Event cinema as Adaptation A stage, a screen or a compromised experience?

Abstract

With the rapid rise in popularity over recent years of live cinema screenings of theatrical performances, known as ‘event cinema’, this paper examines this new medium of entertainment and the extent to which it is a hybrid of two quite different media. It explores the differences between storytelling and direction techniques on stage and on screen, and the extent to which remediating between the two changes the way the audience experiences the performance. It asks what audiences for these events are looking for and expecting, and examines some sharply differing approaches which have been taken by different screen directors. Finally it suggests that as remediations these are, in effect, adaptations of the original stage work, and that therefore the screen director should take editorial responsibility, and credit for what has become a separate artistic entity from the original stage performance.