Most bizarre liberties taken with source material in a theatre adaptation?

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 8:35pm

I was thinking about BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY's and Edward Albee's bizarre choice to make Holly Golightly a figment of imagination, and was wondering what are some of the strangest changed made during an adaptation for the stage?

Updated On: 8/18/15 at 08:35 PM

[Fantod]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 8:39pm

Well I was in a super illegal production of Spelling Bee where the director rewrote the script to make it a telethon and created these weird "chorus people" who were actually devils from hell sent to possess the spellers with visions of greed and power, and then at the end Barfee hung himself. So there's that...

[oncemorewithfeeling2]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 8:40pm

I was in a production of Godspell that was reimagined around a marching band. Jesus was the drum major. Judas played tuba. Nothing about it made much sense.

I also saw the world's angriest version of The Pajama Game in college...it was about sweatshops in Bangladesh. It was ugly.

Updated On: 8/17/15 at 08:40 PM

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 8:55pm

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 9:04pm

"Peter and the Starcatcher" presents Black Stache onstage as an extraordinarily camp, fey Groucho Marx/Noel Coward hybrid, while in the book he is a hulking, uncouth monster.

"Matilda" shows the Wormwoods onstage as trashy young decidedly-not-Londoners, on film as sleazy American con artists, and in the book as Dickensian grotesques.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 10:02pm

I saw a church production of Joseph where apparently the director "didn't like Tim Rice" (according to someone I knew in the ensemble), and changed a bunch of lyrics. I'd say 30-40%. The only one I actually remember was "made him master of his website" instead of "made him leader of his household." It was like that.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 10:29pm

Clarification: 

 

I'm not talking about people making odd choices in their specific production of a show, but rather making an odd choice adapting a film or book into a musical or play.

 

darquegk has the right idea!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 10:30pm

Bizarre is a matter of opinion, but certainly audacious:

THESE THREE, William Wyler's 1936 film adaptation of THE CHILDREN'S HOUR, which de-gayed the play
ON A CLEAR DAY, Michael Mayer's 2011 Broadway revival, which split the co-starring role of Daisy/Melinda into opposite gender incarnations and pseudo-homoeroticized the libretto

The first was surprisingly successful, not the pale bowdlerization one might expect; the theme of the play was much altered and, of course, diluted, but, strangely, to a great extent, the script (by Hellman herself) remained effective.  

The second, perhaps not surprisingly, is generally viewed as a gross misfire.

Updated On: 8/17/15 at 10:30 PM

[BwayDude2]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 11:48pm

I once saw a Steam-Punk production of Beauty and the Beast.... Belle wore jean overalls and combat boots..... and she continued to wear the combat boots with a gold dress.... I still have nightmares. 

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 12:04am

"Clarification: 

 

 

 

I'm not talking about people making odd choices in their specific production of a show, but rather making an odd choice adapting a film or book into a musical or play.

 

 

 

darquegk has the right idea!

 

"

That's not what what it means to take 'creative license' with something. What you're really talking about is  actually defined as 'adaptation'/'source alteration', not taking 'creative license' with something.

""Peter and the Starcatcher" presents Black Stache onstage as an extraordinarily camp, fey Groucho Marx/Noel Coward hybrid, while in the book he is a hulking, uncouth monster.

 

"Matilda" shows the Wormwoods onstage as trashy young decidedly-not-Londoners, on film as sleazy American con artists, and in the book as Dickensian grotesques.

 

"

Even though the OP says otherwise, that can't be what he/she was talking about because, as I just pointed out above, what he/she is really talking about is 'adaptation'/'source alteration'.

The term 'creative license' would apply to the individual director of a particular existing play or musical making staging/directorial choices that alter their individual production from what was originally intended.

Updated On: 8/18/15 at 12:04 AM

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 12:08am

N/m

Updated On: 8/18/15 at 12:08 AM

[philly03]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 12:11am

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Trevor Nunn combined "The Woman in White" and "The Signal-man" plots for the musical of "The Woman in White." It's how the train scene/big ending came to be for the stage version, but one is by Wilkie Collins and the other is by Charles Dickens (ironically, the two were good friends)... 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 12:30am

How Eva peron is portrayed in a negative light in the state show but in reality she was pretty chill

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 1:04am

Perhaps "taking liberties with source material" is a better phrasing. Though I do think creative license could be applied in the situation it does seem to have caused some confusion. 

Updated On: 8/18/15 at 01:04 AM

[gypsy101]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 5:33am

Basically, you mean: what shows bastardized their source material? At least, I think so.

 

A Doll's Life is a sequel adaptation of A Doll's Life that certainly did some strange things to the main character (although it isn't technically an adaptation).

Updated On: 8/18/15 at 05:33 AM

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 11:51am

Some of these are making me laugh really hard.

Anyway, obviously Disney's The Little Mermaid is quite different from the original Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. What with the former's tragic ending and all.

Gaston Leroux's Phantom has an entirely different tone (and some additional characters, like the Persian) if you compare it to Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical.

I myself adapted Kate Chopin's The Awakening into a chamber opera that is a simplified version of the original novella.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 11:56am

As much as I loved Grey Gardens, the first act has a lot of speculation, which bothered me.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 12:23pm

I don't know that it's "bizarre" but in the book that inspired "Once On This Island" Ti-Moune dies and is pushed into a gutter.  Becoming a tree was inserted to give the musical an upbeat ending.

[newintown]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 12:51pm

I think the original post was perfectly clear, and the choice of words "creative liberties" totally applicable to the process of adaptation.

 

That said, the recent play of Breakfast At Tiffany's also played a bit loosely with the essence of Capote's novella - it seems everyone wants it to be a love story, even though that's nowhere in the text. What made it stranger in this latest version is that they kept the narrator gay(ish), but also made him gorgeous and somewhat bi, as though they felt that using the fey, totally gay Capote-ish narrator from the story wouldn't fly (any more than this dull, readers' theatre, 38-performance turkey did).

 

Musicals based on real people/events are easier to explore: The book of  Fun Home portrays Bruce as much more charismatic than he is in the musical; I'm still not sure if that's in the writing or in Cerveris' fascinating but weird/frigid performance.

 

Hamilton, based as it is (partly) upon Chernow's fawning biography (accused by some of bordering on unwarranted hagiography) presents a pretty much totally fictionalized Hamilton (in the show's defense, it doesn't pretend to do otherwise, although most audiences are too dense to pick up on that, preferring to think they've seen musicalized "facts" in shows like these). The real Alexander Hamilton, although born and raised in the Caribbean, was utterly white/European (Scots/French) and a fortune-hunting social climber, always aiming to be one of the powerful white men he envied. He advocated abolition at times (in words, not acts), but always put the rights of property-holding (including slaves) above those concerns. The musical's racial paradigm, although entertaining, ignores the fact that Hamilton's life story was as lily-white as anyone's ever.

 

Side Show, as a musical, gets really only a few things about the Hilton sisters' lives right - their names and the fact that they were conjoined twins.

 

In other threads here, I've described the differences between the real stories of the Trapp Family and The Sound of Music, and Anna Leonowens' life and The King & I. Both musicals are entertaining, well-written bright and sentimental pieces of nonsense, based on strangely gritty, dark lives.

Updated On: 8/18/15 at 12:51 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 1:12pm

Oh, come now. I think it's universally acknowledged that Chernow avoids "fawning" and "hagiography."

But at any rate, the musical absolutely does. It is clearly taking an objective look at ALL the Founders.

[Kad]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 1:26pm

The musical, and biography, do downplay some of Hamilton's less savory views, particularly in regards to the need for an aristocracy, the desire for aggressive expansion, and especially in regards to Hamilton's subversion of John Adams' presidency.

[newintown]

Posted: 8/18/15 at 1:35pm

From Amazon.com's summary of reviews: "One fault of the book is that Chernow is so convinced of Hamilton’s excellence that his narrative sometimes becomes hagiographic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Chernow’s account of the infamous duel between Hamilton and Aaron Burr in 1804. He describes Hamilton’s final hours as pious, while Burr, Jefferson, and Adams achieve an almost cartoonish villainy at the news of Hamilton’s passing."

 

From the Boston Globe: "Unfortunately, Chernow, in his first foray into the 18th century, leans too heavily on this (Hamilton's son's posthumous, uncorroborated bio) and other outdated antiquarian sources as a substitute for deep archival research. Not at all at home in the foreign country of that century, despite the fact that he traveled widely in Hamilton's and his family's footsteps, he depends too much on the kind of history served up by amateur old-house historians and innkeepers."

"A deeper problem is one of proof. Chernow all too frequently uses speculative constructions such as ''must have," ''it seems," ''one can hazard an educated guess." There are limits to the degree of supposition in history and biography that are stricter than those in historical fiction. It is a line Chernow crosses, imagining more than he can prove."

"Bending to the more sensational story, Chernow demolishes Hamilton's mother, turning her into a floozie. He depends on the unchallenged and uncorroborated accusations of her first husband's divorce papers. He depicts Rachel Faucette Lavien Hamilton, daughter of a wealthy and respected Huguenot planter and physician, as the sleep-around daughter of a seamstress."

 

It appears to not be "universally acknowledged" at all.

 

As far as the show "taking an objective look at ALL the Founders" - well, nothing in the theatre is truly "objective," nor is there any reason to pretend it is. A point of view is hardly a bad thing in a work of art.

Updated On: 8/18/15 at 01:35 PM

[WestCoastActor/Director]

Posted: 8/19/15 at 1:08am

I have seen You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown that added about 50 other characters using just about every name that Schulz had ever used and then some.  Most comical was a production of The Drowsy Chaperone that added around 100 chorus people who appeared out of nowhere for the big numbers. Were they just party crashers at Mrs. Tottendale's?

Certainly the most bizarre show of this type I ever saw was a production of Grease the was rewritten to become Eugene's story.  Yes, you read that right.

The deranged director had "adult" Eugene come out with a year book that he was looking at.  Then he starts a monologue about high school life.  He says I worked in the high school cafeteria.  I am thinking, Eugene doesn't work in the cafeteria.  Suddenly an original scene comes out with "high school" Eugene working at Rydell.   This continues.   Eugene had married Patty Simcox.  There is a scene with "adult" Patty and their children Eugene Jr. and Patty Jr.   Finally about 2/3 of the way through the show I guess they couldn't think of any more monologues for Eugene to say so "adult" Eugene came out with the yearbook, opened it up to a page and showed it to the audience.  Of course the page had nothing to do with the upcoming scene.  I actually laughed out loud.   I went to see this production because I knew several of the actors playing the actual principals.  Sadly their scenes and songs were fine but sandwiched into one of the most ill advised rewrites I have ever witnessed.

[Elfuhbuh]

Posted: 8/19/15 at 1:12am

Broadway's Dance of the Vampires barely even resembles the Fearless Vampire Killers film. 

[jwsel]

Posted: 8/19/15 at 3:27am

Steven Berkoff directed and starred in a production of Oscar Wilde's Salome at the National Theatre.  Inspired by Japanese Kabuki, it was done entirely in slow motion.  Twenty-five years later, I can still hear the opening line:  "The Moooooooooooon loooooooks straaaa-ange toniiiiiiiight."

Can't say it wasn't memorable.  Painful to sit through, but memorable.