Theatre specificity

5.3.1. Language Use - Speech Rhythm -Timing

In Neil Simon’s play, the characters are typical sixties New Yorkers whose lan­

guage use and type of humour are place- and time-specific. In ST the rhythm of the scenes and the exchanges of turns are fast, and one humorous utterance hooks up to the next. Simon is famous for his one-liners. In ST the author builds up the rhythm of scenes by changing marked and unmarked utterances in a kind of ‘beats up’ and ‘beats down’ manner.

ST VINNIE: A what?

SPEED: A girl. You know. Like when you are through work early.

In order to meet the expectations of the Hungarian audience of the late sixties and to fulfill requirements of theatre speech TT1 translator has introduced changes in the language usage of the characters. In Örkény’s version they use more slang words and speak a type of language specific to Pest which is a part of the capital city, Budapest. This ‘pesti’ slang is characteristic mainly of those who live on the left bank of the river Danube. Oscar, one of the protagonists in TT1 is the same irresponsible, carefree guy as he is in ST, but because of his language use, that is, his use of‘pesti’ slang, he has an added touch of‘pesti’ wide guy. With these changes Oscar’s character becomes more familiar to the Hungarian audience, and he is more recognisable by them. He is still a New Yorker, but has a touch of a lovable Hungarian carouser.

In TT2, on the other hand, the language usage of the participants is not charac­

teristic neither to Americans nor Hungarians. In order to establish the characters’

identity and make them more recognisable for Hungarians the TT2 translator has used other method. She has simply changed their names from Felix and Oscar to David and Charlie which are more obviously American to Hungarian audiences.

InTTl Örkény is continuously aware of both ‘public enemies’ of theatre trans­

lators and theatre makers - time and rhythm. He is playing for time and by doing so he uses techniques known to all translators: he leaves out, omits whole turns, and condensates others by reducing two sentences to one, or else he creates from long compound sentences short, one-word utterances. These manipulations result in a rapid rhythm of speech and quick exchanges, in other words, a continuous variation of stressed and unstressed elements.

TT1 VINNIE: Azt hiszed, hogy Félixnek ...

(lit: Do you think that Felix ...) SPEED: Korán végez a munkával ...

(lit: He finishes early at work ...)

InTTl the so called sub-text, or the non-verbal elements, (i.e. gestures, mime, pitch) have also been preserved and with the help of punctuation marks (i.e. excla­

mation marks, question marks, commas) the required intonation, pitch, pauses are accentuated. Örkény’s dialogues with their unfinished sentences imitate real-life conversation. There are more ‘beats’, pauses, butting-ins, interruptions in it than in ST, and definitely more than in TT2.

In TT2, on the other hand, the translator has not been so conscious either about time or about the rhythm of speech. The turns here are much longer and the utter­

ances are too well-formed. These sentences follow the rules of the written Hun­

garian language that of the spoken one. As it is seen from the example below TT2 translator has not payed special attention to the retention of rhythm either (i.e.

speech-rhythm, rhythm of the dialogues or the rhythmic changes of marked and unmarked scenes).

TT2 VINNIE: Azt akarod mondani, hogy van egy ...

(lit: Do you want to say that he got a ...)

SPEED: Mindennap négy órakor jön ki a munkahelyéről. Azon férfi­

ak közül, akik négy órakor végeznek a munkahelyükön, hetvenhárom százaléknak van egy kis barátnője. Ezt Kinsey-nél olvastam. Matema­

tika.

(lit: Every day he leaves work at four o clock. Among those men who finish work at four o’clock, seventy three percent have a girlfriend. I’ve read it at Kinsley. It is mathematics).

From the given extract drawn from TT2 it is clear that there is a new, added part that contains unnecessary, long sentences. It is hard to find any viable reason for this addition, unless it is the need of compensation for lost humour. It is still less explicable, for the meaning of these new three sentences is quite obscure, and hardly any Hungarian knows about Kinsley (apart from the translator, of course).

Moreover, these added sentences break the rhythm of exchanges of turns. It results in a less speakable text, or in other words, a less performance-friendly translation.

The following example cited below shows the important part that word order

Zsuzsa Valló

plays in theatre talk. In English the stressed part of an utterance tends to be to­

ward the end of the sentence, and English is a language with the restricted word order of SVO type. Hungarian, on the contrary, has a free word order of mixed type, and the focus of the utterance tries to get to the frontal position (cf: Dezső

1980).

ST MURRAY: I just loaned you twenty dollars ten minutes ago.

OSCAR: You loaned me ten dollars twenty minutes ago. Learn to count pussycat.

TT1 MURRAY: Tíz perccel ezelőtt kaptál egy húszast.

(lit: Ten minutes ago you got a twenty(er).

OSCAR: Nem, húsz perccel ezelőtt kaptam egy tízest. Tanulj meg számolni, drágaságom.

(lit:No, twenty minutes ago I got a tenner. Learn to count, my dear).

TT2 MURRAY: Tíz perccel ezelőtt már kölcsönadtam neked húsz dol­

lárt.

(lit: Ten minutes ago I already loaned you twenty dollars).

DAVID: Nem, húsz perccel ezelőtt adtál tíz dollárt. Tanulj meg számolni barátocskám.

(lit: No, twenty minutes ago you gave me ten dollars. Learn to count, my dear fellow).

The examples given above show that both Hungarian translators inTTl and in TT2 make use of the freedom provided by the language, that is, they have moved the focus of the utterance to the beginning of the sentence. And by doing so they have mirrored the position of focus in the natural speech.

But apart from these similarities, there are some differences as well, especially in the ways the two translators try to create real life-like speech, and to portray characters with their language usage. For example, TTl’s translator instead of us­

ing phrases ‘twenty dollars’ and ‘ten dollars’ - which forms are used in TT2 and also known to Hungarians - uses the more informal, colloquial words ‘tenner’ and

‘ twenty (er)’, and with that, emphasizes Oscar’s easy-going style.

In TT2, on the other hand, there are examples of some unfortunate solutions of language usage. For example the word ‘barátocskám’(my dear fellow) is normally used in Hungarian translations of Russian classics (i.e. Tolstoy, Gogol etc.) and as such brings about quite different connotations. It is not the best choice of word by the translator for a typical New York character.

5.3.2. Shared background knowledge

In writing for theatre there is always a basic question for writers and translators how to be relevant for their audience, what knowledge they can rely on, where their audience needs guidance and explanations.

In examining the Hungarian texts, it is clear that both translators have taken in­

to consideration the existing background knowledge of their target audience and omitted those American names (e.g. Mr. Maverick, Bulldog Drummond), brand names(e.g. Fritos, Seven up), food and drink names (e.g. pimento on date-nut

bread, strawberry malted), street names, etc. which are unfamiliar to Hungarians.

In other instances they have replaced the unknown source text brand names or street names with other American ones which were known by Hungarians in the late sixties. For example, instead of‘7-Up’ we find another drink, ‘Tonic’ inTTl, because the former was not present on the Hungarian market at that time, whereas Tonic water was among those few western origin products that Hungarians knew.

In order to avoid unknown notions translators also use a third technique: they have replaced these unfamiliar concepts, objects etc. with a Hungarian equiva­

lent, (e.g. Pepso-Bismal replaced with Ovomaltin).

There are other changes introduced by both translators which can be explained with the given political situations and constraints in which translations have been done. For example Oscar makes a joke about the food left over by his kids from lunch.

ST OSCAR: Murray, Poland could live for years on what my kids leave over from lunch!

TT1 OSCAR: Ne nevettess! Ami ott megmarad a reggelinél abból jóllakik ötszáz hindu.

(lit: Don’t make me laugh! From the leftovers of my kids’ breakfast five hundred Hindus can be satisfied).

TT2 OSCAR: Ne nevettess már! Csak a reggelijük maradékával jól lehetne lakatni ötszáz kínait.

(lit: Don’t make me laugh! Five hundred Chinese can be satisfied with the leftovers from their breakfast).

Obviously, both Hungarian translators felt politically undesirable to remind Hungarians of their starving Polish brothers who belonged to the same communist block and who had, at that time, serious difficulties with food supply. So the trans­

lators have opted for a politically more convenient solution, partly because of the above mentioned political considerations, partly because in Hungarian history people have never had the kind of feeling of superiority towards Poles as some Americans might have, and Poles have never been the target of that kind of jokes.

On the contrary, Hungarians always thought of the Poles as great friends. In con­

sequence, the starving Poles have been transformed into Hindus inTTl and into Chinese in TT2.

After giving some examples of how translators have tried to follow those specif­

ic rules (i.e. special language use, rhythm of speech and dialogues, time-bound- ness) which guide theatre texts we would like to examine some of the instances of humour translation in bothTTl and TT2.