Professors in Print: Markus Wessendorf
Professor of Theatre (UHM Dept. of Theatre & Dance), Dr. Markus Wessendorf’s translation of Bertolt Brecht’s play The Judith of Shimoda, an adaptation of a play by the Japanese playwright Yamamoto Yuzo, has now been published (with accompanying introduction) in the first collection of “new” dramatic material by Brecht in English since the 1970s, Brecht and the Writerʻs Workshop: Fatzer and Other Dramatic Projects, edited by Tom Kuhn and Charlotte Ryland (London: Bloomsbury-Methuen, 2019).
Wessendorf began the translation project ten years ago for a conference on “Brecht in/and Asia” at UHM in 2010. The play was successfully staged at UHM Kennedy Theatre and was subsequently invited to be showcased at KCACTF (the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival) in Los Angeles.
Recently Wessendorf also released his first edition of the international Brecht Yearbook as its Editor: Das Brecht-Jahrbuch/The Brecht Yearbook 43 (Rochester: Camden House, 2018). The volume includes an interview with the Chinese dramaturge Li Jianming by Zhang Wei, who recently received a doctoral degree from the Department of Theatre and Dance at UHM, as well as Wessendorf’s essay on the first two novels of Hilary Mantel’s “Thomas Cromwell trilogy,” Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.
Congratulations to Dr. Wessendorf for his recent publications! And kudos to alumna Li Jianming for her contribution to the Brecht Yearbook.
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