As you may have seen if you happen to follow me on Twitter, during a performance of Tosca at San Francisco Opera last week, I found myself thinking about how Mélanie would have played the situation differently from Tosca. Yes, I think about my books and characters all the time, even-or perhaps especially-at the theater. After Adrianne Pieczonka’s powerful “Vissi d’Arte” (in which Tosca realizes she’s going to have to agree to sleep with Scarpia to save her lover Cavaradossi) I decided that Mélanie probably wouldn’t have killed Scarpia as Tosca does. She’d have been too aware of the complications that would create. His body would be discovered, and ten to one they’d be caught before they could escape. Mel would have been quite capable of going through with the bargain and sleeping with Scarpia. But she’d also have been aware of the likelihood that Scarpia would double-cross her, so she’d have figured out some plan to outwit him. Of course, Charles would have played the situation differently from Mario Cavaradossi in the first place (he’d have told Mel what was going on for one thing). Not to mention that Charles and Mel might well have had different agendas from each other, which would have led to a whole new set of complications…
I was also struck, as I have been before, by some interesting parallels between Tosca and The Scarlet Pimpernel. The three central characters are similar in both–the beautiful, emotional actress, the idealistic hero, the cold, scheming police chief/agent. But the most striking parallels are not to the original Scarlet Pimpernel book, but to later adaptations. It’s in the film adaptations (and the musical) that one finds the triangle Marguerite/Percy/Chauvelin triangle which has similarities to the Tosca/Cavaradossi/Scarpia triangle. And then there’s the ending. Tosca ends with Cavaradossi going through what is supposed to be a mock execution, only Scarpia double-crosses Tosca, and Cavaradossi actually dies. The Howard/Oberson and Andrews/Seymour Scarlet Pimpernels end with the reverse. Marguerite believes Percy has been executed, only to learn it was a mock execution (does anyone know if the mock execution is in any other versions of TSP?).
Do you ever find yourself watching a play, opera, movie, tv show and thinking of how characters from a different story would behave in similar circumstances? Writers, do you find yourselves imagining what your own characters would do in the plot of another story? Has anyone else noticed the Tosca/Scarlet Pimpernel parallels?
Talking of Mélanie’s behavior in the midst of intrigue, this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is another dispatch from her to Raoul from the Congress of Vienna.
June 22, 2009 at 2:09 pm
In the musical, there is a mock execution – Margot believes Percy has been killed. But I believe in the two movie versions (1934 and 1950) she is away before Percy is taken before “the firing squad”. IIRC, the 1982 version has a different ending.
Yes, I’ve seen certain books and movies and thought, “What would Margot and Percy do?” LOL. I can’t help it, they’re my favorite couple.
June 22, 2009 at 5:50 pm
That’s so funny, I’ve seen the musical several times, and I remember whole bits of dialogue, but I forgot about the mock execution. Is Marguerite on stage when it happens? I’m not completely positive about the 1934 version (I know there’s a mock execution, but I don’t remember where Margot is), and I haven’t seen the 1950 version. But in the 1982 version, the supposed soldiers take Percy out into the courtyard to shoot him. Margot is inside with Armand and Chauvelin, but she thinks Percy is being executed. She screams “Percy” where you hear the gunshots.
Glad you do the same thing of imagining favorite characters in other stories. I used to do that with Lymond frequently.
June 28, 2009 at 4:06 am
I don’t know that I ever plugged classic characters into another classic plot, except as an academic exercise. I do remember a student discussion about what would have happened if Hamlet and Othello had switched plots. My theory: Othello the soldier would have had no compunctions about offing Claudius, while Iago wouldn’t have deceived Hamlet for a second.
I think, more often, I would look at classic works and wonder how they’d play out in another setting, either time or place–a bit like updating a Shakespeare play by setting it in Regency England or Jazz Age New York. And how the characters would be transformed/reimagined in their new environment: Beatrice as a Mary Wollstonecraft-like bluestocking or an Edwardian suffragette, or Cleopatra as a captivating jazz queen and owner of a speak-easy.
With my own characters, I may have imagined them in other stories, though no specific example immediately occurs. Still, it’s when the story diverges from its original path because of the insertion of one’s own characters that new tales are generated.
June 28, 2009 at 6:02 am
Oh, I love your take on switching Othello and Hamlet, Stephanie! There’s a Tom Stoppardish play in that.
A friend and I once spent the drive home from a play reimagining it with Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters.
My mom and I got a lot of plot ideas playing “what if” with operas and plays. Either putting in characters we were already working with or dreaming up new characters. I still do the same. I’ve been known to scribble ideas on my program at intermission.