Staging the Foreign as Cultural Transformation

Staging the Foreign as Cultural Transformation
Erika Fischer-Lichte
p.277-
(p.277) The adoption of elements of foreign theatre traditions in intercultural performances in the last fifteen to twenty years seems, in all the multiplicity of its forms, tasks and goals, to fulfil a significant and far-reaching function which is shared by all the cultures in one important respect: all the performances are unanimously described and evaluated as the instrument or vehicle of recreation in the traditional, native theatre form and repertoire of an established theatre which had been the norm until the 1960s. 
共同点是都利用60年代之前的某种当地传统戏剧进行再创作。
p.278) Clearly, where there is a specific disposition towards the appropriation of the 'foreign' to be encountered, the aesthetic function of an intercultural performance towards the re-creation and revitalization of the own theatre is fulfilled in a particularly enduring, multi-divergent and successful way.
 对改编国外内容的意图越明确，跨文化表演在美学上对于本土形式的再创造就更更多元更成功
p.279) Peter Brook heralded the age of a 'cosmopolitan theatre' which chose elements which it found to contain universal validity and p. 280) understandability from all possible or know cultures. In this case, theatrical interculturalism is not concerned with specific cultural identities, but is aiming towards the 'universal', the whole human homogeneity beyond the differences determined by one's own culture. 
关于这样的普适性想象我们没有共识——究竟它是对文化帝国主义的召回（不再进行意义的阐释而让权于观众），还是文化帝国主义的新面孔（因为并没有给非西方非工业化的文化身份留下余地）。

西方人不在乎东方人怎么折腾他们的戏剧传统，相反的，东方文化精英却不干。（xx: 也倒不完全是狭隘的民族主义，毕竟有经济政治因素存在。他们拿我们的资源挣我们的钱，我们当然不爽。反过来没有国际资本的基础，我们的用你们的资源几乎挣不到你们的钱。）
(p.281) The Theatre du Soleil can generally be characterized as epic-folk theatre. Its dominants are the complex signs 'character' and 'situation': typified characters are presented in key situations which suggest nuances as to their psychology and which at the same time situate them in a distinct historical era. This formulation of the dominants is supported by Verfremdungseffekte (in a Brechtina sense) of widely different froms and techniques, extensively emphasized with the help of masks and fixed costume types which are as much newly invented as they are lifeted from other theatre forms such as the commedia dell'arte.  (note1:) 
太阳剧团追求“异化”，认为“异化”才达到（美学）本质。
 
   The problem that Ariane Mnouchkine faced in her project to stage Shakespeare was how to preserve the foreignness of his dramas. She commented on this in an interview in the following way: 
	No, Shakespeare is not our contemporary. For, if you really suppose that he is one of us, that his language is as much our own, that he deals with precisely those problems which also concern us … then he seems even more strange … If we agree that Shakespeare … went very far, further than any other, then the actors and the audience require a great deal of courage to follow him into this far-away country that is really our own selves … And then he remains foreign, as foreign as we are. 
很有意思，认为莎士比亚并不是我们“同时代人”，他已经去到了一个遥远的国度，而我们要追随他前往那个陌生的空间——而这个空间常常用异文化（东方）（的元素）来表现。
p.282) The foreign elements here have taken over a considerable function which is related to the dominants of the underlying theatre form: as the medium of Verfremdung, it specifies the characterization and situation of Henry IV. The audience is in the position, by way of external de-codification (as relating to Japanese theatre or film), to identify them as 'Japanese' or as referring to the Japanese Middle Ages, to apply them to Shakespeare and receive Shakespeare as estranged, and by de-codification, with reference to other elements of the performance, to assign meaning to them. The Japanese elements thus enrich the form of epic-folk theatre and expand its potential means of expression.
（……同样的川剧《四川好人》也给传统戏曲带来了革新。）
p.283) In both the above cases, as in many others presented and analysed at the colloquium, the adoption of the foreign is sparked off by a problem which has arisen in the own theatre (and in extreme cases in the own culture). This problem cannot be solved within the scope of the traditional or existing theatrical forms. The recourse to foreign theatre forms serves above all, therefore, the function of changing the own underlying theatre forms in such a way that they are then able to solve the indigenous problem. 
跨文化是为了解决自身问题。
The starting point of intercultural performance is, therefore, not primarily interest in the foreign, the foreign theatre forms or foreign culture from which it derives, but rather a wholly specific situation within the own culture, or wholly specific problem originating in the own theatre. 
In the intercultural performance, therefore, the communication of the foreign does not occupy foreground interest. The goal is not that the audience be brought closer to, or made familiar with the foreign tradition, but rather that the foreign tradition is, to a greater or lesser extent, transformed according to the different conditions of specific fields of reception. 
对于自身意义更大。
 (p.284) The term productive reception is based here on Gunter Grimm: 
	The field of productive reception embraces all the production processes of a work which are either occasioned by or strongly influenced by reception. Through the emphasis and activity of the subject dealt with, the aesthetic aspect of reception predominates in contrast to the productive aspect, since the reception or receptive production is different from former influential research in its reversal of the perspective. (note4:)

As we have seen, this kind of productive reception is, in many cases, in a good position to regain the capability of the underlying theatre forms to revitalize the original, antiquated functions long since beyond (p.285) repair, or at the same time, to realize and satisfy newly arisen functions which have occurred because of specific recent developments in society.

(p.285-286) 戏剧产生变化的两种最基本情况：1. “新时代”语境下的彻底变化；2. 渐变而质变。
跨文化表演加速了第二种情况。仅仅一台演出就可以发生过去几十年内才发生的变化。
也可以说是第一种情况，只是如何界定“新时代”（能与18世纪欧洲或者明治时期的日本相提并论）？目前的跨文化戏剧也没有催生新一批观众——仍然是中产阶级为主。
(p.287) The cultural production in contemporary theatre is, therefore, not uniquely to be interpreted as an aesthetic indicator of a potential social change in the existing culture. It functions far more as the place of execution and instrument  of such cultural change. 
（完）