Adaptation

Adaptation studies have come a long way from its humble beginnings in the late 1960s and early ’70s, particularly with the advent of academic studies of Shakespeare on film ¹and an obsession with “faithfulness” to an ostensible original. The few scholars working on adaptations focused mostly on adaptations of classical Western dramas (read Shakespeare and the Greeks). They assumed an awareness of the original on the part of audiences, assumed the superiority of the original, cast the new text solely in its relationship to the original, and posited it as a singular act of an author/artist reworking elements of the original. An overarching concern with the notion of “fidelity” to the original—how well the new text cleaved to the old—thus also ignored larger cultural and economic realities.

Since these early efforts, the understanding of what adaptation is, how it “works,” and the relationship between source text and new work has radically changed. Fidelity to a text is not relevant if the audience does not know it. For example, Nigerian playwright Ola Rotimi adapted Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannusinto The Gods Are Not to Blame, an incredibly popular play in Nigeria when it first appeared and one for whom few in the audience even knew of the original. ²The crowds that attended the initial productions in Nigeria did not compare Rotimi’s with an original with which they were familiar, but rather embraced The Godsas a wholly original, wholly Nigerian work. Adaptation is thus an “original” work in and of itself, especially if its audience has no referent to which to compare it for fidelity. We also know now that the original is not necessarily superior. (An extreme example: quaint and famous for introducing the world to Jack Nicholson, the original The Little Shop of Horrors[1960], directed by Roger Corman, was filmed in two days on sets from other films. Meanwhile, the stage musical adaptation is arguably a far more successful work of art within its own medium, and even then only if one must compare.) Lastly, adaptations are big business beyond Broadway and Hollywood, offering often the only way for artists around the globe to get their work noticed by producers, bookers, and festival organizers. Catharine Diamond reports that at a showcase of a dozen Cambodian dance dramas presented for potential international touring at the Royal University of Performing Arts at Phnom Penh in 2002, only Samritechak, Sophiline Cheam Shapiro’s Robam Kbach Boraan(traditional Cambodian dance) adaptation of Othello, which had already been selected for the Hong Kong Arts Festival, was of interest to American producers. ³In terms of foreign drama presented for Western audiences, a familiar text in foreign clothing is far more welcome that an entirely mysterious new and original work. The economics of adaptation cannot be disregarded.

It is not surprising, then, that linguistic and translation theory are coming to dominate adaptation studies at the moment. Another bugbear from the early days of adaptation studies: the original and the adaptation were considered as complete works and measured side by side. Texts, narrative, and language, however, can be broken down into component parts that do different things. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadis not Hamlet, nor even a simple rearrangement of the elements of Hamlet. If one wanted to read or perform Hamlet, one could. Stoppard’s variation uses some of the components of Hamletto build something radically different. In examining Stoppard’s text, one looks at the syntax of Shakespeare, the phonemes and morphemes so to speak, to see how the two different authors structure them. Stoppard does not translate Shakespeare into another language...