Shakespeare Untranslated: To See, or Not to See?

To be, or not to be? To see, or not see a Shakespeare play in a foreign language? Now, that really is the question.

When travelling in a country with a different language from your own, a lot of its culture is still open to you.

Music and dance are no problem, opera is OK, and films might have subtitles. However, theatre is a problem, so reliant it is upon language.

But I love theatre, so I've always been keen to see it when travelling, if I can.

A few years ago, I hit on a solution to the language barrier - choose a Shakespeare play you're familiar with that's being performed in a foreign language, so at least you know the plot.

That frees you to focus on the acting, intonation, costumes, set design, direction and other elements without feeling bemused by the storyline. And if you know a little of the local language, you can still pick up something of what's being said.

Here's some of the foreign-language Shakespeare I've caught over the years:

The Merchant of Venice in Japanese

I caught this production in 2001 at The Other Place, which was then a secondary venue used by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, the Bard's hometown. To be precise, it was a Japanese production with a Romanian director, staged by the Euro-Japan Theatre Organisation.

It was great - the costumes were particularly memorable, an eye-catching mix of traditional and modern (eg Lorenzo in Japanese robes with a biker's jacket on top). 

Antony and Cleopatra in Italian

Well, it's a perfect fit, isn't it? Saw this in 2001 in a magnificent horseshoe-shaped old theatre in Rome - the sort of place you imagine opera being performed. It was done in a striking modern style on a candlelit stage - the men in Zegna suits, the women in classy black dresses.

The Tempest in Lithuanian

When I saw the poster for Burza in the Polish city of Toruń, with Shakespeare's name attached, I was puzzled as to which play it was. A look at my Polish dictionary produced the translation "storm" - of course, it's The Tempest! It was being staged in 2008 as part of the city's annual Kontakt festival (see the cool poster above). Kontakt started in 1991, and primarily aims to bring together great theatre work from Western and Eastern Europe.

To aid comprehension, patrons hired little radio-pickup boxes with headphones, which played live translation of the Lithuanian delivery into Polish, Russian and English. I did occasionally dip into the Russian, just because it sounded so portentous.

A Midsummer Night's Dream in Polish

All that time in Poland, and I finally got to see a Shakespeare work in Polish in 2007, courtesy of the much-respected Stary Teatr. It was magnificent. Working from a fresh translation (a luxury we English-speakers don't have), the company produced an edgy work in upmarket contemporary costumes and settings, laced with black humour.

The company managed the impressive feat of turning Shakespeare's famous comedy into something dark and uncomfortable. The scene directly after the four lovers are released from their magical enchantments was pricelessly awkward, and reminded the viewer that the characters had just been drugged and psychologically manipulated in the most humiliating way. Not really a laughing matter, when you think about it. 

There was also a nod to the original text - of the Rude Mechanicals, Snug (the one who plays the lion) could only speak in English. So we did get to hear some of Shakespeare's text, along with his attempt at a roar. That was fun.

The Unpublished 6: Roman Holiday

Ancient monuments and exceptional gelati were my obsessions in this piece I wrote after visiting Rome some years ago. I never did get around to submitting it to any publications, but now this tale of saltimbocca, theatre, pickpockets and temple cats can be told...

Standing on the edge of the Piazza Rotonda, I have an instant sense of Rome’s appeal. The square is home to the ancient Pantheon temple, flirting waiters and spectacularly-priced caffe lattes.

The sun is shining and there are Vespa scooters tearing up and down the street outside, so what more is there to desire?

Perhaps the exceptional cioccolato gelato on sale throughout the city. If chocolate ice cream can be this good in Italy, why not everywhere in the world?

Federico Messina from website Live in Rome reveals the secret. “Traditional Italian gelati is only prepared with fresh ingredients,” he says. “Cream based flavours like chocolate, stracciatella, gianduia and nocciola are made with fresh milk and egg yolks. Fruit flavours only use ripened, tasty fruit.”

And once you’ve eaten saltimbocca alla Romana like the gold-digging gal in Three Coins in a Fountain, you can die happy.

“Saltimbocca is one of Rome's most renowned meat dishes,” continues Messina. “It literally means ‘jump in the mouth’. Its combination of veal with sage and prosciutto shouldn’t be missed. Yet the most traditional Roman meat is lamb. Either baked with olive oil, garlic, rosemary and served with roasted potatoes, or cooked in a casserole with wine.”

Appetite piqued, we have dinner before taking in the opening night of Shakespeare's famous play Antonio e Cleopatra in a venerable theatre shaped like a very tall horseshoe, with the stage at the horse's heel.

I vaguely expect to see some local policemen on stage, if only because the Roman police have fantastically ornate uniforms... suggesting they might patrol in the mornings and appear in light opera in the afternoons. But what we get instead are bare boards, burning candelabra and a sexy cast in little black numbers and Zegna suits. “In mare!” cries Antony, meaning “At sea!” and we pat ourselves on the back for spotting a line we can translate.

On the way home via the Metro, I have a close encounter with a pickpocket clutching a baby, the calling card of the cutpurse across Europe. Danger averted just in time, I decide to dismiss the incident as one of those colourful moments that litter a traveller's life; and have a gelato to round the evening off.

That’s Rome, full of risk and delight. Lying flat on the grass on the Palatine Hill, taking a rest in the ruins of imperial palaces. Feeling like cast members of Prospero's Books, as we stroll through one curious gallery after another in the Vatican Museum. Finding Egyptian obelisks in the centre of endless baroque piazzas. And discovering a multitude of cats in temple ruins in the centre of the city (who end up appearing in my debut novel many years later).

La dolce vita? More like la stimolante vita, from my point of view.

Note: As this article is based on personal experience from some years ago, the author takes no responsibility for readers' reliance on the information within. Always check on the current gelati situation before travelling to Rome.

The Unpublished is a random series of my never-published travel articles. For previous instalments, click on the The Unpublished Topic tag below, then scroll down.

An Edible Institution

Museums have been a mainstay of tourism since the Victorian era, but can be dry and dull. Not so Italy's very own Museum of Pasta. Guest blogger John Richards reports on the al dente institution...

I don't think there are enough museums dedicated to food.

Yes, I hear you scoff. "What about the Museu de la Xocolata (Museum of Chocolate) in Barcelona? Or the German Bratwurst Museum in the small village of Holzhausen near Erfurt in Thuringia?"

Well yes, those are obvious. But why has Australia never opened a centre devoted to worshipping the meat pie? Or a National Institute of the Lamington?

Not only would these centres boost tourism and celebrate Aussie culture, they could be housed in buildings shaped like Enormous Things. A Big Pie, for example, or a Giant Lamington. You can see the commemorative snowdomes now, can't you?

Like coffee and pastel-coloured scooters, the food museum is something the Italians do best. I can never visit Rome without popping into the Museo Nazionale delle Paste Alimentari (National Museum of Pasta Foods).

Located near the Trevi Fountain, the Pasta Museum contains eleven rooms dedicated to the history and celebration of pasta. The museum recommends the use of their audio guide, a personal audio player that talks you through the various displays.

The spoken English on the guide is idiosyncratic, although that could be the museum's signature style – for example, this is taken from their advertising material: "The Museum will, in fact, bear witness to the significance and vocational aspects of pasta, to sum up, its potential as a precious and balanced food for the well-being and enjoyment of mankind."

Yes, it's easy to mock bad English by non-native speakers – so let's do some more of that. Visitors will learn "the history of pasta, production machinery, didactics of production technologies, nutritional information, pasta in ancient and modern art, etc. The visit is surely of great interest for every kind of schools and particularly for technical and hotel schools."

How true. As you glide through the museum, the excitable recorded voice directs your gaze to items of interest – a Neapolitan pasta tree, for example (a metal frame used for drying fresh pasta), or pictures of famous people eating pasta. Or there – in the corner to your right – a "needing trow".

I spent some time puzzling over this one before realising what my recorded voice had intended. "Oh, a trough!" I exclaimed, far too loudly, startling the Japanese students ahead. As I was leaving the room a confused woman behind me – also wearing a headset – suddenly shouted "oh, a trough!" – setting a pattern that continued for the rest of the visit.

As the museum's website tells us, "Room after room, the Museum will help the visitors discover how pasta is born from wheat and what processes are used for mixing and drying it… from rudimental machinery, such as the first stone grinders, to the modern pasta-making machinery."

The most important phrase here is possibly "room after room"… after room. After room. Even with hundreds of years of history to cover, you'll still be seeing a lot of Neapolitan kneading troughs and pictures of the young Sophia Loren.

The repetition in the exhibits is, however, enlivened by the audio guide. His unique delivery turns everyday directions into startling commands, such as "which you will now see… BEHIND YOU!", lending an unexpected Blair Witch Project flavour to the whole experience.

The final room is dedicated to art inspired by pasta. These include an illustration of a tank firing parpadelle, and a model playhouse in which pasta plays all the roles, much like Eddie Murphy in Norbit.

The museum is usually open seven days a week, although sadly its website tells us it's temporarily closed for restoration. Entry is €10, although there is a discount for children and "military personnel in uniform". Children in military uniform are presumably admitted free.

John Richards is still eating pasta, though he's stopped looking for secret meanings in the patterns formed by alphabet spaghetti. His musings on life and culture can be found at his blog, The Outland Institute.

The Unicycle Diaries 1: All Roads Lead...

Nothing is more fascinating than rediscovering forgotten experiences via an old travel journal. This inaugural wander down memory lane (part of an irregular series) is written by fantasy novelist Narrelle M Harris.

I face a particular challenge when travelling – for me, directions are something that happen to other people.

The main reason I am not still wandering around lost and dazed on the moors of England after my first overseas trip is that Tim was there to make sure I found the hotel again.

To be fair, I can mostly read a map. Provided it’s turned around so that it’s facing the same way as I am. I comfort myself with the knowledge that I have other skills useful on the travelling trail.

For example, having only English at my disposal, I have mimed my way across Europe, South America and the Middle East.

I may have spread bemusement and hilarity wherever I go, but I’ve also managed to purchase the required candles, bubble wrap and other sundry items along the way. So that’s +2 points for International Relations and Non-Verbal Communication.

My capacity to be geography-challenged is not all bad, though. Occasionally I get to have unexpected adventures as a result of not knowing where I am or where I’m going.

Rome, for example.

On our 2001 trip to Italy, I took the map and bravely flung myself out on the streets of the Italian capital on a solo mission to find a clock shop I had spotted a few days earlier.

The clocks, you see, were brilliant. Simple flat ceramic faces, glazed using a Japanese method called raku and bearing inscriptions in Latin. They became my had-to-have memento and I was determined to never leave Rome until I had bought one.

Consulting my travel diary of the time, I find two pages of handwritten notes, all about how lost I got. Note how carefully I have retraced my steps afterwards, using my otherwise useless map:

“I came to the Piazza Cardelli… then the Piazza Nicosia… then the river. Quick look at the map. Head west-ish down to via di Monte Brianzo (maybe) and get confused and down a different street… wander past several butchers, an art gallery, scaffolding, local apartments. Not a tourist in sight and I’m clearly in a residential area.

“Map check and then to the via della Stelletta, but too far… there’s the river again, but a different bit this time. Down a different road and round the via dell’Orso… getting kind of dizzy by now… and out I pop at the top of the Piazza Navona!”

I like that exclamation mark. How surprised I was to arrive at a place that was both familiar, and nowhere near where I was meant to be. But it continues:

“…head off around the Ai Monestari, heading for the Largo G Toniolo….the Piazza Rondanini… Piazza della Meddelana… is this where I found the beautiful paper shop, or was that earlier at the Piazza di Firenze?

“Forge on. I think I got muddled somewhere around the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Aquino… up the via dei Pastini to emerge at the Tempio di Adriano – Hadrian’s Temple. Which I’ve never seen before.”

At this point, I gave up looking for the clock shop and poked around some souvenir shops in the vicinity, before:

“I began to head back via dei Pastini – AND THERE WAS THE CLOCK SHOP!!! I’d walked right past it. Twice.”

I dived in to buy my clock. Alas, they did not have one inscribed with ‘Tempus Fugit’ but I got ‘Carpe Diem’ right enough, and carried it at the bottom of my suitcase for the rest of the trip.

Proving I can read a map when I actually know where my destination is supposed to be, I met Tim for lunch. My diary records him as being ‘vastly amused by this story’ of my fevered wanderings through Rome.

Eight years later, I still have my clock, and I still have the wonderful memory of bumbling along Roman back streets which are rarely seen by travellers who actually know where they’re going.

Find details of Narrelle's vampire novel The Opposite of Life at her website, along with details of her other books.