Indicative Only
DRAM40530 Adaptations: Stagewriting/Screenwriting
Convenor Dr Eamonn Jordan
Teaching Team: Dr Bisi Adigun, Feidlim Cannon, Kellie Hughes, Dr Eamonn Jordan, Mark O’Halloran, Dr Noelia Ruiz, Dr Salomé Paul, Dr Jeanne Tiehen, Dr Tim Troy
Thursday: 10:00-11:00 Student peer-led session
Seminar: 11:00-13:00
Venue C216 TBC
Module Descriptor:
This is a more a creativity rather than theory-led module that examines the instincts and inducements of writers to adapt, revise, alter, amend, supplement, and transform original works, cultural narratives and personal testimonies into different genres. The module is not inclined to focus on the adaptations of novels of which there are numerous examples in thea-tre, television and film, but includes many examples of the adaptation of other media to theatre and theatre to other media.
Adaptation will be seen in light of feminist revisions of Greek tragedy and classic realism, theatrical mashups/re-mediations devised by companies like Britain’s Punchdrunk and Ireland’s Pan Pan or Loose Canon theatre companies, textual deconstruction and re-orientation evident in in Thomas Ostermeir’s Hamlet or She She Pop’s King Lear-inspired Testament, Katie Mitchell’s version of Woolf’s novel Waves through an approach titled “live cinema,” Complicité’s highly technological adaptation of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, the various versions of The Birds – initially du Mauri-er(novella), then Hitchcock (film), later McPherson (play) –, and McPher-son’s incorporation of Bob Dylan’s songs in Girl from the North Country.
Such adapted works will be seen as a creative, critical and interventionist process, and variously viewed in terms of inspiration, interrogation, transportation, creative questioning, exchange or appropriation and not about faithfulness to the original text. Languages, cultures, epochs, points of view, genres, attitudes towards time, space, focalisation and ideological differentials will be considered. Workshops, seminars and masterclasses by academics and professionals from the cultural industry will inform this laboratory-style module.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students will have
• Analysed and critiqued a range of written, broadcast and performance texts that have been variously adapted
• Embarked on the necessary research for creative writing projects
• Reflected on the various technical and performance requirements of different media
• Experienced various techniques, styles and processes through the practice of adaptation
• Written creative work inspired by an original source – by way of adaptation, modification, transposition, or interrogation
• Partaken and collaborated with peers in effective reflections on the texts/productions engaged over the module and on student generated work
• Found a voice, viewpoint and the confidence to assert opinions creatively
• Evolved critical evaluative skills and cogently communicated this analysis in verbal and written forms
• Considered issues of exchange and appropriation in relation to approaching/encountering stories and forms from diverse cultures
• Questioned the role of culture in the challenging and reinforcement of dominant ideology
• Evolved arguments cognisant of the current critical debates about adaptation
• Pinpointed professional opportunities for their work.
Attendance is mandatory as is a willingness to participate frequently and effectively in the seminar. Weekly specific readings will be set, which may inspire projects that students can develop during the module and after.
Assessment:
1. Contribution (40%) (This mark includes class preparation, contribution to class discussion, the completion of weekly micro-scene writing exercises. (Students will have their work collectively read peer to peer n the hour prior to class 10-11). These exercises will be submitted at the end of the semester in a single portfolio, and this work can be revised throughout the semester. Some samples documenting a script’s evolution may be useful.) NB: You are expected to present the entire portfolio, but only 5, that you select, will be graded.
2. Adaptation Case study (30%) A reflective commentary on the creative adaptation process. This can be based on any of the module readings. (2000 words)
3. 10-15 minute piece of writing (30%), inspired by the notion of adaptation, including the reworking of a short story, painting, scene from a classic play, etc.
Writing Exercises
Each week short writing exercises, mainly micro-scenes will be required; the aim is to establish authorial voice, tone and perspective.
1. Students present such work (5minute sample) every other week to the whole group for feedback in advance of the seminar (10-11 Am). Group A and Group B
2. Please note: Do not ask guests to read your work.
NB: Exercise list is provisional
WK 1- (26/01) Introduction: Adaptation, Interrogation and Inspiration: Nora: After A Doll’s House, Stef Smith (EJ) – Please Read Ibsen’s play as well if you are not familiar with it.
Read: Linda Hutcheon Introduction to A Theory of Adaptation latest edition- Available on Brightspace and on UCD’s Library
Reading Optional: Anne Fogarty’s essays
Exercise 1: Free write in response to any Ibsen scene, inspired by Steff Smith’s approach -5 minute piece
WK 2- (02/02) Autobiographical Adaptation: Processes and Collaborations Manning and O’Brien’s Striking Back: The Untold Story of an Ant-Apartheid Striker 1984 Dunnes Stores Apartheid and Kellie Hughes and Matthew Spangler Adaptation (KH)
Wk3 (09/02) Jet of Blood and Approaching the archives (TT)
Exercise: Write a short scene in relation to an historical incident or archival material
WK4- (16/02) Frankenstein: The Monster that Adapts (JT)
Read/Watch: Nick Dear’s Frankenstein, available on Drama Online. Can ei-ther read script or watch the filmed production.
Read: Dear, Nick, and Anne K. Mellor. "Adapting the Unthinkable: An In-terview." Huntington Library Quarterly 83, no. 4 (2020): 789-798. doi:10.1353/hlq.2020.0027.
WK5 – (23/02) From Song to Play: Girl from the North Country by Bob Dylan/Conor McPherson (EJ)
Exercise 3: Write a short scene inspired by any of Dylan’s songs included in this play
WK 6: (02/03) Idea to Concept/Devising Theatre and Adaptation (NR)
WK 7 (09/03) Idea to Concept Devising Theatre:- Pan Pan and Doll House (NR)
Here is the video link https://vimeo.com/45746322: Password to follow
Exercise 4: Reconsider Ibsen’s play through a post-dramatic lens
(Spring Break)
Wk 8 (30/03) Sally Rooney’s Conversations Among Friends: Novel/Screen (M O’H)
Exercise 5: Write a short scene for film based on the opening scene from Rooney’s- Beautiful World Where are Thou!
Wk 9 (06/04) Adapting Chekhov’s The Three Sisters (JT)
Caldwell, Lucy and Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. 2018. The Three Sis-ters. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Jane Barnette, “The Power of Adapturgy,” in Adapturgy : The Dramaturg's Art and Theatrical Adaptation, Southern Illinois University Press, 2017. Pgs 37-47.
Wk 10 (13/04) Autobiography/Performance Mary Coughlan/Brokentalker’s A Woman Undone (FC)
Exercise 6: Take any work of autobiography and draft a short scene
Wk 11: (20/04) Euripides’s Medea/Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (SP)
Exercise 2: Write a short scene inspired by Medea.
Wk 12: (27/04) From Monologue to Television: Fleabag, Phoebe Waller Bridge (EJ)
Exercise 7: Find a monologue and create a short 5 minute piece for television
Additional Readings
Ackybourn, Alan, The Crafty Art of Playmaking (London: Faber and Faber, 2002)
Babbage, Frances, Adaptation in Contemporary Theatre: Performing Literature (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017)
Baines, Roger, Cristina Marinetti and Manuela Perteghella, eds, Staging and Performing Translation (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011)
Bolton, Gavin, (2014) Reflective Practice Writing and Professional Development, Sage Publications
Cutchins, Dennis, et al., eds, The Routledge Companion to Adaptation
Cutchins, Dennis, Katja Krebs and Eckart Voigts, eds. The Routledge Companion to Adaptation. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.
Elliott, Kamilla. Theorizing Adaptation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020.
Edgar, David, How Plays Work (London: NHB, 2009)
Fogarty, Anne, “Reconfigurations of Gender in Contemporary Irish Stage Adaptations, 2019-2020: Deirdre Kinahan’s The Unmanageable Sisters, Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls, Marina Carr’s Hecuba, and Michael West’s Solar Bones”, Stage Irish: Performance, Identity, Cultural Circulation. Ed. Paul Fagan, Dieter Fuchs, and Tamara Radak. Irish Studies in Europe, Vol. 10. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2021, 209-226
Fogarty, Anne, “Ripping Up the Original?: Fictional Adaptations in Contemporary Irish Theatre, in The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre ,eds, Jordan, Weitz. (2018)
Fountain, Tim, So you want to be a Playwright (London: NHB, 2007)
Friedman, Sharon, Feminist Theatrical Revisions of Classic Works: Critical Essays (Jefferson, N.C.; London: McFarland, 2009)
Hurley, Erin, Theatre and Feeling (Bassingstoke: Palgrave 2010)
Hutcheon, Linda, A Theory of Adaptation (London: Routledge, 2012, revised edition)
Leitch, Thomas, ed. The Oxford Handbook to Adaptation Studies. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2017.
Mamet, David, Three Uses of the Knife: On the nature and purposes of Drama (Methuen: London 2002)
Murray, Simone, The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Contemporary Literary Adaptation. New York and London: Routledge, 2011
O'Toole, Emer, et al, Ethical Exchanges in Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2017)
Reilly, Kara, ed., Contemporary Approaches to Adaptation in Theatre (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
Stephens, Simon. (2016) A Working Diary, Bloomsbury
Vogler, Christopher, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007) (3rd Edition)
Waters, Steve, The Secret Life of Plays (London: NHB, 2010)