Hospital Visiting

Another day gone not quite smoothly, but we wouldn’t want anything to get too simple would we?

Judy’s face had swelled up inexplicably in the night, and she woke up with her right eye totally closed up, looking like a still from Million Dollar Baby. So the morning was spent making a fascinating tour of the impressive facilities of the Seoul University Hospital, which involved emergency reception, foreign clinic, the Dermatology Resident, referral to the Professor of Dermatology, then across to Payments, before going to the Dispensary to get some drugs, and taking them to the Injections-in-the-Bottom department.

The main doctor had a rather unusual approach to diagnosis, which involved no touching, a long stare from some distance, and a period of inscrutability, looking slightly as if it involved suppressed laughter. Then he said, ‘very unusual’ rather meaningfully. But through this he did seem to arrive at the right diagnosis, because by the evening her eye was reopening and the swelling had gone down, although she has cancelled or shifted meetings in Tokyo, where she is due tomorrow. I shouldn’t make light of it, because it was really pretty horrible and worrying for Judy, and in fact the rest of the company were very concerned, but the whole process in the hospital actually only took a couple of hours, and it is hard to imagine that she would have got such efficient treatment at home. They did say they thought it was related to stress, tiredness and overwork, which on the surface sounds pretty plausible…..

The actors had continued music rehearsals and worked a little on the Brazil scene in the morning, instead of the planned run-through, which we did get to later in the day. It was an achievement to get to that point, and much of the run was very good, but we were a little taken aback by the timing, with it running at 85 minutes, as opposed to the target of 60. There was another very long discussion afterwards, and it is very clear to me that I have to adopt a different style next week, because we now have quite a bit of stuff to get through before our showcase on Wednesday, in front of an audience. I have asked Mijeong and Toyoko to give notes just to me, so that the actors are only hearing one voice [well, one voice translated a few times by others!]

Translation was again an issue today, because the level of skill involved in translating ‘notes’ for actors is so high. You choose words carefully and then when the response of the actors is not what you expect, you are left wondering if the nuance of what you have said has been lost. To get this right, the translator needs not just wonderful language skills, including theatre terminology, but also an understanding of the theatre process, and ideally a good reading of body language and tone too. We have been lucky to have that done really well through a lot of this project, but when it falls short it is frustrating… Ayako Funakawa, who is here now recording every session, is compiling a detailed account of this project, with particular reference to translation. It should be a really fascinating read – but of course it will be in Japanese, so it depends on the translation!

Everyone tired and a little subdued tonight, but Judy was feeling better, and days like today do put what we are attempting into some perspective. The weekend looms just at the right time, although we are also very aware of how much we need to do.