UCLA theater professor was acclaimed play translator

Carl R. Mueller, a professor emeritus at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and a noted translator of classic plays in several languages, died Sunday of a stroke at UCLA Medical Center, the university announced. He was 76.

From 1966 until his retirement in 1994, Mueller was a professor in the critical studies program of the UCLA theater department, teaching theater history and literature, dramatic criticism and playwriting.

But according to the university, his greatest fame was as an internationally acclaimed translator, especially of the works in the modern German theatrical repertoire. Fifteen volumes of his translations from the German, Swedish, Italian and ancient Greek are still in print.

“The previous generation of translators were scholarly and literary rather than dramatic,” said William Ward, chairman of the theater department. “Carl was able to distill what plays were about, the intent of authors, in language that would work for performance and play for an audience. It was the equivalent of re-creating the works from scratch.”

A review of his translation of the Greek tragedies called them “an inspirational gift” for theater lovers, noting: “These translations soar to the heights one expects and needs from the world’s oldest tragedies, while retaining a currency of feeling that is sometimes unnerving. These are not translations for the faint of heart.”

Mueller was born into a German-speaking family of Hungarian ancestry in St. Louis in 1931. He graduated from Northwestern University as an English major in 1954 and served in the U.S. Army in Germany from 1954 to 1956. He earned a master’s degree in playwriting and a doctorate in theater history and criticism at UCLA. He was also a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin in the early 1960s.

He began his career as a translator during his Fulbright tour when he met with members of the family of German writer Bertolt Brecht and gained permission for a series of authorized translations of his plays, which are still highly regarded.

Mueller is survived by his brother Don of Colorado Springs, Colo., and sister Shari Mueller of Virginia.

A memorial fund has been established in his name. For information, call Bianca Roberts, executive director of development, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, at (310) 206-3620 or go to giving.ucla.edu/carlmuellermemorial.