The poetics of a transcultural adaptation in the process of directing the play Razor in the Flesh by Plinio Marcos (1967)

Abstract

This study takes place in the investigation of two aspects. The first was the process of translation and adaptation of the play Razor in the Flesh (1967) by the Brazilian playwright Plinio Marcos to South African English and its respective context, followed by a free adaptation for the context of 2017 in Pretoria. The second aspect was a reflection of the staging process of the same play from the director's perspective in a transcultural environment. Regarding the translation process, I sought in Walter Benjamin�s theory of translation, a translational methodology that could extract the essence of the text, that is, translate, transfer the poetic power of the original work to the new language and to the new context. In parallel with Benjamin's translational theory, I sought in Pavis the understanding of the translational process of the theatrical text and the cultural shift of signs from the original work to the arrival context and the embodied performance. It was a process coordinated from the foreign director�s perspective who seeks to give the conceptual references of his practical work through reflections and quotes from various theorists and theatre directors that served as a basis for research. It is a theoretical and reflexive accompaniment of the phases that made up the staging process of Razor in the Flesh (2017).