Monday, December 03, 2018
Aaron Sorkin on Adapting Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
www.vulture.com: “I have something very exciting to talk to you about.” That’s how Scott Rudin, the EGOT-winning producer, began a phone call to me three years ago. The last three times he’d called me to say, “I have something very exciting to talk to you about,” I ended up writing The Social Network, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs. So I was listening.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I think it's interesting how in this play adaptation, Atticus, whom we have really only seen through the eyes of his child, we can now see through our own eyes, as an added protagonist. The difficult thing about creating a character arc for Atticus is that as a society we all know his name to be associated with justice, and so to give him a terrible fatal flaw would ruin that entire familiarity to us. Another interesting change to the story is the heightened integration of the black characters into the story. As the article talks about, this is a story which largely surrounds racial injustice, and we can't include black characters like Calpurnia and Tom to just exist as set pieces; in this time and place they need to have more of a voice. Now, in an earlier article that was posted I commented about the use of adults as children. Now, because of this article I understand more of why the writers and directors made that decision, that the play helps resemble more memories, and with the right adult actors they could pull it off. However, I still stand by my belief that the children should be played by children. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story that many of us read between the ages of 10-13, just like the kids in the book. If we know what is going on, then a talented child actor can also do that, and help bring a specific innocence and perspective to the show that I don't think is as authentic with adult actors.
This article brings a really interesting perspective on how a show goes from idea to the stage. Most of the time these articles are with the leading actor or the creative team, so it was nice to hear the perspective of the playwright. To Kill A Mockingbird has been in the press a lot because of the lawsuit against it from harper lees estate. In the press you never really get a full story of what happened and why certain things happen that way. Here Aaron tells us what happened from his side of the story. As mentioned in the article, Scott Rudin is the producer and I look up to him greatly for his producing work. What him and Aaron are doing some might say is impossible. They took one of the greatest American novels and tried to adapt it to the stage. I think the smartest move they made was having the children played by adult actors. I am so excited to see this show!
This is a very interesting article. I really enjoy Aaron Sorkin as a writer. I especially enjoyed watching The Newsroom and The Social Network. However, I am unfamiliar with Aaron Sorkin as a playwright. Sorkin has a very specific writing style, which is very fast paced and sometimes appears very chaotic, but in reality is planned down to the very detail. It will be very interesting to see how he adapts this play, as many of the skills are the same. However, To Kill a Mockingbird is a quintessential American novel, which nearly everyone has read, or at least heard of. This means that the adaptation is on Sorkin to make this adaptation to make it good as well as accurate to the original story. I will enjoy seeing what happens in the end.
Post a Comment