Adaptitude

So, I totally didn't realize that reading Eurydice was for our section on adaptation. I just thought it was a continuation of our work on dialogue, and I think my misguided belief was sustained such a long time because of how much dialogue there was in that show. Most of the play was between two people at a time, with an occasional chime-in from the chorus. Now that I realize the assignment was for our unit on adaptation, I'm thinking about it in a new light.

I'm still trying to decide if I liked the play. There's nothing in it that made me say, "Oh my gosh, that was incredible." At the same time, it flowed well and I never found myself saying, "Why the hayballs am I reading this?" But whether I liked it or not doesn't seem as important as questions such as, was this actually a good play? Answer: no idea. But it made me see adaptation in a new light. The playwright uses the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice quite loosely, and really takes her own track of the story. There's nothing that says you can't do this; I guess I was just a little surprised. I was definitely expecting a dry, crusty translation from ancient Greek, with a whiny chorus that moans on about how much the world sucks. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this wasn't the case.

But I guess my point is that adaptations don't have to stick too closely to the original text - depending on what kind of adaptation you're doing. I mean, if you're adapting from stage to film, you're probably going to want to keep it fairly close, so that the original fanbase isn't too pissed off. But in many cases, especially working with old Greek myths, the playwright can take as many liberties as s/he wants, because it's not copyrighted. I read "By the Bog of Cats", by Marina Carr, which is an adaptation of Medea, set in the Irish Midlands. It's very loosely based around the myth, and it's modernized and Irishized and much easier to read than an old crusty version of the myth. I guess it's interesting to me that this version of Eurycide is an adaptation, because it's taking another character's perspective on it. It would be like calling "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" an adaptation of Hamlet. I never would have thought of it that way.

I tend to like adaptations, I think, because it takes a familiar tale and tells it in a way that one wouldn't expect or sets it in a time/place that brings it home to an audience that would have a harder time relating to the original myth. For instance - I saw "Oedipus" when I was in London, and though it had some AMAZING acting (Ralph Fiennes (the dude who plays Voldemort) was Oedipus), I found myself sitting in the audience, marveling at the acting and thinking how much life sucks for that dude rather than thinking about how the story had any pertinance to my life. People say that myth is so relevant to everyone and that every person can relate to a guy who want so have sex with his mom. What? A bunch of crazy Freudian psychos if you ask me. I've never understood that myth or why it has any significance in my life, and I would like to see an awesome adaptation that shows me just how much this myth can make an impact in my life.

Going back to Eurycide, I really liked what the playwright had to say in the interview about having a chorus in her plays. When she was working with undergrads, they thought so linearly and couldn't break outside the mold of a realist play. I thought it was so cool that she made them write with a chorus. I think that's a trap I fall into a lot - needing to sound "realistic" and stuff. So I think that's something I want to try. maybe not a chorus, but possibly a narrator (wait, what's the difference?) or something of that sort. I think it will help me focus on the story I'm trying to get across rather than the way I'm trying to tell said story.

Woot. That's all from me.

KG