Posted by Duncan on January 01, 2012 at 22:35:41 user Duncan.
In Reply to: S & A Stage Production posted by Mike Dennis on January 01, 2012 at 08:06:05:
Totally understand the desire to be protective of the book(s), Mike, and I also write this from a position of not having seen the stage production but having seen some documentaries, etc.
It appears to me that, as soon as you decide to put something on the stage - and especially as a musical - you have to have made a decision that you are not going for realism (unless it's a kitchen-sink drama mostly in one room, perhaps). Now this is a problem with an AR adaptation because it is - on one level - a very realistic novel. On another level, of course, it is all about fantasy and play and it is that aspect of the story that the team behind the stage musical appear to have focused on. Without having seen the production I can't say how successfully, although reviews and comments suggest it might have been very successful.
So once you've decided the children are adults, you either have adults pretending to be children (which rarely works well) or you suspend disbelief - a beard can help with this! Colour-blind casting is a definite advantage of having eschewed realism in casting - once the actors are representing children rather than being children, then all other identities are up for grabs too.
How do you capture that sense of fantasy and play in a stage production? You could decide to have dream sequences, make use of sound effects (like in the 1974 film for Titty's Robinson Crusoe time) or - once you've decided against realism and cast members are playing instruments and cormorants are made out of bin bags - you can visually represent it. So, for Titty, they were priates, so that's what we see (I'm assuming this to be the case).
I really want to see the production - I'm sure I will have criticisms of it and it won't be exactly as I'd have done it myself, but that's just natural. I am, in general, quite excited about it. I, like you, am protective of the source material, but I also appreciate that an adaptation has to be just that.