William Shakespeare has been jokingly called the most prolific screenwriter in Hollywood. At no time is that perhaps more befitting than right now.
With upcoming movie adaptations of such plays as Frost/Nixon and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt, it seems Hollywood is looking evermore toward the stage for the sake of the big-screen.
“There’s some great stuff out there in theatre,” said filmmaker Darren Lynn Bousman who directed Repo! The Genetic Opera on stage before recently adapting it for the cinema. “Even in Los Angeles, these little black box theatres have incredible things that, in my mind, are better than a lot of movies out there.”
Perhaps no one knows this better than Luke Brown. As associate artistic director of Halifax’s Neptune Theatre, he has just staged a successful run of Frost/Nixon and will be presenting Doubt in March.
“When we chose the show, we weren’t even aware of the film,” said Brown, admitting that cinematic counterparts aren’t always advantageous from a marketing perspective, as they discovered staging The Producers last year.
“The film wasn’t really well received and I think that may have hurt some people’s view of going to see it (as a play).”
While musical-adaptations generally perform better on film, plays like Frost/Nixon continue to struggle jumping the cinematic synapse: Mamma Mia! earned an estimated $143 million in multiplexes, but the Tony Award-winning play-turned-movie History Boys only wrangled $2.7 million.
Conversely, more successful has been reworking film for theatre. With Dirty Dancing, The Color Purple, Young Frankenstein and even Shrek being adapted for the stage, the lights of Broadway could easily be mistaken for the billboards on Sunset Strip.
”If people are lying down $50 for something, they want to lay down $50 for something they’re familiar with,” said Brown about the trend. “Something that they haven’t heard of, people may be a little more hesitant to throw down money on.”
Surprisingly, as a theatre person, Brown isn’t insulted by this rejuvenated fad of turning films into theatre. In fact, he only has one deep regret and that’s the stage-adaptation of cult zombie classic Evil Dead.
“I was devastated when I heard it was being done (for the stage),” said Brown. “I wanted to do it myself.”
