Adapting Performance Between Stage and Screen
Adapting Performance Between Stage and Screen
Victoria Lowe
First published in the UK in 2020 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2020 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2020 Intellect Ltd
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART ONE: PRACTICES
1.Stage-to-Screen Adaptation and Performance: Space, Design, Acting, Sound
2.Screen-to-Stage Adaptation: Theatre as Medium/Hyper-Medium
3.Stage-to-Screen Adaptation and the Performance Event: Live Broadcast as Adaptation
PART TWO: HISTORIES
4.The Introduction of Sound and ‘Canned’ Theatre
5.The British New Wave on Stage and Screen
6.Staging ‘British Cinema’ Post 2000
Conclusion
References
Index
It seems strange to be writing about past acts that contributed to the making of this book when, due to COVID-19, we are locked into an eternal present and the shape of the future seems very uncertain. Still, there are numerous people to thank.
Work on this book has been supported by research leave from the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at the University of Manchester. Particular thanks should go to Professor Alessandro Schiesaro for granting supplementary research leave in 2019 to enable me to finish this monograph.
I would also like to thank staff at various libraries and archives from whose expertise I have undoubtedly benefited. This includes the John Rylands Special Collections, The Reuben Library at the British Film Institute and the British Library.
Special thanks to real-world Superman, Professor John Wyver and his team for granting me unlimited access to pre-production and live broadcast of the RSC’s Romeo and Juliet in July/August 2018.
I am indebted to my wonderful colleagues in the Department of Drama, above all to simply the best Head of Department on record, Dr Jenny Hughes. Special mention should also go to Dr Kate Dorney, Professor Maggie Gale and Dr Felicia Chan for reading and commenting on parts of this text and particular gratitude to Dr Darren Waldron who gamely read a whole draft and whose thoughtful and thorough feedback really helped this project to turn a corner. I was also greatly aided by the calming presence of Dr Rachel Clements (and in the final months the wondrous Elijah!) and quite a lot of cake during writing sessions in various South Manchester cafes. Thanks also to Professor Emerita Viv Gardner for feedback and support and the anonymous reviewers of this book for their really helpful comments. Thanks to Intellect for being just brilliant to work with, to Tim for his patience in seeing this project through and to Emma for being a fantastic production editor.
My friends and family both near and far have been a constant support during the long gestation of this project. Miriam and Paolo Ba’ provided me with wonderful hospitality in Italy during the summer months. My heart goes out to all my Italian relatives and friends at this unimaginably difficult time. Various friends offered writing retreats and Rioja; Annette and Berni thank you! Shout out too to the Mums in York who have cheered me on, my brother Matthew and family in Norway and above all my amazing and inspirational sister Professor Jane Collins, whose expertise in theatre and performance was just invaluable. Thanks to her and Nick and the boys for support and lovely food. Our amazing Mum and Dad, Gwen and Don, sadly passed away whilst this book was being thought up and written out. I would like to think they provided inspiration for it. Mum was definitely all theatre and my Dad passed on his lifelong love of the cinema to me. Finally, my wonderful daughters Francesca and Giulia who made me cups of tea and my husband Stefano for expert ‘cappucin’ohs’!: Tutto è per voi.
We need a new idea. It will probably be a very simple one. Will we be able to recognise it?
(Sontag [1966] 1994: 37)
After systematically dismantling a critical history that saw theatre and film as artistic forms diametrically opposed to each other, Susan Sontag’s article ended with the above challenge to readers. Turn the clock forward 50 plus years and a brief survey of the listings for local cinemas and theatres in Manchester, UK, shows how much adaptations between stage and screen have become intertwined. There is a projected adaptation of the Swedish film Let the Right One In (2008) at the Royal Exchange, in itself an adaptation of the book by John Ajvide Lindquist (2004). Meanwhile HOME, Manchester’s centre for contemporary art, theatre and film, is showing both a live broadcast of the latest Royal National Theatre production, direct from London, and a stage adaptation by Imitating the Dog of George A. Romero’s classic 1968 horror movie Night of the Living Dead.
