Translator's Introduction to Ramón Griffero's Prometheus, the Beginning

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• Translator’s Introduction to Ramón Griffero’s Prometheus, the Beginning
• Ramón Griffero Translated by Adam Versényi

Ramón Griffero (b. 1951) is a Chilean playwright/director with an undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Essex, England, and an M.A. in Theatre Studies from the University of Louvain, Belgium. He is the founder of Teatro Fin de Siglo and of “El Trolley” (1983–1988), which served as a space for cultural resistance during Pinochet’s military dictatorship. Griffero’s plays and productions have been essential components in contemporary Chilean theatre. He is the author of twenty plays and has directed numerous productions and “art actions.” His works have been produced and premiered in Latin America and Europe and have been translated and published in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Czech. He is the recipient of many awards, including Chile’s 2019 Premio Nacional Artes Escénicas y Audiovisuales and the Thot Prize (Cairo 1999), for his contributions to the development of contemporary world theatre. He has also published a number of essays on art and politics, in particular his book of aesthetic theory and practical exercises, The Dramaturgy of Space. Griffero has delivered lectures and led workshops at the most important Latin American and European theatre festivals, arts centers, and book fairs. He has also served as the Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Chile in Santiago, Chile (https://griffero.cl).

Prometheus, the Beginning (2014) is the eleventh of Griffero’s plays that I have translated. The translation was commissioned for Ohio Northern University’s biennial International Theatre Festival in 2017, where it was performed by an undergraduate company of actors. Griffero’s texts are frequently open-ended —providing for multiple interpretations— and volcanic. New characters, themes, and directions often surge from below in the midst of scenes, disrupting where we thought we were. [End Page 99]

Griffero’s theatrical work is imbued with the aesthetic philosophy described in his book The Dramaturgy of Space, wherein he posits that human society conceives of space primarily in terms of squares and rectangles, forms that do not occur naturally in the non-human environment. As both playwright and director, Griffero prefers the circle to the square. Both the dramatic structure of his plays and the mise en scène of his productions are highly layered, creating myriad strata as they return us to conceptual and aesthetic formulations that were present long before humans walked the earth. For Griffero, theatrical discourse is multi-layered and multivalent. Past, present, and future exist simultaneously, not as a linear progression. Ideas, dreams, and desires are actualized by scenic images that provide a visual counterpoint to the words that are spoken. The translated play must maintain the three modes — fluidity, layering, and circularity— that Griffero takes from the natural world. Words, phrases, and theatrical gestures must all be chosen in translation with conscious and constant attention to how Griffero employs them in the mise en scène.

Like all of Griffero’s plays, Prometheus, the Beginning employs poetic language, theatrical metaphor, and musicality. In addition, it moves back and forth between contemporary and classical linguistic registers as scenes alternate between the present day and the mythical world of Prometheus chained to a rock. To capture the language of the latter, I turned to ancient greek tragedy and to David Grene’s English translation of Aeschylus’ play Prometheus Bound to imbue the scenes of Griffero’s play in which Prometheus appears with a certain formal cadence and rhythm. Whereas Griffero’s previous plays have included music as diverse as Pink Floyd, military music, and left-wing political folk songs, Prometheus is the first for which Griffero has written his own songs. This added yet another layer to the translation, as I had to search for an English equivalent of the Chilean Spanish rhythm, pace, and tone. The playwright’s addition of a new dramaturgical element is a clear demonstration of the play’s thematic content. The play ends with its beginning: the realization that Prometheus’ gift of fire only gave humanity the ability to create a better world. That process of creation is never finished. It is the work of every...