Book versus play, Under the Mountain
Mar. 9th, 2018 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandra(I am hoping that posting this will prod me into finishing the half-done one on The Changeover contrasting the book with the film.)
The Halfmen of O was the Maurice Gee book I loved as a child; Under the Mountain didn't grab me as much, but the TV series was compelling, and the villainous slug-like Wilberforces were terrifying. They are trying to turn Earth into mud so they can take it over; they are defeated by the last survivor of a powerful but rather short-sighted alien race and Rachel and Theo, red-headed telepathic twins. I saw it again in my late twenties and it still held up, as well as being a fascinating time capsule (actors, scenery, fashion etc). The play is an updated adaptation by Pip Hall with Gee's blessing, and, hmm. I came home from it and located my copy of the book and read it indignantly, which will give you some idea of how I felt about the update.
The update is painfully contemporary. The twins (aged up a year to 12 in the play but played - unconvincingly - by adults) arrive in Auckland from their rural home to stay with relatives; their cousin Ricky has barely arrived before they have clustered round him, admiring his phone. ("Is that an X?") Netflix, Minecraft, Zumba - a parade of brand names. Rachel is now a vegan crusading against plastic bags, Theo is a geek who needs to trust his intuition (I am irked by this as in the book they're presented as complements, but the play was definitely going for Theo needing to stop asking questions and just trust in the magic, which is so crashingly unoriginal that it gives me hives).
Gee's afterword in the play's programme mentions Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen as inspiration, and you can see the bones of it all through; the danger adults are blind to, the role of the landscape, the fast pace - the tunnels (although the lava tunnels never reach the depths of claustrophobia Garner's do, possibly fortunately for those children who like me were forever scarred by that bit with the hairpin and the long dark dive underwater). It is also very specific to Auckland, and reading it now I have my own memories of the places to draw on, whereas when I read it as a child I hadn't been to any of them. What Gee doesn't address in any depth is the Māori history and present of Auckland, certainly not the way that Garner draws on local myth, and it's interesting that the play tries to put this back in, with Aunt Noelene and Ricky apparently Māori and a rather cringy bit where everybody sings a song in te reo. Twice. I'd also thought that Rachel and Theo were fairly blank as characters, but looking at it now that's a little harsh.
What the play does well is the Swedish twins, Johan and Lenart, who were part of an earlier failed attempt to defeat the Wilberforces. They are present in the book but the play greatly expands them, and they are uncanny and heartbreaking and good at stage magic. I liked them a lot and the play was better when they were there. Having the Wilberforces be a modern dance troupe in black vinyl and sunglasses was a mixed success; their movements mostly worked, but I kept getting Sisters of Mercy vibes and the bit where they're pretending to be dolphins was just too goofy. They were also remarkably inept at catching the children; the staging didn't really help. as there would be half a dozen Wilberforces in a small space and two slow-moving children, and it dissipated rather than built tension.
What the play does badly; unfortunately, most of the rest. The children are not convincing as children, feeling both too young and too much a collection of tics and traits. Persistently, though, the play dodges consequences. Ricky dies in the book but not in the play; I can see Gee's point (in the program) that it felt too cruel but part of the problem is that it happens off-stage in the book and never feels real, and it's one of the things I remember the TV series doing well, because you do see it. But mainly the ending. The twins must learn to each use a powerful stone, that hurts to be held; Rachel gets the hang of hers first but Theo struggles. On the trip to the final confrontation Theo puts his stone down for a second, unable to hold it any longer; the alien helping them despairs but agrees to try anyway. The light beam from Theo's stone is weaker, but finally succeeds. The play concludes with the world safe and everyone happy; but in the book Theo's failure means that Rangitoto erupts, killing an unspecified number of people, and although the world is safe much has been lost. The last line of the book is: "They found a knot of people and asked for shelter from the wind and ash."
The Halfmen of O was the Maurice Gee book I loved as a child; Under the Mountain didn't grab me as much, but the TV series was compelling, and the villainous slug-like Wilberforces were terrifying. They are trying to turn Earth into mud so they can take it over; they are defeated by the last survivor of a powerful but rather short-sighted alien race and Rachel and Theo, red-headed telepathic twins. I saw it again in my late twenties and it still held up, as well as being a fascinating time capsule (actors, scenery, fashion etc). The play is an updated adaptation by Pip Hall with Gee's blessing, and, hmm. I came home from it and located my copy of the book and read it indignantly, which will give you some idea of how I felt about the update.
The update is painfully contemporary. The twins (aged up a year to 12 in the play but played - unconvincingly - by adults) arrive in Auckland from their rural home to stay with relatives; their cousin Ricky has barely arrived before they have clustered round him, admiring his phone. ("Is that an X?") Netflix, Minecraft, Zumba - a parade of brand names. Rachel is now a vegan crusading against plastic bags, Theo is a geek who needs to trust his intuition (I am irked by this as in the book they're presented as complements, but the play was definitely going for Theo needing to stop asking questions and just trust in the magic, which is so crashingly unoriginal that it gives me hives).
Gee's afterword in the play's programme mentions Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen as inspiration, and you can see the bones of it all through; the danger adults are blind to, the role of the landscape, the fast pace - the tunnels (although the lava tunnels never reach the depths of claustrophobia Garner's do, possibly fortunately for those children who like me were forever scarred by that bit with the hairpin and the long dark dive underwater). It is also very specific to Auckland, and reading it now I have my own memories of the places to draw on, whereas when I read it as a child I hadn't been to any of them. What Gee doesn't address in any depth is the Māori history and present of Auckland, certainly not the way that Garner draws on local myth, and it's interesting that the play tries to put this back in, with Aunt Noelene and Ricky apparently Māori and a rather cringy bit where everybody sings a song in te reo. Twice. I'd also thought that Rachel and Theo were fairly blank as characters, but looking at it now that's a little harsh.
What the play does well is the Swedish twins, Johan and Lenart, who were part of an earlier failed attempt to defeat the Wilberforces. They are present in the book but the play greatly expands them, and they are uncanny and heartbreaking and good at stage magic. I liked them a lot and the play was better when they were there. Having the Wilberforces be a modern dance troupe in black vinyl and sunglasses was a mixed success; their movements mostly worked, but I kept getting Sisters of Mercy vibes and the bit where they're pretending to be dolphins was just too goofy. They were also remarkably inept at catching the children; the staging didn't really help. as there would be half a dozen Wilberforces in a small space and two slow-moving children, and it dissipated rather than built tension.
What the play does badly; unfortunately, most of the rest. The children are not convincing as children, feeling both too young and too much a collection of tics and traits. Persistently, though, the play dodges consequences. Ricky dies in the book but not in the play; I can see Gee's point (in the program) that it felt too cruel but part of the problem is that it happens off-stage in the book and never feels real, and it's one of the things I remember the TV series doing well, because you do see it. But mainly the ending. The twins must learn to each use a powerful stone, that hurts to be held; Rachel gets the hang of hers first but Theo struggles. On the trip to the final confrontation Theo puts his stone down for a second, unable to hold it any longer; the alien helping them despairs but agrees to try anyway. The light beam from Theo's stone is weaker, but finally succeeds. The play concludes with the world safe and everyone happy; but in the book Theo's failure means that Rangitoto erupts, killing an unspecified number of people, and although the world is safe much has been lost. The last line of the book is: "They found a knot of people and asked for shelter from the wind and ash."
no subject
Date: 2018-03-09 11:33 am (UTC)I know nothing whatsoever about this book or play, but that is a splendid sentence.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-10 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-10 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-10 07:54 am (UTC)It just came out late last year. It too has been updated, in this case to post-quake Christchurch, and I felt it worked well.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-10 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-10 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-10 08:00 am (UTC)On a cheerier note, my sister was a slug in the TV series. There was a lot of gladwrap and slime involved, and it was very cold. And then I think they cut that footage: sic transit gloria mundi.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-10 08:23 am (UTC)Your sister was a Wilberforce! That's wonderful! I appreciate her sacrifice even if it went unseen :D