INTERVIEW IN „PASSAGES“, a publication from Pro Helvetia

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Pray That Nothing Has Changed

Interview: Tobias Hoffmann

In 1996, Dora Kapusta took the plunge and surtitled a theatre performance for the first time. The production was Robert Lepage’s seven-hour work The Seven Streams of the River Ota. A few years later Kapusta, a qualified translator, set up her own company specializing in theatre surtitling and film subtitling. In her diploma thesis at the Zurich University of the Arts, she also examined whether surtitles can be more than simply an aid to compre- hension, and actually become an aesthetic element of theatre in their own right.

Dora Kapusta, your most recent commission in November 2009 took you to the Spielart festival in Munich, where you were responsi- ble for surtitling Beatriz Catani’s Finales. What was it like surtitling a piece that contains so much text?

A student from the Instituto Cervantes translated the entire work from Spanish into German. But then someone from the festival pro- gramme group realized that she could not produce surtitles, because surtitling is a very specific form of translation. That’s when they approached me. They sent me a DVD of the performance, and I began cutting down the text. The main task is to match the text to the rhythm of the performance, and that takes a number of days.

What happens at the technical level once the surtitles have been produced?

My first step is to write a technical rider in which I set out where I have to sit and what technical equipment I need. I offer the complete package, which is quite unusual: I translate, I convert everything into PowerPoint, and I know how to use a beamer. Of course, when I’m setting everything up someone else needs to be on hand, for instance to hang the screen higher or lower. Then we have a run-through. The DVD I see has often been made during a dress rehearsal. If the premiere was some time ago, changes may have been made to the text and the rhythm. The performers have to do the run-through anyway, to practise their entrances and exits in a new theatre. But they often don’t speak the words with the right rhythm; they’re just going through the motions.
For me, the normal rhythm is crucial. On the other hand, you can hardly expect an actor in his eighties like Michel Piccoli to commit himself totally throughout a two-hour rehearsal and then perform for another two hours in the evening. In that case, I have to rely on the DVD and pray that nothing has changed.

You project the surtitles live. What did you have to do during the three performances in Munich?

I had to be completely alert for two and a half hours during the perform- ances. People are talking non-stop throughout this play, so I didn’t have a moment to relax. That’s very tiring. You’re also often sitting in an uncomfort- able position. I like to note down possible improvements. Sometimes I decide I want to translate a word differently, or I insert a ‘black’ – a pause – here and there.
It often happens that the actors skip a couple of sentences or get something wrong. If I don’t have a shutter (a blind in front of the beamer to cover the surtitles for text that has been omitted – ed.), I have to click rapidly through the sentences that have been missed out. Interestingly, the audience always assume that the surtitler is the one who has made a mistake. Many don’t realize that the surtitles are being projected live.

In your diploma thesis, you repeatedly emphasize that lack of coordination before guest performances often leads to unsatisfactory surtitles. How was it in Munich?

In Munich there was no chance to clarify everything in advance, but fortunately we were able to project the surtitles onto a light background. The normal situation, whereby the surtitles are projected onto a screen above the stage, always causes problems. The complaints I get are often the same: the screen is too high up and gives people a stiff neck, or the stage lighting is so bright that you can’t read the surtitles at all. Essentially, when you know a play is going on tour, you have to work together with the lighting engineers.