Translating Wallace

Abstract

Translating for the stage is more like acting than writing. Whether through the voice and body of the actor or the other language of the translator, it’s a matter of understanding the essence of the characters and language, making them your own, and delivering them so as to convey in the best possible way the thoughts, feelings, and music of the playwright. It’s a matter of showing what the words do, rather than what they are. I myself am not a writer. I am an actress, and I have always considered my translating work to be very close to that of an actor.

Dominique Hollier is a Paris-based actor, translator, and dramaturg with credits in film, television, and theatre. She has translated many Naomi Wallace plays into French, including In the Heart of America, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, The Inland Sea, Things of Dry Hours, The Fever Chart, And I and Silence, as well as One Flea Spare, which in 2012 was introduced into the permanent repertoire of the Comédie-Française.