Page to Stage - the unwritten adaptation (just as the West End beats me to it)

Shush, I know we shouldn’t have favourites.  But if I had to choose, go on then, it would undoubtedly be the IB’s Literature and Performance course, particularly the unit on textual transformation - especially when the source material is as evocative and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

This beguiling novel draws readers in with the allure of a love story, a bildungsroman, a science fiction narrative, all wrapped up in a Man Booker Prize-shortlisted package.  Yet, it’s the haunting imagery that lingers: a young girl clutching a pillow, swaying to music with a desperate tenderness; office workers glimpsed through glass, their lives tantalisingly out of reach; a boat stranded in the mud, symbolising dreams stuck in limbo.  Beneath the surface, the novel explores the harrowing reality of a dystopian world where cloned individuals are bred solely for organ donation.  Through the lens of Kathy H.’s narration, we are immersed in the eerie duality of knowing and not knowing, as she recounts her childhood at Hailsham, a boarding school where students are groomed for their grim fate.

I have taught this novel for many different courses from straight Literature, to Literature and Performance and even supervising Extended Essays - and every time I found myself longing to write my adaptation.  I could ‘see’ the novel on stage.  But, of course, before I could act on this impulse Alex Garland delivered a wonderful filmic adaptation, and now Suzanne Heathcote stage version is to be seen at the Rose Theatre. So before I go and see her take, here’s how I envision mine:

The stage will be set with an abstract backdrop representing Hailsham school - a constant reminder that the school never truly leaves these students.  The audience will be reminded of their school days, the whole theatre will have the air of a school assembly hall about it … something about the smell…   The opening choreography is of students engaged in various forms of art (painting, drawing, sculpture) - because art is the way they will try and search for their humanity.  

Downstage, sitting close to the audience is Kathy H. wearing what seems to be a nurse’s uniform.  She points back at a young student in a dynamic freeze, paint brush gloriously whirling in the air, it is a younger version of herself at Hailsham.  Breaking the fourth wall she introduces herself with the opening words of the novel, "My name is Kathy H. I'm thirty-one years old, and I've been a carer now for over eleven years."  And so opens my staging of Never Let Me Go.

You see it is the pursuit of Art that will define us and save us - even though (plot spoiler) it doesn’t really save the clones.

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