Today I’m lucky to be able to share an interview with author and playwright Kai Maristed. An experienced reviewer and critic, her short stories have been published in many of the magazines of note and she has taught writing in the US. In this interview, we talked about her latest project – translating Wedekind’s controversial Lulu Plays into English – and how working in different languages and mediums changes the way that you write.
You have recently had a reading of your new translation of Frank Wedekind’s The Lulu Plays: Earth-Spirit and Pandora’s box, directed by Tea Alagic and performed by The New York Theatre Workshop. How did it go, and what was it like working with such a prestigious group?
It was amazing to hear scenes come alive thanks to twelve seasoned Equity actors contributing their own understanding of the characters – including bringing out the wit, humor and sociological skewering that is Wedekind. A marathon session – rehearsal in the morning, performance from 2 to 6. With breaks and discussion, of course.
Wedekind’s Lulu plays have proved controversial, ranging from people claiming they are misogynistic to others that they prelude women’s liberation. What’s so controversial about Lulu and why did it need a new translation?
Let me address the second question first – it’s the same one I asked Tea when she first approached me. Without going into technical detail, the existing translations all share a certain ‘mustiness’ of language, are stilted or just plain not always the right word choice. Wedekind used the sharp, contemporary speech of his time. My goal was to give the translation that same direct impact, in the language of our time.
As for the controversial nature of Lulu herself – well, exactly. That is why we are excited to bring the Lulu plays to the stage, in an imaginative, multi-faceted, contemporary production. Note that the critics and commentators who pronounce her a two-dimensional femme fatale have all been men. The directors (and translators) have all been men. It is a stretch to read women’s lib directly out of Lulu, but what I find (and have come to identify with!) is a portrait of a woman who refuses categorization, who is determined to hang on to the essence of her being. Lulu can be read both as a victim and a victor, a manipulator and an innocent. Her free acknowledgment of female sexuality shakes the social order. Another controversial aspect for our still puritan times.
You’re a novelist (Out After Dark, Broken Ground, Fall, and the collection Belong to Me [Links]), and a successful short story writer and essayist (recently published in, for example, the Iowa Review and Michigan Quarterly.) What challenges does translation offer that differ from producing your own original work? How do you approach transforming someone else’s work and where do you start?
If the author’s language doesn’t flow through my mind into English, say, I won’t continue the project. If it does, I find translating fascinating, enjoyable and frankly much easier than writing my own fiction – or plays. One discovers the author’s mind and intent more deeply than is possible with even the closest reading. It’s very much about giving back – I happen to have been given the gift of being bilingual, and the gift of the writer’s craft, so why not make other’s works available for the first time or with a new sensibility?
Before you were a novelist you started out doing radio and drama with WDR and NDR in Germany. You have also spent many years here in Paris, France. How has being an internationalist changed your work? Does being multi-lingual affect how you write? Are there any down sides?
These questions keep getting harder and better. Clearly, I’m a language junkie. Spoke Japanese as a kid, have dabbled in Haitian Creole and Russian. I grew up fairly ‘international’ and sometimes that has felt like a handicap as a writer, where having ‘roots’, a fictionalized territory like Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, is prized – come to think, the woman in my play Consume By laments her lack of ‘roots.’ And sometimes I have to mentally click through languages to find the word I want – and don’t always succeed. But I would not change who I’ve become or what I know. Like Lulu.
Earlier this year you wrote “Consume By: Date/Month/Year” for Little Wonder, and you’re currently working on a new piece for publication in 2019. How do you find writing for radio? Is there any advice you’d give for aspiring radio dramatists?
I love writing for stage and especially for radio. The ‘Hoerspiel’ is a respected art form in Germany where all the modern masters – Grass, Boell, Handke, etc.. have left their mark. Even more than stage drama, radio drama is a collaboration between the writer and her audience – they bring their full imagination to create a three-dimensional world, if she provides the auditory framework. My advice? Listen to others. Read others, including short stage dramas, for dialogue and pacing. Think of what you can do with that three dimensional world (or worlds) and no constraints! And remember that in radio you have to capture your listener on the first page. Or be pitilessly turned off.
With Lulu getting on its feet and a recent rash of successful story publications, what next for Kai Maristed? Can you give us a sneak peak of what you’re working on at the moment and what’s coming in the future?
Aha – the hardest question comes last. At the moment I’m putting the final revisions on a novel and a novella. Also looking forward to developing my full-length play,Paul and Emile. With the creative side of those projects fairly done I’m tempted by an idea I’ve been struggling to get my mind around for a few years, a full-length play set in a US university town… all I can say now is that there’s a foreign woman involved whose nature no one can quite figure out.
You can buy Kai’s novels Out After Dark and Fall, as well as her other work, on amazon.com. Her website is www.kaimaristed.net/
