Theatrical Adaptation Of Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden A Chronotopic Study

Abstract

Literary adaptation is the transformation of a specific work to another genre or medium. It is not a mere process of replication or interpretation but one of innovation and creativity. As a process, adaptation has become prevalent through ages, and this has resulted in plethora of unconventional stories devised by creative adapters. Many stories, especially classics, are revisited and revived by innovative adapters. An outstanding classic, Philippa Pearce’s novel Tom’s Midnight Garden (1958) has been adapted for the stage for the first time by David Wood in 2001under the same title. As there is hardly any existing criticism which tackles the adaptation between Pearce’s source novel and Wood’s play, this paper aims at exploring the relationship between the two genres and showing how David Wood invigorates the novel’s sense of adventure and time slip in an impressive theatrical adaptation. Moreover, it attempts to illuminate the discrepancies between writing narrative and writing for the theater, and to prove whether Wood, in his adaptation, incorporates the effective rudiments of the new media with the fidelity to the original story. Along with Linda Hutcheon’s theory of adaptation, other critical perspectives of different critics will be used. In addition to adaptation, the paper aims at tracing the use of Bakhtin’s chronotope, literally the interplay of time and space, in Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden, and to realize how it is efficiently revealed in David Wood’s reduced adaptive play.