Emma is no exception.  A key plot element takes place at a dance in Highbury’s town hall, and no less than three separate dances are specified in the script–the thought of getting this scene right has had me on edge for a month.  How fortuitious, then, that just when I needed the contact, I happened to notice an event listing in Whatzup.  There is a contra dance evening, open to the public, on the third Saturday of each month on the campus of St. Francis University.  It is hosted by the Fort Wayne Traditional Dance and Music Society–an organization I’d never heard of before.   I contacted them and spoke with Barry Dupen, who agreed to choreograph and teach the three dances.

Tuesday night our cast, some in dance shoes, some in sneakers, took their places–I could see some nervousness and some excitement.  Barry was an excellent teacher, explaining and demonstrating the moves, counting them out slowly, having the dancers walk the steps slowly, and finally adding the music.  Much laughter, some discussion about who was supposed to be dancing with whom (and why), intense concentration, coaching from the sidelines…the hour flew by.  We’ll have another hour-long session with Barry on Saturday morning, and then we’re on our own.

The most helpful and encouraging thing he said to our group was that these dances were a great social occasion, a chance to flirt in a way that the period did not allow at any other time (hand holding! lots of eye contact! wow!).  Also, the dances didn’t happen all that often, so it’s not as if everyone was proficient.  The main thing was to appear to be enjoying oneself.  So–an acting scene, in which some people happen to be dancing.  Perfect.

I should say a word about the music, since that too has been an answer to prayer.  I went hunting online (how did we ever manage to find anything before we could web-surf?) for Regency-era dance music, and found a CD entitled The Regency Ballroom.  To my surprise, it was produced by a group of musicians in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, just down the road from where my parents lived for over 20 years. ‘Spare Parts” has an impressive catalog of historic dance music CDs.  Bill Matthiessen, one of the core trio of musicians, engaged in a friendly email dialogue with me, negotiating our use of some selections from the CD.  I’m thrilled that afO has the privilege of using what I know to be authentic, carefully researched music of Jane Austen’s time.

All adaptations have their challenges, and the challenges are different from story to story.   While the O. Henry story is familiar mainly for its twist, and Ruth is well-known for a couple of famous lines, Jane Austen has become a household name in the past twenty years or so, with film after film based on her six completed novels.  Three good screen versions of Emma (two of them for television) have been done just in the past 15 years.   So when we approach this novel, we do so knowing that our audience not only loves the story, but they can quote it at length and they have pictures in their heads already of what the characters are like.  They have expectations about the costumes, the scenery and music.

All of which makes it daunting to attempt to recreate Austen on stage–and on a small stage, at that.  And yet the idea was irresistable:  here was a much-loved writer whose work had not been produced here in Fort Wayne in my memory. When I discovered that Jon Jory, a notable theater director and writer, had published adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma, I knew at once that I wanted to do one of them.  It took very little contemplation to decide on Emma.  For one thing, I personally haven’t found the screen versions of Emma to be as completely satisfying as the other two.  (Who can compete with the BBC version of P&P, especially Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, really?  And Emma Thompson’s imaginative big screen take on Sense and Sensibility was so perfect, I wouldn’t want to compare it to any other.)  For another, those two stories range through many different locations, including London and Derbyshire, and multiple large estates figure in each book.  There are subplots and back stories to explain.  But Emma is a very simple, straightforward tale with one setting, the fictional village of Highbury, and a small cast of characters who all revolve around the eponymous central figure who touches all their lives.

Our season was announced, and at once I heard a buzz–there was more excitement about Emma than perhaps anything else we’ve ever done.  We had a decent turnout at auditions.  Not surprisingly, the majority of my potential actors were women, reminding me that Jane Austen is (perhaps unfairly) perceived as a woman’s writer.  This was reinforced at the first read-through of the script:  When I inquired, every female in the room had read the novel; none of the men had.

In order to immerse us all quickly in a culture and time period two hundred years remote from our own, I did something I’ve rarely done before: I gave the cast several homework assignments.  One, obviously, was to read (or re-read) the book.  I asked each one to find a) some passage about his character which described him in a way not found (or not so clearly) in the play, and b) a line of dialogue spoken by his character in the book, but not in the play, which gave him some new insight into his role.  This homework is to be shared with me, but not necessarily the whole cast. It is my way of reminding everyone (myself included) that the best way to be faithful to Austen is to develop these characters using all the information she left for us–much of which is not found in the pages of the very compact script adaptation.

The second assignment was due first: I assigned each actor a specific topic related to the world of Jane Austen and Regency England, which they were to research, prepare at least a half-page typed report, and email it to me so that I could format all the reports and distribute a packet of them to each cast member.  Each actor presented his or her research at either the first read-through, or the first ensemble blocking rehearsal.  I will be posting a separate blog before we open, with a condensed version of the results. These will serve as an expansion of the dramaturgy notes in the program (and we’ll put a link to the blog in the program, as well).  I hope that students in particular will find the background helpful.

Buy one season ticket and get a second of equal or lesser value at half off!

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Excellent show. Hilarious stuff! – Nate, Pierceton

Good show, enjoyed the laughs. – Sandra, Fort Wayne

A funny show the whole family will enjoy. – Marcia, Fort Wayne

Our audiences for the opening weekend of The Ransom of Red Chief had a wonderful time! There are still three more performances this coming weekend. Don’t miss your chance to bring the kids and enjoy some fantastic family entertainment.

Performances are at the Allen County Public Library Auditorium.
Friday, November 4, 8 PM
Saturday, November 5, 8 PM
Sunday, November 6, 2:30 PM matinee

Tickets are available at the door.
Adults $15
Seniors(60+) $12
Students $10

Years ago, when I was a very green playwright, a veteran writer and actress confronted me abruptly with the question, “What’s your philosophy of adaptation?” Under different circumstances, I would have loved to ponder that question, and construct a truthful, accurate answer. Being totally cowed by this woman, a larger than life figure to me, I stammered something stupid and was undoubtedly dismissed by her as careless at best.

But I found, in thinking about the question later, that I did in fact have such a philosophy. It has become clarified over time, as I have both written and directed other adaptations, and guided some playwrights who were adapting their stories from other sources.

The playwright (or screenwriter, for that matter) has a responsibility to the spirit of the original story. If one is going to claim that the story is “adapted from” another specific source, one is inviting a comparison to that material. In many cases–such as movies or plays based on children’s books or literary classics–one may even be hoping to create an interest in the original work. But if the adaptation contains material which is completely different from its source, the viewer who wants to compare may well be confused or put off by the differences.

My goal as a playwright is to be faithful to the original, in spirit and in fact, to the best of my ability. That being said, my fidelity is also based on how much I respect the original material. Having a profound reverence for the Christian and Jewish Scriptures, I handle a story from either Testament with much greater care than I would any other source material. And as a director, when a playwright references the Bible I will make sure that this is done accurately.

[A little aside, as an illustration: Crime and Punishment, a play adapted from a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, contains a memorable scene in which one character reads the acccount of the raising of Lazarus from John's gospel. It's an important scene, and the playwrights chose to include it. However, in condensing it (it is a long passage, and even Dosteosky didn't quote it in full), they edited out one of the major characters in the story. Feeling that this took away from the story's integrity, I re-abridged the passage so that it was still faithful to the original text, making the scene just slightly longer in the process.]

In approaching the book of Ruth from the Jewish scriptures, I wanted to make the story understandable although it would appear with no context to many audiences. (However, as a matter of fact, we have presented the story several times over the years as part of a sermon series on Ruth, providing a living illustration of the story.) I tried to describe the action in plain terms, including the legal and cultural setting and plot details. I employed poetic language because Ruth was included in the Poetic books by Jewish tradition (along with Song of Solomon and Psalms).

My most significant “departure” from the original was to put words in Boaz’ mouth which are quotations from David the psalmist. Since David is actually his great-grandson, this is a deliberate anachronism. Boaz, as the Kinsman-Redeemer, is a “type” (foreshadowing) of Christ. He and David are also in the direct line of Jesus the Christ. Therefore I chose to have Boaz speak for himself and his descendant, in a way which is often prophetic.

Stephen Baldwin’s adaptation of Ruth’s story, in his play, My Name is Ruth, is a modern retelling which he’s chosen to set immediately after the second world war. This setting serves several useful functions: it provides a reason for Naomi to have lost her husband (in WWI) and both sons (in WWII); it provides a context in which a young woman is having a difficult time finding a job which will support herself and her mother-in-law. In the aftermath of the war, the flood of returning servicemen took the available jobs and women were expected to return to their primary roles as housewives and mothers. Ruth is neither, and as such is a foreigner in the culture, as well as having been displaced from her home state of Minnesota.

The Jewish law which is the background for the biblical story is a bit obscure. The idea of redeeming a family member’s property isn’t explicitly stated outside of the book of Ruth (although Deuteronomy 25 stipulates that a man should marry his brother’s childless widow and father a son for him, so that his line will not die out). So an adaptation in modern times has very little to go on, and must create a situation which is understandable for us today, without doing violence to the original story. The idea of a lienholder who needs to be satisfied is easy to grasp. The more obscure statute about marrying the widow is given a somewhat tongue-in-cheek treatment… we all have heard of old statutes still on the books which are not followed any more.

Audiences seeing an adaptation can rightly ask themselves: What is the main idea in this version? What is the theme? What does the playwright want me to take away from this? It’s entirely possible for different versions of the story to result in very different answers to these questions. One hopes that each version adds insights to make a richer story, rather than telling a story which is contrary to the intent of the original.

Rehearsals will begin Wednesday, September 14, 2011, and continue on Monday, WEDNESDAY and Thursday, at FMC.  More questions?  Call Lauren, 246-1989.