Of our assignments, I think I am most apprehensive about writing an adaptation, primarily for fear of being unoriginal. As with any form of art, being original is a challenge because it often seems that everything has been done before.
Reading Eurydice calmed some of my apprehensions, though, because of the beauty, craft, and originality with which Ruhl makes the story of Eurydice her own. An idea may not be original, but the execution of an idea and the added personal style/vision/artifice of the author have the power to make the finished piece original.
All I could think as I read through Eurydice was what a phenomenal job Ruhl did in taking a Greek myth and making it timeless, making it comprehensible to any time and any place. I think she did this best through both the use of somewhat fanatical, fantastical setting and the nonsense words/speech exchanges between characters that somehow made the uttermost sense.
I didn’t get into the play/characters/story at first and wasn’t sure what to think of the interactions between Eurydice and Orpheus—I didn’t know whether they were believable enough. But the farther I read along, I came to love the slightly off-kilter feel of the characters and what they said. In fact, it is this very nature of the play, the strange words, that made the play make so much sense to me.
It all became more powerful to me once Eurydice was in the underworld, which perhaps Ruhl did on purpose. Ruhl constructed her story in such a way that it seems like everything before the underworld is the dream-world, the unreal, while the underworld and all the interactions therein are actually reality.
What I learned about adaptations is that art is about collaboration. The individual artist does her part by putting stories into words, paint, lead, song, etc. but without all of the people around her, the environment she is surrounded by, she wouldn’t have anything to write about, nothing for which to use her words.
So, first off, don't worry about originality at the moment. A) It's ALL been done somehow before. B) Exactly what you'll do has never been done ever before. C) Originality often comes from revising the cliche. D) You're learning. Learning involves copying models that work. E) You're learning. Learning involves experimentation. You've got too much to try out right now to worry about originality.
ReplyDeleteSo table that concern.
Here though, you get a free pass anyway as the POINT of adaptation is to be unoriginal, to take something everyone knows and use it to tell YOUR story. Much of it will and should be borrowed, and that is why it works in fact. So perhaps this assignment will be a luxury -- keep much, change a little, go from there.
I like the idea of art as collaboration. In the case of this play, how/with whom? In the case of your plays...same question? And how do you exploit it? This is always true of art, and it's even more true of this art in particular. That is, putting a play on stage involves a village -- two in fact (one on and behind the stage, one out in the audience). How do YOU corral all these folks and make them work?
I agree, the disconnect between Orpheus and Eurydice makes sense in this sort of fantastical "off kilter" as you say world. Also I like that their relationship isn't one of those "oh we're on the same brainwave all the time look how perfect we are!" that might have made me gag. You didn't think the underworld felt as fantastical? With the st ones, and the child, and the weirdo grandmother and the relearning of the language? I dunno I thought the fantastical elements carried over between worlds.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing about needing an environment for one's art to exist,aka nothing exists in a vaccuum, is the idea of our audience that we so desperately and the context/year they live in. So what the audience takes away is a collaboration of the playwright's, director's, the cast's, and the audience member's ideas. Also, as playwrights, we need to rely on others participation in our art. Oh scary!
I too had a comment about originality in my blog post, though mine was about the comment about borrowed forms in the interview. While I think that none of us really need to worry about it for the sake of playwriting class, it seems to me the important part of originality, and the important part of Eurydice's originality especially is that it happens on a more close up level, each moment seems to the audience as original even though the overall plot is not. I mean, the love story is the most used plot on the planet it seems, yet people are still making original love stories. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Juno?
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, the nonsense exchanges that make sense are amazing here. That for me is the most powerful part of Theater, and the most intoxicating part of being a playwright. For a few hours you get to fully control what is real for the audience. These exchanges have meaning because they exist in a framework where they have meaning (Tautology sorry). For me as an audience member that is much easier to lose that sense of realism on stage than it is in film. A few goofy soundeffects and you have me.