There has been a change of plans. I will no longer be translating Asesinos todos because I would be unable to do anything with my translation. Instead I am translating an old play which is in the public domain. I have selected Los caciques (The Chieftains) by Carlos Arniches. It was actually an AI that made this suggestion. This play dates back to 1920. You can find complete performances of Los caciques on YouTube. Carlos Arniches is best known for his play, La señorita de Trevélez (The Lady from Trevélez) which was made into the movie Calle Mayor (Main Street). I bought the DVD of that movie. None of plays by Carlos Arniches have ever been translated into English.
Translating this play is proving to be a bit of a challenge because it makes heavy use of discourse markers and colloquial speech. Many of the Spanish words appear to be misspelled but this just indicates rural speech. I am relying heavily on Microsoft Copilot to translate this play and it can pick out the colloquial speech. I find that a bit surprising. The stage directions are also proving to be difficult because Spanish has its own conventions for stage directions. For example, DICHOS means the same characters as in the previous scene.
So far I have translated two scenes. This is tedious work since I prompt AI over every sentence and then sometimes about a single word. I plan to publish my work as a Kindle ebook. In addition to my translation, I will include a detailed analysis of the grammar used by the author of the play. That will make my translation more useful for the Spanish language learner.
This project will make studying Spanish seem more worth while. It will fulfill my literary ambitions. I don’t expect any theater company will want to do a performance of this play based on my translation.
