E 314J – Play Adaptations

Here is a far from comprehensive list of plays which have been adapted to stage or screen.  The links provided are varied in content and quality (from Wikipedia to IMBD to random reviews); they are intended as a mere stepping stone towards more information about the adaptation.

Aeschylus – (525 – 455 BC)

  • Agamemnon
    • Stephen Berkoff – Agamemnon (1971)
    • Charles Mee – Agamemnon 2.0 (1994)
  • Prometheus Bound
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley – Prometheus Unbound (1820)
Sophocles  – (497 – 406 BC)

  • Antigone
    •  Jean Anouillh – Antigone (1943)
    • Athol Fugard – The Island (1972)
  •  Electra
    • Eugene O’Neill – Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)
    • Jean-Paul Sartre – The Flies (1943)
Euripides – (480 – 406 BC)

  • The Bacchae
    • Joe Orton – The Erpingham Camp (1966)
    • The Performance Group – Dionysus in ’69 (1969)
    • Wole Soyinka – The Bacchae of Euripedes (1972)
    • Charles Mee – The Bacchae 2.1 (1993)
  • Iphigenia in Aulis
    • Racine – Iphigénie (1674)
    • Neil Labute – Iphigenia in Orem (1999)
    • Marina Carr – Ariel (2002)
    • Caridad Svich – Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable) (2005)
    • Charles Mee – Iphigenia 2.0 (2007)
  • Medea
    • Jean Anouilh – Medea (1963)
    • John Fisher – Medea the Musical (1995)
    • Marina Carr – By the Bog of Cats (1998)
    • Neil Labute – Medea Redux (1999)
    • Caridad Svich – Wreckage (2005)
  • Trojan Women
    • Mihalis Kakogiannis – The Trojan Women (film – 1971)
    • Charles Mee – Trojan Women: A Love Story (1996)

Seneca – (4 BC – 65 AD)

  • Phaedra
    • Racine – Phaedrus (1677)
    • Sarah Kane – Phaedra’s Love (1996)

William Shakespeare – (1564 – 1616)

  • Hamlet
    • Tom Stoppard – Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead (1966) link
    • Aki Kaurismäki – Hamlet Goes Business (film – 1987) link
    • Kenneth Branagh – Hamlet (film – 1996) link
    • Michael Almereyda – Hamlet (film – 2000) link
    • Xiaogang Feng – Legend of the Black Scorpion (film – 2006) link
  • Henry V
    • Kenneth Branagh – Henry V (film – 1989) link
    • Gus Van Sant – My Own Private Idaho (film – 1991) link
  •  King Lear
    • Akira Kurosawa – Ran (film – 1985) link
    • Jean-Luc Godard – King Lear (film – 1987) link
    • Edward Bond – Lear (1971) link
    • Uli Edel – King of Texas (TV/film – 2002) link
    • Young Jean Lee – Lear (2009) link
  • Macbeth
    • Akira Kurosawa – Throne of Blood (film – 1967) link
    • Tom Stoppard – Cahoot’s Macbeth (1979) link
    • Billy Morrissette – Scotland, PA (film – 2001) link
    • Vishal Bhardwaj – Maqbool (film – 2004) link
  • The Merchant of Venice
    • Arnold Wesker – The Merchant (1983) link
    • Michael Radford – The Merchant of Venice (film – 2004) link
  • Othello
    • Paula Vogel – Desdemona: A Play About A Hankerchief (1993) link
    • Oliver Parker – Othello (film – 1995) link
    • Tim Blake Nelson – O (film 2001) link
  • Romeo and Juliet
    • Peter Ustinov – Romanoff and Juliet (1961) link
    • Michael Sarne – The Punk (film – 1993) link
    • Lloyd Kaufman – Tromeo and Juliet (1996) link
    • Joe Calarco – Shakespeare’s R & J (1998) link
    • Andrzej Bartkowiak – Romeo Must Die (film – 2000) link
  • Titus Andronicus
    • Julie Taymoor – Titus (film – 1999) link

Molière – (1622 – 1673)

  • Don Juan
    • G.B. Shaw – Man and Superman (1903)
    • Derek Walcott – The Joker of Seville (1980)
    • Jeremy Leven – Don Juan DeMarco (film – 1994)
    • Patrick Marber – Don Juan in Soho (2006)

Henrik Ibsen – (1828 – 1906)

  • A Doll’s House
    • Lee Breuer – Mabou Mines Dollhouse (film – 2008) link
    • Rebecca Gilman – Dollhouse (2010) link
      • a modernized version of Ibsen’s classic, set in the age of maxed out credit cards and bureaucratic oversight committees.
  • Hedda Gabler
    • Alex Segal – Hedda Gabler (film – 1963) link
      • starring Ingrid Bergman and Michael Redgrave
    • Elizabeth Meriwether – Heddatron (2006) link
      • A pregnant Michigan housewife is abducted by robots and forced to perform Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler in a South American rainforest.
    • Jeff Whitty – The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabbler (2008) link
      • “Hedda Gabler and other famed fictional figures live on in a type of purgatory, trapped in the confines of character imposed on them by their creators.”

August Strindberg – (1849 – 1912)

  • Miss Julie
    • Patrick Marber – After Miss Julie (1995) link
      • The author of Closer sets Strindberg’s play in an English country estate just after the second world war.  A wealthy young woman is seduced by her servant.
    • Mike Figgis – Miss Julie (film – 1999) link

Anton Chekhov – (1860 – 1904)

  • The Seagull
    • Tennessee Williams – The Notebook of Trigorin (1981) link
      • set in the deep South, but retains the Russian names
  • Uncle Vanya
    • Stuart Burge – Uncle Vanya (film – 1963) link
      • with Lawrence Olivier and Michael Redgrave
    • Andre Gregory – Vanya on 42nd Street (film – 1994) link
      • based on translation by David Mamet, starring Wallace Shawn and Julianne Moore
    • Anthony Hopkins – August (film – 1996) link
      • Sets the story in North Wales, stars Anthony Hopkins.

George Bernard Shaw – (1856 – 1950)

  • Pygmalion
    • Lerner and Loewe – My Fair Lady (film – 1964)
    • Robert Iscove – She’s All That (film – 1999)