Reimagining the 'fifth wall': The role of the translator in British and American staged productions of the works of Mikhail Bulgakov

This thesis introduces a novel theoretical framework for examining the agency of translators and adaptors involved in staging foreign-language works for Anglophone audiences. Essential to this framework is the argument that ‘agency’ is a performative construction, presenting the multiple roles played by theatre translators as constructs arising from continuous, performative actions. Building upon Sandra Bermann’s “theater of translation”, this thesis reimagines the ‘fifth wall’ of theatre as a fluid, collaborative space. This allows for a re-evaluation of translators’ roles, using the recognised performance space of theatre. To understand each role across the page-to-stage process, and the often-blurred boundaries between them, this thesis proposes ‘performative steps’ of pitching, writing, and rehearsal, which bring clarity to the complex topic of translator agency.

This study employs in-depth case studies of British and American translators and adaptors involved in staging Mikhail Bulgakov’s Dni Turbinykh, Mol’er/Kabala svjatosh, Master i Margarita, and Sobach’e serdtse for Anglophone audiences, to demonstrate the benefits of this framework. As a playwright, Bulgakov’s work is marginalised on Anglophone stages compared to the dominant figure of Chekhov, just as the theatre translator remains in the shadow of the celebrity playwright-adaptor. These case studies, categorised as original plays and plays adapted from prose, highlight similarities and differences in Bulgakov translator/adaptor behaviour between 1934 and 2024.

The analysis reveals that the Bulgakov translators and adaptors examined continuously reconstructed their roles, multi-roling to adapt to situational needs. Therefore, this thesis argues that it is no longer accurate to refer to the singular ‘role’ played by theatre translators/adaptors, but rather the performance of multiple roles within the theatre of translation. This necessitates a reimagination of traditional perceptions of translator agency as tied to one specific role. Instead, we must understand the diverse roles that translators perform in bringing plays and prose to new theatre audiences.