Frailty, Thy Name Is Dramaturge: Stage Translation and Dramaturgy of A Man for All Seasons

In a theatrical event, dramaturgy often includes drafting a play, observing the performance, modifying various performative elements, etc. In Lessingian tradition, dramaturgy needs managerial/criticizing skills, while according to Brecht, it has two textual/production facets. In the present paper, by analyzing the first scenes of Act One of "A Man for All Seasons", and its Persian translations (Alerasoul & Taheri), along with the performed version, it is tried to explore the structure of the Iranian dramaturgy and to determine the relation of translator to dramaturg(y). Studying this complex process under the modified version of Kowzan's model suggests that drama translation is often a starting point for (even textual) dramaturgy and translator cannot be claimed to be dramaturg, although if various dramaturges with different skill would be imagined, the title of "translational dramaturg" fits translator.