Converting each word automatically from English into Japanese is not what translating plays written in English is all about.
"We should build a sense of reality into the characters played by Japanese actors, who cannot look like 'Marela' or 'Conchita,'" said Mayuko Tokizawa, naming a couple of characters in Nilo Cruz's play "Anna in the Tropics," which she translated for Bungakuza, one of Japan's most influential theater companies, which premiered the play in Tokyo last September.
"We have to make Japanese dialogue for Japanese actors to say naturally on the stage in Japan. That's the most challenging and most interesting part of translating plays," explained Tokizawa, 42, who has translated a number of contemporary Western plays. "This is very different from making Japanese subtitles for Western films with an all-western cast," she added.