Theatre translation: From target text to target 
performance
Živa Čebulj 
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
A B ST RAC T
The article analyses the textual changes that occur in the process of staging a performance based 
on a translated text. Drawing on Morini’s four types of theatre translation, namely the interlingual, 
intralingual, intersemiotic, and intrasemiotic aspects of theatre translation (emerging from Jakob-
son’s classification of translation), the article focuses on the differences between the translated text 
and the text spoken on the stage through the analysis of the Slovene performance of Sad Songs from 
the Heart of Europe by the Finnish author Kristian Smeds, translated into Slovene by Julija Potrč 
Šavli. The play, directed by the Finnish theatre director Jari Juutinen, was performed at the Slovene 
theatre Slovensko ljudsko gledališče Celje by the Slovene actress Maša Grošelj. As the author of 
the article participated in staging this play as a language consultant, the article provides an insight 
into the process, and reveals why and how the changes to the text occurred. As the analyses of the 
written and staged texts show, the majority of the textual changes were introduced by various agents 
involved in the production of the play, while some were also due to the multimodal interactions 
between different theatre modes (speech, scenography, sound, light, props, etc.).
Keywords: theatre translation, authorship, aspects of theatre translation, theatre practice, collabo-
rative translation
Prevod v gledališču: od ciljnega besedila do ciljne predstave
I Z V L EČ E K
V prispevku so analizirane spremembe v besedilu, ki se zgodijo znotraj procesa uprizarjanja pred-
stave, ki temelji na prevedem besedilu. Na osnovi Morinijevih štirih vrst gledališkega prevajanja (to 
so medjezikovna, znotrajjezikivna, medznakovna in znotrajznakovna vrsta gledališkega prevoda), 
ki izhajajo iz Jakobsonove klasifikacije prevajanja, se prispevek osredotoča na razlike med preve-
denim besedilom in končno podobo besedila, ki je govorjeno na odru, in sicer z analizo procesa 
predstave Žalostinke iz srca Evrope finskega avtorja Kristiana Smedsa, katere besedilno predlogo je 
v slovenščino prevedla Julija Potrč Šavli. V uprizoritvi, ki jo je režiral finski gledališki režiser Jari 
Juutinen, je v Slovenskem ljudskem gledališču Celje igrala Maša Grošelj. Avtorica tega prispevka 
sem pri uprizoritvi sodelovala kot lektorica, kar mi omogoča tako vpogled v proces in kot v razloge 
za spremembe v besedilu in načine, na katere se te udejanjajo. Analiza pisnega in uprizorjenega be-
sedila pokaže, da na številne spremembe vpliva več akterjev, udeleženih v uprizarjanje, nekatere pa 
105Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119
izhajajo iz multimodalnih interakcij med različnimi modalnostmi gledališča (govor, scenografija, 
zvok, luč, rekviziti itd.) 
Ključne besede: gledališko prevajanje, avtorstvo, vidiki gledališkega prevajanja, gledališka praksa, 
sodelovalno prevajanje 
1. Introduction
Theatre translation is not finished the moment the translator hands in the script, 
as the process then continues. However, the script is rarely further amended 
by professional translators, instead it is revised by other agents such as actors, 
theatre directors, dramaturgs, and language consultants. This list is limited to the 
participants that work on the verbal mode, but since theatre is a multimodal art 
form, with different modes interacting, the text that is uttered on the stage is also 
further changed under the influence of other modes, such as scenography, sound, 
light, and props. The aim of this article is to analyse the changes in the text that 
occurred during the staging of a play, from the text read at the first rehearsal to 
the final performance. The questions this article addresses are the following: What 
happens to the script when actors (with a director and their team) start working with 
the text and engage their voice, body, and presence on stage? What kind of changes 
does the translated text undergo when it is staged, and why? Are the changes to the 
text always linked to the para- and non-linguistic features of the performance? The 
answers to these questions will be sought by observing those who interacted with 
the translated text after it has been submitted by the translator. An attempt will be 
made to describe the manner of the interventions made by different agents, and to 
explain their purpose. 
The theoretical framework of the research is Morini’s four aspects of theatre 
translation, described in his monograph Theatre Translation: Theory and Practice 
(Morini 2022), which will be discussed later. With the combination of corpus-
based study and field observation as the research method, I will apply Morini’s 
aspects of theatre translation to the study of the performance Sad Songs from the 
Heart of Europe by the Finnish author Kristian Smeds. The play was put on stage 
at the Celje Theatre (Slovensko ljudsko gledališče Celje) in September 2022, and 
was translated as Žalostinke iz srca Evrope by Julija Potrč Šavli and directed by Jari 
Juutinen. 
106 Živa Čebulj: Theatre translation
2. Theoretical framework
2.1 Theatre translation and theatrical system
Up until the end of the 20th century, translation theory explored the field of theatre 
translation as a special part of literary translation. One of the first monographs on 
theatre translation was Aaltonen’s Time-Sharing on Stage (2000). In this, Aaltonen 
analyses the directors’ positioning towards the scripts (and their authors) through an 
overview of the Finnish theatrical system. She establishes two antipodes of directors’ 
positioning: reverence and subversion, thus exposing directors’ entanglements in 
theatrical production. Aaltonen states that directors, theatres, and the expectations 
of the public are reverential “[w]hen theatrical systems hope to increase their 
cultural capital through translation” (Aaltonen 2000, 64). This means that in a 
young, emerging national theatre system the canonized authors and texts from the 
cultures considered older and/or superior will be translated and put on stage in a 
reverential manner, in order to demonstrate that a young national theatre system and 
language are capable of the same profundity. In contrast, when using a subversive 
mode of translation “the Foreign is rewritten to serve the Self without breaking away 
entirely from it, and keeping it still as the reference point against which the Self is 
defined” (Brisset 1996, as cited in Aaltonen 2000, 73). This means that a subversive 
theatrical performance would not put on stage a close rendering of the original 
in the target language, but rather enter into dialogue with the text, for example 
actualizing it, readjusting its perspectives, and shortening it significantly. These 
antipodes are often found in different national histories: a reverential positioning 
towards the source text and its author tends to occur in the constituting period of a 
nation or state, and is aimed at increasing the cultural capital of the target language 
or theatrical system. On the other hand, the subversive positioning emerges when 
source cultures are seen as a threat or when source cultures are patronizing towards 
the target cultures, and appear on stage when the target theatrical system is already 
mature. Since Slovene, like Finnish, falls into the category of peripheral languages 
(Zlatnar Moe et al. 2019, 57), we can assume similar mechanisms are at work in 
both theatrical systems. 
This analysis studies micro-relations that emerge within the process of staging the 
text, and follows the linearity of authorship: from the playwright through to the 
translator, the director, and finally the actor. As the meaning in this model emanates 
from the author, it may be argued that the positioning of the theatre director towards 
the text and its author is reverential (in Aaltonen’s terms). However, when in the 
staging process multiple theatre practitioners work on the text, negotiate the meaning, 
and finally agree on what is to be told on stage and in what manner, the traditional 
107Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119
linear perception of the authorship becomes too restrictive. Here, a more rhizomatic 
perception of the authorship of the final text, where meaning is negotiated between 
different theatre practitioners, might provide a better insight into the transformations 
of the staged translated text.
2.2 Theatre translation as a collaborative process
In his 1969 essay “What is an Author?”, Michel Foucault defines the author as a function 
of discourse, arguing that one of the four characteristics of the “author-function” is that 
“it does not refer, purely and simply, to an actual individual insofar as it simultaneously 
gives rise to a variety of egos and to a series of subjective positions that individuals of 
any class may come to occupy” (Foucault [1969] 2016, 309). Foucault posits that every 
text with a definite signature manifests a simultaneous dispersion of three egos (the one 
who indicates the circumstances of composition in the preface, the one who concludes 
a demonstration, and the one who speaks of the goals of the investigation). The author-
function of a work of art created by a group, like in theatre, is characterized by an even 
more highly complex dispersion of egos and positions of different individuals.
A group work is, indeed, a regular feature of theatre-making, therefore Tarantini 
(2021) argues that theatre translations are characterized by a rhizomatic structure 
and that they are the “outcome of a multi-staged, interdisciplinary, and collaborative 
process” (Tarantini 2021, 4). The 20th century theatre theories emancipated directors 
from the text, granting them the status of authors (Milohnić 2021, 70). Similarly, 
Susan Bassnett re-evaluated the figure of the translator who is no longer bound to 
invisibility, arguing that: 
(…) the primary responsibility for bringing a text across linguistic and 
cultural boundaries rests with the individual translator, who is finally 
starting to be recognized in the West as essential to the interrelationship 
between literatures, to the continuation of literary traditions and to the 
introduction of the new, the foreign, the different. (Bassnett 2014, 56)
Although involving unequal negotiation among different agents, Espasa (2000) 
argues that a rhizomatic structure in the process of creating meaning transforms 
every translated text, and that the “mediation of a complex chain of participants” as a 
specific feature of theatre is not an obstacle to translation:
Rather, this negotiation has to be included as an explanatory factor of 
performability. Ultimately, I would argue for putting theatre ideology 
108 Živa Čebulj: Theatre translation
and power negotiation at the heart of performability, and make such tex-
tual and theatrical factors as speakability and playability relative to it. 
(Espasa 2000, 58)
Negotiation seems a sine qua non part of collaborative translatorship: every new 
staging of a chosen text will negotiate different dimensions of performability, and thus 
every mise en scène will produce a new play. Introducing negotiation into the concept 
of authorship – in theatre in general, and in translated theatre in particular – allows 
us to embrace a more rhizomatic paradigm and abandon a strictly hierarchically 
and chronologically structured linear authorship. To sum up, the understanding that 
authorship is structured in a rhizomatic way allows us to study the performative and 
dialectical features of theatre translation. 
2.3 Four aspects of theatre translation 
Morini (2022) proposes a methodology for analysing theatre translation based on 
Jakobson’s ([1959] 1992) definition of translation. Morini’s methodology allows us to 
maintain the concept of the rhizomatic modification of theatre translation and to show 
that on the multimodal level different theatre practitioners contribute to the process of 
transformation of the target text. Jakobson famously defines three kinds of translation, 
as follows: (a) interlingual translation or translation proper, (b) intralingual translation 
or rewording, and (c) intersemiotic translation or transmutation, “interpretation of 
verbal signs by means of nonverbal sign system” ([1959] 1992, 145). To these three, 
Morini adds (d) an intrasemiotic translation as the performed translation that is 
characterized by the “dependence of performance on previous performances, on 
stage or in other media” (2022, 71). These four kinds of translation may all be present 
in theatre translation, often involving the cooperation of theatre practitioners from 
different fields: 
It turns out, after all, that the feeling of being trapped in a labyrinth ex-
perienced by the textual translator was only due to the presence of other 
agents at work on the same process. The end product belongs as much 
to the textual translator as it does to the directors, the actors and all the 
other participants in the transaction. In that sense, theatre translation is 
always, at least potentially, plural and collaborative. (Morini 2022, 72)
Morini’s use of the term “textual translator” here suggests that other participants in 
the process can also be regarded as translators, either on intralingual, intersemiotic 
or intrasemiotic levels. The interaction of these four levels – or in terms of the 
109Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119
rhizomatic feature of authorship, the negotiation between different agents in the same 
process – can result in changes to the text. In the research presented in this article I 
will try to identify these different agents, and reveal their continuous interaction. The 
study will thus focus on how the actor’s embodiment of intersemiotic translation (c) 
interacts with the work of the (textual) translator (interlingual translation (a)), how 
the linguistic choices of (a) textual translator influence directorial and dramaturgic 
standpoints (intrasemiotic translation (d)), and how the director and dramaturg 
influence linguistic changes (intralingual translation (b)). These four theatrical 
translational processes can be linked to three of the theatre practitioners collaborating 
in the process of staging the play: theatre director (d), dramaturg (c), and language 
consultant (b). In such a way a combined process- and product-oriented approach 
of analysing theatre translation is introduced that highlights its collaborative and 
negotiating character.
Due to the structure of my corpus, in this article I deliberately use the term “changes” 
and not the term “shifts” that is often found in linguistic and corpus-based translation 
studies research. I will not analyse the shifts that occur in translation of the source text 
to the target text, when the text is transferred from one language to another, but rather 
the changes that occur during the staging of a play and which are introduced into an 
already translated text.
3. Methodology
3.1 Corpus – text and video material
For this research a parallel corpus was built from the translator’s final draft (A), which 
was 37 pages long and delivered to theatre practitioners, and the language consultant’s 
working script (B), in which all verbal changes, prosodic instructions and other 
vocal directions that occurred during the staging process are registered. These two 
documents were scanned and imported into the NVIVO computer software. In the 
next step, all the changes in the second text (B) and remarks on prosodic features were 
coded and arranged into groups and then qualitatively analysed. Then, parts of the 
written corpus were compared to video material (C) from one of the rehearsals in the 
final stage of the process. It is rare that any changes to the script occur at this stage, 
when actors tend to solidify the text and their performance. Texts A and B were then 
compared to video material, paying particular attention to those parts where changes 
in the working script (B) occurred, in order to determine whether the changes to text 
A were linked to para- or non-linguistic features of the performance. It was assumed 
that some of the changes might have been prompted by the structure of the play: 
110 Živa Čebulj: Theatre translation
although the whole text is performed by only one actor, the monologue is segmented 
into different roles that the actor interprets, which might in turn influence the final 
text uttered on stage. 
3.2 Practice as research method
The play chosen for this case study was staged at Celje Theatre (Slovensko ljudsko 
gledališče Celje), where I participated as an employee in the staging of this play. Being 
both a theatre practitioner and researcher proved to have several advantages for my 
work. In particular, practical experience made the formulation of the research questions 
easier, since I was able to gain an insight into questions, problems, behaviours, and 
processes that are pertinent for theoretical research. During my research I have also 
noticed, as Nelson (2022, 14) argues, that practice as a research method in the arts 
not only enables substantial new insights through systematically undertaken work, 
but also allows for the development of professional artists, as well as builds bridges 
between academics and professionals.
My personal involvement in the process of staging the play analysed here has allowed 
me to enrich the knowledge that I gained as a researcher with the information I 
gathered as a practitioner. Combining a corpus-based method and practice as research 
method has also permitted me not only to ascertain what kind of changes occur in the 
staging of the play, but also to describe how these changes occurred, who proposed 
and/or accepted these changes, and with what purpose. 
4. Kristian Smeds: Sad Songs from the Heart of Europe
The play Sad Songs from the Heart of Europe by the Finnish author Kristian Smeds 
was translated by Julija Potrč Šavli directly from Finnish into Slovene. The play was 
directed by the Finnish theatre director Jari Juutinen (his fourth mise en scène of 
this play) and performed by the Slovene actress Maša Grošelj at Celje Theatre in 
September 2022. There were two other theatre practitioners who were also involved 
in the staging of this play: Alja Predan participated as a dramaturg, and I was a 
language consultant. Smeds’ monodrama Sad Songs from the Heart of Europe is 
based on Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, with the narrative perspective 
shifted to Sonya. In this dramatic work one can find elements of all three major 
literary genres: prose (excerpts from the Dostoevsky’s novel), poetry (poetic, lyrical 
passages), and drama (Sonya, as dramatis persona, embodies other characters from 
the novel). The actress Maša Grošelj is the only performer in this dramatic piece. 
She embodies Sonya, who, in turn, speaks about other characters, at times so vividly 
111Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119
that she impersonates them, even to the point that Sonya’s character disappears and 
is no longer visibly present.
The staging of the play was a Finnish-Slovene co-production, which meant that the 
working languages during the whole process were English, Finnish, and Slovene. I 
obtained permission to use the video of the performance for this research from the 
director of the play, the actress and the dramaturg, while the language consultant’s 
working script (B) was created by me. 
4.1 Results
The comparison of text A and text B showed that 104 notes were inserted into text 
B. Two of these changes were grammatical: once the tense was changed (because of 
the sequence of tenses) and once the form of the adjective was amended (from the 
definite to the indefinite form). Fifty-three notes record prosodic guidance given to 
the performer: they do not refer to any kind of textual change, but give instructions 
to the vocal performance (32 notes on accent and 21 notes on stress guidance). Since 
notes providing prosodic guidance (information on accents and stress) do not imply 
any deviation from the linguistic norm of the text performed, nor do they change the 
text in any other way, these notes were disregarded. Consequently only 49 notes coded 
in working script B recorded textual changes and were included in the analysis. 
The translator from Finnish into Slovene provided interlingual (dramatic) translation 
(a), and the actress with her body and voice created and embodied the intersemiotic 
translation (c) – “script turned into performance” (Morini 2022, 71). The theatre 
director through discussion guided and validated all four aspects of theatre translation, 
including the interlingual (a) translation, and inserted some in-text comments, 
explanations, and remarks, which the translator of then introduced into her final 
text submitted to the theatre. However, this analysis does not analyse those changes 
introduced in the translation before its first submission to the theatre, and focuses 
only on those that were introduced in the already submitted translation. 
4.1.1 Director’s changes
Since the theatre director was Finnish his working script was bilingual, Finnish and 
Slovene, and sometimes he consulted the English translation as well. The director 
informed us that some of the textual changes had been negotiated beforehand with the 
author of the play, although not all the details. One of these changes was the cutting 
of Marmeladov’s long monologue into shorter sequences that were interrupted by 
the monologue of Katarina, Marmeladov’s wife and Sonya’s stepmother. The director 
112 Živa Čebulj: Theatre translation
argued that Marmeladov’s long monologue, as narrated by Sonya, might result in the 
loss of the audience’s attention. Another change proposed by the director was the use 
of video projection: an exchange of short lines between Sonya and Marmeladov was 
partly visualized on a screen, so that Marmeladov’s lines were written there, while the 
actress vocalized only Sonya’s replies. The director then invited the actress to improvise 
Katarina’s anger towards Marmeladov, thus adding some lines for Katarina, which 
will be discussed in more detail in the section on the actress below. The director also 
added some text, in particular he extended Marmeladov’s listings of wars in which 
he had served (from World War I to the Syrian civil war), his begging for money, and 
Sonya’s list of words for prostitutes in different languages. 
Comparison with video material
The director’s choice to video project some of the script (case 2 above), resulting in 
the fact that some of Marmeladov’s lines in a short exchange with Sonya were not 
spoken by the actress, did not modify the text, since these replies were not left out 
from the play. Through the process of intersemiotical retranslation,1 Marmeladov’s 
lines were visualized on screen. The extension of the lists (case 3 above) of wars and 
words for prostitutes, or Marmeladov’s begging for money, in combination with 
distinct facial expressions and the wide-open eyes of the actress, produced an almost 
grotesque effect. The performance thus exploited the dramatic elements in the text 
and created the alienation effect. These nuances were hidden in the text and this 
particular interpretation brought them to life – the performance of another actress 
or different guidance from the director would highlight other nuances or could even 
bring out other meanings.
4.1.2 Actress’s changes
The actress’s contributions to the text changes were in negotiation with other 
participants: she was mainly concerned if the text or a proposed change to the text 
was utterable, and whether it had the intended effect. In addition to that, the director 
invited the actress to improvise some lines for Katarina, Marmeladov’s wife and Sonya’s 
stepmother. From her improvisation, six lines were kept in the actual performance:2 
1 Here, I use the word “retranslation”, and reserve the term “intersemiotical translation” for 
the transformation of the text into speech (when an actor utters the lines), and the term 
“retranslation” for the transformation of speech back to the text on screen.
2 All translations from Slovene are mine.
113Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119
Table 1. Lines from improvisation kept in the performance.
a v oštariji da si
a da to ni moja stvar?
a to, da je moj mož ena pijanska gnida, to ni moja 
stvar?
a to, da zapravljaš dnar za najine otroke, to ni 
moja stvar?
ma, da se mi spraviš domov
in to takoj!
so you’re at the bar?
and that it’s none of my business, you say?
my husband being a drunken louse is none of 
my business?
that you waste our money without thinking 
about our children is none of my business?
you better come home
right away!
Comparison with video material
It is clear from the video that with the lines that were added by the actress (see Table 1) 
Katarina does not scold Marmeladov, but instead shows the audience how quickly 
she can get angry with him. The fourth wall is thus broken down, and the play is no 
longer closed off in a world where the performers pretend not to see the audience. On 
the contrary, here the performer (Maša Grošelj), without stepping out of character 
(where Sonya impersonates Katarina), addresses the audience directly. In this case the 
intention was to make the audience participate in Katarina’s waiting for her drunken 
husband to come home.
4.1.3 Dramaturg’s changes
The dramaturg also contributed to the final text by proposing some changes. Some 
of these changes are of the same type: the change in formality of address (from more 
formal to informal) – for example, she suggested that Sonya calls Rodion by his first 
name, and does not address him formally. 
Other notes are linked to the cutting of different passages. Firstly, some of the passages 
were shortened, then left out completely. One line was left out from Sonya’s first 
monologue: “avtor me je prosil, naj povem, da” (*the author asked me to tell you). 
This line expresses the author’s intention to talk to the audience with his own voice 
through Sonya; however, the elimination of this line leaves the author outside of the 
performance. Similarly, six passages in the monologue of the drunken Marmeladov 
were left out entirely. 
114 Živa Čebulj: Theatre translation
Table 2. Lines left out from Marmeladov's monologue.
Lines left out Description of the motive: 
Sonya’s character impersonating the drunken 
Marmeladov talking…
ej baba 
a greva plesat 
no sej te ne silm
… to a woman in audience, inviting her for a 
dance
zdaj pa gospod barman
šnops natoč
… to an imaginary bartender to pour another 
round
a vi sploh veste mulci kako zgleda pička odrasle 
ženske?
take mladiče kot ste vi 
žive požre 
hudiča
… to the audience, with a vulgar question if they 
have ever seen an adult woman’s genitals
živjo! kako ti je ime?
živjo!
jaz sem semjon 
prid
greva na enga ta kratkega 
jaz častim
no fantje, a ste bli pr vojakih
kje si služu?
… to three men (separately, repeating three 
times) in the audience, inviting them on stage 
for a drink, and then asking them whether 
they have ever served in the army; the passage 
is shortened to one question, addressed to the 
audience as a whole
ej, kelnar!
naštimej fantom ta čas mal dobre muske da jim 
ne bo dougcajt
… to the imaginary bartender to put some 
music on
za vas rečejo rusi … to the audience, cheers in Russian
All the cut lines have the same effect: almost completely dismissing the text’s 
intention to break the fourth wall, i.e., the wall between the audience and stage. In 
three cases the translation (text A) proposes that three men come on stage and have 
a drink with the actress. This passage in text B was shortened to only one question 
(“a je bil kdo od vas pr vojakih?” (has anyone of you served in the army?)) addressed 
to the whole audience and not to any particular individual. Thus, the changes in 
text B were introduced in order not to invite any of the audience on stage. The last 
eliminated line in the Table 2 was eliminated due to political reasons, so there would 
not be no allusions made either to Russia or to the war in Ukraine. The elimination 
of these passages and avoidance of the breaking of the fourth wall was negotiated 
between the director and the dramaturg in such a way that their roles cannot be 
unambiguously discerned. 
115Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119
Comparison with video material
The passages cut from the text originally had an alienation function in text A: breaking 
the theatrical illusion and inviting reality (the audience) into the performance. With 
these passages being left out of the play, the breaking of the fourth wall is no longer so 
important as in text A. On the other hand, it was not completely banished from the play 
since the actress also stepped down from the stage and spoke directly to the audience. 
It could be argued here that the breaking of the fourth wall was intersemiotically 
translated from the text to the movement of the actress’s body.
4.1.4 Language consultant’s changes
Sixteen notes in the working script (text B) refer to linguistic shifts, 13 of which relate to 
register adjustment and three to word changes. The register of utterances was changed 
from the standardized language to colloquial in passages where Sonya’s father is drunk, 
and when Katarina gets angry. The colloquial speech was already present in the textual 
translation (text A), which was noted with some reductions of vowels. The further 
adjustments in text B harmonized the reductions of vowels throughout Marmeladov’s 
monologue, as well as the simplification and approximation of combinations of 
consonants, i.e. “igrice” → “igrce”, “dedci” → “desci”, “smrdelo” → “smrdel”, “najboljši” 
→ “najbolši”, “življenje” → “živlenje”, “obljubim” → “oblubm”. Katarina’s speech was 
in standardized register. However, discussions with the director, the dramaturg and 
especially the actress led us to make Katarina’s speech more colloquial when she gets 
angry with Marmeladov: “zlivati” → “zlivat”, “drugega” → “druzga”, “v posteljo” → “v 
postlo”. Some words from the standardized register were replaced by their colloquial 
synonyms: “po stopnicah” → “po štengah”, “nekega” → “enga”. This decision made 
Katarina more layered, showing that she is able to switch from one register to another. In 
one case the word was changed to shorten the line and adjust the rhythm of the phrase: 
“prav tako nisem // svarilna beseda ali učna ura” → “prav tako nisem // svarilo ali učna 
ura”, and in another to modulate the meaning: “ropar” (robber) → “lopov” (conman), 
from someone who gets what he wants by force to someone who manipulates another 
to do so – the latter being more suitable for Marmeladov, who uses a ruse to get money 
from Sonya. Similarly, for the sake of rhythm, the tag question “ali ne?” (interrogative 
word) was changed to “ni tako?” (modal verb + adverb). 
Comparison with video material
In the video, the actress performs a drunken Marmeladov or an angry Katarina 
with loud outbursts, distinct body language and facial expressions, which justify the 
116 Živa Čebulj: Theatre translation
lowering of the register. Similarly, the actress utters the line “samo upati si je treba” 
(“you just need to dare”), then marks a pause, crosses the stage, puts the axe on her 
shoulder, looks at the audience, and only then she utters “ni tako?” (“ain’t that right?”). 
The long pause between the two lines justified the replacement of the question tag 
with a self-standing question. In addition, the movement of the actress’s body and the 
tension in her voice retroactively influence the text: these kinds of details make the 
process of making meaning deviate from strict linear structure of the authorship and 
reveal rhizomaticity of the process.
4.2 Negotiation and trust
Of course, the changes described above did not just happen, as they were implemented 
by the director and reflected his artistic view. As such, in this paper I call them the 
director’s changes. The dramaturg, actress, and language consultant mostly proposed 
changes in line with the production concept, which was developed beforehand by 
the director and the dramaturg. These additional changes were thoroughly discussed 
during the rehearsals, sometimes over the course of many weeks. For example, the 
elimination of the passages noted in section 4.1.3 were introduced gradually: the reason 
was that the actress was hesitant about inviting the audience onto the stage, and the 
dramaturg then supported her view, arguing that the audience at this particular theatre 
is not used to such participatory elements. It was then argued that inviting three people 
on stage would create a pause in the plotline, and for a while it was decided that the 
actress would invite only two people on stage. However, after a week of rehearsals the 
negotiation of this passage was reopened with the question of what the actress should do 
if no one responded to her invitation to come on stage – so, during the brainstorming 
of all the collaborators, i.e., the actress, director, dramaturg and language consultant, 
the elimination of the whole passage was proposed. The decision was reached through 
negotiations, and all the collaborators had the chance to express their views. All the final 
decisions on the staging of this performance, however, were made by the director, who 
made sure that every decision was in line with his artistic vision. 
Here, the process of staging reveals a linear development of responsibility in meaning-
making: emanating from the play, through the (textual) translator to the director, and 
then to the actress who executes the director’s interpretation and artistic view of the 
text. This can be aligned with Aaltonen’s concept of a reverential positioning of the 
theatre director towards the text. However, in the part of the process where multiple 
theatre practitioners work on the text (including the actress, dramaturg, and language 
consultant), a more rhizomatic structure offers greater insight into what happens to 
the text in the process of staging the play. 
117Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119
5. Conclusion
Theatre translation is a process that starts with an interlingual translation and 
passes through other kinds of translation, i.e., intralingual, inter- and intrasemiotic 
translations, before it reaches the form performed on stage. These other kinds of 
text transformation interact with the text and influence its final form. Focussing on 
the case of Smeds’ play Sad Songs from the Heart of Europe translated into Slovene 
by Julija Potrč Šavli, put on stage at Celje Theatre in 2022, directed by Jari Juutinen 
and performed by Maša Grošelj, I tried to describe what kind of changes occured 
in the translated text and why they occured, what is the process that led to the final 
performance, and whether the changes of the translation were linked to the para- or 
non-linguistic features of the performance. In general, the analysis of micro-relations 
in the process of staging the performance showed that the relations were structured 
linearly: the story emanated from the playwright, was then retold by the translator, and 
re-retold by the theatre practitioners. The results also revealed that the positioning of 
the theatre director towards the text was largely reverential. 
However, on some occasions the engagement of multiple theatre practitioners with 
the text and their contribution to the negotiation of the meaning showed that a more 
rhizomatic structure of authorship was also in place, and that, at least in part, the 
meaning-making process in theatre may also be collaborative, performative and 
creative. To conclude, even when the overall performance seems reverential towards 
its author, due to the rhizomatic, collaborative features of the process of staging, every 
theatrical act contains a grain of subversion.
References
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About the author
Živa Čebulj is translator and language consultant, employed at the Celje Theatre 
(Slovensko ljudsko gledališče Celje), and is currently a PhD student in Translation 
Studies. Her main research interest is Theatre Translation, with a focus on its linguistic 
and sociological aspects. Among her translated authors are Jean Genet, Jean-Paul 
Sartre, Florian Zeller, Adeline Dieudonné, Mathias Énard, and Andrée Chedid. She 
has written forewords to works by Modiano, Colette, Desbordes-Valmore, and Saint-
Jean Perse. For the translation of the Chedid’s poetry, Čebulj received a prize Radojka 
Vrančič for young translators in 2022. 
119Stridon. Journal of Studies in Translation and Interpreting, Volume 3 Issue 2, pp. 105–119