The Wilder/Ludwig Adaptation
Save perhaps for early adjustments and slight alterations here and there, The Beaux' Stratagem has not been widely or frequently adapted (not, at least, on a large scale). This most marked adaptation of The Beaux' Stratagem began with the tinkering of Thornton Wilder and reached completion over sixty years later, in the hands of Ken Ludwig and onstage in Washington, DC. During the late 1930s, Thornton Wilder (yes, the Wilder of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth) set to adapting Farquhar's play. He didn't finish the project, however, and Ken Ludwig (think Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo) picked it up in 2004, gave the play a final presumed polish, and there the newly revised Beaux' Stratagem stood, ready to hit the stage... Or, at least, to head into production at DC's Shakespeare Theater.
Speaking (in an interview with Lincoln Konkle) on considering Wilder's unfinished adaptation of Farquhar's play, Ludwig remarked,
"I imagine that Wilder must have said to himself something like this: 'Here is a great piece of theatre with really remarkable comic exuberance and unusually wonderful characters, and it goes unperformed for decades at a time because it’s too long, too dense, and has too many complicated sub-plots. So why don’t I shake things up a bit? I’ll keep the exuberant story-line, the major characters and the great speeches, and I’ll cut out all the boring bits. And to make up for the cuts, I’ll add some new plot twists and write some new scenes. Then, perhaps, I can restore this play to the glory it deserves.'"
Check out The Shakespeare Theatre Company's show site for further information regarding the adaptation, and about Farquhar himself. A couple of theatre reviews of The Shakespeare Theatre's production will offer outside impressions of the adaptation.
If you'd like a glimpse for yourself, Google Books offers a preview of the adapted script, and the full script is also available for purchase.
Question for Pondering: This matter of adaptation raises questions that were quite prevalent during the early-18th Century, as the print market flourished and debates over ownership moved slowly toward the formation of copyright laws. During this time, too, appropriators ran rampant with popular works, lifting and adapting in order to make marks of their own (one need only take a look at the Pamela craze to see this phenomenon exemplified). Questions of the author's right to his or her own work seemed to become more common; to what extent did works and even ideas belong to any particular author, and at what point might they be shared by all?
Here, then, we might asked whether the Ludwig-Wilder adaptation is a matter of "restoring the play," or whether it is something more like creating a new work. Picking, choosing, and remolding can very quickly blur a work's (dare we say original... or perhaps simply earlier) identity. Where is the original or are the originals here, and who may lay claim to creative talent? Having undergone the treatment of three separate playwrights (noting again that the writers were separated by decades or even centuries, so that none were in, eh, lively conversation), having been altered to suit more modern sensibilities and clear up supposed clutter, to whom does this new Stratagem belong? At what point does it become more Wilder and/or Ludwig's than Farquhar's? What does this shifted authorship mean? And, at bottom, does this matter of the author matter overmuch?
Just a bit of matter for mulling, there.
Return to The Play.
Speaking (in an interview with Lincoln Konkle) on considering Wilder's unfinished adaptation of Farquhar's play, Ludwig remarked,
"I imagine that Wilder must have said to himself something like this: 'Here is a great piece of theatre with really remarkable comic exuberance and unusually wonderful characters, and it goes unperformed for decades at a time because it’s too long, too dense, and has too many complicated sub-plots. So why don’t I shake things up a bit? I’ll keep the exuberant story-line, the major characters and the great speeches, and I’ll cut out all the boring bits. And to make up for the cuts, I’ll add some new plot twists and write some new scenes. Then, perhaps, I can restore this play to the glory it deserves.'"
Check out The Shakespeare Theatre Company's show site for further information regarding the adaptation, and about Farquhar himself. A couple of theatre reviews of The Shakespeare Theatre's production will offer outside impressions of the adaptation.
If you'd like a glimpse for yourself, Google Books offers a preview of the adapted script, and the full script is also available for purchase.
Question for Pondering: This matter of adaptation raises questions that were quite prevalent during the early-18th Century, as the print market flourished and debates over ownership moved slowly toward the formation of copyright laws. During this time, too, appropriators ran rampant with popular works, lifting and adapting in order to make marks of their own (one need only take a look at the Pamela craze to see this phenomenon exemplified). Questions of the author's right to his or her own work seemed to become more common; to what extent did works and even ideas belong to any particular author, and at what point might they be shared by all?
Here, then, we might asked whether the Ludwig-Wilder adaptation is a matter of "restoring the play," or whether it is something more like creating a new work. Picking, choosing, and remolding can very quickly blur a work's (dare we say original... or perhaps simply earlier) identity. Where is the original or are the originals here, and who may lay claim to creative talent? Having undergone the treatment of three separate playwrights (noting again that the writers were separated by decades or even centuries, so that none were in, eh, lively conversation), having been altered to suit more modern sensibilities and clear up supposed clutter, to whom does this new Stratagem belong? At what point does it become more Wilder and/or Ludwig's than Farquhar's? What does this shifted authorship mean? And, at bottom, does this matter of the author matter overmuch?
Just a bit of matter for mulling, there.
Return to The Play.
