p.Haney

Reading The Theater | Marina Keegan, New York Times

People have seemed thrilled to see their favorite works broken down and reconstituted in odd ways. This is in marked difference to the reaction I’ve seen at some summer books-turned-movies. Coming out of Harry Potter and, later, “The Help,” I overheard people grumbling over slight textual deviations. That’s understandable: we’re all capable of becoming indignant at an unfaithful movie adaptation of a book whose story we feel ownership over. But it’s nice that people have embraced the experimentalism on display at the theatre, which seems to me to underline the essentially experimental nature of the novel—and of interpretation. The productions remind us that what we’re seeing on stage is not the only possible response to a book, and that our own imaginations have something essential to contribute. Watching them is almost like reading a novel: building a world along with the author and piecing it together to create an experience that’s ultimately our own.