Here's the long-awaited second collaboratioin between myself and Tim Brayton, film blogger extraordinaire over at Antagony and Ecstasy, where this article is also posted. This time, rather than a stage-based movie, we have a film-influenced play. Enjoy!
TIM: In 1954, Collier’s Magazine began serializing a science-fiction novel by Jack Finney, titled The Body Snatchers. It was fairly characteristic of the genre fiction of the ‘50s: essentially conservative, telling the story of a perfectly ordinary town that finds itself under siege by an incomprehensible alien force, and committed to the notion that human – that is, American – ingenuity and stubbornness can trump even the most implacable foe, so take that, Commies!
The crux of the tale, that the planet Earth has been invaded by alien spores that can form a perfect clone of any living being, except for their total lack of emotion, is one of amazing possibility, which is probably why Finney’s novel (published in book form in 1955, and revised in 1976) has been dramatized so many times: no fewer than four motion pictures have been adapted from the material, starting with a reasonably faithful 1956 film titled Invasion of the Body Snatchers, all the way to a remarkably shoddy Nicole Kidman popcorn movie from 2007 simply called The Invasion. And now, we have a stage version, courtesy of Chicago’s City Lit theater company and adapter-director Paul Edwards.
The confluence of Chicago theater and classic cinema doesn’t come along that often, which is why we’ve joined forces to discuss this new project. First, Zev has some words about the genesis of the play, and Paul Edwards’ specific attachment to the pop culture of the 1950s.
ZEV: Adapter/director Paul Edwards is a professor at Northwestern in the department of Performance Studies. To brutally simplify a complex field, Performance Studies is divided into two large branches. One studies performance and performativity in an anthropological and sociological perspective, in everything from religion in indigenous cultures to contemporary American politics. The other treats on the adaptation of non-theatrical texts, especially literature, to the stage. It is the latter area in which Edwards studies and teaches.
Paul Edwards was my professor at Northwestern, so I come to the play with a certain lack of objectivity. It was in his mind-blowingly awesome class on the literature and film of the 1950’s that I first saw the 1956 film version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, along with many other brilliant films. His immersion in the era is obvious in the stage version, but it gives a special kick to recognize a fair portion of the images shown on the projection screens (designed by Edwards and Daniel Carlyon) from his classroom.
So suffice it to say that I went in to the performance with high expectations and a certain sympathy for the project.
Curious.
7 years ago
