Global Narratives, Local Realities: Probing Issues of Justice through Theatre Translation as Renarration

Somalatha Subasinghe, the translator and director of Yadam (1992), the Sri Lankan (Sinhala) renarration of the Kenyan play The Trial of Dedan Kimathi by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Githae Mugo (1976), signals her departure from the Source Text and her wish to use its basic narrative for a renarration from the start, most obviously through the change of title. The play is thematised around issues of justice and, in selectively appropriating it for translation, Subasinghe intervenes in public debates of the time on the manipulation of the judiciary by ruling regimes. The Sinhala renarration engages in rearranging the scenes of the play in such a way that the different “trial” scenes are placed alongside each other to facilitate a comparison between the colonial courtroom, Dedan Kimathi’s jungle court and the less obvious, more informal “trial scene” with the nameless rebel woman, boy and girl. This article adopts a socio narrative theory based framework along with the concept of renarration in its analysis of the theatre translation. It reveals the manner in which Yadam addresses the target Sri Lankan audience through the play’s engagement with two prominent public narratives that had national, regional and global traction. It argues that the play thereby linked the local with the global not merely through the translation of a foreign text but also through a fluid flow of narratives.