David Johnston
2008
"Translation is not a subject that can be conceived in any traditional way. It is a way of interpreting and representing the products and processes of the world around us. Accordingly, Professor Jonston is interested in the application of the insights and anxieties of translation as an intellectual method and writing practice to questions of representation, whether textual, visual, scientific or ideological."
Paratexts & Critical Essays
The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lopez translated by David Johnston
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_House_of_Bernarda_Alba.html?id=n82mPQAACAAJ
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Highlights:
Translating the Theatre of the Spanish Golden Age: a story of chance and transformation
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Highlights: "What this book most definitely is not is yet another academic discussion of Lope de Vega, Calderon and their contemporaries, divorced from any understanding of what makes these plays work so brilliantly on our stages. Instead it is a leading contemporary translator's account of why these plays deserve to assume their rightful place in our performance repertoire, firmly set within the demands and opportunities of how our theatre works. In a way it is the story of a love affair between a translator and a dramatic tradition whose riches are only now becoming apparent to theatre audiences; but it is also an exploration of the ways in which translation itself takes plays that are distant from us in time and space and makes them real and visible in terms of our own experience and our contemporary sensibilities." - Concord Theatricals
THE SPANISH GOLDEN AGE IN ENGLISH: PERSPECTIVES ON PERFORMANCE
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Highlights: "The Spanish Golden Age was a period of flourishing in arts and literature, and in particular of drama, in Spain, coinciding with the political decline and fall of the Habsburgs. This term does not generally imply any great precision about dates, but it begins no earlier than 1492, ending with the death of he last great writer of the period, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, died in 1681.In 2003, the RSC produced a season of Spanish Golden Age plays, including classics such as "The Dog in the Manger", "House of Desires and Pedro", and "The Great Pretender" establishing an innovative working process that laid emphasis on the plays as pieces of theatre, dynamic and alive, and on the principle of respect for the plays' historical contexts. The essays in this book, written by some of the world's foremost scholars of the Spanish Golden Age, explore some of the many issues that arose from this season and the complex nature of translating and staging plays from the Spanish Golden Age on the English-speaking stage." - Concord Theatricals
Criticisms and Reviews
Translating the Theatre of the Spanish Golden Age: a story of chance and transformation (2016)
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review by Jonathan Munby
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HIGHLIGHTS:
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"translators of Spanish Golden Age theatre have to understand the dreams and nightmares of the people then just as much as they do the dreams and nightmares of people today, because their translations are a conversation not just between two languages but between two di erent moments of human life"
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“WRITING FORWARD” IN TROUBLED TIMES: DAVID JOHNSTON ON THE ART OF TRANSLATION (2017)
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Review by Robin Kello
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HIGHLIGHTS:
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"translators of Spanish Golden Age theatre have to understand the dreams and nightmares of the people then just as much as they do the dreams and nightmares of people today, because their translations are a conversation not just between two languages but between two di erent moments of human life"
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Review: The House Of Bernarda Alba is bloody good theatre (2022)
https://nowtoronto.com/culture/review-the-house-of-bernarda-alba-is-bloody-good-theatre/
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review by Glenn Sumia
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HIGHLIGHTS: "This is a true ensemble work, a haunting marriage of text, direction, design and performance."
The House of Bernarda Alba (2022)
https://www.stage-door.com/3/2022-Reviews/Entries/2022/4/the-house-of-bernarda-alba-1.htm
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review by Christopher Hoile
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Highlights: "García Lorca’s style of poetic realism is well served by the production. Trevor Schwellnus has created an empty set bounded by banners painted with vaguely religious symbols. In this empty space he deploys a wide range of non-naturalistic lighting effects from pinspots on speakers to backlighting the whole stage in order to emphasize the eerie atmosphere of Bernarda’s house."
Other Translations
The Boat Plays Paperback (1995)
Madness in Valencia (1998)
A Play Without a Title (2008)
Media
