Adaptation/Construction/Deconstruction

[Paul Malone]

    In this discussion originally motivated by Richard Sutherland's
review of Pacific Theatre's _Macbeth_ (which I haven't seen and have
been warned off of, but that's beside the point), I think we need to
make a distinction between editing a play for brevity, economy or
lack of personnel on the one hand, and adapting a play for a
particular dramaturgical reason (be it ideological, stylistic, or
just whiz-bang "high concept").
    I have been in a production of Shakespeare, for example, in which
massive cutting was done simply to accommodate a small troupe's need
to keep the show within certain time limit (_Two Gentlemen of
Verona_, in Calgary almost eight years ago). Despite what can only be
called hacking at the play, our main concern was to keep as much of
the plot, the motivation, and the main thrust of the full script as
we could--whether we succeeded or not, I can't say, but audiences
enjoyed it very much.
    This is in essence very different from taking the same play and
deciding to set it in a post-nuclear wasteland, attributing
Valentine's and Proteus's rivalry to their sublimated homosexuality,
making the Duke a half-lobster mutant . . . and then making cuts in
the script accordingly. I'm deliberately being somewhat absurd here
because I don't want to seem to be slamming a particular real
production; but to my mind this latter production is definitely an
adaptation, whereas the former example isn't. The post-nuclear
production incorporates a great deal of material which seems to have
no origin in Shakespeare's play. And there's nothing wrong with that
in itself: if the director can blend those ideas into the play in such
a way that the concept and the play support each other and shed light
upon each other, then it's a good adaptation, and I'm free to play
the Lobster Duke anytime, by the way.
    If, on the other hand, all those directorial ideas are thrown in
because the director is convinced that the play as we have it doesn't
say anything to anybody in the 20th century, and the Duke has to be a
mutant because normal people don't act like he does, and V and P must
be gay, otherwise they'd have no trouble communicating with women and
the patriarchal authority structure would collude with them and not
exile them, then it's probably not a good adaptation, and the cuts
are more likely to be made just to make room for the new "good
stuff." We've all seen the kind of "adaptation" that makes us ask,
"Why didn't they just write their own play?" and this is one of them.
    From Richard's review, I didn't get the impression that _Macbeth_
was that kind of adaptation, but rather just a cut version (and as
has been pointed out, they've got a long pedigree); kind of a shame,
since it's one of the shorter plays, but sometimes necessary. There
may be something to the argument that audience's won't sit through
five hours of Shakespeare, and in that case I think cutting him is
better than never doing him at all; but I also think that Guillermo
Verdecchia makes a good point in his comment about the lack of
training appropriate to the medium, especially here in TV-heavy
Vancouver. Not just the actors but, it seems, many directors no
longer have the training to appreciate older works withough
putting a thick layer of artificial relevance over top of them.
Even this can work wonderfully well with a good and committed
group of actors--but otherwise, even when attempting a "classic"
interpretation without editorial comment (which can easily devolve
into museum theatre), some cuts are indeed necessary if your cast
can't handle either the emotional breadth, the vocal range or the
energy level to sustain three to five hours of theatre!
    Although I too can do without the kind of RSC effortless good
technique that Richard began to long for (maybe because it so often
looks _too_ effortless!), I do wish actors, directors and acting
schools would stop taking the easy road and learn from the British
example that a well-trained stage actor is better equipped for film
and TV, and that the better trained an actor is, the easier it is to
bring life and interest to theatre, whether it be stodgy and
conventional, in-your-face deconstruction, or anything in between--
and then maybe it wouldn't seem so much like theatre is what one does
between TV gigs!
    Sorry to have ranted so long, but after six years of watching
university and commercial theatre in Vancouver, I do get tired of
watching half-trained actors trying to play full symphonies using
juice-harps and kazoos, and then being patted on the back for it.
My final summation is that adaptation is a worthy endeavour (almost
all of Shakespeare's plays are adaptations already!), but in the
modern theatre, adaptations seem too often to be undertaken because
it's easier than fighting your way through to the play's emotional
centre, rather than being undertaken in order to make that centre
accessible to a new audience.
    That's only my opinion, of course, and an attempt to build on a
bit of momentum in the discussion. Hopefully, a chorus of agreement
and disagreement will now ensue! Is there a difference between
cutting and adapting? Is Shakespeare still worth doing at all? Do
actors and directors need better training, or do the audiences as
well? Are our theatre people well-trained enough to do new works, and
should that be a higher priority than resurrecting dead authors?
 
That's enough from me for now.
 
Paul M. Malone
malone at arts.ubc.ca