Alisha Watts Christiansen and Drs. Robert Nelson and Tim Slover, Theatre and Film

In October of 1995 I approached Robert Nelson and asked him to be my faculty mentor as I applied for this ORCA (Office of Research and Creative Activities) grant. I proposed to him that for my creative project I would like to adapt Louisa May Alcott’s novel, Little Women, into a stage play. As we discussed it further and I shared with him my ideas of how this project would be accomplished, he said he would happily support me if I would take Tim Slover’s playwrighting class (TH & F 378R). I wasn’t sure I had time to take the class, but Professor Nelson felt this would be a necessary step in my project, so I enrolled.

January of 1996 started me as an official playwright in Tim Slover’s class. And thus began the process of putting my project ideas onto paper. The playwrighting class culminates with a final project being the writing of a full length play. As I wrote and adapted Little Women all winter semester for this final project, I had many successes and a few stumbling blocks that I hadn’t anticipated. In this report I will discuss my experience in dealing with the success and problems of adapting Little Women for the stage.

From the start I felt that success was inevitable because the driving force for me in adapting this novel for the stage has been my zealous belief that good literature is easily forgotten on the shelves of our visual and media-minded society. Little Women is a timeless piece of literature that teaches good, Christian values and promotes the family as a source of love and support. I feel this novel isn’t given the consideration it deserves with too many people spending the majority of their leisure time watching videos, movies and television rather than reading.

The 1994 movie version of Little Women was very popular and did help to bring Alcott’s important themes to the minds and hearts of more people. However, and firstly, the movie lacked the thoroughness, attention to detail, and accuracy I felt it deserved. And second, being a theatre major, I firmly believe there is power in live theatre that is quite different and, in an ideal situation, stronger than what film can provide. These beliefs of mine were the spark of my entire project. The major success of this project has been in seeing my vision of Alcott’s great literature on stage come to being. January 1, 1996 I had only the hope and vision of what was possible. Today, August 30, 1996 I have 135 pages of a stage play manuscript that capture my vision and bring it one step closer to being on stage.

Although the writing/adapting process went fairly quickly in terms of turning book chapters into stage scenes, still one of the major setbacks I encountered was the sheer size of the task I was attempting to accomplish. The novel is over 600 pages and I found that in adapting I was only able to cut this down slightly. Consequently, I was faced with the decision of making major cuts and deleting much of Alcott’s novel or having an eight hour stage play.

One of my big concerns with modern adaptations of classic literature to film or television is that major cuts are made. This process of cutting loses the integrity and authenticity of the work. Major deletions did not seem to be a viable option for me. The only adaptation I knew of that fully preserved the author’s intentions was The Royal Shakespearean Company’s version of Charles Dickens’ The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickelby. I remembered seeing a filmed version of this London based stage performance on PBS just as it was gaining popularity in the early eighties. This fond remembrance of a work well done and a work incredibly faithful to its novel served as an inspiration to me as I approached my first stumbling block of deciding whether to cut or have an eight hour play. I loved Nicholas Nickelby and it was an eight hour play, so I knew something like this was possible for me. Also I thought of Tony Kushner’s very recent Broadway hit, Angels in America. This is another long show consisting of two separate plays, each three hours, that typically run in repertory on alternating nights.

Keeping all this in my mind, I chose another option. My new plan is to write four separate plays, Little Women Part First, Little Women Part Second, etc. Of these I have completed the first and written various scenes from the others. This is still a problem I am dealing with especially when I consider the performablility of such a series of plays. I often ask myself, “Who will perform all four of these plays in a short enough amount of time that audiences will get a congruent story line?” and “What audience member wants to attend four separate plays to finish one story?” There are other concerns this decision raises as well, and in the end of this report I will discuss the means I have to further explore my options with this issue in the near future.

The second most major problem I have encountered in my adaptation work is in dealing with Alcott’s wonderful narration. She has a highly literary style of writing, and her language is wonderful. I believe this is part of the art of her novel that must be preserved as well as her classic themes and characters. And so I was faced with another question: How could I include Alcott’s great narrations and descriptions in a stage play when good stage plays consist of only dialogue and action? Again, Nicholas Nickelby held the answer for me. The Royal Shakespearean Company dealt with this problem by letting various characters on stage give the narration. I have attempted to do the same, although this is still the point of major refining I am dealing with in my first script.

This fall I will have the opportunity to see my Little Women Part First adaptation on stage as it is workshoped in a theatre department class, Playwrights, Directors, Actors Workshop. Here I will get feedback from actors and directors. Also this will allow me to see how the narration works when spoken as dialogue. This project will continue to grow and re-shape itself for many years to come. I hope to some day direct these plays myself as my vision further unfolds. The ORCA grant project has been the small but essential birth of my vision that sees much more to come.