BEHIND THE SCENES

THE ART OF TRANSLATING: An interview with James Magruder, translator and adaptor of The Miser  POINT OF VIEW: An interview with Mark E. Lococo, director of The Miser MISER STYLE: Sketches by costume designer Rachel Anne Healy

The Art of Translating An interview with James Magruder, translator and adaptor of The Miser  What challenges do you face when translating a dramatic text? I’ve done this long enough that at least I'm not frightened by the French anymore. With The Miser, one challenge is how do you make being cheap funny a hundred different ways?  Do you have a particular approach or process when adapting/translating a work?  I have worked almost exclusively in translating/adapting French comedies for the stage; it's my task to transplant their comic spirits to a different time and place. Comedy is about recognition. Molière wants us to find, then laugh at our inner or outer skinflint. I wantMolière and Marivaux and Labiche to get their laughs, so I find I take more liberties with comedy. Not to worry though; Molière is eternal; my jape is one gadfly on his tough old hide. Someday I hope to get the opportunity to translate a wholly serious play--that would be a challenge.  What drew you to The Miser? What drew me to The Miser specifically was a commission from Center Stage in Baltimore, where I've worked as a dramaturg for many years. Once I'd begun, it became clear that there were certain notions afoot in the play that I wanted to emphasize. For example, my 'version' of Harpagon has a deeply personal relationship with his hoard. He relates to it as to a lover. The nexus of money--how much we have, how we make it, what we do with it--is really the last taboo in American society. My Harpagon is also more overtly nasty to one and all, including the audience. Freud, as well as decades of film and television comedy, have introduced us to parricidal impulses in sons and daughters-- Harpagon's children are much clearer (and I hope, funnier) about their feelings towards dear old dad.  What about Molière turns you on as an artist?  As for Molière, I've been a fan since 1976. I went to Wheaton Warrenville High School in the western suburbs, and I was on the speech team. One memorable Saturday at a tournament at Niles North, I watched a pair of kids from Homewood-Flossmoor High perform an incredibly funny scene--in rhyming couplets, no less--from The School for Wives. They seemed the ne plus ultra of sophistication. On Monday I went to the school library, checked out a volume of Molière plays, and wound up picking a scene from The Versailles Impromptu to do myself on speech team.  Commedia dell’arte heavily influenced Molière and his work.  What special challenges or opportunities did this present when adapting it? The lazzi, or physical schtick, of the commedia dell'arte is generally something actors and directors cook up in rehearsal. In my translations, I leave room for that kind of fun without insisting on specific bits. If, in The Miser, Frosine warns Harpagon that Mariane loves older men wearing glasses, the wily actor doesn't need me to tell him to go for broke with glasses schtick during his subsequent scene with Mariane. Molière builds it in. As a wordsmith and a playwright, I focus more on the burla, or verbal foolery, in theplays.  Adaptations of the classics are appearing with greater frequency in the theatrical landscape.  What do you think makes them so appealing? Well, the truly great plays ask the great and enduring questions—and don't answer them. Artists and audiences alike wrestle with them in rehearsal and performance, and every age or society can create a new set of answers. And let's face it, Shakespeare and Molière and Shaw and Wilde are name-brand playwrights upon which to hang a season subscription brochure. For example, hiring Tony Kushner to re-adapt The Dybbuk is an exciting theatrical proposition. It keeps him writing for the stage, and invites healthy cultural collision. back to top

Rosie Forrest (Northlight Artistic Associate): As a director, what do you look for in a project? What inspires you and gets you "hooked?"

ML: The thing I've always enjoyed most about directing is the collaboration with designers, actors, and staff.  As the leader in that collaboration, it's important to develop a vision that serves both the play and the company for which you're producing.  So, I'm always excited by the kind of work that will catch fire in the collaborative process.

RF: And with that in mind, how and why did this particular adaptation and translation of The Miser grab you? 

ML: James Magruder (adapter and translator) has created a Miser that comes alive again with comic possibilities.  He's used all the classical set-ups of the original Molière, but written dialogue that's contemporary, hip, sarcastic and smart-aleck.  One thing everyone's said after reading the script, and I mean everyone from BJ to the cast and staff, is that it's funny on the page—it makes you laugh when you read it—and that's rare for Molière plays.  More often the circumstances are comical, and you can see the possibilities for physical comedy, but the lines themselves don't have that effect.  Part of that might be due to a particular translation, part of it might be due to the conventions of the period in which it was written, but whatever the reasons for the challenge, Magruder really rose to it and provided a work that's laugh-out-loud funny.

RF: In talking with you about this play, I've heard you use the term "lazzi."  What are "lazzi" exactly, and what role do they play in The Miser?

ML: Lazzi are bits of physical comedy that originated with the Commedia dell'Arte companies of the Renaissance.  The Commedia tradition was largely improvisational, with stock characters and scenarios that often centered around extended lazzi.  Today, we'd call them "bits."  They're most always slapstick, and often center on one character getting smacked around or humiliated by another character.  They range from being pretty base and broad to very clever and witty, and provide a comeuppance for those characters who are too pompous or miserly or just plain blind to circumstances around them.  Molière wrote his plays out of the Commedia tradition, so he utilizes such comic set pieces and builds very sophisticated scenes around them.  Magruder takes these opportunities and runs with them in this adaptation. 

RF: For you, your designers, and your actors, what do you think is different about putting together a period piece vs. a contemporary one?  Does it work a different muscle or are there many similarities?

ML: There's a great challenge in producing a period piece that the contemporary significance doesn't get buried under too many hoops, ruffles and powdered wigs.  On the other hand, there's a great deal of fun to be found in period conventions that dictate certain behaviors from characters.  In this case, we have the best of both worlds—since we're creating a world that's rooted in a period but isn't too firmly tied there.  For us, the goal is first to tell the story, and second to be funny about it.  We have the luxury of being able to utilize only those period conventions that will serve those goals.

RF: Molière comedies are classic period plays that are still produced today.  Why do you think that is?  What does The Miser have to offer a contemporary audience?

ML: This production of The Miser asks a lot of questions that deal with familial loyalty, obligation, and age-appropriate behavior.  It also asks us what kinds of factors might turn a person into a miser—what causes the kind of paranoia that convinces someone that everyone is out to steal from them.

No matter what period a play might originate in, if it's going to last, it has to speak to the human condition.  Now, without getting all philosophical on you, that just means it has to touch on some very basic, elemental issues that are common to all of us.  Some philosophers refer to these issues as archetypes—and the more a work might tap into these, the more universal it's going to be. 

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Award-winning costume designer Rachel Anne Healy captures both classical and contemporary elements in her designs for The Miser.

Click on an image for a larger view.