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Writers on writers
Playwrights, novelists and other scribes weigh in on the year’s best screenplays
Jon Robin Baitz on “Beginners”
Screenplay by Mike Mills
Sometimes a film can help you locate yourself, in so much as a great one possesses within its beating heart a kind of emotional GPS. This mechanism almost works as a kind of mirror: If you are wandering about in your life, and you are perhaps a little lost, when you see this film, you find yourself represented in its mood, in the images playing out before your eyes, and in its spirit. It has the magic of autobiography, without the banal facts of one’s own life. “Beginners” had that for me. It is about the tentative and quiet nature by which love can break down a deeply ingrained inner aloneness.
On the surface, the story being told is one of a youngish man coming to terms, via exquisitely rendered flashback, with his father’s recent death to cancer. This, a few short years after the father, gorgeously played by Christopher Plummer, has come out of the closet in his eighth decade, to seek out something like love and companionship.
In the present scenes, the son, still awash in a quiet grief, meets a woman, with whom there is a deep and resonant connection, which he tries to make sense of, and allow. She, too, is of the tribe of the melancholy, but like all sad and truly optimistic people, her bravery is asserted by her willingness to offer herself to another, rather than run away into the silence of her own future. In the end, the young man recognizes that in a life which is defined by the necessity of all of us eventually losing what we love, life has only one lesson; no matter how many regrets the past may hold, it is never too late to begin again. And I suppose that what spoke to me most is the gentleness with which Mike Mills told a story about the incalculable risks of love and how much quiet courage there actually can be in a love story.
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The Time Traveller's Wife (musical)
2022 musical
The Time Traveller's Wife is a stage musical with a book by Lauren Gunderson and music and lyrics by Joss Stone and Dave Stewart (with additional lyrics by Kait Kerrigan and additional music by Nick Finlow), based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger and the 2009 film.
Background
A stage musical based on the book was announced to be in development in March 2021, which was due to premiere in the UK in late 2021 or early 2022. The musical is titled The Time Traveller's Wife and features a book by Lauren Gunderson music and lyrics by Joss Stone and Dave Stewart with additional lyrics by Kait Kerrigan. The production is directed by Bill Buckhurst and produced by Colin Ingram for InTheatre Productions by special arrangement with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures.
In response to the announcement, Niffeneger revealed on Twitter she did not know about the project and then clarified that the theatrical rights belonged to Warner Bros.
Production history
Chester (2022)
The stage musical premiered at Storyhouse in Chester running from 30 September to 15 October 2022. The production was directed by Bill Buckhurst and designed by Anna Fleischle, with choreography by Shelley Maxwell, lighting design by Lucy Carter, illusions by Chris Fisher, video design by Andrzej Goulding, sound design by Richard Brooker, musical supervision & arrangement by Nick Finlow and orchestrations by Bryan Crook.
The cast included David Hunter as Henry with Joanna Woodward as Clare.
West End (2023)
On 8 February 2023, it was announced that the production will transfer to the Apollo Theatre in London's West End. The show began previews from 7 October 2023 with opening night planned for 1 November 2023. Hunter and Woodward reprise their roles as Henry and Clare. Dawes, Elchikhe, and Mahendran also returned as Henry's Dad, Charisse, and Gomez respectively. Originally scheduled to by Ross As someone who has never read the book or seen any type of adaptation; film or small screen, I felt like a bit of a virgin walking into the theater. I couldn’t help but notice that the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End was filled to overflowing with fans who had a great knowledge of the storyline and a great love for the characters that live and breath inside The Time Traveler’s Wife, the new musical from the same producers as the musical adaptations of Ghost and Back to the Future. Expectations of those around me were higher than high, and although I wasn’t as excited as those others, my fellow theatre-goer and I were looking forward to the idea of being spellbound, hoping that the time-traveling synopsis would pull us in and take us on a wild ride journey filled with romance and sci-fi wonderment. Now I can’t say that was exactly the case, but I won’t say it wasn’t achieved somewhat, in a way and on a few different quantum states. The musical spins around the love relationship between its two central characters; Henry and Clare, played strongly by two very gifted singers and actors, with the biggest hurdle in their relationship being the complicated fact that Henry, played convincingly by David Hunter (West End’s Once; Waitress), at a drop of the proverbial hat, has this pesky gene that can send him flying around the planes of time involuntarily, with barely any notice beyond some sound and light clues, courtesy of the fine work by sound designer Richard Brooker (Riverside Studios’ Saving Grace), illusions consultant Chris Fisher (Broadway’s Company), and lighting designers Rory Beaton (Almeida’s Lovely Ugly City) and Lucy Carter (West End’s 2:22 A Ghost Touted as the ‘most romantic musical of all time’, Ghost: The Musical is adapted from Bruce Joel Rubin’s hit 1990 film about a young New York couple, Sam and Molly, whose charmed life is shattered when a mugger kills Sam. What follows is by turns moving, comic, tense and sexy, as the lingering Sam tries to warn his grieving girlfriend about a dangerous criminal, with the help of an eccentric psychic. It’s easy to see why Ghost is such a fan-favourite, with its likeable characters, poignant romantic plot and high-stakes jeopardy. This Easter Term, CUMTS’ production makes a praiseworthy go of reproducing all of these features. As the romantic leads, Alex Hancock as Sam and Maryam Dorudi as Molly deliver some believable stage chemistry, although – it has to be said – without the physical intensity of Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in the original film (the famously phallic pottery scene returns here unsexed). Instead they open the show as an earnest, if initially slightly colourless couple who like to support and sing to each other. For me, it’s when they’re separated by Sam’s death that their performances really come alive. "Sound and lighting are orchestrated very effectively" Increasingly, and especially in the second act, Hancock translates his easy stage presence into powerful expressions of rage and distress, carrying much of the show’s jeopardy and pace, while the wide-eyed Molly becomes a convincingly heartbroken study in grief. Dorudi’s pitch-perfect belt is largely to thank for this, with an arresting rendition of ‘Nothing Stops Another Day’ elevating the second act. Her vocal accomplishment is matched by that of Hancock, as well as Jonathan Iceton’s performance as an impressively oily, desperate villain. The three round off the first act with a punchy ‘Suspend My Disbelief’/ ’I Had A Life’. Further notable performances come from Rory Russel as the Hospital Ghost (played with standout comic and vocal flair); Joseph F
West End’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife – The Musical” Jumps Romantically Around Love With Complications
The London Theatre Review: West End’s The Time Traveler’s Wife
Ghost: The Musical review