Relay Translation in Theatre: What Happens When a Play Is Translated Through a Bridge Language?

Relay translation in theatre happens when a play reaches a target language through an intermediary or bridge language instead of being translated directly from the source. A play might pass from a source language into English and then from English into another target language, or from a smaller-language text into a regional lingua franca before a third-language staging. Relay can make a production possible when no direct translator exists, but it also adds an interpretive layer that affects script, rehearsal, surtitles, rights and credit.

What relay translation means in theatre

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies entry on relay defines relay translation as the translation of a translated text into a third language. In the classic example, a Chinese text is translated into English and that English version becomes the basis for a French translation. The French translator may never read the Chinese source. In theatre, the same structure can apply to a full play script, a literal translation used in the rehearsal room, a singable lyric, a surtitle text or a published acting version.

It is useful to separate relay from direct translation and from adaptation. Direct translation works from a source text into a target text. Relay works through at least one existing translation. Adaptation changes the text for a new purpose, medium or context and may or may not involve relay. These are not moral rankings. They describe different production routes, each with different evidence, labour and risk.

The term indirect translation is often used as a broader category, with relay as one form. Pięta, Ivaska and Gambier discuss relay within research on indirect translation and note that relay is by nature difficult to discuss, partly because it is often invisible in comparative work. That invisibility matters in theatre, where a director may inherit a script without knowing which earlier version shaped it.

Why a theatre company might choose a bridge language

Relay has a long history in intercultural exchange, even though it traditionally received little attention from critics, theorists and historians of translation. The Routledge Encyclopedia entry on relay notes that informal discussion has often stressed how mistakes in a first translation are passed on and how further distortions may be added as a text moves further from the original. That concern is real, but it is not the whole story. Companies use relay for practical reasons:

• No qualified translator is available from the source language into the target language.
• A bridge language has a strong published version, a reliable literary editor or a developed theatre vocabulary for the work.
• The production concept deliberately uses a historical or existing version as its starting point.
• A festival, tour or co-production has a short timeline and can access a bridge translation sooner than a new direct translation.
• The creative team includes a dramaturg who reads the bridge language but not the source language.

These reasons are practical, but they are not neutral. A bridge language often reflects wider patterns of publishing, training and funding. More texts are available in a few metropolitan languages, and those versions shape what can be staged elsewhere. The Routledge entry observes that historical research on relay has expanded the range of language combinations studied, and that much research is being published in languages other than English. That is a useful corrective to the assumption that relay is an unusual exception. It is often part of the ordinary infrastructure of international theatre.

What can go wrong, and what is only a risk

Relay has a reputation problem. Zhongli Yu notes widespread aversion to relay translation because of worries about greater distortion of or deviation from the ultimate source text. Yu also argues that this aversion helps explain why relatively few dispassionate studies have been carried out. For theatre teams, the lesson is not that relay should be avoided at all costs. The lesson is that relay should be described accurately and tested carefully.

Theatre-specific risks include:

• Rhythm and speakability. A bridge translation may read well on the page but fail in an actor’s mouth, especially if the bridge language has different stress patterns, sentence length or conventions of dialogue.
• Cultural references. An intermediary translator may explain, domesticate or omit a reference that the target-language audience would need to encounter differently.
• Normalisation. The bridge version can pull the play toward the bridge culture’s literary norms, so the target text inherits choices that were made for another readership.
• Invisible authorship. The bridge translator’s work may disappear from programmes and publicity, making the final text look more direct than it is.
• Version drift. Rehearsal cuts, improvised substitutions and surtitle edits can accumulate without a record of which layer changed what.

None of these risks proves that a relayed production will fail. A relay can be careful, well documented and artistically coherent. But a relayed line can become a false certainty in the rehearsal room. Directors may treat the bridge version as transparent evidence of the original. A useful discipline is to mark every relayed choice and, where the original can be consulted, to check key passages against it. Where the original cannot be consulted, the team should say so rather than implying that a direct reading has taken place.

Intralingual relay and the limits of the definition

Relay is usually described as interlingual: a text moves through another language. But the concept can also be extended to intralingual relay, where a later version is made from an earlier version in the same language. Zhongli Yu’s article on relay translation of feminism in China examines an intralingual case through the Chinese productions at Fudan University of Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. In that case, the relay occurs within Chinese rather than through a third language. Yu argues that existing studies often define relay too restrictively, excluding intralingual and intersemiotic translation.

For theatre, this point is practical rather than merely taxonomic. A company may think it is working from a direct translation when it is actually working from an earlier stage adaptation, a literal version, a published acting edition or a rewritten surtitle script. The relevant question is not only which language the text came from, but which version, edition and editorial hand shaped it. A play can be relayed within one language and still accumulate the same problems of attribution, drift and lost context.

Relay in rehearsal and surtitling

In performance, relay has to survive embodiment. In the 2013 Target special issue on translation in the theatre, Cristina Marinetti argues for treating drama and theatre as performative rather than merely representative entities. That is a useful frame for relay because a theatre translation is tested by breath, timing, gesture, audience response and, in many productions, by the reading speed of surtitles. A translation that is accurate on the page can still fail when spoken or projected.

A practical sequence for a relayed production might run as follows:

1. Map the chain: identify the source text, every intermediary translation and the target-language version.
2. Commission a comparison or spot-check of key scenes, images, jokes and cultural references.
3. Keep the source, bridge and target texts visible in the script or production bible, with the status of each marked clearly.
4. Decide which text governs the production: the bridge version, a new target-language adaptation, or a combination.
5. Test the target text aloud in rehearsal and revise for speakability, not only for semantic accuracy.
6. Record cuts, additions and surtitle changes so that later revivals can reconstruct the chain.

Surtitles need particular care. They are often shortened, and abbreviation can hide a relayed error rather than solve it. A surtitle operator may be working from a target-language script that was itself translated from a bridge version. The audience sees a clean line; the production team needs to know how many hands that line passed through.

Rights, credit and documentation

Translation and adaptation are normally rights-sensitive, and contracts vary by jurisdiction. A relay can add the original author, the intermediary translator or editor and the target-language translator or adapter to the permission chain. A company should verify with the rights holder and a qualified adviser which versions are licensed for production, adaptation, surtitling, recording or publication. A credit line is not a substitute for permission, and permission for one language version does not automatically cover another.

Documentation should be proportionate but explicit. A production bible can record the source edition, the bridge edition, the target text, the names of all translators and editors, the rights status of each version, and the date of any comparison against the original. Programmes and websites should credit the relay where it materially shaped the production. This is not only an ethical matter. It helps directors, dramaturgs and future researchers understand why the performed text says what it says.

Research and documentation

Research on relay is expanding, but it remains uneven. The Routledge entry notes that relay traditionally received very little attention and that much recent work is published in languages other than English. Pięta, Ivaska and Gambier argue that research on indirect translation can contribute to translation studies more broadly, while also observing that scholars who encounter relayed translations without knowing it may treat them as poor or heavily manipulated versions. Theatre research can avoid that trap by documenting the chain before judging the result. A relayed text is not evidence of the original until the relay is known.

A visible chain is a safer chain

Relay translation is neither a shortcut nor a scandal. It is a production method with trade-offs. The important question is not whether a play passed through a bridge language, but whether the team knows which bridge, why it was used, what was lost or changed, who is credited, and what has been verified. When the chain is visible, relay can be a responsible way to bring a play across borders. When it is hidden, it becomes a source of avoidable error.