Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and his drama professor.

旁白：请听一段学生和他的戏剧教授的对话。

Female professor: Hi, Robert. So how's your paper going?

女教授：嗨，罗伯特。你论文写得怎么样了？

Male student: Pretty well. It's a lot of work, but I'm getting into it, so I don't mind.

男学生：还不错。工作量不小，但是我写得还挺起劲，所以没关系。

I'll probably have some questions for you in the next week or so.

男学生：我可能下周左右会有些问题来找你。

Female professor: OK, glad to hear you're progressing so well.

女教授：好啊。你进展顺利，我也就放心了。

Male student: Um, there was something you said at the end of the lecture on Tuesday, something about there not really being any original plays…

男学生：嗯，周二快下课的时候， 你说了一些关于"其实不存在原创戏剧"(的观点)……

Female professor: "There's no such thing as an original play." Yes, that's the direct quote from Charles Mee.

女教授："没有原创戏剧这一回事"。是的，这是Charles Mee的原话。

Male student: Mee... That's with two Es, right?

男学生：Mee……名字里有两个e，是吧？

Female professror: Yep, M-E-E. You'll probably be hearing a lot about him. He's becoming a pretty famous playwright.

女教授：是。M-E-E。关于他， 你很可能有所耳闻。他现在成为一个相当有名的剧作家了。

Male student: Yeah, well, I've been thinking about his quote… I mean, there must be some original plays out there.

男学生：对，对于他那句话，我想了许多。我的意思是，一定还是有一些原创的剧本的吧。

Female professor: I'll grant that he's overstating things somewhat. But the theater does have a long tradition of borrowing.

女教授：我承认他这话多少有点夸张。但是戏剧界确实有借鉴他人的悠久传统。

Take Shakespeare, like most writers of his day, he borrowed plots from other sources unabashedly.

比如莎翁，跟同时期的剧作家一样，他毫不掩饰地借鉴其他人的情节。

And the ancient Greeks, all the plays they wrote were based on earlier plays, poems, and myths.

还有古希腊人，他们写的所有戏剧都是基于更早的戏剧、诗歌和神话。

Male student: And "borrowing" applies to plays being written nowadays, too?

男学生：那么，借鉴也适用于当下写出的戏剧吗？

Female professor: To some extent, yes. Mee, for example, he's made a career out of remaking plays, one of which we'll be studying soon.

女教授：某种程度上，是的。比如说Mee，他以重写戏剧为职业。其中一篇我们很快会学到。

It's called "Full Circle." And Mee based it on an earlier play by a German playwright.

这个剧本名叫《Full Circle》，它是Mee基于一个德国剧作家的一篇早期剧作而改写出来的。

Male student: Oh… "Full Circle." Wasn't that based on "The Caucasian Chalk Circle?"

男学生：哦……《Full Circle》。是不是基于《Caucasian Chalk Circle》？

Female professor: That's right.

女教授：没错。

Male student: I remember hearing about that play from my acting coach.

男学生：我记得从我的表演指导那儿听说过。

Female professor: Okay. Well, "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" was based on a play by yet another German playwright, someone who was fascinated by the ancient literatures of China, India, and Persia.

好的。《The Caucasian Chalk Circle》又是基于另一个德国剧作家的作品，这个人对中国、印度和波斯的古文学很着迷。

And many of his works were adapted from those literatures, including his version of "The Chalk Circle," which was based on an early Chinese play.

他的很多作品都是由那些文学作品改编的，其中他的那版《Chalk Circle》，是基于一部早期中国戏剧而写出来的。

Male student: So this "Full Circle" play by Charles Mee, the one we're gonna study, it's like the third or fourth remake.

男学生：那么这个Charles Mee写的《Full Circle》，就是我们要学的那版，应该是第3、第4次的重制版了。

Wow! And we complain that Hollywood keeps making the same movies over and over again!

哇！而我们还在抱怨好莱坞一遍一遍翻拍同样的电影呢！

Female professor: Well, part of what Mee's trying to do is drive home the point, that, one, theater's always a collaborative effort…

女教授：嗯，Mee这么做的部分目的是强调：第一，戏剧从来都需要合作……

Male student: Well, yeah, the playwright, the director, the actors, people have to work together to produce a play.

男学生：没错。编剧、导演和演员，大家必须通力协作才能创作出一部戏剧。

Female professor: Yes, of course, but Mee means historically; the dramatic literature of early periods is hugely influential in shaping later dramatic works.

女教授：是的。但是Mee说的是历史意义上的合作。早期的戏剧文学对后期的戏剧作品塑造上有非常大的影响。

Male student: So it's like when a playwright bases a play on a previous playwright's theme or message. It's like they're talking to each other, collaborating, uh, just not at the same time, right?

男学生：所以，编剧是基于前人的主题或信息而创作戏剧的。就好像是他们在相互交流，合作。虽然不是同时进行，对吧？

Female professor: Exactly. And the second point Mee's trying to make, I think, is that it's legitimate to retell an old story in a new way… in a way that's, uh, more in line with contemporary concerns.

女教授：正是如此。我想，Mee想传达的第二个信息就是，后人对前人作品以一种新的方式再创作，使其更符合当代语境，是完全合情合理的。

So, when playwrights reinvent or update an earlier play, it shouldn't be construed as a lack of imagination or an artistic failure.

因此，当剧作家重新创作或更新一部较早的戏剧时，不应被理解为缺乏想象力或艺术上的失败。