Three years later, it was adapted into a movie.īoth the play and the movie center on Ouisa (Stockard Channing, who originated the role on stage – according to Guare, she replaced someone during rehearsals – and reprised the role for the movie) and John Flanders “Flan” Kittredge (Donald Sutherland), the couple we first see with Paul. It eventually premiered at Lincoln Center in the spring of 1990, eventually winning the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony for best drama. Guare happened to be a friend of theirs, and when he heard the story of Hampton from them, and read about his subsequent arrest, Guare became interested in turning it into a play. Among the people Hampton fooled were Osborn Elliot, the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and his wife Inger.
In reality, of course, Poitier has no son, and Hampton never knew any of the children of the people he conned, instead stealing an address book from someone who, like the people he conned, lived on the Upper East Side. Paul (Will Smith) dazzles Geoffrey (Ian McKellen) and Flan (Donald Sutherland).īoth the play and the movie are inspired by the true story of David Hampton, a young con artist who, in the 80’s, was able to convince several people in New York City to let him stay in their homes briefly and even gave him pocket money because he claimed (a) he was a friend of their children, and (b) he was the illegitimate son of Sidney Poitier. I chose this not because it’s my favorite movie adaptation of a play (that list would include Stage Door, You Can’t Take it With You, West Side Story, Glengarry Glenn Ross, the Kenneth Branagh versions of Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet, and many others I left off movies like Trouble in Paradise, Casablanca, and Some Like it Hot because I’m unfamiliar with the source material), but because it’s a good movie to illustrate my point. One prime example of the latter is Six Degrees of Separation, director Fred Schepisi’s film of John Guare’s award-winning play (which Guare adapted).
Of course, just as there have been examples of good movies that were just “filmed plays” (as well as, to be sure, bad ones), there have also been examples of movies that opened up the play and were still good movies. On the other hand, plays are tightly constructed experiences (even lavish musicals), so opening them up for film means you risk tearing apart the dramatic fabric (and even logic) that made them work so well on the stage. For we’ve all been told that films are supposed to be “cinematic”, and a filmed play is static and boring, therefore, allowing it to move will mean, at the very least, you’re not just watching people in rooms talking to each other. To open up a play, or to not open up a play? That is the question. This is my entry in the “Stage to Screen” Blogathon, hosted by Rosie ( The Rosebud Cinema) and Rachel ( Rachel’s Theatre Reviews).
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