KD^3C^3 - 20250323 While the monkeys type away
I didn't write anything this week.
I'm trying to not let it feel like a failure so much as an acknowledgment that writing is a process that involves more than just putting words to (digital) paper. You have to put work into thinking about what you want to write, absorbing new ideas, actually writing things down, refining what you wrote and all the other phemeral seps.
But I don't feel like I did any of those either this week.
IN college I got a 'job" as a columnist for the college newspaper. It was a job only insomuch as I did work, I did not get paid. I think I lasted bout 6 months before I quit. I had one successful column and a lot of others that weren't. I had a deadline of writing 600 words every week. and more often than not I woke p on the morning of my deadline and spilled out whatever I could into the pages. It probably wasn't very good. But I don't know that I;ve gotten any better either, since It is Sunday morning and I am seeing what words are spilling out into the page today.
I've watched a few different Shakespeare Adaptations recently and I can't seem to watch a Shakespeare adaptation without thinking about how I would adapt the same script. Back in Feburary I wrote about my imagined production of Two Noble Kinsmen where they never escape jail, and instead tell themselves the story of the play, acting out all the parts.
This week I watched My Own Private Idaho and Much Ado. My Own Private Idaho, directed by Gus Van Sant is a 1990s adaptation of Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 and Henry V, but set in the world of street hustlers in Portland. It's is already an adaptation, so I didn't think much about how I would change it, rather I went to look up what changes had been made to the source texts in the process of adaptation. What I learned is that its the loosest of adaptations. Even calling it that gives too much credit to the Bard, I think. It's a very good film, starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, but the Shakespeare connections are there, but they are in service to the story being told, rather than the story being in service of the Shakespeare. I was reminded most of another adaptation (that I haven't watched,) Orson Welles' Chimes of Midnight. Chimes of Midnight takes all (most?) of the scenes of Falstaff across the different Shakespeare plays where the character appears and combines them into a single narrative following that character. There's a Falstaff analog in My Own Private Idaho, and his performance reminded me of Welles in some interesting ways.
Much Ado directed by the aptly named sisters Anna-Elizabeth and Hilary Shakespeare, on the other hand, was a very straightforward adaptation of the original text. the changes that were made (In addition to the cutting down of lines, not unusual) were limited to location and time. The show was set in a roughly high-school-age setting. Instead of returning from a war, the men are all returning from a rugby match. Other than that, it's a Fairly straightforward telling of the play.
I like Much Ado About Nothing as a play. I don't know if it's my favorite Shakespeare (that's a hard question) but I like it a lot. Beatrice and Benedick are fun, and the central attraction of the play. When I was watching this version I kept thinking about how one might adapt it to be closer in spirit to something like 10 Things I Hate About You or She's The Man, where the structure serves as an inspiration but it's less of a direct literalization.
Because some of the things in the script of Much Ado don't work great in a high school setting. There's a wedding within a week of people meeting, an infidelity plot, a fake death, a fake wedding, just a whole lot of things that feel... out of place in a high school.
So how would I adapt Much Ado for a high school setting? Well I 'd focus in on Beatrice and Benedick for much of the plot, they get sidelined in the latter half of the play as all those wedding shenanigans are going on. There was a modern interpretation of Much Ado last year called Anything But You which ditched almost all of the wedding shenanigans, to the films credit. It also subverted the "tricked into failing in love" story by having the Beatrice and Benedick analogues see right through the plot and use it to their own advantage.
I liked that Idea, but I would go a different direction with it. I would present it more like a double version of She's All That, where the popular kids make a bet to see if they can get two nerds who hate each other to fall in love. That would take up the majority of the plot, and the wedding stuff would easily migrate to Prom Queen & King , the ready made high-school analog to a big fancy wedding.
You could even still have Dogberry, a crowd favorite, be the one who discovers the villain accidentally and resolves the plot, but that would all be more in the background to the Beatrice and Benedick story. You can't take more than a third of the play away from the main characters.
I haven't settled on a clever name, but I also maintain 10 Things I Hate ABout You is a terrible name for that movie, and only works at all because it kind of sort of rhymes with Taming of The Shrew. I think if I had to pick something now, it would be a line both Beatrice and Benedick say near the end of the play No More Than Reason. it has a similar vibe to Much Ado About Nothing (I'm not sure I can explain why) but feels far enough removed that you know not to expect the same thing
I'm trying to not let it feel like a failure so much as an acknowledgment that writing is a process that involves more than just putting words to (digital) paper. You have to put work into thinking about what you want to write, absorbing new ideas, actually writing things down, refining what you wrote and all the other phemeral seps.
But I don't feel like I did any of those either this week.
IN college I got a 'job" as a columnist for the college newspaper. It was a job only insomuch as I did work, I did not get paid. I think I lasted bout 6 months before I quit. I had one successful column and a lot of others that weren't. I had a deadline of writing 600 words every week. and more often than not I woke p on the morning of my deadline and spilled out whatever I could into the pages. It probably wasn't very good. But I don't know that I;ve gotten any better either, since It is Sunday morning and I am seeing what words are spilling out into the page today.
I've watched a few different Shakespeare Adaptations recently and I can't seem to watch a Shakespeare adaptation without thinking about how I would adapt the same script. Back in Feburary I wrote about my imagined production of Two Noble Kinsmen where they never escape jail, and instead tell themselves the story of the play, acting out all the parts.
This week I watched My Own Private Idaho and Much Ado. My Own Private Idaho, directed by Gus Van Sant is a 1990s adaptation of Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 and Henry V, but set in the world of street hustlers in Portland. It's is already an adaptation, so I didn't think much about how I would change it, rather I went to look up what changes had been made to the source texts in the process of adaptation. What I learned is that its the loosest of adaptations. Even calling it that gives too much credit to the Bard, I think. It's a very good film, starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, but the Shakespeare connections are there, but they are in service to the story being told, rather than the story being in service of the Shakespeare. I was reminded most of another adaptation (that I haven't watched,) Orson Welles' Chimes of Midnight. Chimes of Midnight takes all (most?) of the scenes of Falstaff across the different Shakespeare plays where the character appears and combines them into a single narrative following that character. There's a Falstaff analog in My Own Private Idaho, and his performance reminded me of Welles in some interesting ways.
Much Ado directed by the aptly named sisters Anna-Elizabeth and Hilary Shakespeare, on the other hand, was a very straightforward adaptation of the original text. the changes that were made (In addition to the cutting down of lines, not unusual) were limited to location and time. The show was set in a roughly high-school-age setting. Instead of returning from a war, the men are all returning from a rugby match. Other than that, it's a Fairly straightforward telling of the play.
I like Much Ado About Nothing as a play. I don't know if it's my favorite Shakespeare (that's a hard question) but I like it a lot. Beatrice and Benedick are fun, and the central attraction of the play. When I was watching this version I kept thinking about how one might adapt it to be closer in spirit to something like 10 Things I Hate About You or She's The Man, where the structure serves as an inspiration but it's less of a direct literalization.
Because some of the things in the script of Much Ado don't work great in a high school setting. There's a wedding within a week of people meeting, an infidelity plot, a fake death, a fake wedding, just a whole lot of things that feel... out of place in a high school.
So how would I adapt Much Ado for a high school setting? Well I 'd focus in on Beatrice and Benedick for much of the plot, they get sidelined in the latter half of the play as all those wedding shenanigans are going on. There was a modern interpretation of Much Ado last year called Anything But You which ditched almost all of the wedding shenanigans, to the films credit. It also subverted the "tricked into failing in love" story by having the Beatrice and Benedick analogues see right through the plot and use it to their own advantage.
I liked that Idea, but I would go a different direction with it. I would present it more like a double version of She's All That, where the popular kids make a bet to see if they can get two nerds who hate each other to fall in love. That would take up the majority of the plot, and the wedding stuff would easily migrate to Prom Queen & King , the ready made high-school analog to a big fancy wedding.
You could even still have Dogberry, a crowd favorite, be the one who discovers the villain accidentally and resolves the plot, but that would all be more in the background to the Beatrice and Benedick story. You can't take more than a third of the play away from the main characters.
I haven't settled on a clever name, but I also maintain 10 Things I Hate ABout You is a terrible name for that movie, and only works at all because it kind of sort of rhymes with Taming of The Shrew. I think if I had to pick something now, it would be a line both Beatrice and Benedick say near the end of the play No More Than Reason. it has a similar vibe to Much Ado About Nothing (I'm not sure I can explain why) but feels far enough removed that you know not to expect the same thing