Translation help

[Vorago]

I'm working halftime in a management bureau for theatre artists & part of my job is translating reviews, etc. The text below is a translation of a review written in Dutch (that I can include, if you would want me to). I think it's ok, but there are some phrases, the bold ones, I'm not certain about. It's a pretty difficult text to translate.

It's probably hard to correct this without knowing Dutch, but if you could just tell me which bits don't sound 'English', you'd make me very happy

Never say that theatre is just some elitist affair if you have never seen Manah Depauw's work. The Brussels-based theatre artist has a weak spot for flashy green plastic grass, innocent one-legged babies, huge crazy wigs, sexually obsessed stuffed toys and Hollywood soundtracks, all of this preferably mashed together.

Her work is a bulging toy store where a psychopath has gone wild. It is as charming as it is venemous, as cosmic as it is simple, but it is always consciously gaudy. You hear what you see, you get what you see coming at you, the humour of tautology.

On top of that, Depauw likes stories. Eden Central, a rather large creation for the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, was born out of her fantasy about the creation of mankind. Thus, a filmic voice over starts the show, booming over a
Paradise like rockery in fake plastic. 'What existed before Adam and Eve?'

Four monkees climb the underexposed stage, pettable like carnival animals. They flee each other, play with plastic palmtrees, turn them into clubs, and, almost to their own surprise, start hitting each other.

It’s not their behaviour in itself that is funny, but the childlike staging . Is this a kids-tv show gone wrong? Genesis as an animal act? As happens often with Depauw, this little community soon turns into an erotic carnival.

The monkey discovers the sexual human in himself, and this human in turn comes into touch with his divine side. Religion, in this case a tribal dance around an imposing giant doll, is nothing but masked horniness. Depauw sets out to find its roots.

However, these deep thoughts will not take you very far. Contrary to predecessor Johnson & Johnson, a clever fairytale about the plurality of evil, Eden Central is centered around the playlike representation of Depauw's own inimitable fantasy.

Smoke, opera music, a snowmachine, exhuberant rummagy costumes: the entire theatre machinery dominates the ideas, the dream takes over the story. Primitive people become hippies on a campsite, who in turn become an exotic people in the paws of misionaries-armed with whips. And poof, suddenly the dream is over.

The theatre language Depauw has developed over the course of the last ten years is simply amazing. From underneath your high brows you don't know where to look first. Uber-flashy Eden Central crosses the line by so many miles that this kind of theatre will please everybody.

[Chunk-O-Funk]

I would use the google translator before.
One trick I found was to break up the story. It would help the translation.

Slang, wrong words and misspelling didn't work.



Hope this helps.

[bassybill]

Never say that theatre is just some elitist affair if you have never seen Manah Depauw's work. The Brussels-based theatre artist has a weak spot for flashy green plastic grass, innocent one-legged babies, huge crazy wigs, sexually obsessed stuffed toys and Hollywood soundtracks, all of this preferably mashed together.

Her work is a bulging toy store where a psychopath has gone wild. It is as charming as it is venemous, as cosmic as it is simple, but it is always consciously gaudy. You hear what you see, you get what you see coming at you, the humour of tautology.

On top of that, Depauw likes stories. Eden Central, a rather large creation for the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, was born out of her fantasy about the creation of mankind. Thus, a filmic voice over starts the show, booming over a
Paradise like rockery in fake plastic. 'What existed before Adam and Eve?'

Four monkees climb the underexposed stage, pettable like carnival animals. They flee each other, play with plastic palmtrees, turn them into clubs, and, almost to their own surprise, start hitting each other.

It’s not their behaviour in itself that is funny, but the childlike staging . Is this a kids-tv show gone wrong? Genesis as an animal act? As happens often with Depauw, this little community soon turns into an erotic carnival.

The monkey discovers the sexual human in himself, and this human in turn comes into touch with his divine side. Religion, in this case a tribal dance around an imposing giant doll, is nothing but masked horniness. Depauw sets out to find its roots.

However, these deep thoughts will not take you very far. Contrary to predecessor Johnson & Johnson, a clever fairytale about the plurality of evil, Eden Central is centered around the playlike representation of Depauw's own inimitable fantasy.

Smoke, opera music, a snowmachine, exhuberant rummagy costumes: the entire theatre machinery dominates the ideas, the dream takes over the story. Primitive people become hippies on a campsite, who in turn become an exotic people in the paws of misionaries-armed with whips. And poof, suddenly the dream is over.

The theatre language Depauw has developed over the course of the last ten years is simply amazing. From underneath your high brows you don't know where to look first. Uber-flashy Eden Central crosses the line by so many miles that this kind of theatre will please everybody.

Underlined = fine, no issues with English at all.

Bold = really clunky language, needs completely changing to really mean much at all. "Rummagy"???

sp. "missionaries" and omit hyphen following this word.

[Munjibunga]

Originally Posted by bassybill

Underlined = fine, no issues with English at all.

Bold = really clunky language, needs completely changing to really mean much at all. "Rummagy"???

sp. "missionaries" and omit hyphen following this word.

Dunno ... it seems like typical stuffy theatre-goer's talk. I think it fits well in the vein of the rest of the piece. I like rummagy. It evokes a sentiment.

Also, venomous is misspelled.

[Vorago]

Originally Posted by bassybill

Underlined = fine, no issues with English at all.

Bold = really clunky language, needs completely changing to really mean much at all. "Rummagy"???

sp. "missionaries" and omit hyphen following this word.

Ok, cheers Bill!

Any suggestions?

I know 'rummagy' sounds stupid but I can't find another translation. I'm looking for an adjective that describes clothes that have a lot of loose ends and loose flaps, lots of colours, in a happy sense...the dutch word is 'flodderig'

And as for the 'high brows', it's a pun on high brow culture, it's translated pretty literally, it's clunky in Dutch too

[bassybill]

For "rummagy", how about extravagant, or flashy, or even just "eye-catching"?

The high brow bit (the term is used in English, but not in the awkward way as above) - how about "From your lofty, intellectual view point, you don't know..." ?