Robert David MacDonald

Robert David MacDonald (27 August 1929 – 19 May 2004) was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director.

Born in Elgin, Scotland, and originally trained as a musician, Robert David MacDonald spent some years as a translator for UNESCO before becoming assistant director at Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

In 1971, he became co-artistic director of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, until his retirement in May 2003. During that time, he directed fifty productions and wrote fifteen plays for the company including The De Sade Show (1975), Chinchilla (1977), Summit Conference (1978 – later seen in the West End with Glenda Jackson, Georgina Hale and Gary Oldman), A Waste of Time (1980), Don Juan (1980), Webster (1983), In Quest of Conscience (1994), Britannicus (2002) and Cheri (2003).

MacDonald translated over seventy plays and operas from ten different languages; in her obituary for MacDonald, Sarah Jones wrote "...it was for his translations, stemming from his ability to speak at least eight languages fluently, that MacDonald may well be best remembered. He brought a diet of Goethe, Lermentov, Gogol, Goldoni and Racine, not only to Glasgow audiences, but to those around Europe and America...".

He translated five of Friedrich Schiller's plays, which led Michael Billington to write in 2005, "why is Schiller no longer box-office poison? The first crucial fact is that actable versions of the plays are now readily available. MacDonald was the great pioneer in this area, but Jeremy Sams, Francis Lamport, Mike Poulton and several others have also rid the plays of swagger and fustian."

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