transpozycje   2002   transpositions

Dear Conjunction Theatre Company was founded in Paris in 1991 under the patronage of Harold Pinter. Most of its productions are presented in both French and English.The repertoire of the group is very varied, ranging from historical and political drama through comedy to social satire. Now playing at Paris' Sudden Theatre, for several years Dear Conjunction presented its productions at the Théâtre du Petit Hebertot.

Ghislaine Dumont is author and director of Theatre de l'Ourcq in Paris. She was one of the founding members of Conservatoire National de Pantin (1973). Her recent productions shown in Paris and Avignon include works by Andree Chedid, Christa Wolf, Tennessee Williams, Marguerite Duras, Eugene Ionesco (with Jean-Paul Roussillon) and Samuel Beckett. Her Avignon production of Beckett's short plays was invited to Beckett in Berlin 2000 International Festival.

Teatr Atelier was founded in 1997 by a group of Cracow's actors (some of them members of the ensemble of the renowned Stary Teatr, Poland´s National Stage) who in the course of their work (starting in 1992) on the contemporary repertoire, have collaborated with numerous international directors and stage designers, including Karl Duner and Walter D. Asmus. Atelier's goal is to present the entire Beckett repertoire.

Yosuke Taki, founder of Milan's Teatro dell'Arcipelago was born and educated in Japan where he studied traditional Kyôgen theatre. His interest in classical French and Italian theatre brought him to Europe in 1988. After taking courses in Padova with Donato Sartori at his Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali, he was active as a mask-maker before starting his own company in Milan. Teatro dell'Arcipelago has staged several Beckett productions shown, apart from Milan in Naples and Rome.

Barbara Bray, former script drama editor at BBC (who discovered Marguerite Duras, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett for radio), Britain's leading literary translator (four prestigious Scott- Montcrieff prizes) will share her comments regarding her own understanding and misunderstandings of the job of a literary translator. On a different occasion Barbara Bray will reminisce on the so-called Proust screenplay, an adaptation of A la recherche du temps perdu which she prepared together with Harold Pinter and the film director Joseph Losey.

Gerry Dukes, a Dublin literary critic and professor at Mary College in Limerick, is an author of numerous publications on contemporary literature and theatre, including Samuel Beckett in Penguin's "Illustrated Lives" series. He will lecture on "The Irish Beckett", demonstrating on which accounts those not familiar with Beckett's Irish heritage are doomed to fail in comprehending his work. Conclusion: Beckett's texts need a fair amount of translating from Irish to English.