Roundtable on Translations and Adaptations

Mar 01, 2013

L to R: David Henry Hwang, Tina Howe, Marion Peter Holt, David Ives, Annie Baker

David Henry Hwang: This is the translation/adaptation roundtable. With us tonight is Tina Howe, who’s translated The Bald Soprano and The Lesson and seems to have brought a number of works. Are these all your translations or are they different translations?

Tina Howe: No, different ones. It’s very tricky and deeply neurotic on my part.

David Henry Hwang: Marion Peter Holt, who’s a translator adapter of contemporary Spanish and Catalan plays, professor emeritus of theatre at CUNY Graduate Center, and visiting lecturer at Yale. I cannot pronounce any of the works that you have translated, so would you care to tell me some? They’re right there. There you go.

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David Henry Hwang

’s work includes M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Aida, Flower Drum Song, and Soft Power. Tony Award (three nominations), three OBIE Awards, Grammy Award (two nominations), three-time Pulitzer finalist. Opera libretti include five shows with Philip Glass, Ainadamar with Osvaldo Golijov, and the upcoming M. Butterfly opera with Huang Ruo.

Tina Howe

is a Pulitzer finalist and Tony nominee. Plays include Museum, Painting Churches, The Art of Dining, Costal Disturbances, and Pride’s Crossing, among others. “I’ve gotten so old and grey that every time I get on a crowded subway or bus, the nursing mothers and one-legged men all leap to their feet (or foot) insisting I take their seat.”