Strategies for Feminist Theatre Translation: Minna Canth's The Worker's Wife from Finnish to English

This practice as research PhD aims to propose practical strategies for feminist translators of texts for performance. The strategies have been explored by translating The Worker's Wife (1885) by playwright Minna Canth from Finnish to English. The work comprises a thesis (the critical exegesis), a portfolio of practice documentation, and a translation of the play, which is accompanied by a translator's note and extensive annotations. The research is multidisciplinary, encompassing the fields of translation studies, drama, gender studies and, through exploration of the case study text, Finnish literary studies. Although existing scholarship addresses feminist translation practice and theatre translation separately, there is a lack of scholarship addressing the two together. This research brings these two fields together to explore what it means for a feminist translator to translate texts for performance, the particular considerations this entails and possibilities it offers. The research draws on the 'womanhandling' (Godard, 1989) approach and feminist translation theories and practices of the Canadian feminist translators of the 1970-90s. In particular, the thesis is guided by Massardier-Kenney's (1997) recategorization of those strategies, taking recovery, resistancy (after Venuti), and collaboration as starting points for exploration in a theatrical context. Crucially, it considers how the performance situation and theatrical conditions impact the work, seeking to reformulate these strategies for theatre texts. The feminist translator makes interventions in the text on political grounds. This thesis proposes that the feminist theatre translator takes on the role of theatre-maker, and uses the theatrical dimension of a performance text as a site for intervention. Strategies have been trialled through the practical work of translating The Worker's Wife, and through collaboration with a director, and holding two readings of the play, employing a practice as research methodology. This thesis also offers an extensive commentary on The Worker's Wife by Minna Canth, introducing this revolutionary, feminist playwright to an anglophone readership. It argues for the play to be categorised as an example of feminist social realist drama, which makes pioneering use of techniques foreshadowing subsequent developments in European political playwriting.