Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Gunter, Benjamin Bridges
Author's Email Address	donjuandissertation@yahoo.com
URN	etd-11212005-230512
Title	Don Juan Plays the USA: Translating the World's First Don Juan Play (El Burlador de Sevilla and Tan Largo me lo fiais) for Twenty-First Century Performances in the United States
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Department	Theatre, School of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Carrie Sandahl Committee Chair David H. Darst Committee Member Laura Edmondson Committee Member Stuart E. Baker Committee Member
Keywords	Tirso De Molina Derek Walcott Lynne Alvarez Women In Theater Nick Dear Theater In Translation Musical Theater Golden Age Drama Spanish Drama In English Translation Comedia
Date of Defense	2005-11-17
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract DON JUAN PLAYS THE USA: TRANSLATING THE WORLD’S FIRST DON JUAN PLAY (EL BURLADOR DE SEVILLA AND TAN LARGO ME LO FIAIS) FOR TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PERFORMANCES IN THE UNITED STATES Name: Benjamin Bridges Gunter Department: College of Visual Arts, Theater and Dance Major Professor: Carrie Sandahl Degree: Ph.D. Term Degree Awarded: Fall, 2005 Plays from the Spanish Golden Age – even plays as famous as the world’s first Don Juan play – are woefully absent from US stages. Arguing that translation problems are responsible for this absence, Don Juan Plays the USA synthesizes three new approaches to making the first Don Juan accessible for production. “Decoding Don Juan’s Sex Life” introduces a tool that displaces sex-drive as the driving force behind Don Juan. Taking advantage of an extraordinary translation history (no less than ten translations in print or in production in the last 50 years), this study premieres the practice of Conspectus – i.e., reassessing critical passages in the play through the eyes of a series of translators. Using Conspectus as a tool, it’s possible to determine that delight in seduction (not sex) motivates the first Don Juan, that a strategy of mirroring other characters advances his agenda, and that an energetic identity quest acts as his character spine. “Re-coding Multidimensional Damas” turns an unusual feature of the first Don Juan’s publication history into a tool for revitalizing its performance. Two 17th-century scripts which are clearly twins but manifestly not identical record Don Juan’s debut: El Burlador de Sevilla and Tan largo me lo fiáis. Rather than erase differences between Tan largo and the Burlador through conflating variant readings, this investigation uses textual variants to build a Stereopticon perspective on critical scenes, clarifying subtexts by re-viewing dramatic situations through divergences in the way they’re scripted. From a Stereopticon perspective, it’s possible to see calculated multidimensionality built into female characters – each one allied to a characteristic element, humor, and social status – and to recoup their political clout. “Targeting Re-Production of the ‘Untranslatable’” addresses the problem of translation suppressing performance information which resists literal transcription. By analyzing inventive approaches to re-conceptualizing the play for production in the Caribbean and the UK, this study synthesizes new ways to transmit comedia’s musicality, multifunctional characterizations, and social satire for re-production in the US. Modeling inventive approaches to excavating performance information from dialog and translating representative passages, the study concludes with “New Ways of Making Comedia Accessible in the United States Today.”
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    01_bbg_preliminaries.pdf 48.24 Kb 00:00:13 00:00:06 00:00:06 00:00:03 < 00:00:01   02_bbg_intro.pdf 138.11 Kb 00:00:38 00:00:19 00:00:17 00:00:08 < 00:00:01   03_bbg_decode.pdf 253.60 Kb 00:01:10 00:00:36 00:00:31 00:00:15 00:00:01   04_bbg_re-code.pdf 228.10 Kb 00:01:03 00:00:32 00:00:28 00:00:14 00:00:01   05_bbg_target.pdf 208.27 Kb 00:00:57 00:00:29 00:00:26 00:00:13 00:00:01   06_bbg_conclusion.pdf 170.25 Kb 00:00:47 00:00:24 00:00:21 00:00:10 < 00:00:01   07_bbg_backmatter.pdf 71.06 Kb 00:00:19 00:00:10 00:00:08 00:00:04 < 00:00:01