Elsa Kienberger, 'The [Collaborative] Master Builder '

A discussion of the collaborative nature of theatre translation and adaptation, the role of sound and movement, and the subversion of gender double standards in the fin de siècle

On 20 February 1893, Elizabeth Robins starred as Hilda in the first English performance of The Master Builder (Trafalgar Theatre). While Robins was not given credit during her lifetime, she was part of the English translation and stage adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Dano-Norwegian play alongside William Archer and Edmund Gosse. Scripts held in the Elizabeth Robins Papers archive at New York University demonstrate not only her influence on the stage translation of The Master Builder, but the collaborative nature of theatre translation and adaptation. During the seminar, we will listen to excerpts from the Dano-Norwegian play and English translation and discuss the role of sound and movement in stage translation. We will also consider how translation and adaptation can be used to subvert gender double standards in the fin de siècle. To illustrate Robins' gender politics, we will read short scenes from two 1893 versions of The Master Builder: Archer and Gosse’s English translation published by Heinemann and the Archer, Gosse, and Robins’s collaborative stage translation. As Hilda says, it will be << forfærdelig spendende >> | ‘terribly exciting’.

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