| Tuesday, June 18, 2002 |
 | Oh, for fuck's sake...a friend with better theatrical connections than I has informed me that Teevan, translator of the Bacchae, doesn't even speak Ancient Greek.
For the love of Jesus - it is an Important and Recognised Fact™ that being a translator necessarily implies speaking the dicking language. This is why United Nations translators are reasonably successful at communicating between two people who speak different languages.
Because they are able to speak both.
Now, "translating the Bacchae", for the hard of thinking, means sitting down with a Liddell and Scott and a Greek grammar and working out what the words mean, why they mean what they do, what they do within the line...little things that tell you what the play is actually about and how best to re-render that into English. What Teevan has done apparently is to read a number of translations of the Bacchae and write a play based on those.
This is not translation. At best is is interpretation, at worst cribbing. I'm very sorry if Teevan lacked the time or opportunity to learn Ancient Greek, but I'm not sure it's wise if everybody pretends you can do something to prevent you from feeling bad about your inability to do it. That's how air accidents happen.
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