NYTimes.com: THE estate of Ralph Ellison had never allowed his classic 1952 novel “Invisible Man” to be adapted for another medium, until Oren Jacoby came along. And even after Mr. Jacoby turned the 439-page book into a play — with not a word of new dialogue, as part of the agreement — many theaters passed on staging it, calling it unwieldy or wrong for their audiences.
2 comments:
I think this sounds fantastic. I'm not sure I like the fact that they kept most of the words the same. I agree with Marks's review in that the play seems to recreate the book word for word. I strongly believe that theatre is a playground for experimentation, and perhaps this would be a great opportunity to switch around certain accents, like changing elite-white accents with black vernacular. As for the photo in the article, I thought it was gorgeous. I liked how the designer physically had a ceiling of light bulbs in order to portray the fact that the narrator lived underneath an electric company. The simple scrim walls were genius, creating an "invisible" wall. The lighting and color of bricks were also interesting choices. I can see how they can represent both Harlem and the South. It's also nice to see the designer separate the narrator from his memories. I would like to see this production in the future. It has both interesting design choices as well as social and political issues, which always win in theatre.
I was originally confused because I was sure that I had seen a movie of Invisible man, but it turns out that was actually scenes from a documentary on Ralph Ellison. The photo at the beginning of the article distinctly reminds me of the documentary as well, but that may be because there are only so many ways one can stage that particular basement scene. I feel it may have been a mistake to have kept the book mostly word for word, because one of the useful things about changing mediums is that different mediums portray things differently, and thus allow the creator to highlight different things, and to portray things differently, a flexibility that may be missing.
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