Translating Theatre, Translating Culture

Translating is never about translation word for word of a given piece. Whenever we translate, a series of other factors are to be taken into consideration and some sort of collateral translations are brought along. One of the most important aspects to consider is the audience the text is going to be translated for and consequently its culture. When it comes to translating for the theatre, and for the screen as well, we have even more factors to consider, such as the surrounding scene, some degree of musicality, some gestures, probably a scenography and something happening around. Theatre translation is in fact one of the most complex and multifaced types of translation. The aim of this essay is to investigate the relation between language and culture, to show what happens when translating for theatre, to explain what is the role of a translator in this field.