Night of the Living Dead: The Play
Nov. 8th, 2005 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerFirst and foremost and nothing to do at all with zombies, a just-over-the-wire Happy Birthday to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
2sick2pray!!! WOOO!
Ok, so I was helpingfiveseconddelay lose his zombie virginity with a movie night of Night of the Living Dead and the rare European cut of Dawn of the Dead (which warrants an entire post itself, except I don't think anyone'd give a shit), when I off-handedly mentioned to Alan, "I've often thought that you could do Night of the Living Dead as a stage play." And what was always just a musing on my part deeply resonated with him, and by the end of the evening our braiiiins were in high gear. Because, oh god, it could really work.
Think about it. It's just six characters inside a living room. You have the unseen little girl dying in the cellar, the half-eaten corpse unseen upstairs, and outside are ever-growing ranks of the living dead. And with these characters, think about 12 Angry Men, Breakfast Club, and any other stories about what happens when strangers are trapped in a room for hours on end. It's a classic scenario, where walls are broken down and the inner humanity (or lack thereof) of these people is revealed.
Now think about what happens when society is falling apart around them and everything is stripped away save for the basic drive to survive at all costs. As with any great Romero zombie story, the true monsters aren't the zombies. And the play format allows the luxury of fleshing out the characters, pardon the pun, more than they were in the movie(s, if you count the Romero-penned Tom Savini-directed remake with mangod Tony "Candyman" Todd).
That's the thing: you'd never see the zombies. Even the little girl zombie and the people she kills will happen in the cellar, with the right sounds and effects to let the audience's imaginations take it to far more horrible places than we could even stage. Meanwhile, the radio will almost always be on in the background, filling the characters and the audience in on the nature of the zombies and what the authorities are (and aren't) going to do, etc. And then, just as things are quieting down, BAM! The lights go out. The radio is dead. The stage is lit only by patches of moonlight and shadows are everywhere. And this is where the twenty or so extras come in and begin pounding on the doors and windows of the entire theatre itself. And then, for anyone who remembers how the original movie ended, the entire scene will be played out via radio while the character emerges from the cellar and looks out the window.
Oh man oh man. It really frickin' works. And we could totally update the social commentary too. Alan came up with some neat commentary on anti-smoking and anti-homosexuality, and just writing this up now I can see some nice possibilites for Katrina response commentary as well. And the best part about producing this play? The part that almost screams we have no choice but to do this?
The rights are completely free.
Yep, thanks to some horrible legal snafu, Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. Romero doesn't get a single penny of royalties for the film where he invented flesh-eating zombies. Which sucks, but hey, he's more than made up for it with his subsequent films. And besides, DUDE! Come next Halloween, I dunno, I think we may just have to do Rude Mechanicals' Second Stage production of Night of the Living Dead.
2sick2pray!!! WOOO!Ok, so I was helping
fiveseconddelay lose his zombie virginity with a movie night of Night of the Living Dead and the rare European cut of Dawn of the Dead (which warrants an entire post itself, except I don't think anyone'd give a shit), when I off-handedly mentioned to Alan, "I've often thought that you could do Night of the Living Dead as a stage play." And what was always just a musing on my part deeply resonated with him, and by the end of the evening our braiiiins were in high gear. Because, oh god, it could really work.Think about it. It's just six characters inside a living room. You have the unseen little girl dying in the cellar, the half-eaten corpse unseen upstairs, and outside are ever-growing ranks of the living dead. And with these characters, think about 12 Angry Men, Breakfast Club, and any other stories about what happens when strangers are trapped in a room for hours on end. It's a classic scenario, where walls are broken down and the inner humanity (or lack thereof) of these people is revealed.
Now think about what happens when society is falling apart around them and everything is stripped away save for the basic drive to survive at all costs. As with any great Romero zombie story, the true monsters aren't the zombies. And the play format allows the luxury of fleshing out the characters, pardon the pun, more than they were in the movie(s, if you count the Romero-penned Tom Savini-directed remake with mangod Tony "Candyman" Todd).
That's the thing: you'd never see the zombies. Even the little girl zombie and the people she kills will happen in the cellar, with the right sounds and effects to let the audience's imaginations take it to far more horrible places than we could even stage. Meanwhile, the radio will almost always be on in the background, filling the characters and the audience in on the nature of the zombies and what the authorities are (and aren't) going to do, etc. And then, just as things are quieting down, BAM! The lights go out. The radio is dead. The stage is lit only by patches of moonlight and shadows are everywhere. And this is where the twenty or so extras come in and begin pounding on the doors and windows of the entire theatre itself. And then, for anyone who remembers how the original movie ended, the entire scene will be played out via radio while the character emerges from the cellar and looks out the window.
Oh man oh man. It really frickin' works. And we could totally update the social commentary too. Alan came up with some neat commentary on anti-smoking and anti-homosexuality, and just writing this up now I can see some nice possibilites for Katrina response commentary as well. And the best part about producing this play? The part that almost screams we have no choice but to do this?
The rights are completely free.
Yep, thanks to some horrible legal snafu, Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. Romero doesn't get a single penny of royalties for the film where he invented flesh-eating zombies. Which sucks, but hey, he's more than made up for it with his subsequent films. And besides, DUDE! Come next Halloween, I dunno, I think we may just have to do Rude Mechanicals' Second Stage production of Night of the Living Dead.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 04:23 pm (UTC)Goblin's (Argento's band, and they did a lot of the non-muzak music in the original Romero cut) music often gets on my nerves, and it did for much of this cut. But around the second half of the movie (and this version felt long too, but never boring or slow like the original could sometimes do) it really kicks in and marks a real improvement over the Romero music. The bikers roll in with a hard driving electric guitar that really brings a sense of danger, like, "oh shit, they're seriously gonna fuck shit up." And one of my biggest problems, the cheezy A-Team level music when Peter saves the day at the end, is replaced by the same badass (insofar as Golin's music is badass) music. Far, far superior.
My complaints? For all the things he paces better, her seriously cuts other pacing to ribbons. The Hare Krishna zombie just suddenly appears at the top, but no longer do we see his slow, creepy, suspenseful ascension. Much more importantly, he did the exact same thing with Flyboy zombie. It was so powerful in the Romero cut seeing Flyboy zombie remember that, oh yeah, there's a door behind this flimsy wall and my wife is up there. It's paced so well done in the original that you really see the last embers of his humanity dying away, ended when he reaches the top... and closes the door behind him. In Argento's, whup! Steven's there, oh noes! Now he's ded, yay!
Also, it's a shame to cut out the humor. I suppose since this was a european cut it was less important to critique American consumerism, but damn it, like Macbeth and the porter scene, the absurd humor is really essential to the story. Oddly, he includes an extended joke involving Tom Savini and a switchblade comb that was brilliant. Argento also cut out one of my favorite bits, the guy who asks the characters if they have any cigarettes, and after they so and fly off you see them all light up. That speaks volumes for the characters' natures and Argento cut it.
Ultimately, it's really worth watching. If I had my way, I'd want a cut of them both in one, to mix and match, and I dare say I might finally truly love Dawn instead of just little-more-than-appreciate it, y'know?
no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 03:13 pm (UTC)Savini specifically left some things off screen and used sound, knowing that the imagination provides so much more.
I can totally get behind this as a project. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 08:55 pm (UTC)Please do this!