From Page to Stage
By Alex / Spinebreakers Crew
Theatrical adaptations of books
Everyone knows that the film is never as good as the book. But what of the stage? Over the past few years I have been to see three stage adaptations of popular books: Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses, Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse and most recently Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. But did they live up to their printed predecessors?
The tickets to Noughts and Crosses were a birthday present. I had been wildly jealous of a friend who got to see it at Stratford, and luckily enough I got the chance to see it myself. Though the book reads like a blockbuster film, the play certainly didn’t let me down; I was engrossed, enough to buy the script and the poster in the interval.
What’s wonderful about stage adaptations is that they are limited by the very fact of being on stage. This may seem more like a downfall than a benefit, but not in my eyes. Everyone pictures the events, the characters, the settings differently in their own minds. When a film adaptation appears every detail is drawn out for you, and almost never lives up to what your imagination had created. Sets on stage, however, cannot help but be minimalistic. In Noughts and Crosses the characters brought the props on stage themselves; tables, chairs, even a toilet cubicle. Of course we could never see the domineering facade of the Hadley house that I had in my mind. A beach was created with mere sound effects; the surroundings were left to the imagination. The script, though understandably cut shorter, remained true to the book. It was a fantastic interpretation, and I hope it one day returns to the stage.
War Horse was, for me, a different story. I won the tickets through Spinebreakers – for having described my experience of the adaptation of Noughts and Crosses! My cousins and my brother and I were all able to see it, but the difference was that this time, none of us had actually read the book beforehand. For this reason I couldn’t tell you if it is true to the novel or not, word for word, but there were many things that, for me, made it obvious that it had been a book first. Primary among these was the sheer scope of the story. It was not a plot imagined for a confined stage, but taking in the entirety of war-torn France and England, from the farms to the trenches. The main German character was a lovely man, reminding the audience that there is no simple definition of “good” and “bad”. Sometimes a whole minute would pass in which only German or French had been spoken, with no convenient subtitles as a film would have. This only heightened the realism of the production, in my opinion.
Finally, no playwright would have envisioned a piece in which horses where the main characters, because the immediate question that comes to mind is: how do we accomplish that, without the aid of CGI? The answer: puppets. Yes, I was sceptical to say the least, until I watched a trailer online, that is. Controlled by several highly skilled puppeteers dressed in simple, appropriate clothing that matched the colour of the horse, the puppets moved magnificently. Knowing horses well myself, I was amazed at the detail in the movements; the nodding of the head at walk, flicking the tail and nudging the puppeteers while stood still. The production proved that it is possible to be completely taken in to a visual story with no need for special effects.
Last week I went to see Wicked in the West End. Having read and fallen in love with the peculiar, highly original novel by Gregory Maguire, I was completely baffled as to how it could be turned into a musical. The novel is a dark, socio-political story – how could that possible translate into the coy, clichéd world of the musical?
I soon found out. The musical focused on the messages behind the darker story; that there is no such thing as “evil”; that anyone can be identified with if their true motives are known. The visual imagery was stunning and thought-provoking, with the entirety of the production taking place within the mechanisms of a giant clock. Though some parts of the story had been made a little more “PG”; a few murders removed, the ending tweaked a little (all right, I admit, I was fairly dismayed about that part), for the most part this didn’t detract from the power of the story. Not only that – the singing is incredible. And the beautiful costumes!
I suppose I have come to a conclusion after all. At all three of these productions I enjoyed myself immensely. Seeing something you yourself have visualised in a new medium is fascinating, whether it coincides with your vision or not, and I highly recommend all three of these productions. However, it remains to be said, that no matter how visually enticing a stage production is, nothing beats the combination of a good book and a good imagination.