Miscellany — The Canterbury Tales

Huh, five ads from five actors' parents? What are the odds?

So, what's this book's deal?

Well, actually, Hypothetical Reader, this isn't a book, it's just the program from a high school play!

Oh, so that's a big, fat —

That's fair. Maybe this is more of an Oddaptations:

Slightly trimmed!

Some people like to complain about the inevitable changes that occur when a story is adapted from one medium to another. But let's be honest, sometimes, the less faithful an adaptation is, the more memorable it is. So, in this series I'll be taking a look at adaptations where creators took one look at the source material and said, "FUCK THAT NOISE!" to see how that turned out. Today's Oddaptation:

The Canterbury Tales (Tales of Caunterbury) (1387-1400ish) by Geoffrey Chaucer into The Canterbury Tales (2002) by Lindsay Price, dir. Stacy Castiglione (performed October 18-20, 2018)

So how did the tale of pilgrims swapping stories on the road from London to Canterbury become a tale of pilgrims swapping stories on the road from London to . . . Canterbury. . . .

Well, fuck!

Okay, so it's not an Oddaptations either.  Well, whatever. Out of idle curiosity, I went to see a play based on The Canterbury Tales at the high school where I went to high school. LOS AL CLASS OF '02 RULEZ! Here's what I thought:

It was fine.

It's clear that this production was the result of a lot of hard work by all the students involved. And given that everything was done by the students themselves (including sets and costuming) it was an impressive undertaking. I was in two plays* in my senior year of high school and I acted** in the International Playhouse at UC Santa Cruz, and I know how frightening and exhilarating amateur theatre can be, so I won't be too harsh on the performers here. They were all game and definitely went all-in on the play's slapstick comedy and questionable accents.

The play itself is quite faithful to the spirit of Chaucer's work. If you're already familiar with The Canterbury Tales just skip to the next paragraph. If you aren't, here's a brief description: So, The Canterbury Tales is a long Middle English poem by Geoffrey Chaucer composed in heroic couplets. It begins with a General Prologue that introduces the characters (some twenty-odd pilgrims (including a fictionalized version of Chaucer himself) spanning the width and breadth of late Medieval English society) who are making their way to Canterbury (Caunterbury, if you speak Middle English) and happen to meet each other at the Tabard Inn in Southwark (Southwerk, if you speak Middle English). The innkeeper (one Harry Bailey) notices how much fun everyone is having and proposes a game: he'll join the pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury and on the way there everyone will tell two stories, then on the way back they'll tell two more stories and, upon their return to London, they'll select a winner and throw him or her a big party back at the Tabard. The text only exists in fragments, and no, Chaucer never completed the 100+ stories suggested by this prologue. There are, however, 24 extant tales, each of which is preceded by a prologue in which the pilgrims trade banter and reveal a little about themselves. So, let's talk about the play.

The script is written to be performed by eight or more actors. The cast includes: The Hostess, The Prioress, The Miller, The Reve, The Cook, The Wife of Bath, The Franklin, and the Pardoner (in this production there were six additional cast members, three men and three women, more on that in a moment). Each takes a turn telling a tale that is acted out by the other patrons at the inn (those are the extra cast members I was talking about). While discarding Chaucer's Middle English poetry (if you're not familiar with how Middle English differs from Modern English, just take all the things that make Shakespeare difficult for some readers and turn them up to eleven), the tales are told pretty much as they are in the original (this is also the source of my favorite running gag in the play, more on that later).

Price (the adapter), strikes a good balance in her selection of tales and pilgrims. Although her play doesn't present the same cross section of Medieval English society as the original, it does present the audience with a broad variety of genres: an animal fable, two bawdy anecdotes, a fairy tale, a courtly romance, and a morality play. Oh, and the Cook's Tale, which Chaucer (by design or accident) left famously unfinished. This is reflected in the play by the Cook's repeated failure to come up with a tale, climaxing with her passing out from stress while telling a tale in rhyme and accidentally ending a line with "orange."Also, props to the actor portraying the Cook, who definitely bore the brunt of the show's slapstick humor. Overall, the script has a very "high school play" vibe. The general prologue being treated as an opportunity to explain (at least a little) to the audience about why people undertook the pilgrimage to Canterbury and what conditions were like on the road (things Chaucer's original audience would already be aware of). There are also some clunky things that didn't really work, like the repeated "TO CANTERBURY!" in the Prologue and the distracting dance going on in the background of the Franklin's tale (also, the Franklin's tale is hella boring).

Oh, and aside from their gusto, I'd also like to praise the cast for their professionalism in the face of the unforeseen. During the performance I attended the fire alarm was accidentally set off and the actors didn't skip a beat (don't worry, there was no fire). Also, while everyone on stage was mic'd there were a few instances in which audio glitches rendered some of the dialogue difficult to hear (also, one the sound crew could have lowered the volume on the Miller's mic, he definitely did not need assistance with his projection). But again, the students in the cast and crew soldiered on as if nothing were wrong.

So, on the plus side: the cast and crew both stepped up and delivered in the face of pressure (sure, not every performance was great, but I'm not a drama critic). The play kept up the spirit of the original and provided the audience with a wealth of diversions and a more or less enjoyable evening at the theatre. On the minus side: the script is a little too cheese-y (and I like cheese) and a bit on the nose. Oh also a minus: I can't make a recommendation about seeing this production since the last show was on October 20th of this year.

Anyway, like I said, it was fine. Definitely better than A Bad Day at Gopher's Breath (this is a call-back to something in the footnotes, or a call-forward if you didn't scroll down to check them out).

*I played Teddy Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace and Sheriff Amos Crutchwaffle (the second most-feared man in the West) in A Bad Day at Gopher's Breath (you've probably only heard of one those plays and there's definitely a reason (the reason is that A Bad Day at Gopher's Breath sucks))

**I played the parts of Landlord and Manager in ああ、勘違い！(Aa, kanchigai! - Now I get it!)

Links:

Here's the website for the Los Al Drama department, if you're into that kinda thing.

If you're interested in licensing The Canterbury Tales for production, this seems to be the place to do it.

You too can read the Playbill for this production.

So, the drama teacher put up this trailer for the play featuring the theme song from Cheers, a TV show that had been off the air almost as long as it was ever on the air by the time most of the cast was born.