The Politics of Adapting Behn's Oroonoko

The Politics ofAdapting Behn's Oroonoko Anne F. Widmayer ET) iyi Bandele's 1999 adaptation ofAphra Behn's novel, Oroonoko: Or, X) The Royal Slave (1688), commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, proved to be an interesting play theatrically. Bandele and the RSC director, Gregory Doran, were particularly successful in evoking the African culture of Coramantien through song, dance, and mythology .As reviewers ofthe production noted, Bandele's Oroonoko was visually stimulating and emotionallyarresting. However,some critics noticed that the second half seemed lackluster in comparison with the African first half. Jane Edwards, for instance, remarked that "the originality of the African scenes only serves to show up the more predictable scenario in the West Indies"; Patrick Marmion wrote, "One moment it [the first half, set in Coramantien] is bright and breezy and the next it blazes with incandescent choreography before the descent into darkness. Perhaps the second half loses dramatic focus as the plot diversifies into melodrama , but its momentum is sustained by the memory ofparadise lost"; and Susanah Clapp observed that "the second half of the play cracks under the weight of melodramatic events."1 What these critics instinctively realized is that Bandele's writing in the first half is much different from what he has stolen in the second half from two earlier dramatic adaptations of Behn's novel, Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko: A Tragedy (1695) and John Hawkesworth's Oroonoko (1759).That the halfin which Southerne's hand is most evident is viewed as less effective dramatically makes one wonder why Bandele stole from Southerne or Hawkesworth at all. Clearly, he is more attuned to contemporary audiences' tastes and has a keen instinct for dramatic pacing and ironically paired incidents in the two parts. 189 190Comparative Drama The borrowings that we find in Bandele's adaptation may suggest that the meaning of the term plagiarism as it was established for unacknowledged literary theft in the seventeenth century may no longer matter. Yet, though the use of literary material in the public domain is legally not a crime,the adaptation in this case needs to be redressed since it is certainly morally and ethically unfair to three authors, not only Behn but also the two playwrights who previously adapted her work and from which he takes a great deal of material. Of particular concern are his changes that affect the way in which contemporary audiences are led to view her work. Bandele's adaptation revises Behn to make her appear more interested in the native culture ofherAfrican slave prince than she really was, but this has the unfortunate effect of erasing the troubling similarities between Oroonoko and the white slave owners (and, in particular ,the white female narrator) which the novel emphasizes. Her novel is not the easily assimilated tale about politicallycorrect"good"and"bad" characters that Bandele's adaptation makes it appear to be, for it concerns characters whose actions cannot be characterized with such broad strokes. On the other hand, Southerne and Hawkesworth are not given the credit they deserve for the segments that are lifted from their work. Part I: Adapting Behn's Novel Part 1 of Bandele's adaptation, in which Oroonoko meets and marries Imoinda—along with the misfortunes that follow—is very loosely based on Behn's novel. As Doran has written in his preface to the published edition, other exercises in adapting the novel for the stage focused instead on Oronooko's life as a slave and ignore the first halfofher fiction. Doran trumpets Bandele's achievement and implies that he has created the most faithful adaptation ofthe novel because the playwright"brings both halves of his hero's story together, from warrior and prince in the West African Kingdom of Coramantien to slave in Surinam. This is the first time, therefore, that Oroonoko's entire story has been presented on the stage."2 But we may wonder whether Bandele has in fact left room for "Oroonoko's entire story" when we realize he has created five entirely new characters. In addition, other characters that existed in Behn's novel, such as Imoinda's father and the King ofCoramantien, have been Anne F. Widmayer191 fleshed out, and he has split...