BY ANNE COLEMAN

In print | Published September 10, 2009

When the new film adaptation of “Fame” hits theaters on Sept. 25, it is entirely possible that the critics will run screaming from the theaters. Though the production began as a film, it made a pit-stop on the stage, rendering this newest production as vulnerable to critics and loyal theatergoers as any other stage-to-screen adaptation.

Again and again, the writers of stage and screen revisit their work to see what can be done to bring new life to their work. For some, like Peter Morgan, author of both the stage and screen versions of the movie “Frost/Nixon”, the adaptation receives equal or possibly greater praise than the stage version. For most who have attempted it in recent years, however, taking their work to the silver screen has been a fiasco. Reflect for a moment, if you will, on Ethan Hawke’s portrayal of Hamlet or Renee Zellweger’s Roxie Hart in “Chicago.”

The new production of “Fame” is not off to an auspicious start when it comes to appeasing the loyal theater crowd. It appears to be a combination of “High School Musical” and “Step Up,” an idea that could succeed at the box office but in context is guaranteed a lot of naysayers, independent of the production’s history. “Fame”‘s fresh attempt already appears to have made too many changes to survive the heat.

Making too few changes is equally fatal. The fundamental differences between live performance and film are great enough that, for the most part, simply lifting the text of a play into a realist film setting will create an absolutely miserable viewing experience and an insult to both mediums.

Live theater is driven by dialogue, a fact that stems just as much from the limitations of stage action as it does from the ancient Greeks, who placed all of the action offstage. Film, on the other hand, is a more visual medium, with a history that traces back to the almost entirely dialogue-free silent films. In order for an adaptation to succeed, it must acknowledge the roots of both mediums and find a middle ground in which both are adequately represented.

Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd” is an excellent example of a production that made just enough changes to please everyone. His film harnessed the power of the quick cut as a device for eliciting anxiety from his audience, simultaneously embracing the vicious nature of Sondheim’s vision and breaking free from the limitations of dialogue. The opening credits of the film set a tone that no stage performance could capture as the camera weaves around the gutters of London, scurrying alongside the rats and vermin of the city, which so closely resemble the characters of Sweeney’s world.

In other words, the film did what theatrical artifice alone could not do, but it did so in order to enhance the existing qualities of the production. Critics could have no objection to the film on the basis of faithfulness to the original, but the film truly succeeded because Burton did not accept the limitations of the play.

Burton’s success, however, was not without cost, a lesson that “Fame” should take to heart. An audience experiences something extraordinary when it gives itself over to the theater for a few hours. For a brief moment in time, the theater audience experiences something that can never truly be repeated. The audience has the power to affect the story, to change the way an actor responds to a moment or scene and to enhance their own experience. The audience is empowered to choose what it sees, in a way that film will never permit. The film director shows the audience a world through a lens and manipulates what it sees and can change the role in which it is cast. While stage directors may have something they wish for the audience to see, there is nothing to keep it from focusing on something entirely different from the intended central action.

In terms of Burton’s “Sweeney Todd,” translating the play to film meant letting go of the haunting, uncomfortable sensation that the Michael Cerveris/Patty LuPone production of “Sweeney Todd” conjured up every time the audience realized how close it was to an uninvolved character (a constant occurrence, since characters rarely went out of sight, even after they had died).

For “Fame,” losing that flexible viewpoint will be a dramatic downside. So many scenes call for large groups of people that the entire film will either be spent on panoramic, overwhelming shots with showy, contrived dance scenes, or will diverge considerably from the original successful version of the story.

In order for the newest version of “Fame” to succeed, it must either adhere very closely to Burton’s model or openly reject its production history and demand consideration as a separate and completely new work. If the film follows neither path, it will undoubtedly suffer the wrath of theater audiences and critics alike.

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