Angels in America: The Facebook Edition

By Adina Reza & Reingard Hagemann

Adaptation/Analysis:

Our adaptation of the play by Tony Kushner is set in Dallas, Texas in 2013. We chose Texas, because in its penal code “homosexual conduct” is even nowadays still considered to be a criminal act. Although, the law is not enforced anymore, the idea that it is still in the penal code shows the conservative and anti-homosexual atmosphere in some parts of the US, and especially in Texas. Same sex- marriage is also still banned in Texas. Considering this, the themes in “Angels in America” still seem very applicable, even 20 years later, although in Germany the situation for homosexuals formally seems to be much better. Therefore, we chose to set the play in Texas, to highlight the problems homosexuals can still have nowadays, although humanity and politics seem to have become more tolerant.

The acceptance by the society seems to vary a lot between big cities and the countryside. On the countryside it seems to be much more of a taboo. As well as in some very patriarchal sports or other domains, where it is still considered to be “unmanly” and which are only slowly opening up to it. In that sense, the core issues of the play are still of value, also for a German audience.

Nevertheless, we want to update it a bit: by introducing some new communication tools, which might also underline and show some of the general issues of the play, but the modern spirit, too.

For once, Harper does not listen to the radio, but she is spending all her time on facebook or other social platforms, where she can find videos and tutorials (instead of the radio shows she listens to) and she constantly changes her status information or posts something. She is never leaving home, but lives in this parallel world, where she is friends with people she doesn’t really know. She shows the world an image of how she wants to be perceived and how she wants herself to be. We thought of having a screen at the back of the stage (the background) where there will be new status posts of every character, not only Harper`s. Especially in the scenes of Joe and Louis or Joe and Roy, posts of Harper in the background might add a different level to their conversation and bring forth her loneliness.

With the facebook-screen it could be possible to show the whole Prior-Harper-dream-scene, all of her thoughts and fears, all the seesaw about Joe being gay in status updates and commentaries from Harper, and Prior as well, while on stage the audience would see the first conversation between Joe and Louis.

Nowadays, people do not necessarily need Valium to flee from their real live, pretending to be someone or something else. Especially the character of Harper makes it easy to highlight and exaggerate nowadays’ importance of social networks. In our adaptation, Harper would rather believe in everything facebook “tells” her, than in real words of real persons. The inclusion of facebook shall be a hint to the importance and power - good and bad - not only of social networks but of media in general.

Therefore, the character of Roy would probably make use of this tool a lot, too, for building up and keeping his network. But as he will only use it to convince and persuade clients with willful misrepresentation he will still be alone in the end.

We also thought of introducing chatting in scene 9, Act II, in which both couples (Joe & Harper, Louis & Prior) have a parallel fight. We would divide the stage with a wall into two rooms, one for each couple. In this scene parts of the dialogues will not be spoken by the actors, but the couples will be concentrating on their smartphones and read the messages from their partner. For the audience they will be projected on the screen in the background. The actors will show the same emotions and also speak out loud parts of the text (when they get very emotional) but they will seem somehow absorbed in themselves. Especially to show how much Harper lives in her own little world, she would much more communicate with her smartphone than Joe, for example. On purpose we want this weird conversation to be ridiculously exaggerated to show how media/social networks can destroy conversations, or even relationships, when one of both only pays attention to his or her mobile instead of really talking to each other.

However, the actors should also at some point step out of this smartphone-conversation and react directly. But whenever the tension in the fight gets unbearable they might retreat in the smartphone-conversation again.

All in all, “Angels in America” does not really have to be set into modernity because its topics still remained nearly the same. Although there are some places in the world in which homosexuals have better rights than in others, people still fight against them, their rights and their acceptance in society, as we could have seen in France, lately. Furthermore, it remained difficult to come out of the closet, as people still do not grow up in a society, which absolutely ensures to be accepted if you are homosexual. Society rather complains about difficulties updating their facebook status than equating its fellow men.

Angels in America...the German Edition

By Elisa Torner, Julian Blöcher, & Jens Kettner 

Adaptation:

As we approached our group project we decided to update Tony Kushner’s 1992 play “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” as a whole. We based our decision on the fact that this play contains several interesting themes, characters and conflicts evolving between them. Therefore, we made the following changes to, what we thought, would conserve and carry the central conflicts to a German audience in 2013.

As a first step we chose Munich as the place where all the action takes place.

Our first major adaption to the main characters concerned their profession. Instead of representing them as lawyers we chose to make them professional soccer players. As the play is situated in Munich, Roy, Joe and Louis are all members of the highly regarded soccer team of Bayern Munich.

Roy
He is the most regarded soccer player of Bayern Munich and captain of the team. He is also a closeted homosexual.

Joe
Joe also plays in the first team. However, he is not as successful as Roy, and mostly he is only a substitute player. He is the child of Turkish immigrants but was born in Germany. He is a Muslim and very religious. Although he is married to Harper, he as well is a closeted homosexual.

Harper
Joe’s wife. Like him, she has Turkish roots and is Muslim. She does not work – due to Joe’s high income she does not feel the need to get herself a job. Whereas Joe is often surrounded by other women (mainly fans/groupies) she does not get along in Munich as well, especially not with the wives of the other soccer players as they are all German and do not get along with her religious habits, her clothing etc.

Louis
He is the coach of the amateur team (farm team) of Bayern Munich. In the upcoming season; that also marks the beginning of the play; he will become assistant coach of the Bundesliga team. As in the original play he is homosexual, but due to the nature and environment of his job he is closeted.

Prior
Louis’ boyfriend and not involved in the world of sports. He works as an indoor designer for apartments and made acquaintance with Louis when decorating his loft.

Analysis:

As the original play takes place in New York City we thought of a place that would somehow live up to it in terms of local, national and international focus. Secondly we thought of a place that would allow us to present the play to a wide audience. Soccer is a highly regarded sport, and no other team in German soccer polarizes more than Bayern Munich. Therefore, we chose Munich as the place of action.

We decided to place our version of “Angels in America” in the world of professional soccer because on the one hand it is an ultimately present and hotly discussed branch of sports (just as baseball is in the U.S.). On the other hand it is also one of the most stuck and unchangeable regarding its values and expectations. Soccer players are seen as kind of “super-heroes” in the eyes of the public because it is a sport that connects well with working class people and their desires and therefore makes it easy for the public to identify with. Soccer players are usually meant to be “proper men” with good-looking girlfriends, preferably of model profession, who shall symbolize hope and identity for a whole nation.

As far as the characters are concerned we decided not to present them as lawyers. We refused to go along with that profession because in Germany these days counseling is not as much dominated by men as it was the case in America in the 1980’s. Another factor was due to our impression that German society has accepted homosexuals in most professions. Major exceptions are probably sports and the military. Hence, by turning them into soccer-players, the conflict of being homosexual in a very manly dominated field is full of potential for the unfolding of the character’s conflicts.

In our version of the play especially Roy is the one who is outwardly representing the publicly created image of “the football-star” but is inwardly suffering a severe struggle in confessing to his “real” desires. We imagined it to be even harder for somebody being a person of public interest to define his/her private-self, because society has a strong impact on those people's lives. If you make mistakes, not only your family, neighbors and acquaintances will become aware of them, but the whole nation will see you as a representative part of it. Not being able to live up to the expectations of others does not only bear the danger of becoming a “fallen leader”, it might even turn you into a “public enemy” if you, although maybe unwillingly, insult the public's expectations.

Regarding the character of Joe we already know that he as well is homosexual. In addition to his struggle with finding his true sexual orientation we wanted him to enter a totally new sphere regarding obedience versus self in connection to religion. By making him of Muslim faith, plurality in today's German society will be depicted more realistically, also because a lot German football-players are immigrants. A homosexual soccer player trying to follow the rules of Islam bears great potential for transferring his lack of identity and struggles in life. He is expected to follow strict rules to be acknowledged in Muslim society but eventually fails completely in living a life that is dedicated to rules of others and gives in to a “sinful” life. This on one hand takes a lot of pressure from him as he now feels free to unfold his real personality but on the other hand it makes him a hunted and disregarded figure in public.

The character of Harper is one of constant indisposition in our version of the play. She shows what enormous burden religious difference can be. She is not acknowledged by Western society for religious reasons. She eventually goes mad because on the one hand she is unable to handle the aggressive approaches of other women towards Joe, on the other hand she cannot handle Joe’s fame. Actually Harper is the only one in our Adaptation who has the chance to retreat into privacy although she does not actively seek to do so. Making up an imaginary world is her “anchor” to resist the destructive stream “the public” embodies around her. At this point we want to add the fact that we did not like the thought of her being a drug addict since this is strongly against the values of Muslim faith.

We also changed Joe and Harper‘s religious backgrounds. In respect to their Turkish heritage we acknowledged their Islamic faith, instead of being Mormon. In addition, Mormonism is an American faith which is hardly to be found in Germany and therefore not representative.

Regarding the character of Louis we wanted him to be part of the world of soccer as well. That is because we intended the relationship between him and Joe unfolding in this “gay- hostile” environment.

Prior does not play as big of a role as the original one. We chose the profession of indoor designer because a drag queen would have been too obvious and his relationship with Louis should be kept secret since Louis is a “public face”. At this point we would like to point out that, in order the play to develop to its fullest; we found it not necessary for anybody suffering from AIDS.

As said before, we actively decided to let the storyline run as originally set by Kushner only under the awareness of a different environment of encounter. Tensions grow while seemingly thousands of people are watching - spectatorship “par excellence”. The sensationalist mass becomes just another silently destructing power within fear, anger and despair which are the predominant feelings in this play. Living a “normal” life is just as unimaginable for our characters as a “life in the spotlight” might be for us.

Fences

By Nathalie Temmen & Sirawat Kladrai

Adaptation:

To transform August Wilson’s play Fences into a more contemporary German context we decided to change the setting by altering part of German history. Instead of focusing on an African-American family in the 1950s our version of the play is about a Jewish family in the 21st century. The difference between our alternate reality and written history is that in our version World War II never took place.

These are the characters of our version:

Samuel Stern: A 53-year old office help, who has finally the chance of promotion to secretary. He used to be a professional football player but had to quit due to the rise of anti-Semitism in the 1970s. His father left the family when he was young and Samuel’s perception of fatherhood seems to be distorted. He has got a son called Aaron from a previous marriage and is now married to Rosa with whom he has another son.

Ivo Bono: Samuel’s and Rosa’s long term friend. After a rough night out drinking and fighting at a bar Ivo and Samuel first met in a drunk tank. Ivo shares Samuel’s passion for football and was one of the few who saw him play professionally. He admires Samuel but although he seems to be his role model, Ivo is concerned about the way Samuel treats his wife.

Rosa: Samuel’s several years younger wife. She is a very religious woman and an active member of the Jewish community. Rosa is very supportive of her son and even though she does not always agree with her husband she admires Samuel just as much as Ivo does.

Aaron: Samuel’s oldest son by previous marriage and a passionate musician.

Gabriel: Samuel’s brother. As a young man Gabriel had a terrible car accident which
damaged his brain. He received several thousand D-mark from his insurance and Samuel used this money to finance his house. Since the day of the accident Gabriel thinks he is the archangel Gabriel.

Levi: Samuel and Rosa’s son. He does not have a very healthy relationship to his father. Levi wants to become a professional Basketball player but his father refuses to support this and even forbids him to chase this dream.

Rahel: Samuel’s daughter from his affair with a woman called Martha.

Setting: The setting is the backyard of the Stern household, a small detached house located in a suburb of a big German city. The Sterns are the only Jewish family around and the poorly built terrace is the only part of the backyard that provides protection from their German neighbors.

Being frightened by the neighbor’s supposedly judging eyes the garden has not been taken care of in a while. A broken old wooden goal can be found further in the back. Underneath a big tree lies a tattered football.

The Play: It is the year 2003. After a financial bubble burst in 1974 society has finally recovered from the effects of the crisis. Since World War II never took place the mistrust towards Jews was a strong sentiment in the 20th century. Many started to blame minorities and the right wing was again on the rise. The descendants of Jewish immigrants never felt welcome here. They were sorted out at work, in schools and were forced to live with the alleged burden of being Jewish.

Almost thirty years later the situation has slightly changed. Jews are more integrated into German society but the old generation is still stuck in the struggle for acceptance.

To introduce the audience to the circumstances we decided to start the play with a monologue/song by Gabriel:

(The room darkens. The curtain is closed. A spotlight lights the centre of the stage. A
male singing voice is heard from a distance. Gabriel enters the stage continuing his
song. Images of war, marching Nazis and stills of concentration camps can be seen
each at a different location on the curtain.)

Gabriel (singing): ...Yes ma’am
Times a hard for them
Real hard
It could be worse, though
Imagine a world with a war of hate
Millions of them dying
Man, would I have been busy
Opening the gates to heaven for everyone
Luckily that’s not the case
Still, times are hard
Times are hard...

Analysis:

August Wilson’s play Fences is about an African-American family in the 1950s. We thought that Germans could not directly relate to this topic which is why we had to change a few things. We also thought that there is no such thing as the African- American conflict here in Germany and that the most similar problem of discrimination was the discrimination of Jews up to World War II.

The first thing we thought about was changing the place of the play. It is always difficult to understand what is going on in a nation when you are part of another one. So we decided to move the setting to Germany to make it more suitable for a German audience.

Also, we changed most of the names to underline their Jewish descent.

To convert the issue of racial burden we decided to create an alternative reality in which World War II never happened. In past times Jews had always been persecuted and discriminated against. World War II and its outcome led to global awareness and reflection on anti-Semitism. We thought about how a world without this reflection would look like and concluded that being a Jew in a society that grew up on treating minorities badly would lead to a situation very similar to Fences.

The time frame of the play is set in 2003 in a world that has recovered from a financial crisis in 1974 that had affected everyone equally bad. The setting of 2003 was chosen because we believed that it would offer the right amount of time to work with the plot of financial crisis and the play's theme of changing times. It was necessary to allow enough room for World War I recovery as well as the development of economical struggle and finally the subtle notion of times changing for the better, often overlooked by someone set in their ways. We introduced the plot element of financial crisis to simulate a situation which could lead to rise of racism and somewhat xenophobia. This combined with the general suspicion towards Jews creates a setting close to the mistreating of colored people in America. This is the time frame in which our main character Samuel plays soccer professionally until he is kicked off the team solely because he is of Jewish descent. This causes him grief and frustration, eventually turning into anger. It is then when he develops his skewed world view which he tries to project onto his son Levi. We felt that these changes to the original story were necessary to convey authenticity of the new setting.

Changing the practiced sports to soccer and basketball respectively was a decision to ensure proper immersion. We felt that baseball and American football made no sense in a German context.

We decided to start the play with Gabriel showing up on stage, singing a song to introduce the audience to the world we created. The reason we chose Gabriel to show the people the differences of our reality is because of his special character. Since he thinks he is the archangel Gabriel we thought we could transform him into a more “supernatural” character than he is in the original play. As a person with some kind of special powers we gave him the power to see what had been going on in an alternate universe - our real universe.

The adaption then mostly follows the same storyline as the original play. Some little notions like the localized changes and the different family background will sprout different dialogues and different actions without damaging the core idea and message the play is highlighting.

FENCES

By Monique Sterker, Luca Maria Mertinat & Luisa Wiegandt

Adaptation

To present the play Fences by August Wilson to a contemporary German audience we decided to “update” the play as a whole.

Instead of a black American family, the plot is shown by a Turkish immigrant family who lives in the district of Neukölln in Berlin in 1995. The family occupies the ground floor of an elder grey-coloured building which also has a small backyard. The audience can recognise other buildings of the same dismal grey colour around the house in the background.

On the left side of the stage you can see a gate which leads to the street and through which the characters appear and leave. In the backyard, people can see (like in the original version of the play) a tree, a clothesline, wooden planks (which will be used to build the fence) and a saw. The facade of the family’s house, the porch with a simple striped awning and a lamp on each side of the door are in the middle of the stage. On the right-hand side of the stage, the audience can look into the house – comparable to a cross-section – and sees the kitchen which is furnished very modestly with old- fashioned cabinets, a stove and a kitchen table.

In our version of the play, the family consists of Ahmet whose original name was Troy, his wife Bahar (Rose), their son Kadir (Cory) and Ahmet’s brother Mohamed (Gabriel).

Ahmet is a Turkish contract worker who came to Germany in the 1960’s. His job is to build streets and he is passionate in football. When he was younger, he was a great and talented football player. Ahmet wears normal clothes like faded light jeans and a checked shirt.

His wife Bahar is dressed in traditional Turkish clothes as well as Mohamed who thinks he is the prophet Mohamed because he had been injured in war but has survived. For this reason, Mohamed always carries his Mizmar with him which is a traditional Turkish instrument. He moved out of the house where Ahmet and his family live in and moved into an apartment that he has rented from Mrs. Schmidt.

Kadir, who is the son of Ahmet and Bahar, wears jeans and t- shirt. He is a very passionate and talented handball player and hopes to become a professional handball player as soon as he finishes school. A professional handball club offers him a contract. In the end, he will go to the Bundeswehr because his father doesn’t allow him to start a career as a professional handball player.

Another character is Savas who is Troy’s son and passionate in music - like Lyons in the original play. In contrast to the original version, he is a rapper and still thinks he will become famous one day. He wears hip hop clothing and a big necklace. Only when he enters the stage slight hip hop music is heard in the background. Savas has a girlfriend whose name is Milana (Bonnie). She works at the laundry of a hotel and wears traditional Turkish clothing.

Takan (Bono) is Ahmet’s friend and a contract worker, too. He has a wife, her name is Hanife (Lucile) and both are dressed in German clothing though Hanife still wears a headscarf.

Ahmet has an affair with Hürriyet (Alberta) and they are having a child together who is named Aishe (Raynell).

The characters, the dialogues and the monologues will not be changed. They are only adapted to the new circumstances: The family speaks with a strong Turkish accent, except the sons Kadir and Savas who have grown up in Germany. Anything referred to African and American history is transformed into Turkish and German historical events so that it entirely fits into our new concept. The word Nigger is left out.

Analysis

Since there is only a small number of African-Americans but a much larger number of Turkish people who are a minority in Germany that has to face racism and discrimination until today, we decided to change the characters from African-Americans into Turks when presenting Fences to a German audience.

In the 1960's, many families from other countries, especially from Turkey, were invited to come to Germany and help to rebuild the country after World War II. Ahmet (Troy) was one of them because as in Wilson's version he left his home to go far away where he was hoping to find a better life. After he went to prison, Ahmet got a job as contract worker where he builds streets as many immigrants do.

On the basis of these genuine historical events and cultural circumstances that took place in Germany, our German contemporary audience can better understand and follow the plot. Nowadays, especially other industrialised nations (like Germany) and younger spectators could only hardly understand the actual issues of discrimination, the fight for equality and acceptance of blacks in American society depicted in the play. This is why we thought of looking for a foreign nationality that has had to struggle with similar problems in Germany so that the audience can identify with the play and its themes, is reminded and gets a better insight into how difficult life was for Turkish families.

These ideas had us to change the names of all characters into typical Turkish and sometimes Arab ones but two of these names carry a special meaning in our version:

Lyons, or as we called him Savas, is named after a well-known German rapper as he himself is one in the play, apart from the fact that he is not famous. Rap music was very popular in Germany during the 90's so we decided to change it from blues to this genre.

Gabriel now is Mohamed because he opens the gates to heaven in the end of the original play, and in Islam, Mohamed is the prophet and messenger of god.

However, Mohamed joined the Turkish army to fight in Gulf War I (1990-1991) where he was badly injured, suffered mental issues and now thinks he is Mohamed, the prophet.

As the play takes place in Germany in 1995, Kadir does not join the Marines but the Bundeswehr and wanted to become a handball player instead of football because handball is a very famous sport in Germany. The only sport that is even more popular is football which Ahmet used to play instead of baseball.

Our final character change was to rename Mrs. Pearl Frau Schmidt which is a typical German name and clearly implies that she is of another nationality than the family and Mohamed in particular.

Next to the communication among the characters and the meaning of their words, we want to set all the different forceful personalities in the centre of attention. That is why we need to emphasise the dialogues and their effects on the plot rather than concentrating on special effects or extraordinary scenery.

Since Fences contains a lot of meaningful moments we would like to leave out any kind of music because it would undermine the importance of the following words, take away the seriousness and distract the audience from listening. The focus has to be on the characters and their conversations, especially in significant moments, for example when Kadir asks Ahmet why he does not like him or when Ahmet tells his wife that he becomes a father.

The only characters who provide some pitiful sounds are Mohamed with his instrument (because it would not make any sense if people would not hear any tones though he has his Mizmar with him all the time) and Savas with hip-hop sounds when he enters the stage.

In other moments, we rather want to use different light intensities in order to underline the action. Many important scenes take place in the evening: The reason is Ahmet’s return from work, and since he is the main character who appears in almost every scene, we think of the following:

The audience looks at the house and the yard of the family. The respective person comes through the gate (leading to the street) into the yard, and the action can begin. In the background, people can see the sky turning into a soft gloom and the pleasant sound of chirping crickets predict the end of the day. Besides, it represents a clear contrast to the action on stage which is to be seen as emphasis again: A peaceful surrounding faces a conflict or meaningful moment.

The character(s) on stage are highlighted with two spotlights, so that the audience knows that something will happen.

The particularity in our version of the play is that every scene appears as natural and modest as possible in order to emphasise the action, the conversations and the strong characters. The applied twilight around the stage perfectly enables us this idea.

Fences, 2013

by Katie Hahn, Cecily Lautenbach and Ahmed Said

Adaptation:

Our adaption is set in a small rural town in Texas in 2013. The main character Troy Maxson, a 53-year-old African American who works as a garbage collector, lives together with his wife Rose, a homemaker and also of African American decent, and their son Cory. The other supporting characters are Troy’s brother Gabriel, a war veteran who suffers from severe mental issues caused by a head injury he got as a soldier in Iraq which lead him to believe that he is the archangel Gabriel; Lyons, Troy’s son from a previous marriage; and Bono, Troy’s best friend and collegue.

In our adaption, Troy is an unadmitted homosexual who is struggling with his sexual tendency which he has never told anyone about. Because of the absolute intolerance of homosexuality among the catholic, Republican inhabitants of his Texas hometown he experienced when he grew up in Texas, Troy chose to marry Rose and concieve a son to avoid suspicion. However, his homosexual desires entail him having a secret affair with a man outside his marriage. However, his wife Rose is suspecting that her husband might be gay because he refuses to sleep with her, but keeps quiet about her suspicion because she deeply cares about her family and doesn’t want to destroy their lives.

In the first scene, Troy and his friend Bono are having drinks after work at Troy’s house. Bono talks about his suspicion that Troy might have an affair with another woman, which Troy denies, while Rose keeps quiet about her own suspicion of her husband’s homosexuality. Troy is angry at his son Lyons, who always borrows money from him, and Cory, who was supposed to help him with the fence he is putting up around the house.

In the following scene, Cory talks to his father about his plans to get married to a man and wants him to be a witness at the ceremony. Troy gets very angry, refuses to give his blessings to the marriage and tells Cory that he would ruin all their lives because of the discrimination they would experience with an admitted homosexual in their family. Cory is very upset because he was hoping for his father to be happy about his wedding plans, but Troy stubbornly does not back down from his argument and in the heat of the fight kicks Cory out of the house.

Subsequently, tragic strikes as the man Troy secretly had an affair with dies in a car accident and leaves his recently adopted baby daughter. Troy then admits to Rose that he has been sleeping with a man outside their marriage, and that the child of his affair is now fatherless. Despite having had suspicions for a long time, Rose is shocked but finally decides to adopt the baby, Raynell, and raise her, but tells Troy that he cannot count on her as his woman anymore.

In the last scene, seven years later, all the characters are gathered at Troy’s funeral. Troy died of heartbreak because of the death of his affair and his fights with his wife and sons. Cory, who is now married to a woman with whom he is expecting a child, initially refused to come to his father’s funeral because he never got over their fight, but his mother convinced him to pay a last respect to his father who, despite all his actions, still loved his son. The fence which Troy wanted to build is revealed to be finished, but Troy didn’t live to see it. The play ends with Gabriel, in his role as the angel, proclaiming to open the gates of heaven for Troy, saying that God loves all his children.

Analysis:

To update our play for a contemporary German audience, we decided to change the setting of the play to 2013. We thought that setting the play in our modern times would help the audience to better relate to its content, as especially younger viewers might not be able to fully understand the context of the original setting in the 1950s.

The original play focuses on the struggles of African Americans and, through its main character Troy, shows the hardships of black manhood during the time the play was set in, before the Civil Rights Act 0f 1964 which significantly changed the reality of black Americans. We felt that in a contemporary setting, this theme needed to be updated, as the situation of black people has changed significantly since the time the play was originally set in, especially because of the African American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s. Nowadays, blacks have the same rights as white people in the USA, therefore we searched for another theme that would convey the larger meaning Wilson’s play wants to convey. We chose homosexuality as the perfect motif for updating one of the play’s principal themes, that of the struggle of people belonging to a minority group why try to achieve equal rights for themselves. Homosexuals nowadays constitute a minority in the United States whose legal and social situation has significantly changed over the last years, but who nevertheless still don’t have the same rights as heterosexuals and are, by some people and especially in the more conservative states of the USA like Texas, where our adaption therefore is set, still not regarded as ‘normal’, equal members of society. We felt that Troy Maxson as an unadmitted homosexual would work perfectly to convey his struggle to a contemporary audience because during the time he grew up in our adaption, which would have been the 70s and 80s, homosexuals were not as widely accepted by society and did not have the same rights as the have nowadays in the 2010s. Troy is therefore unable to understand and accept the fact that the reality of homosexuals has changed and because of this does not condone his son Cory’s marriage to a man because this would have never been possibel for him as a young man, just as he was not able to accept the fact that black people’s rights had improved and that his son was now allowed to play football professionally as a black man in the original play.

Throughout our adaption we thus updated the plot and shifted the focus from a black man’s struggles in changing times to those of a homosexual man, but we decided to keep the original events - Troy’s conflict with his son, his affair and the adoption of his affair’s baby by Rose, and his funeral concluded by his mentally ill brother Gabriel – to maintain a clear reference to the play’s original plot. Therefore, the themes such as father-son conflicts, and Troy’s inner division between responsibility and his own freedom remain unchanged.

The funeral scene and thus the ending of our adaption was a very important factor for us that served to connect our adapted plot to the larger meanings of Wilson’s original storyline. We chose Cory to follow his father’s example and not openly live and acccept his sexual desires, just like he followed Troy’s footsteps in the original plot when he became a soldier instead of following his own dream of becomin a professional athlete. This way, the father-son relationship is kept as Wilson had intented it, and shows that despite the conflicts Cory had with his father, he still (consciously or unconsciously) listened to him. We also wanted Gabriel to play a significant role in the last scene because we felt that the ending of the original play was a particularly moving scene that let the play end in a mysterious way that kept the spectators thinking even after the play had finished. Gabe is proclaiming to open the gates of heaven for his brother and saying that God loves all his children was used by us to convey the meaning that besides Troy being an unlikeable character because of his attitude towards his loved ones, his struggles were still in some way understandable and his belonging to a minority does not make any difference when it comes to his worth as a human being.

We hope that through our adaption we were able to update the plot of “Fences” in a way that makes its larger themes and the characters’ struggles more understandable for a contemporary audience, while still keeping the meanings and twists of plot intended by August Wilson intact because those are, after all, what made “Fences” a theatrical masterpiece.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS INC.

By Fabio and Laura Cannizzaro 

Adaptation:

For the purpose of this class project we decided to do a more contemporary movie adaption of David Mamet's play “Glengarry Glen Ross”.

The play is about a group of real estate salesmen who are desperately trying to make a living in a world where only success matters and failure is unacceptable. In our version Levene and the others are not real estate salesmen but rather insurance salesmen. To stick with the original title, the movie is titled “Glengarry Glen Ross Inc.” (“Glengarry Glen Ross AG” for the German version). In this case Glengarry Glen Ross Inc. is the name of the insurance company that the salesmen are working for. Another name that we would change is Shelly Levene. In our version he is called Leo (Leonhardt) Levene.

The expanded screenplay for our movie adaption features a scene with Mitch and Murray. The key element in this scene is the fact that you never fully see either of the two. The scene takes place in the downtown office which is located on the top floor of a skyscraper. The entire northern front of the office is made of glass through which you have a view over the entire city. On the inside the office is lavishly furnished. In front of the windows there is a marble desk, on the opposite wall a huge plasma screen is set up, the remaining walls are lined with shelves holding several trophies and awards. Those range from sales competitions to product tests.

The scene opens with Mitch standing in front of the windows with his arms crossed behind his back, wearing an expensive suit.

Mitch: “Have you seen the last quarter earnings yet?”
Murray: “Fuck last quarter! The Williamson department is dragging us down again. Those idiots couldn't even sell an insurance if their lives depended on it.”
Mitch: “Maybe not their lives but how 'bout their jobs? For next sales competition, let's fire the fucking losers.”

Transition to Murray sitting at the desk. His arms are propped on the desk and his chin is resting on his hands. The shot only shows him up to the chin. On his left arm an expensive Rolex watch can be seen.

Murray (laughs): “Good idea man. Let's have them go on each others throats by giving the winner a little something...like...”
Mitch: “Like a Mercedes.”
Murray: “You're a fucking genius Mitch. Cheap enough for us but for those assholes it'll be like winning the lottery.”

Our version features a different ending. It starts when Williamson comes out of the side office after telling the detective that Levene was the one who stole the leads. Outside a storm is raging. The Mercedes is displayed in the first floor entrance hall of the office. The office where the scene takes place is on the second floor.

Williamson comes out of the side office and is now facing Levene.

Williamson: “ It's funny, you've given me all this shit ... constantly told me how I'm not cut out for this job. Now look at you, you fucking asshole. You're out of your job now. You're going to jail. You will never get back to the top again. (Gets out the Mercedes keys and shows them to Levene.) You will never ever be Leo “the Machine” Levene, just like you will never get this car!”

The following is in slow-motion: The Detective comes out of the side office, calling for Levene. Levene looks at him, then at Williamson and then at the car keys. Meanwhile Levene's thoughts can be heard:

Levene: “ No ... no ... I can still turn this around ... I am Leo “the Machine” Levene!”

Levene grabs the keys and runs down the stairs. Williamson is too shocked to react. Levene gets into the car, starts the engine, floors the gas pedal and breaks through the glass doors. He is driving through the storm to get as far away as possible. Suddenly an electric pylon collapses onto his car, killing Levene.

Analysis:

In his play “Glengarry Glen Ross” David Mamet wanted to show the harsh reality of capitalism. It expresses how the salesmen are under a lot of pressure due to the competitive, economical system and how it drives them into despair. To appeal to a broader contemporary audience we decided to make a movie adaption. This will also help to draw younger peoples attention to that issue since they tend to go to the movies more often than to the theater.

As seen in the play Roma and Levene would do anything to get the customer to sign. In real-estate today and especially in Germany, business is not so harsh anymore because land is nowhere near as abundant as it used to be. Therefore we changed the company to an insurance agency since the business practices displayed in the play are still common within that field. An insurance agent will also be much more familiar to a contemporary German than a real-estate salesman. Changing the product they are selling from real-estate to insurances does not change the play's overall message.

We did not want to drift too far from original title so we simply called the insurance company “Glengarry Glen Ross Inc.”. To make it more understandable for a German audience, the German title will be “Glengarry Glen Ross AG” as “AG” is the German equivalent of the American “Inc.”. Moreover we changed Levene's name from Shelly to Leo since in Germany Shelly is associated with a female name. Due to his role as a main character we thought it would be good if he had a memorable name and that is why we changed it to Leo Levene also similar to Richard Roma.

Throughout the play it is hinted that Mitch and Murray are the ones pulling the strings and manipulating the salesmen from above much like the salesmen manipulate their customers. To put more emphasis on this aspect we added a scene where Mitch and Murray appear. Though keeping the mystery of the “big shots” from the original play alive, their faces are never show. The things that are shown represent their status such as expensive suits and watches. In that regard their office is similar. Being on the top floor of a skyscraper represents their high position in the company and the city view symbolizes the control they have over the salesmen. The expensive furniture highlights the focus on material values and their identification through material. The awards for product tests and sales competitions underline that Mitch and Murray as the higher-ups cover themselves with the company's glory. The conversation shows that Mitch and Murray only exploit the salesmen and do not care for them and their lives. Furthermore they make fun of the salesmen and think they are inferior people which is shown through their remarks on the Mercedes, the price of the competition. In addition we changed the price from a Cadillac to a Mercedes since it is a very high-end German car.

We changed the final scene because we felt for a movie version the original ending is not exciting enough. Therefore we made it a little more dramatic. First of we included the storm since it accentuates the tension in the scene between Levene and Williamson. In addition the storm symbolizes the world of competition which the salesmen live in. To further increase the tension we included the slow-motion scene. Moreover it emphasizes Levene's desperate situation and his struggle to break free. The way he looks from the detective to Williamson and then to the keys visualizes his thoughts. His escape escalates since it creates a huge tension and the viewers get thrilled.

In the original play Mamet creates a bubble where no reference to the outside world is made and the salesmen are unable to escape from their own world. In a similar yet exaggerated way Levene fails to escape from this harsh system of competition in our adaption. His doom ultimately is the system he lives in which in our adaption is symbolized by the storm that kills him.

Reimagining Glengarry Glen Ross

By Jonas Wiesner & Jonas Stein

Adaptation:

We chose our contemporary version of Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet to be shown to a specific target group such as young people, preferably students who are either enrolled at high school, college or university and are not interested in luxury goods or as in our case luxury real estate. The sharp contrast is supposed to motivate the young audience to reach for more but at the same time be aware of the tough world of money as it has always been and still is today. The play takes place in Berlin which is also known to be the ideal city for students as the living costs are quite moderate compared to other German cities and the possibilities to get infected by extraordinarily creative events and exhibitions as well as get inspired by various subcultures seem unlimited. However, Berlin does not only cater for young people. In fact, in the past few years Germany’s capital has turned into a magnet that attracts all kinds of people from everywhere, also the wealthy. The venue where the play is performed is the “Deutsches Theater” in Schuhmannstraße 13 in Berlin. Built in 1849/50 with its elegant and luxurious interior it serves tremendously well to underline the content of our version. As the ticket holder enters the theater he or she will face a highly sophisticated stage with two levels. Since the theater serves a remarkably high ceiling the stage can perfectly provide the audience with all the four major scenes that are shown on two different levels, which also gives the audience on the balcony the chance to have a good view. The upper level gives room for the opening scene in which Mr Schwarz (formerly Blake) teaches his employees a lesson in a small office somewhere in Friedrichstraße. The scene contains a couple of simple but modern furniture pieces that resemble an ordinary office of today. The background is filled with a high, long, black shelf containing numerous files and a company sign that says: “Wagner & Wegener Immobilien GmbH”. In front of it the rather small platform is occupied with just two desks and four black moveable chairs. Each desk has two white monitors and keyboards by Apple. On the lower level, right underneath the small office that is presented in the first scene the audience gets to see an elegant restaurant where Pirelli (Roma) and Schubert (Lingk) peruse through the menu. The restaurant that does not have a specific cuisine contains a small bar with four black leather stools and three tables with chic armchairs that are very likely to be compared to any kind of posh restaurant in Friedrichstraße or Berlin Mitte. On the right hand side of the stage, next to the simultaneously appearing restaurant in the first scenes, the audience faces a fancy bar with a low round coffee table made of thick glass and two baroque chairs that are covered with golden silk and black ornaments on. Furthermore, the bar contains little neon decoration to indicate the employees of the office sitting in it while the spotlights are concentrated on another scenery. However, in the first scene all the spotlights are shining on both levels. As the play continues with scene two, showing Peters (Williamson) and Mayer (Levene) in the small office, both levels are first completely in the dark while the upper one is illuminated again. In scene three the audience gets to know Pawlowsky’s (Moss) evil plan, in which he involves the helpless Kruczeck (Aaranow). The forth scene starts off with Pirelli and Schubert getting acquainted and ends with Pirelli offering Schubert a villa in Grunewald while at the same moment the small office is robbed on the upper level, which is again shown at the same time with dimmed spotlights. The second act and very last scene takes place where the play started, namely on the upper level that is now the only part of the stage that is fully illuminated showing the businessmen sitting at their desks arguing and waiting to be questioned by the police officer about the robbery. The police officer is never fully seen on stage but only stands in the door of Peters’ office, which is located “behind” the stage. As in the original Mayer is exposed as the thief in the end.

Analysis:

Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet can majorly be seen as a social critique to a dog- eat-dog society. To transform these aspects from a play written in the 1980’s to a contemporary German audience we had to change quite a number of things.

First of all we concentrated on the scenery. As in the original there are two different places the play takes place. But as we wanted the audience to see what was happening in both places at the same time, even if the other action is happening in dimmed light, we decided to split the stage as mentioned before.

The decision to have an office in Berlin and a lounge bar or restaurant downstairs was simply made because the little company the play focuses on should sell luxury real estate in Berlin, as this is certainly one of the most common places where luxurious mansions are sold. The selling of luxury real-estate compared to regular real-estate, as in the original, developed out of the idea of having a student audience, as well as Berlin being a city where it is not very complicated to sell regular flats or apartments. The business these men are doing needs to be a very tough business, as the whole complexity of the story itself and the entire tension relies on it. It could have been possible to change the company’s business to the life-insurance sector but after all it needed to be an item that is unnecessary to have in the first place for a student audience. In addition to that the “Rio Rancho Company” turned into the classier sounding "Wagner & Wegener Immobilien GmbH" whose head office is in Frankfurt am Main. The leads are not just some names of people that have disposable income but rather the names of different company shareholders or associates that could afford the offered luxury housing but are quite often tough to get through to and furthermore businessmen themselves, hence the complications of closing deals for the “Wagner & Wegener Company”.

David Mamet is an expert when it comes to language and by adding kind of telling- names for the set of characters seemed plausible. In addition to that the altered names needed to fit the different viewership as well as the character's character trades. The two categories of men was expanded from men in their 40’s and 50’s to the young men at the beginning of their career and older men at the close ending of their career. So the office manager Williamson became the 38-year-old Frank Peters with a background as plain as his name. The Italian seeming Ricky Roma became the 32-year-old Luigi Pirelli after the Italian sports-tire producer, whose brilliant marketing strategies like the famous Pirelli calendar are similar to the way Roma/Pirelli lures his customers in. The insecure and fragile James Lingk was transformed to the 35-year-old Sebastian Schubert, a young family-father who, unlike his wife, thinks that having a villa in Grunewald could be nice for his family and a secure investment for his future. This brings us to the group of men in their late stage of their careers. The once very successful Shelley Levene is now called Hans Mayer and 58 years old. He is an honest, straightforward character who has outlived his best times as a salesman and knows it. The old and weary George Aaranow changed to a 55-year-old Dimitri Kruczeck and the big-mouthed Dave Moss turned into the 47-year-old Sascha Pawlowsky. Both men share a strong bond due to their eastern-European heritage and are closer than everyone else in the office. As we wanted to have the ABC-speech by Blake in the play, we included the 48-year-old Mr Schwarz who was sent by the always mentioned but never seen Wagner and Wegener to inspire their Berlin salesmen. His BMW changes to an Audi R8, which in relation is similarly expensive for a German as a BMW is for an American. The American Cadillac turns into a German Porsche for reasons of further authenticity.

The play opens with the speech by Mr Schwarz, which sets the atmosphere of the whole play and the thunder and rain sound effects "outside" emphasise this gloomy and tense feeling the audience gets as it is done in the 1992 movie. During this speech Pirelli sits downstairs at a table of the restaurant with his back to Schubert and peruses through the menu, even though he knows it, to appear unsuspicious to Schubert. The scene with Mayer and Peters does not take place in the restaurant but in the office after Schwarz's speech, to connect the scenes more fluently. The scene with Pawlowsky and Kruczeck is taking place in the bar downstairs and to make the performance more dynamic the actors are already sitting at the bar as Mayer and Peters are talking. The following scene including Pirelli and Schubert ends with the audience seeing the office being robbed by a dark figure. Even though this is happening in the background of the stage, it is still in the centre of the audience's attention as it happens right above Pirelli's and Schubert's heads. The play goes on as in the original with the stereotypical overweight unfriendly police officer questioning the company's employees about the robbery. At the end of the play Mayer slumps onto his chair and buries his face in his hands as he was exposed as the thief.