Musical translations

At the request of Mrs. SC, your host went to see a new musical this weekend, based on the movie "Thoroughly Modern Millie". The plot is a bit of fluff about a girl from Kansas going to New York to meet and marry a rich man; think "Breakfast at Tiffany's", but with more than one song. But that's not the linguistically interesting part.

Part of the plot revolves around two Chinese immigrants who speak English rather poorly. During a song about working to bring their mother to America, performed largely in some Chinese dialect, supertitles are projected on a screen above the stage. As the two men sing what's transliterated in the program as "muqin", the screen flashes "mammy" (a spelling essential for several English rhymes elsewhere within the song, so forgive the translator any inaccuracy). However, when the men later sing "mammy" in English, the supertitle projects the Chinese characters for mother.

This is played relentlessly for laughs with the crowd; after it's been done a few times, near the end of the song when the men sing "mammy" again, rather than project the Chinese characters, the supertitle reads "you know the word".

There aren't any other gags that rely crucially on translation within the musical, but this was something of a first in SC's experience. Opera supertitles can usually be counted on to be straight translations. SC hasn't seen supertitles in a musical before, but the idea that the stage and real world can be blurred for comic effect is a staple of the genre, so while it may not have been predictable, it wasn't entirely surprising. Regardless, it succeeds quite well as entertainment, so SC won't spoil any of the rest of it for the reader, in case you have an opportunity to see it on tour.

Comments

[Philip Brooks]

It is common for dialogue in Japanese animation to make use of English words and phrases in sentences that are otherwise Japanese. Sometimes, when these works are translated and subtitled for distribution in English-speaking countries, a joker on the localization team puts the equivalent Japanese text in the subtitles when the actors speak English.