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I'm not even through Act II of Slay No More, etc. and I get another great idea...
I was discussing with my mother, who is something of a nascent Buffy fan, the difficulties inherent in bringing Buffy characters into Shakespearean text. The least of these, honestly, is the language. 16th Century England, 21st Century California - they may be as far apart as you could get as iterations of the same language go, but they're both pretty foreign to what one would call "Standard English" so honestly, not so much a problem.
No, the problem I was bemoaning was the difficulty of writing Buffy into these plays. The first impulse, of course, is to make her the female romantic lead. Which works until you realize that it makes her subservient to the will of men, demure, and kind of flaky - three things which Buffy Anne Summers is most assuredly not. While![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
qkellie has it somewhat easy because she cast Buffy as Katherine in Taming of the Shrew, I've had to struggle with making dear Buffy into Hero, because Hero is really, seriously weak. Which was okay for ol' Willy, but Joss would have none of that.
So I'm discussing this problem with Mom, and she brings up her deep, eternal love for all things Jane Austen. Briefly, we try to suss out whether Buffy would be a good fit for, say, Sense and Sensibility, but to no avail. Austen's works are too bound by the rules of propriety. It's a concept that would need far too much work for a trifling fanfic.
Then, I wondered about other authors who have female characters who, if not exactly strong, are stronger than Shakespeares. The Bronte sisters came to mind, and a devil of an idea came to me.
Jane Eyre. With an all-Buffy, twisted ship cast. Buffy as Jane. Giles as Rochester. Drusilla as Bertha. Wesley (or possibly Ethan) as St. John.
Obviously, the characters would have to be paired back a bit, the novel condensed to something manageable... But damn. Potential city.
Also, Wuthering Heights with Spike (or William!) as Heathcliff.
Anyway. Crazy thoughts.
I have the first few pages (index, playwrights, plays) up, however mostly non-functioning, for Buffy and the Bard: All the World's A Hellmouth - http://bard.flamingturtleneck.net.
I was discussing with my mother, who is something of a nascent Buffy fan, the difficulties inherent in bringing Buffy characters into Shakespearean text. The least of these, honestly, is the language. 16th Century England, 21st Century California - they may be as far apart as you could get as iterations of the same language go, but they're both pretty foreign to what one would call "Standard English" so honestly, not so much a problem.
No, the problem I was bemoaning was the difficulty of writing Buffy into these plays. The first impulse, of course, is to make her the female romantic lead. Which works until you realize that it makes her subservient to the will of men, demure, and kind of flaky - three things which Buffy Anne Summers is most assuredly not. While
qkellie has it somewhat easy because she cast Buffy as Katherine in Taming of the Shrew, I've had to struggle with making dear Buffy into Hero, because Hero is really, seriously weak. Which was okay for ol' Willy, but Joss would have none of that.So I'm discussing this problem with Mom, and she brings up her deep, eternal love for all things Jane Austen. Briefly, we try to suss out whether Buffy would be a good fit for, say, Sense and Sensibility, but to no avail. Austen's works are too bound by the rules of propriety. It's a concept that would need far too much work for a trifling fanfic.
Then, I wondered about other authors who have female characters who, if not exactly strong, are stronger than Shakespeares. The Bronte sisters came to mind, and a devil of an idea came to me.
Jane Eyre. With an all-Buffy, twisted ship cast. Buffy as Jane. Giles as Rochester. Drusilla as Bertha. Wesley (or possibly Ethan) as St. John.
Obviously, the characters would have to be paired back a bit, the novel condensed to something manageable... But damn. Potential city.
Also, Wuthering Heights with Spike (or William!) as Heathcliff.
Anyway. Crazy thoughts.
I have the first few pages (index, playwrights, plays) up, however mostly non-functioning, for Buffy and the Bard: All the World's A Hellmouth - http://bard.flamingturtleneck.net.
