re: Drowsy on film ...
Yes, it could be about film musicals and their scores, etc. He could be pulled into the movie, or into his TV set, etc. Visually and physically it would work. But so much of the material would have to be rewritten. It's a love letter to the stage. And everything he's describing, all of his opinions, are theatre-oriented.
The trouble is adapting all the monologues physically, not so much the text itself. Who is he talking to? Where is he when he's talking? Who is he telling his private thoughts to? On stage, he's speaking directly to the theatre audience. He even waits and reacts to their reactions. And it works, because we're in "the room" with him. He breaks that fourth wall and invites us in to listen with him.
Plays with substantial monologues are very tricky on film. In "Amadeus," for example, Salieri's monologues were performed as a confession to a priest in an asylum. That was a device created for the movie. And it worked. He could still do much of the material conversationally, because he was talking to another person physically in the room. Someone who had asked him to "spill his guts" and confess his sins.
If you put someone in the room with Man In Chair, it goes against his character. He's a loner. He hides from other people and the world outside by escaping into his cast albums. I suppose you would have to do that, though. It's the only way it could work. He can't be talking to himself, or talking out loud in a movie theatre. That would be nutty.
Maybe they bring the superintendent or electricity guy or a plumber into his apartment at the very beginning, and they end up stuck there, reluctantly, listening to his records, while they fix something. He could hate having them there, too, but then open up and start talking. Then all of his monologues can pour out. It would have to happen right away though, even during the opening film credits, or the actual Drowsy material couldn't start. The premise would have to be set up in the first few minutes (like Amadeus). And you'd have to create a new character for the movie that didn't exist in the play.
"Joe the plumber." LOL The reluctant audience member who gets pulled in.
He would be the equivalent of the audiences sitting in a theatre for the stage version. I think, at times, it would come off a bit like the movie of "Kiss of the Spider Woman," where they're trapped in a jail cell while Molina goes on about the old movie musicals he used to love. And then they show the fantasy sequences in his mind. And of course the plumber character and the Man In Chair would need to have their own character arc. Even a minor one. The handyman would have to grow a bit to accept Man In Chair and his passions. And Man In Chair would have to open up a bit emotionally to another human being. It doesn't have to be romantic between them. Actually, I think it would hurt the film if it was a romance, and their arc dominated the story. The focus would be totally off then. But by the end of the movie, there would have to be a deep mutual respect between the two. Each learning something about human nature.
I don't know. Probably the only way I see this working on film, though.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
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