Yes, No Nurse! Translating a Dutch Icon for the American Musical Stage

Abstract

The following work aims to determine how notions of suitability for performance can guide the translation process when applied to the following hypothetical assignment: translate the Dutch musical film “Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster” into a piece of commercially successful English-language musical theatre for a producer in San Francisco, who wishes to target a primarily gay audience. An analysis of suitability for performance has been broken down into several research areas including song translation, spoken-only drama translation, generic convention and an analysis aimed at cultural transference. These areas are to provide a framework for the eventual translation of both song and text from the film with the goal of transfer to the American musical stage. The author has chosen to translate scene one from the film as well as the songs “Ja zuster, nee zuster”, “Jongens van de reisvereniging” and “Met u onder een paraplu” and provided a detailed outline of translation choices. A translation for the song “Laadumaar” has been included as an appendix.