<-NARRATOR:->Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.

旁白：听下面一段教授和学生间的对话。

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->OK, let’s see, right …[reading] “Modern stagings of a Shakespearean classic.”Well like I told you last week I think that’s a great topic for your paper.[questioning] So the title’ll be something like …

教授：好吧，我们一起来谈谈吧！嗯，莎翁经典剧目的当代演出。嗯，和我上周讲的一样，我想这个题目作为论文题目对你来说很合适。这样的话，论文题目应该是…嗯…

<-MALE STUDENT:->I’m not really sure. Probably something like “Twentieth-Century Stagings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

学生：我也不知道论文题目叫什么合适。可能该叫“论 20 世纪《仲夏夜之梦》的出演情况”。

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->Yes. I like that: straightforward and to the point. So how’s the research going?

教授：嗯，我很喜欢这个名字，直接且中肯。嗯，研究做得如何了？

<-MALE STUDENT:->Well, that’s what I came to talk to you about.I was wondering if you happened to have a copy of the Peter Brook production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in your video collection.I’ve been looking for it everywhere, and… I’m having a really hard time tracking it down.

学生：嗯，我来这儿就是要跟您说说这个事情。我在想您是否恰好收藏有一卷Peter Brook导演的《仲夏夜之梦》的影碟吗？我已经到处找遍了，但一直都没有发现它的下落。

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->That’s because it doesn’t exist.

教授：那是因为这个版本的影带根本就不存在。

<-MALE STUDENT:->Huh! You mean in your collection, or at all?

学生：emmm！您是说您的藏品中没有？或者根本就没有？

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->I mean at all. That particular production was never filmed or recorded.

教授：我的意思是，这个影碟根本就没有。那个特殊版根本没有被拍摄或录制下来。

<-MALE STUDENT:->Oh no. I had no idea. From what I’ve read, that production, like, it influenced every other production of the play that came after it so … I just assumed it had been filmed or videotaped.

学生：哦，不会吧！从我读到的，生产，像，它影响了此后的戏剧的其他生产…我只是假设已经拍摄或录像了。

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->Oh, it definitely was a landmark production, and … it’s not like it ran for just a week, but either it was never filmed, or if it was, the film has been lost.And it’s ironic because there’s even a film about the making of the production, but none of the production itself.

教授：哦，它肯定是一个里程碑式的产品，而且……它不像它只运行了一个星期，但要么是从来没有拍摄过，如果是，那部电影就失去了。这很讽刺，因为这实际上是一部关于制作电影的电影，但生产本身没有。

<-MALE STUDENT:->So now what do I do … if there’s no video … ?

学生：所以现在我该怎么办…如果没有视频……？

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->Well, think about it. This is the most important twentieth-century staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right?

教授：嗯，想想看。这是20世纪仲夏夜之梦最重要的阶段，对吗？

<-MALE STUDENT:->But how can I write about Brook’s interpretation of the play if I can’t see his production?

学生：如果我不看他的作品，我怎么能写出对Brook的剧本的解读呢？

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->Just because there’s no recording doesn’t mean you can’t figure out how it influenced other productions.

教授：仅仅因为没有录音并不意味着你不能弄清楚它是如何影响其他作品的。

<-MALE STUDENT:->I guess there’s enough material around. But it’ll be a challenge.

学生：我想周围有足够的资料，但这将是一个挑战。

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->True, but think about it: You’re writing about dramatic arts… the theater, and that’s the nature of theater isn’t it?

教授：真的，但是想想：你在写戏剧艺术…剧院，这就是戏剧的本质，不是吗？

<-MALE STUDENT:->You mean because it’s live, when the performance is finished …

学生：你的意思是它是现场的，当表演结束了…

<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->That’s it, unless it’s filmed, it’s gone! But that doesn’t mean we can’t study it.And of course some students in this class are writing about productions in the nineteenth century…and there are no videos of those.You know, one of the challenges for people who study theater is to find ways of talking about something that’s really so transient, about something that in a sense, doesn’t exist.

教授：就这样，除非它被拍摄了，否则就消失了！但这并不意味着我们不能研究它。当然，这个班的一些学生正在写十九世纪的作品……这些作品没有视频。你知道，学习戏剧的人面临的挑战之一，就是找到谈论真正短暂的事情的方法，关于某种意义上不存在的事物。