Sabina Berman Redux: Adaptation and the Anxiety of (Self)Influence

Abstract

Adaptation is bit like redecorating. Alfred Uhry SINCE 2012 and premiere of El narco negocia con Dios, there has been considerable fanfare over Sabina Berman's return to theatre after decade of devoting her energies to film, television, narrative, and cultural politics. Yet, unknown to all but her most devout followers, this return to theatre has primarily entailed of obscure little play that she wrote in 1994: El gordo, la pajara y el narco. In fact, during past twenty years, Berman has adapted and staged this one-act piece three times and with three different titles: Krisis (1997), El narco negocia con Dios (2012), and Tic Tac Boom! (2013). Nonetheless, this particular instance of Berman redux is not due to monetary motives or inertia, but rather constitutes response to both changes and lack of changes that have taken place on Mexico's political and social stage during past two decades. Theories proposed by Linda Hutcheon, Marvin Carlson, Julie Sanders, Richard Dawkins, and others elucidate meaning of adaptation itself in Berman's continuous effort to reflect changing real-world scenario to who has likewise had to adapt in order to survive. Among most commonly remarked features of Berman's theatre are her perfectionism and, more specifically, her penchant for revision. (1) As Mexican theatre critic Olga Harmony notes, Ese rigor, que pocos de nuestros dramaturgos poseen, la lleva escribir una y otra vez sus textos, cambiando no solamente el nombre de sus obras ... Sino la esencia misma de ellas, segun va madurando y segun corren los tiempos y las costumbres (Sutilezas 112). This habit dates back to 1979 and her first full-length play, Machinegun, title that she promptly changed to Yankee after realizing that former sounded too much like mas chingon. Another play, Herejia (1983), is also known as Anatema, Los Carbajales, Los marranos, and En el nombre de Dios. (2) Berman's seemingly obsessive need to revise her plays extends, however, well beyond changes in title to detailed reworking of prior text, which Linda Hutcheon identifies as or repetition with variation (4). (3) The act of is nothing new. In his seminal study on literary influence, Anxiety of Influence, Harold Bloom posits that all writing is influenced by previous writing. He describes this influence, however, in positive terms such as creative revisionism and recollecting forwards, of breaking forth into freshening (83). Likewise, Edward Said, in his treatise on originality, states that the writer thinks less of writing originally, and more of rewriting (135). Indeed, one of hallmarks of postmodern expression is [t]he conscious and calculated recycling of material, from one's own previous life and work as well as those of others, ... Not only in literary texts but in theatrical performance (14). Indeed, adaptation is as inherently political as act of writing itself. As Julie Sanders states, a political or ethical commitment shapes writer's, director's, or performer's decision to re-interpret source text (2). In case of Sabina Berman, this politico-ethical commitment is to change required if Mexico is to survive current levels of violence, corruption, and moral decay. The reading or viewing of adaptation is significantly different from that of isolated play. To fully appreciate theatrical adaptation, one must consider dialogic relations that exist among various re-writings as well as temporal, political, and cultural context in which they have been written and performed. As Hutcheon explains, knowing audience, familiar with source play, experiences an interpretive doubling, conceptual flipping back and forth between work we know and work we are experiencing (139). There is, additionally, element of pleasure in experience of difference: On experiential level, conservative comfort of familiarity is countered by unpredictable pleasure in difference--for both creator and audience (Hutcheon 173). …