Roundtable on Othello

Atandwa Kani as Othello (photo: Fiona MacPherson)

Volume 37 of the journal Shakespeare in Southern Africa, co-edited by TCC director Chris Thurman and TCC affiliate Marguerite de Waal, is out soon! (You can read Thurman and De Waal’s editorial over at Shakespeare ZA.) The volume includes a roundtable discussion on a production of Othello directed by Lara Foot and performed at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town in April 2024. This Othello, which returns for a short run (28 Sept - 1 Oct) at the Woordfees in Stellenbosch, is notable for its use of isiXhosa, Afrikaans and German alongside Shakespeare’s English. The roundtable-in-print, moderated by Thurman, is a wide-ranging conversation; there are contributions from Foot and two of her collaborators, designer Gerhard Marx and translator Sanele kaNtshingana, with further perspectives from professor of psychology Shose Kessi and playwright and arts activist Mike van Graan.

The extract below, which concludes the roundtable, focuses on the isiXhosa translation.

CHRIS THURMAN

. . . I’d like to turn now to Sanele kaNtshingana, who was part of the production’s isiXhosa translating team.

Sanele, the use of isiXhosa in this production put me in mind of a handful of other Shakespearean endeavours in isiXhosa. There are B.B. Mdledle’s published translations of Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Twelfth Night from the 1950s, of course – although the only form in which Mdledle’s words have been professionally performed (to my knowledge) are in a short speech from Julius Caesar incorporated into John Kani’s 2019 Kunene and the King. Then there are various stage and screen productions in which isiXhosa has been employed: Kani’s Claudius praying in isiXhosa in the 2005 Baxter/RSC Hamlet directed by Janet Suzman; David Dennis’ Claudius in the 2021 online Fugard Hamlet directed by Neil Coppen (Buhle Ngaba worked with Fundile Majola to produce some of the isiXhosa lines for this production); snippets of isiXhosa in Yael Farber’s SeZaR! (2000) and the Isango Ensemble’s uVenas no Adonisi (2012); and Lwazi Mayeki’s isiXhosa monologues in the JAM at the Windybrow video series (2021/22). Still, I think it’s fair to say that the prominence of isiXhosa as part of this production’s multilingual script has generated much more public interest in Shakespeare in isiXhosa than any of these precursors. So my question is: to what extent, when you undertook the translating task with Kitso Seti, Anele Kose and Atandwa Kani, did you feel that you were part of an existing ‘tradition’ or established practice? Or did it seem more like you were charting new waters – especially as Othello has not previously been translated into a South African language other than Afrikaans? I suppose this is also a question about your working method or process: how did your translating team go about its work?

SANELE kaNTSHINGANA

There were two phases to my participation in the Othello production. Initially, I was a Xhosa translation consultant in 2022, shortly before the production toured Germany. The process was simple: I would be given chunks of lines from Foot’s adapted text of Othello at different intervals, negotiate timelines, and then submit the isiXhosa translations. I was merely operating from a technical and consultancy basis, not part of the larger project and its objectives. Because I was not familiar with the play, part of the process – which is a fundamental part of the job for any translator – included doing independent research on the play, its writer, Shakespeare, and the characters, especially Othello, whose words featured prominently in the isiXhosa translation. This was an independent, isolated process.

Atandwa Kani as Othello and Albert Pretorius as Iago (photo: Fiona MacPherson)

The second phase was early in 2024 when the production was being prepared for the Baxter run. Lara approached me to revise the translations and work with Kitso and Anele. This was prompted by Atandwa; when reading the script, he found that some of the Xhosa translations felt too literal. He sensed that this was sometimes caused by a lack of contextual information on the play, and the thickly layered and complex meaning in the English language. As a result, the idiomatic equivalence of isiXhosa was either lost or not used to its highest potential. So the four of us got together for a week, and we went through the initial translations and revised them where appropriate. Each one of us brought skill sets and expertise. Atandwa provided invaluable context on the play and offered thoughts and opinions on the direction of the translation as it was developing. While Anele and Kitso tapped into their isiXhosa idiomatic competencies, they also mobilised their creative and writerly instincts, which enriched the process. As a language practitioner and academic, I ensured that we were consistent with the principles of translation, including issues of temporality and the suitability of words. At the heart of this methodology was debate, elaborate discussions, and embracing uncertainty, until we were all satisfied with the Xhosa translation equivalents – or, in some cases, the lack of equivalence.

This process was deeply organic and convivial. We consulted multiple reference books such as Albert Kropf’s English-Kafir Dictionary (1899), the first comprehensive bilingual Xhosa-English dictionary, and digitised and searchable nineteenth and twentieth-century texts by isiXhosa-speaking intellectuals such as S.E.K. Mqhayi, William Wellington Gqoba, Walter Benson Rubusana, and vernacular newspapers such as Isigidimi SamaXosa and Izimvo Zabantsundu.[1] Lara came in to provide additional context on passages where the meaning was obscure to us, and these proved helpful in understanding the full meaning of the text. I found the process to be intellectually enriching and much more productive than the previously technical and isolated role I played. Despite this, I would not say I felt at any point that I was part of an existing tradition of translating Shakespeare’s classics into an African language or charting new waters. It would have been an interesting way of engaging with the text, connecting the threads, approaches and challenges to existing or prior practices – but ultimately my view is that, although it is politically fashionable to include African languages in these kinds of projects, allotment of resources to them beyond being ‘communicative’ mediums is negligible.

CHRIS THURMAN

That leads me to a question about the public reception of the production, and the isiXhosa in the production in particular. This appeared to be generally positive (and indeed it was pleasing to see the production reviewed in isiXhosa, by Peggy Tunyiswa), but it was noteworthy that Vuyokazi Ngemntu’s review took issue with Atandwa Kani’s pronunciation and “lack of fluency esiXhoseni”:

IsiXhosa is a tonal language, with words often losing meaning when emphasis is negated. For instance, there are two ways to pronounce ‘Lulama’, one a verb denoting the act of benevolence and pronounced the same way when used as aboy’s name, while the other is a girl’s name of similar meaning ... [in Othello,] the mispronunciation of one too many words (e.g. ‘Qamata’) proves distracting.
The disparity between the treatment of Shakespeare’s heightened text and that afforded the isiXhosa translations causes me to question what barometers are put in place to maintain a consistent standard of quality control. As stringent as the requirements are in casting actors who are proficient in the English language, should we not demand the same for our African languages in their written and spoken application? When observances such as honorifics (‘Bhut’ Cassio, Sis’ Desdemona’) are misappropriated and misaligned with the proposed era, should not the writings of the likes of Tiyo Soga, S.E.K. Mqhayi, John Tengo Jabavu, William Wellington Gqoba, Water Rubusana et al have been consulted for accuracy? In the absence of such studious research, informal, contemporary verbiage slips through the cracks.[2]

Could you comment on this response? It seems to me there is a wider area of contention here that applies to Shakespeare in translation in almost any national or linguistic context. On the one hand, there is the argument that translation inevitably means ‘modernising’ or making the Shakespearean text more contemporary and accessible. (And isn’t this a benefit of translation?) On the other hand, there is the claim that Shakespearean text is “heightened” (or ‘dated’, or ‘poetic’) English and that translations should try to mimic this effect. Ngemntu’s review also comments on “dialect, colloquialism and accent”, suggesting that a more scholarly approach is required “in hoisting olu lwimi lwethu lenkobe up so it stands on par with English”. What are your thoughts about this?

SANELE kaNTSHINGANA

Since I only joined the project as a translator, I am reluctant to address the issue of an actor’s isiXhosa pronunciation. Yet, while I am deeply sympathetic to the point raised by Ngemntu about the importance of elevating the standards of African languages in (for instance) theatre productions the same way attention is given to the English language, I worry that if this is done by mimicking the stringent controls of the English language, it would do more damage to the language than good. I also wish Ngemntu had offered concrete examples – and I am sure there are many – of instances where unsuitability in terms of translation is at play, because none of the examples she quoted in the article are in the script. Ngemntu’s critique is also riddled with assumptions about the translation process and method. While we can disagree about the translation product itself – which we should, because the nature of the translation process is political and subjective – we should assume less of what was done and not done in the process.

Faniswa Yisa as Emilia and Carla Smith as Desdemona (photo: Fiona MacPherson)

As mentioned above, various historical and linguistic reference materials written or recorded by isiXhosa speakers from the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries were consulted in the process; not simply for accuracy, as suggested by Ngemntu, but to understand the pragmatic and contextual usage of phrases and words. That is, their suitability in a particular context. While these texts are deeply valuable in how they mobilise concepts and phrases in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they also have their own limits, which include the fact that they were mostly written by ‘educated’ Xhosa-speaking men, following European-imposed standardisation, orthography and alphabet. As we were using these reference works, this historical context was important to keep in mind. When working in these murky waters, a level of creativity, and to some degree invention, was necessary to release the language from the stranglehold of colonial grammars, rubrics and legibility. As explained, we employed eclectic methodologies which demanded a range of sources for inspiration and approximation. The aim was to make the meaning accessible to the everyday Xhosa-speaking person while trying to be as close as possible to the nineteenth-century isiXhosa idiomatic expression. I agree, though, that more time and resources could have been invested in this project to cover other language issues beyond the translation process.

CHRIS THURMAN

I am particularly interested in your focus on retaining nineteenth-century isiXhosa expression – it makes me think of Sol Plaatje’s project of ‘salvaging’ what, even a century ago, he already saw as a disappearing idiom-rich form of Setswana – while still enabling present-day speakers to navigate that linguistic terrain. One last question, Sanele: do you think another factor here is Eastern Cape / Western Cape or other regional differences, which may or may not overlap with the ‘historical’ differences (language change over time)?

SANELE kaNTSHINGANA

Yes! Plaatje is a brilliant connection here – and yes, I think to a large extent, that’s my approach to the translation method – the balancing act of keeping true to original texts (Shakespeare as well as the isiXhosa reference materials) while also opening up access for the contemporary audience, and aiming to breathe a different life into the target text.

Of course, regional varieties do exist, depending on where one was born, or grew up, and so naturally there would be differences that exist between Eastern Cape and Western Cape. However, these differences/varieties exist even in the Eastern Cape, and these are historical. The so called ‘standard’ isiXhosa comes from a very particular region (historically Ngqika region) in the Eastern Cape and was standardised by missionaries. A person from P.E./Gqeberha for example is attuned to and speaks a slightly different isiXhosa dialect from someone who comes, let’s say, from Mqanduli. In any case, most isiXhosa-speaking people in the Western Cape have strong connections with the Eastern Cape.

LARA FOOT

I’d like to make one final comment. Using isiXhosa in this production was fundamental to our vision. As we are well aware, language has always played a significant role in the colonisation of people as an instrument of subjugation and suppression. In this production, it was essential that Othello expressed his innermost thoughts in his mother tongue. I wanted the isiXhosa spoken in the play to be heightened in the same way that Shakespeare’s English is spoken, and this is why I turned to Sanele Ntshingana, Kitso Seti and Anele Kose for their expertise. Further, it is always wonderful to witness how an actor slides into their mother tongue and settles into a deeper more grounded, familiar form of expression. During rehearsals, Atandwa Kani savoured these isiXhosa passages. It was interesting, however, that some audience members criticised Atandwa’s accent. Atandwa does not have a ‘deep’ isiXhosa accent which one might find in some parts of the Eastern Cape, and we were aware of this in rehearsals and discussed the ramifications. I find the criticism of his accent quite regressive, and it reminded me of how in the 1970s – and even in some cases into the twenty-first century, till about 2005 – white directors would not cast black actors in Shakespeare productions because “their English accents were bad”. It is worth noting, too, that none of the actors speaking English in our production were speaking with British ‘Queen’s English’ or Received Pronunciation; this is because we are not in England, we are in South Africa, where we should at least endeavour to embrace our authentic languages and accents.

CHRIS THURMAN

That, I am confident, is one point we can all agree on. And it brings to an end our roundtable discussion on this landmark production of Othello. My sincere thanks to each of the contributors for your generous, incisive, lucid and forthright participation!

[1] See S.E.K. Mqhayi, Ityala Lamawele (Alice: Lovedale Press, 1931); W.W. Gqoba, Isizwe Esinembali: Xhosa histories and poetry (1873-1888), ed. J. Opland, W. Kuse and P. Maseko (Scottsville: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2015); W.B. Rubusana, Zemk’inkomo Magwalandini (London: Selwood Printing Press, 1911).

[2] Vuyokazi Ngemntu, “Decoloniality? A fig! – A review of Lara Foot’s Othello”, Culture Review, 21 April 2024. Available online: https://culture-review.co.za/decoloniality-a-fig-a-review-of-lara-foots-othello

Hamlet and Palestine

Spotlight on: Multilingualism and Diversities Research