Plays I Would Like To See Made Into Movies
Submitted by allegheny on Tue, 04/03/2007 - 10:45
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- BARRYMORE--A one-man play in which an aging, desperate John Barrymore, recalls his past and careers and foibles to a young director in the year just before his death. Christopher Plummer gave a brilliant performance as Barrymore. It would be hard adapting a script that weaves from flashback to now, but it can be done. I am not sure if Plummer could play the aging Barrymore. He might be too old, but it would basically be a biopic.
- LAUGHTER OF THE 38the FLOOR--Not actually sure what number floor it should be, but this is a delightful bittersweet comedy written by Neil Simon, based on his earlier days as a writer for the Sid Caesar Show. Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner were other respected comic minds to have found their schooling with Caesar's Show. The names and plotlines are different. In this one, the Caesar character is much older at this time than Caesar was. Simon's character is the rookie writer, newly enlisted to the gang of 5 or 6 other writers. Simon likes to make you cry sometimes in-between laughs, but it's a great crypto-biopic. Takes place in the 1950s, during McCarthyism, by which according to the play Caesar was greatly annoyed.
- OVER THE TAVERN--A good bittersweet story of a Polish-American family who live over the saloon the Father keeps in Buffalo, NY, during the early 1960s. Has similar flavor to Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, but has plenty of its own originality and poigancy.
- LES MISERABLES--I know the 1997 version with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush has its merits, but it pales in comparison to musical. If they had the energy to put Chicago and Phantom of the Opera into film versions, then they can take a shot at this harrowing, heartrendering Hugo saga.
- THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT IN JAIL--Basically, a biopic of 19th Century Transcendalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau, sparked by Thoreau's arrest for refusing to pay a poll tax out of protest over the Mexican War. Written by the same guys who wrote Inherit the Wind, Jerome Robbins and Robert Lee.
- FENCES--A Brilliant play written by Pittsburgh playwright August Wilson, was steamheaded to success on the circuit due to James Earl Jones powerhouse performance as the misguided protagonist. I believe this won Wilson a Pulitzer.
