Converting the Playscript to Screenplay

Many plays have been turned into movies successfully (e.g., Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Streetcar Named Desire, Glass Menagerie, Death of a Salesman, Some Like it Hot, Twelve Angry Men, more recently, Six Degrees of Separation,  and Doubt), so the two art forms are mutually adaptable.

The examples are of the theater of the interior. Their dramatic impact is powered by the interplay between the characters and the inner workings of the characters. There's not much interaction with physical nature or its forces. Expressing their conflicts doesn't rely on physical violence--action movies.

Interior theater lends itself well to low budget filmmaking. You don't have to show a lot of objects or broad action or interplay with physical objects. Interior theater relies on quality of acting more than action/adventure, or exterior theater. When adapted to film, the results of the adaptation to film rely on the creativity of the director to select images that complement the interior flow of drama.

Dewitt & Maria (D&M) is interior theater and a comedy. The comedy provides some relief for the audience's strict concentration. Furthermore, D&M lends itself to low budget filmmaking. It could be shot entirely in your house and yard and the surrounding sidewalks. It requires nine actors and your friends could easily fill out the ending dance scene.

I would recommend the writer organize a simple table reading of one of the first drafts of the screen play. It's valuable to hear it semi-acted, hear comments of other listeners and the actors, and it's a good foundation for a party.

The reading revealed three main problems with the first screenplay draft. First, I had left in several long speeches that didn't work that well. Second, the plot device that brings Dewitt and his mother into acquaintance with Maria and her father, of near adjoining windows of two apartments, would not work well on film and was hard to set up. Third,  I had vainly tried to fix the first problem by cutting out one of the most wordy scenes, however, one turned out to be one of the hearts of the drama between the two main characters.

By the second draft, I had overcome all three problems: I trimmed several speeches, I found another way for Tony and Jean to meet and arrange a meeting between their children. And, I restored the heart of the play to the movie.

By the third and fourth drafts I had sharpened and enhanced the conflicts and relationships between the characters, made more variety and openness in the settings. Enhanced the visual nature of the movie version over the stage version.

My director, Dennis Devine had to show me how to format the script to make it suitable for the industrial process (and cultural norms and conventions) of shooting a movie.