Translating and rewriting Ferrante’sMy Brilliant Friendat the National Theatre

Introduction: translation and performance cultures

“…It also defines translated texts in broad ways to include scripts and repertoires in a range of performance cultures. While cross-cultural encounters and transnational exchanges have characterised theatre history from its inception (Knowles 2010), little attention has been paid to the agents mediating those encounters and to the multiple forms of translation they engendered (Marinetti 2013b;2021;De Francisci 2022). In this introduction, we set out our own reflections on how to begin this dialogue between theatre and performance studies and translation sociology, focusing simultaneously on the importance of developing performance-sensitive forms of knowledge and highlighting performance cultures as fruitful contexts for studying translation as a social practice and the multiple forms of agency shaping it.…”