INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSLATION IN THE THEATRE: CREATING A STAGE PRODUCTION

Abstract

The standard way of creating a stage production is to take a written source text (the play) and transfer it to the stage through visual and auditory means. This is, essentially, an act of intersemiotic translation although, in the theatre, the “languages” of the target text are neither clearly defined nor limited. This article explores the function of the playtext in the theatre as the source of both the stage production and the verbalised meaning-making system that constitutes a performance. The objective is to reconstrue the various participants in the process as translators, analysing the ways in which interlingual and intersemiotic translation are comparable.