‘To Speak Shakespeare in German is Almost to Speak It in English’: Translocation of Languages on Nineteenth-Century Stages

Abstract

During the nineteenth century technical developments and the associated advances in transportation encouraged mobility and connectivity and greatly expanded the actor’s sphere of action. These developments paved the way for theatre to become a transnationally, even globally connected medium with numerous possibilities of cross-cultural encounters and entanglements. In this context, languages left their national contexts by travelling the world with actors. In this article, I will pursue this translocation of languages by focusing on two cases: bilingual performances and performances of actors who have performed in non-native languages. Focusing on the USA, I aim to examine these concrete language practices in theatre as spaces of encounter or contact zones in a time characterised by strong nation building processes.