As amazing as the book is, it is completely useless as a theatre piece, "as is." There is SO much narrative in it that things have to be cut, changed and rethought to make it work on stage (or in a film adaptation). They tried for a long time to do that, until Schwartz got involved, and Marc Platt said the early attempts to do a more faithful adaptation of the book were all disappointing failures. My guess is that it would play something like "Dune." Interesting characters in cool settings, spouting ENDLESS amounts of psychobabble, political theory and religious arguments. Oh, and somewhere along the way, we'd get a fragmented story about a witch who wanted to do good. It would bore the brains out of most people as they twitched in their seats.
I'm not saying Schwartz and Holzman did the ultimate adaptation of this story, but they were definitely on the right track by focusing and consolidating the story's time line, characters and major plot points. Whether they struck the right "tone" by bringing out a lot of humor and pumping up the "college/tweener" appeal of the story is debatable. It sure keeps most audiences involved and invested in the outcome though. If they were 38-year-old, isolated, cold women, as they are at the end of the book, I'm not sure we'd have the same interest in these ladies and their situations. Sad, but true.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 5/18/06 at 11:03 AM