Recently, I saw a production of the musical Wicked. I'm not a huge musical person, but Sam was really excited about seeing it so I figured, sure, why not. The extent of my knowledge of the musical came from my high school's show choir taking a trip and seeing a production of it, as well as performing the song "Popular" for their routine. I also knew it was based on a book that two of my classmates in high school were obsessed with. Both musical and novel deal with the life of the Wicked Witch of the West before, during, and after the events of the film The Wizard of Oz. I enjoyed what I saw, but this isn't a review of the production. This is an exploration of adaptation and intertextuality and why I find it so difficult to reconcile adaptations with their source works.
The original novel by Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a parallel novel of the classic Judy Garland picture The Wizard of Oz and the book on which it was based, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. We see the events of The Wizard of Oz play out from a different perspective. In this case, our point-of-view is centered on the film's antagonist, the Wicked Witch of the West. The film does not name her, unlike the Maguire novel which gives her not only a name but a voice, at least one beyond threatening young girls' dogs. To my understanding, Maguire's work focuses on elements mainly from the film but employs some elements from Baum's series as well. It's likely, however, that Maguire's audience would be comprised of those who have seen the 1939 film and might not have known it was an adaptation. Indeed, the film is such an iconic American work that it overshadows the literary foundation on which it was built. But I digress.
I haven't read Maguire's novel, nor Baum's work, but I've seen the film and it seemed enough to keep me afloat during the musical adaptation of the novel. I knew the characters and was able to make connections to the film, and it was fascinating to see happy-go-lucky meditation on morality put to music. But then it got me thinking, do we read this as an alternative universe or the same place and events from a different vantage point? In-jokes are spread throughout the musical that would only be caught if the audience had prior knowledge of the film. At one point, the witch utters, "There's no place like home," the memorable line opined by the film's protagonist. Do we take this as coincidence that the Witch says this? Or in this retelling of the story, is it the Witch who solely says this?
Without the film, the musical may work, but for an ideal experience it appears that one must know the film to read and appreciate the musical's intertextuality. A viewer unversed in the movie would not know that the dog's name is Toto, not Dodo as a character mistakenly refers to it. That same viewer would not know the significance of house that fell out of the twister or who the hell this girl is that stole a pair of shoes. So much of the musical demands a prerequisite knowledge of an early 20th century children's movie.
This is a time for adaptations and "re-imaginings." The media is awash with content that for every new piece of content there are three reworkings of old content. This is not necessarily bad--adaptation has long been in practice. Some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were borrowed from Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron and so on and so forth. There are successful re-imaginings. 2003's Battlestar Galactica comes to mind, arguably usurping its predecessor in terms of character depth and cultural relevance. Even the recent Spider-man adaptation was a hit with critics even though the previous Spider-man franchise came out only five years before. But ours is a remix culture, trimming usable elements and combining them with others.
A re-imagining that I enjoy but still struggle with is BBC's Sherlock, created by Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat. The drama presents itself as a modern day retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective stories centered around detective Sherlock Holmes and his partner-in-crimefighting Dr. John Watson. Characters and events are updated to suit the current time period; Watson served during the War on Terror in Afghanistan, and Sherlock's work is proudly advertised through an online blog. The show's first season earned an 85 on Metacritic, proving that the modernization of a classic film and literary character makes for good television. And I have to agree, it makes for damn entertaining TV. But this is where I struggle: are we in an alternative timeline where Sherlock Holmes exists only in the present as a real human being?
In discussing the program with a friend, I was informed that there was a clue that Sherlock's world and the world of Doyle's work were one in the same due to a literal tip of the iconic hat most associated with the deducing detective. But was it a nod to the audience who presumably knows the significance of that hat in particular? Is Moffat's Sherlock a world in which there was a Sherlock in the Victorian age who existed in flesh and blood or ink and paper? Everything else about the new Sherlock appears to be our world its share of issues, except for these two characters whose very names displace them in time.
We even have the US adaptation of The Office. For the most part, the elements are the same--goofy boss, will-they-won't-they sexual tension between two coworkers, neurotic awkward nerd--and due to it being a sitcom, I didn't think much about them being in unified or separate universes. But then in Season 7, Ricky Gervais makes an appearance as his character from the UK version of The Office, David Brent. In a later episode, Brent appears again, seeking work and Dunder Mifflin. This could be just an random nod to the original series, but then it makes me wonder if the two shows are parallel to one another? Are Tim and Dawn still a thing across the pond as Jim and Pam are getting together here in the States? Has David Brent irritated the whole of UK to the point of being banished to the US?
It's things like this that keep me up at night.
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