, and with it all subtlety and
dramatic irony. Furthermore, the change is completely unnecessary from any
theatrical or translation perspective.
At other points in Richards’s version, where important didactic speeches by the
Matto are retained (e.g. 3839), pratfalls and other slapstick shenanigans among the
other characters distract from them almost entirely. One gets the impression that
Richards simply thinks he can improve upon the text by making it zanier. This
attitude towards the text amounts to a kind of ethnocentrism. Richards appears either
not to value the comedy of the text as much as British humorous styles, or not to
consider it something his audience could be expected to appreciate. His cuts to this
section, and his changes to the Matto’s discourse style of intelligent, veiled
persuasion, change the Matto’s character, so that as a device he is no longer as
effective. We no longer really know why he tried to make the officers jump was he
actually trying to kill them? Is he really just a maniac? Such a cavalier attitude to the
Matto’s lines and lessons means that Richards’s audience misses out on a huge part of
372 B. Maher
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
the character’s lively intelligence and biting irony, and on the making of some central
political points, points that have a wider relevance than just the particular Italian
situation from which the play originated.
2. The Addition of Swearing
As well as cutting a lot of the original dialogue, Richards makes many additions,
including a considerable amount of swearing. In the original, the Matto never really
swears. On one occasion he uses the word casino, which in the greater scheme of
things is rather mild (literally, it means ‘‘brothel’’, but in this use, it means a kind of
chaotic mess), and when he says it he apologises for ‘‘l’espressione vivace’’ (38).
Richards’s ‘‘Maniac’’, in contrast, swears quite frequently examples include ‘‘the
bloody raptus’’ (13), ‘‘tinker’s fart’’ (18), ‘‘a fucking good laugh’’ (25) and ‘‘pissing
himself’’ (25). We see quite a bit of this in some short speeches Richards adds in the
play’s second act (4041). In these, the ‘‘Maniac’’ makes many important political
points that are pertinent to the British situation at the time references to espionage,
the class system, President Carter and Rhodesian oil sanctions. Naturally, these
references do not appear in the original, but are inserted by Richards to give the play
some domestic political targets that will make it more relevant to its new audience.
Additions of this kind can be very helpful in giving a play like this extra political
impact for the target audience, but unfortunately, this section is marred by out-ofcharacter
swearing and an over-the-top discourse style, as indicated by the stage
direction ‘‘getting carried away’’ (40). Thus, the unfaithfulness comes not in the
mention of local political issues in addition to the original Italian ones, because in the
case of Fo’s work, updating a play to the present time and place can actually
constitute a kind of fidelity. Rather, the unfaithfulness is in the discourse style used to
talk about these issues. The Maniac’s little speeches are lacking in control and
precision, as evidenced in particular by his exasperated swearing, making them more
like rants than the carefully targeted criticisms we see in the original. Fo’s Matto
always has a cold degree of sanity about him, in fact, he is at his maddest when
imitating, mocking or exposing the ‘‘madness’’ of the authorities. The kind of
swearing Richards adds is probably another attempt to add humour to the play, by
flouting taboos and by entertaining with the Maniac’s colourful exasperation, but it is
problematic because it drowns out the more nuanced comic voice of the source text
and takes the play further from its original ideological space, letting loose an
undirected energy that should be focused on the political satire.
3. Showy ‘‘Wordiness’’
Richards further changes the Matto’s discourse style by making him something of a
show-off with words. This is especially evident in the section in which he questions
the officers about the anarchist’s supposed suicidal leap. First, he asks, how was this
Journal of Intercultural Studies 373
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
man able to throw himself out the window of a small office without any of the several
policemen present being able to stop him?
Bene, cosı´, abbiamo: da una parte un uomo alto sı´ e no 1,60, solo, senza aiuto,
privo di scale [. . .] dall’altra una mezza dozzina di poliziotti, che pur trovandosi a
pochi metri, anzi uno addirittura presso la finestra, non fanno in tempo ad
intervenire [. . .] (46)
代写留学生论文Fine. Alright. But here was a man of five foot four, give or a take an inch, on his
own, without stepladder, spring, accomplice, trampoline, bri nylon rope with
crampons attached or any other device and he manages to get from there [. . .] to
here, and within three seconds he becomes a jam sponge and there’s four highly
trained policemen just standing there. Look at the room, gentlemen. Surely one of
you must have been in the vicinity of the window. (25)
Note the discrepancy between Fo’s fairly spartan ‘‘alone, without help, without a
stepladder’’, and Richards’s rather extravagant list of the trappings the anarchist did
not have to get him out the window. The whole piece is rather over the top in
comparison to the original the heavy irony and fancy verbal footwork are more
reminiscent of television programs like Blackadder or Fawlty Towers than of the
Italian comic tradition. More importantly, they draw the piece out of its context of
improvisation, taking away some of its freshness and liveliness. While the word play
might be fun and clever, it certainly does not sound spontaneous. This creates a genre
shift from the world of improvised theatre, where the audience’s role is interactive,
helping to shape what takes place on stage, to the world of scripted television, which
one generally watches privately and rather passively from one’s armchair.
At this point, the eager-to-please constable declares that he tried to save the
anarchist, but only managed to grab his foot as he headed out the window, and in the
end was left with only the unfortunate man’s shoe in his hand. This convenient
testimony becomes problematic when the Madman-Judge points out that witnesses
have given sworn evidence that:
l’anarchico morente sul selciato del cortile, aveva ancora ai piedi tutte e due le
scarpe. (47)
(Roughly: ‘‘as the anarchist lay dying on the cobblestones of the courtyard, he still
had both shoes on his feet’’.) In Richards’s version, this becomes:
the jam sponge was accoutred with a pair of shoes consistent with the average
biped. (26)
British humour has always included a lively appreciation of the clever use of words
(Palmer 87), and this is reflected in the British theatrical tradition, which boasts many
great writers who perform magnificent feats with witty and clever language (cf. Hirst
81). Richards has drawn on this tradition throughout Accidental Death of an
Anarchist . There are without doubt a number of very practical advantages to slotting
374 B. Maher
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
a translated play from a different theatrical tradition into the target culture’s tradition
it might be more likely to fulfil the audience’s expectations, easier to understand
and label, easier to publicise, and so on. But this particular act of domestication
changing the Matto’s discourse style to fit common Anglophone norms of comedy
ultimately distracts from the play’s message. Once again, it is a case of the desire for
easy laughs distracting from the more serious, and indeed tragic, side of the farce.
Degrees of Adaptation
The translatability of humorous styles across languages, cultures and time has been
the focus of some research in translation studies. Maria Tymoczko has coined the
expression ‘‘comic paradigm’’ to describe the prevailing worldview in a given culture
and time period that shapes what is considered comic. The concept of the ‘‘frame’’ as
used in Frame Semantics has also been proposed as a way of describing the shared
associations and cultural background that members of a cultural and linguistic group
draw upon in the creation and reception of humour (see Rojo Lo´ pez).
In his version of Morte accidentale di un anarchico, Richards’s preference seems to
have been for replacing Fo’s ‘‘comic paradigm’’ with one more familiar to his
audience. Thus, the somewhat didactic political farce is softened for British
consumption; the source text’s humour is supplemented and often even replaced
by safer, more British styles of humour. At times, this intervention reaches excessive,
almost ethnocentric proportions one after another, elements of Italian traditions of
comedy and farce are either removed or disguised beyond recognition.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with including in a translation styles of
humour that recall, say, television comedy or theatrical traditions well known to the
target audience, because this can create a rich texture of over-coding which enhances
their reception of the work (cf. McLeish 158). Where it becomes problematic is if the
additions do not fit in with the spirit of the original text, because then they will
change its humour and its effect, rather than serving simply to enhance them. This is
the case with Richards’s embellishments. They give his adaptation in general, and the
Matto in particular, a flippant tone which is not easily reconciled with the serious
message conveyed through the comedy of the original text.
One of the theatre translator’s key preoccupations will always be with the spoken
style of the translation an actor needs to be able to speak the translator’s lines
convincingly. This is part of the reason why so-called ‘‘literal translations’’ are often
changed considerably by adapters, directors or actors in the process of adaptation or
rehearsal. In her analysis of some translations of Goldoni’s Il servitore di due padroni
(A Servant of Two Masters ), Cristina Marinetti found that the most successful was one
which, like the original, was produced collaboratively on the basis of a mix of staging
and improvisation. However, problems can arise if the adapter working on making
the play idiomatic in translation is not sufficiently conversant with the source
language and culture to enable them to interpret the source text humour in its
original context and then use their understanding of it to try and recreate this
Journal of Intercultural Studies 375
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
humour in translation. It is important to remember that when adaptation of a ‘‘literal
translation’’ takes place, the person who produced the initial translation must never
simply be considered some kind of machine-translator-with-a-pulse. Rather they
should be fully valued for their contribution as an interlinguistic and intercultural
expert (cf. Pym Ch. 11). This expertise goes far beyond the ability simply to
transform the words of one language into the words of another. Adapters, actors,
directors and others can draw upon it to make their interpretation of a translated
piece both faithful to the spirit of the original and effective in its new context.
In creating an English version of a play like Morte accidentale di un anarchico, some
degree of adaptation is not only unavoidable (as shown by Fitzpatrick and Sawczak),
but actually desirable. After all, the plot and many references within the play are
closely tied to the Italian political situation of the period, and not nearly as salient for
theatregoers in English-speaking countries. However, while elements of adaptation
will always play a part in theatre translation, it is important to be aware of the extent
to which any act of intervention risks changing a text’s effect. Hatim and Mason
(2425, 100101) have pointed out that within a text, the build-up of particular
features of register and idiolect contributes to that text’s overall effect; because of this,
it is important that the communicative purpose of the source text be taken into
account when a translator decides how to translate register and idiolect. Morte
accidentale di un anarchico contains an assortment of registers and theatrical styles
that might seem strange to an Anglophone audience, for example, the mix of tragedy,
serious political criticism and didactic speeches, with the comic, including sight gags,
word games and somewhat convoluted irony. With each of Richards’s changes to the
Matto’s idiolect, particularly his didactic tone, the communicative effect of the entire
text is changed.
What Fo aims to elicit through Morte accidentale di un anarchico is not only
laughter, but also indignation and impetus to action, and never, as he has said himself
on numerous occasions, catharsis. Ultimately, Richards’s changes significantly alter
the ideology of the text (cf. Hatim and Mason Ch. 9). It goes from being a funny and
entertaining play committed to posing difficult questions and teasing out complex
issues, to being a work which is more simplistically funny and has less of an edge of
social and political criticism. Examples of this abound, and include all those
discussed above: cutting out a lot of the Matto’s irony and logic removes much of the
play’s complexity, the addition of swearing creates a sense of cheeky naughtiness
which does not sit well with the seriousness of the play’s message, and the use of
showy, wordy humour is distracting and takes away the piece’s improvised nature and
some of its immediacy. So while each of my examples taken individually might seem
quite minor, it should be clear that cumulatively they are quite significant indeed.
Another theorist whose reflections on translation are useful here is Umberto Eco.
He suggests that the aim of the translator should be to ‘‘create the same effect in the
mind of the reader (obviously according to the translator’s interpretation) as the
original text wanted to create’’ (56). The parenthesis about ‘‘the translator’s
interpretation’’ is an important one. Eco’s concept of translation as negotiation
376 B. Maher
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
hinges upon the fact that there can be numerous hypotheses about the ‘‘intention of
the text’’; the translator must make their own interpretation and seek to convey that
to their audience. However, it is my contention that Richards’s version of Morte
accidentale di un anarchico presents not so much an interpretation of the text, as a
significant rewriting which in large part misrepresents the ‘‘intention of the text’’.
While it is true that any text is open to numerous interpretations, Richards’s cuts and
changes are so extensive as to turn the play into a cathartic romp that bears little
resemblance to the source text.
Can a translator or adapter really justify such drastic changes to a play and
playwright’s clear, professed purpose? There is no denying that it is impossible for an
audience in England in, say, the 1980s, to be affected by this play in the same way as
an audience in Italy in the 1970s, but certain aspects of the effect the play is intended
to have should be considered fundamental. Its driving force is the attack on
corruption and the abuse of power by the State and the authorities. This message can
easily be recognised and appreciated by British audiences, even if many of the specific
Italian references cannot, and as a result have to be supplemented, omitted or
replaced.
There is no denying that a translator has an important obligation to their audience,
whose expectations they must endeavour to fulfil. However, a translator should also
be permitted to expect a certain amount from their audience, in a kind of cultural
exchange. Or, to borrow from Schleiermacher, the translator should be able to
facilitate their audience’s moving closer to the source text and culture, rather than
always modifying the text to fit more familiar target culture models. Of course, there
are likely to be certain source text characteristics a theatre translator will feel they
need to change in order to facilitate cultural understanding, but looking at Richards’s
version of Morte accidentale di un anarchico, one gets the distinct impression that he
had too little faith in his audience’s ability to open their minds and appreciate a new
and somewhat different humorous style. As Joseph Farrell points out, cultures are not
mutually incomprehensible and ‘‘translation ought to be an arena for an encounter
between cultures’’ (52), rather than an excuse for a drastic rewriting that reduces the
foreign author’s voice to a whisper.
Concluding Remarks
Richards’s version of Morte accidentale di un anarchico domesticates Fo almost
completely, adapting his unique style of farce to fit more closely within the British
tradition, and in so doing, he takes the play out of its tradition of counterinformation
and political commitment, and makes it a simpler, less challenging work of onedimensional
slapstick comedy that gets a lot of cheap laughs through outrageous use
of language, physical gags, and cardboard characterisation. This unfortunate result
seems to have been born of an ethnocentric distrust of the source text or an
underappreciation of its comic power, and a consequent attempt to ‘‘improve’’ upon
it, as well as a reluctance to make demands on the audience’s powers of intercultural
Journal of Intercultural Studies 377
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
understanding and identification. Although humorous styles and traditions differ
across cultures, this need not mean that a text has to be totally domesticated in order
to be appreciated by a new target audience.
There are some interesting ideological parallels between Venuti’s ‘‘call to action’’ for
translators (Ch. 7) and the demands Fo makes of his public, who are challenged to be
highly responsive as an audience and to translate their experience of a performance
into political action once they leave the theatre. Of course, not every audience
member will rush out to join the ‘‘Struggle’’ (just as not everyone finds the same
things funny), but inspiring action is, broadly speaking, the play’s intended effect. It is
so crucial to the poetics of Fo that every reasonable attempt should be made to
preserve it in translation. Fo’s work is satirical, and he sees satire as quite different
from the comic in that an element of tragedy is essential to the functioning of satire
(Fo ‘‘Ve la do io la satira’’). As Fo himself has noted, if tragedy is absent from a
satirical work, one is left with just buffoonery (‘‘la` dove una forma satirica non
possiede come corrispettivo la tragedia, tutto si trasforma in buffoneria’’) (Dialogo
provocatorio 5). Something like this has happened with Richards’s transformation of
Morte accidentale di un anarchico.
Works Cited
Bassnett, Susan. ‘‘Still Trapped in the Labyrinth: Further Reflections on Translation and Theatre.’’
Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation . Ed. Susan Bassnett and Andre´ Lefevere.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1998. 90108.
Bassnett-McGuire, Susan. ‘‘Ways Through the Labyrinth: Strategies and Methods for Translating
Theatre Texts.’’ The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary Translation . Ed. Theo
Hermans. London: Croom Helm, 1985. 87102.
Behan, Tom. Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre . London: Pluto Press, 2000.
Berger, Arthur Asa. ‘‘What Makes People Laugh? Cracking the Cultural Code.’’ The Humor Prism
in 20th-Century America . Ed. Joseph Boskin. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997.
2829.
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote . Trans. Edith Grossman. London: Vintage, 2005.
Consigli, Paolo. ‘‘Humor in Italy.’’ National Styles of Humor. Ed. Avner Ziv. Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1988. 13356.
Eco, Umberto. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation . London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003.
Farrell, Joseph. ‘‘Servant of Many Masters.’’ Stages of Translation . Ed. David Johnston. Bath:
Absolute, 1996. 4555.
Fitzpatrick, Tim, and Ksenia Sawczak. ‘‘Accidental Death of a Translator: The Difficult Case of Dario
Fo.’’ About Performance: Translation and Performance. Working Papers 1. Sydney: Centre for
Performance Studies, University of Sydney, 1995. 1533.
Fo, Dario. ‘‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist.’’ Trans. Suzanne Cowan. Theater 10.2 (Spring 1979):
1346.
****. Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Adapted by Gavin Richards. London: Pluto, 1980.
****. Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Adapted by Richard Nelson. New York: Samuel French,
1987.
****. Le commedie di Dario Fo. Vol. VII. Turin: Einaudi, 1988.
****. Dialogo provocatorio sul comico, il tragico, la follia e la ragione. Rome: Laterza, 1990.
****. Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Trans. Alan Cumming and Tim Supple. London:
Methuen, 1991.
378 B. Maher
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009
****. ‘‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist.’’ Trans. Ed. Emery. Plays: One. London: Methuen
Drama, 1992. 123211.
****. ‘‘Ve la do io la satira.’’ Fabulazzo. Milan: Kaos, 1992. 13336.
****. Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Trans. Simon Nye. London: Methuen, 2003.
Ginsborg, Paul. A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 19431988. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1990.
Goddard, Cliff. ‘‘‘Lift your game, Martina!’ Deadpan Jocular Irony and the Ethnopragmatics of
Australian English.’’ Ethnopragmatics: Understanding Discourse in Cultural Context . Ed. Cliff
Goddard. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. 6598.
Hatim, Basil, and Mason Lan. The Translator as Communicator. London: Routledge, 1997.
Hirst, David. Dario Fo and Franca Rame. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1989.
Jenkins, Ron. ‘‘The Rhythms of Resurrection: Onstage with Fo.’’ Dario Fo: Stage, Text, and Tradition.
Ed. Joseph Farrell and Antonio Scuderi. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.
3038.
Lorch, Jennifer. ‘‘Morte accidentale in English.’’ Dario Fo: Stage, Text, and Tradition . Ed. Joseph
Farrell and Antonio Scuderi. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. 14360.
Marinetti, Cristina. ‘‘The Limits of the Play Text: Translating Comedy.’’ New Voices in Translation
Studies 1 (2005): 3142.
McLeish, Kenneth. ‘‘Translating Comedy.’’ Stages of Translation. Ed. David Johnston. Bath: Absolute,
1996. 15359.
代写留学生论文Meldolesi, Claudio. Su un comico in rivolta: Dario Fo, il bufalo, il bambino. Rome: Bulzoni, 1978.
Nilsen, Don L. F., Alleen Pace Nilsen, and Ken Donelson. ‘‘Humor in the United States.’’ National
Styles of Humor. Ed. Avner Ziv. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988. 15788.
Palmer, Jerry. ‘‘Humor in Great Britain.’’ National Styles of Humor. Ed. Avner Ziv. Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1988. 85111.
Pym, Anthony. Method in Translation History. Manchester: St Jerome, 1998.
Rojo Lo´ pez, Ana Marı´a. ‘‘Frame Semantics and the Translation of Humour.’’ Babel 48.1 (2002):
3477.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. ‘‘On the Different Methods of Translating.’’ Trans. Susan Bernosfky. The
Translation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. New York: Routledge, 2004. 69107.
Scuderi, Antonio. ‘‘Updating Antiquity.’’ Dario Fo: Stage, Text, and Tradition. Ed. Joseph Farrell and
Antonio Scuderi. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. 3964.
Swedish Academy. ‘‘The Nobel Prize in Literature 1997.’’ Swedish Academy Press Release, 9 October
1997. 20 September 2005
Tymoczko, Maria. ‘‘Translating the Humour in Early Irish Hero Tales: A Polysystems Approach.’’
New Comparison 3 (1987): 83103.
Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge, 1995.
Ziv, Avner. ‘‘Psycho-Social Aspects of Jewish Humor in Israel and in the Diaspora.’’ Jewish Humor.
Ed. Avner Ziv. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998. 4771.
Journal of Intercultural Studies 379
Downloaded By: [Monash University] At: 04:09 16 June 2009