The Hunger Games Being Turned Into Stage Show
The biggest news to hit the Internet across the pond in the United Kingdom is that The Hunger Games is being turned into a stage show. According to the BBC the show will be ready to “tread the boards” in 2016. It has been reported that the blockbuster film is being adapted for a live show and that a purpose built theatre is being built in the nation’s capital, London for those who are geographically challenged, right beside Wembley Stadium.
That guy Willie Shakespeare knew a thing or two. Not only could he make a mean pair of gloves, but he could write plays till the cows came home. What a guy.
Take for example his play, As You Like It. The All the World’s a Stage monologue was just genius. He imparts the wisdom of life and all it’s stages. He also sums up in one line, life itself. “And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances;…”
We do indeed. Shakespeare then goes on to talk about the seven stages of man, or to be more modern and succinct the seven ages of man. I suppose that I am at the stage of justice all frowns and severely cut beard bordering on the slippers and pantaloon stage.
Thankfully, due to modern diet and medicine, I’m not in the running for “shrunk shank” and reedy voice just yet.
I’ve always had a cock-eyed view of this monologue. When Shakespeare said seven stages (ages) I always felt that this could be changed to read parts or roles. Most of us find a role that we are comfortable in and we pretty much try to stay within the boundaries of that role. Sort of like actors who have to stay out of the stage wings and also have to avoid getting in another actors way.
But we also play many different parts in our life’s role. I will talk about man in the generic, i.e. it means both sexes, you remember, I’m sure, back in the old days before political correctness and having to spell out each and every time what gender the subject was.
We play husband or wife. We play parent and child. We are the job holder, the wise one, the jape and the naysayer – or in some instances – the yes man. We are the older retired individual who must scrape by on a pittance. We are the injured, the wounded, the dying.
When the world was less technologically advanced and theoretically simpler, we had one job that we strived to be the best at. If we could not do that, we did the best we could at not losing our job. Some people move from job to job, trying to fit in; trying to find that round hole that they can fit or, failing that, making themselves fit in a square hole.
Men change partners, introduce more babies into the world, or they practice an odd sort of hermitage. Evolution has demanded that we adapt to our constantly changing world. Men who cannot be flexible are doomed to fail. We must learn many different jobs and tasks as we all move to our inevitable end.
We learn, through trial and error, that not all plans work. We also learn that life is a crap shoot. The dice roll and fall where they fall. We cannot “load” the dice or cheat the numbers when they come up. Snake eyes still equals snake eyes when the dice stop moving. Men just have to learn to duck and dodge, serpentine if you will all the variants that life throws at us.
Some will decide that they cannot do it. They will opt for a deadly early retirement from life. The challenges prove to be overwhelming and unbeatable.
I have, in my short somewhat unremarkable life, been many things, done many jobs and had a great many injuries. Some of the injuries were of the physical sort and some were of the emotional sort. Both are extremely painful and once or twice I looked very hard at a deadly early retirement as a possible option.
A lot of people do and they will either discover that they do have it them to play one more role. It may take them a little longer to learn the blocking and the lines, but they will try and succeed or not.
My year, so far, has been one of wounding and injury. I have just managed to overcome both with a lot of help from modern medicine, and my daughter and my family. I have had yet another role in my life come to an end. I will now have to find out what happens next.
Another role is opening up to me. I will need to learn everything I can to make this new role work. Will I succeed? I hope so. I think that Shakespeare’s stage of justice and pantaloons allows you to view any new “life changing” events with a cool head and a resoluteness that isn’t possible when you are younger.
So even though I am in imminent danger of having another “stage” thrust upon me before I was ready and I will have to learn (or rewrite) my life story yet again, I will not be frightened or uncomfortable about it.
Life is as stage just as the world is. I have made a few exits from roles and entrances as a new character, a new role, many times before. I will, no doubt, do so a few more times before I reach the “sans” stage of the Bard’s monologue.
I can still remember making my stage debut in a High School play called The Curious Savage. I did actually make my debut much earlier. I was a Jingle Bell in the first grade Christmas play.
I came out on the stage on cue and stood there. I was supposed to jingle my bell (and doesn’t that sound bad). I instead simply stood there, solemnly gazing at the audience. I then turned around and sauntered off. A fact that my mother will never forget, to this day she finds it hysterically funny.
But my first proper debut was in the tenth grade of High School. I was the only ‘serious’ character in a comedy filled with ‘crazy’ people. I was cast, as I often would be, as an authority figure. I was Dr Emmett the staff doctor who looks after his charges with a caring and humane touch.
The play, The Curious Savage, is about an eccentric widow whose husband has left her a fortune. Ten million dollars worth of a fortune. Her step children are trying to have her committed and declared mentally incompetent. Then they will have free reign over the money.
I do not remember very much of the play at all. I do remember the radio commercial I did for it and can still recite it verbatim. The only line that I can remember from the play was a quite serious one, I was the ‘serious’ character after all.
The line, probably the only one I did not have trouble delivering, was this: “Well, that is an ever present symptom of psychotic thinking.” I say the only line, because I do remember getting tongue tied repeatedly in rehearsals. In fact the only other line I can remember is the two word sentence, “Mrs Paddy” which for some reason I insisted on saying as “Mrs Paddy-fi.”
As this happened during our last dress rehearsal, our teacher/director was bordering on the apoplectic. “NOO! NOT MRS PADDY-FII!” She shrieked out for the sixth or seventh time straight that I said it. Finally she gave up getting me to say it properly, muttering something about ” It will have to be all right on the night,” which completely confused me at the time.
So, opening night and we have gone through the vast majority of the play. I had not slaughtered or mangled any of my lines and even said, “Mrs Paddy” instead of Paddy-fi. I was just beginning to deliver my ‘quite serious’ line when from the silence of the auditorium came a lone voice. It was high-pitched and in perfect tone. Drifting up slowly and with feeling were the lyrics to Jingle Bells.
“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way” nervous laughter came from the audience and although I had instinctively stopped my composure was almost completely shot.
I could feel hysterical laughter threatening to burst out of my mouth. Using every bit of self discipline I had, I managed to not giggle or even snort. I did say my line, but it sounded something like this:
“Well (pause) it is on aver prassent systom of (pause) psychactic thinking(gasp).” The audience managed to not fall in the aisles in gales of laughter, but it was a close thing.
I found out later that it had been my old Public Speaking teacher’s daughter who was about four or five years old. She had been sitting of the front row which was why I could hear her so well. I did ask him to let me know when she would be performing so I could return the favour. He was highly amused by this and said sure.
Despite this initial ‘not so brilliant’ start, I decided that I wanted to be an actor. Because even then, I could not miss the irony of my first public appearance as a silent jingle bell and having a Jingle Bell come back to not-so silently taunt me.
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