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Dealing with Ambiguity in Adapting Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw" to the Stage
- The Henry James Review
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 40, Number 1, Winter 2019
- pp. 82-90
- 10.1353/hjr.2019.0007
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
Having written stage adaptations of four of Jane Austen's novels over the past ten years, the author was asked to adapt Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw" for a theatrical production in England. Specifically, he was tasked with retaining the ambiguity of the novella, not easy, or perhaps even possible on the stage. He looked to the critical work on the subject for help and found too much and not enough. This is a brief essay about how he eventually found the "right" approach.