What goes through the minds of interpreters? This is a rich theme that was effectively dramatised by Ronald Harwood in his 1985 play Interpreters. It is also the subject of this compelling one-woman play written by Cecilia Parkert and translated from the Swedish by Kevin Halliwell. There is a faint irony in the fact that a play about the difficulty of rendering other people's words and experiences has won Halliwell the Gate Theatre's £2,000 translation award.
"Being an interpreter is a kind of punishment," declares the heroine of Parkert's play, and you see what she means. Her job is to interpret stories of surviving war-victims from the former Yugoslavia: to find words for actions that are themselves unspeakable. Either she acts as a neutral verbal channel, in which case she interprets badly; or, as actually happens, she allows herself to become emotionally involved with a specific victim and thereby violates her professional code. It is an unresolvable dilemma, but the impression Parkert leaves is that the heroine, in sacrificing her detachment, enlarges her humanity.
The power of this hour-long play is twofold. It takes us inside the mind of the interpreter who, like the Greek nymph Echo, is condemned to repeat what other people say. And it reminds us that the heroine's peculiar punishment pales beside the experiences of the victims. Even though the war in the former Yugoslavia is relatively recent, I suspect its horrors have already been overtaken by those of current conflicts. Parkert's play both evokes the atrocities - rape, mutilation and torture - committed in Yugoslavia and leaves us reflecting that they are now occurring elsewhere.
It is a demanding play but it is staged with exemplary clarity by director Erica Whyman and designer Soutra Gilmour, who simply places the speaker on a bare-boards platform. The performer, Tamzin Griffin, also switches easily and naturally between present and past, between her confessional and interpretive roles. With her tumbling blonde hair and emotional candour - "Yes, I was attracted to him. And yes, we did sleep together" - she reminds you that interpreters are human beings rather than verbal calculating machines.
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