There is a distinction to be drawn between adaptation and dramatization. Dramatizations are lovely. They are almost as nice as reading the book yourself. Audiences ideally come away from a dramatization with a sense of accomplishment at having sat all the way through most of the famous scenes in an important literary classic, all without dozing off more than a handful of times. Adaptation is a different can of beans. It ought to require just as much ingenuity, moral acumen, and sleight of hand to retool fictional characters for stage presentation as it took for the author to fashion them. Cutting a play together from a novel’s plot isn’t just a question of stuffing as much of it as you can into a reasonable theatrical run time, either. In order to merit the name of an adaptation, the show will need to remember to aspire, first and above all, to be worth its salt as an original play.
If what the viewer wants from this production is a Reader’s Digest-style overview of the Lawrence novel, and they’re willing to sit through two hours and 15 minutes of fake British accents to get it, more power to them. Those looking for depth of character, imaginative insight, and daringly brilliant adaptation will have to keep the search up. v
Through 9/29: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, greenhousetheater.org, $29, $25 students and seniors.
