Saturday, March 21, 2015

Weekend Discussion and Writing Assignment for the Brave; to be continued next week

Since most of us are tired of remakes but the networks keep doing them, let's give our networks something to really think about.  Continued from last week.


There have been novelas in the past that were based on classics.  The Count of Monte Cristo has been done numerous times both in different countries in period and modern dress, and often under typical novela-style titles. Once upon a time someone even did a novela version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which must have been short because that's a very short book as novels go.

The challenge, therefore, is to take a classic we all would recognize and make a novela out of it.

Today my muse is the Bard, William Shakespeare. After seeing the recent film of the Stratford Festival's production of King Lear, I thought that this could be great inspiration for a novela. Check out this scene, which would take place in the opening episode:


Here, therefore, is my dream cast and outline:



El Ranchero

Don Rafael de Campo has a huge cattle ranch and is now advancing in age. As he as no sons, the prevailing thought is that he will divide his property and herds equally among his three daughters. The older two are married and live on properties adjoining their father's; the youngest currently lives with him after coming home from the US, where she has just finished grad school.

Regina, the oldest, is married to Reynaldo. He is a good man who worked his arse off to save his parents' ranch from ruin.

Bernarda, the middle daughter, is married to Enrique, who is a slacker. He has been gambling away his inheritance and cheating on her. She cares much more about the former than the latter.

Sofia, the youngest of the daughters, has two suitors who are competing for her. Alejandro Santander has just taken over his family's food conglomerate, which is HQ'd in DF. Martín Cauduro, whose father's property is nearby, is looking to take over what he thinks will be her inheritance.

Rafael's closest friend is Don Benecio, who is also a rancher and has two sons. Julio has been away on business for a year or so and arrives home. German arrived in the meantime and claims to be Benecio's illegitimate son. Benecio ordered a DNA test and it came back positive. He is still trying to figure out what to do about this because he knows nothing about German.

Lic Diaz calls Don Rafael to tell him the documents have been prepared. He asks whether he is sure this is what he wants to do. They set up a meeting at the ranch. Before Diaz gets to the most important part of the will Rafael demands that his daughters tell him how much they love him. Regina answers as Goneril, Bernarda as Regan, Sofia as Cordelia. And Rafael reacts as Lear. He banishes Sofia to her room with the additional demand that she leave the ranch the next day.

Diaz is horrified at the demand that he change the will and tries to talk him out of it. He leaves with the matter unresolved and is barely out the door when Rafael calls Diaz' partner to make the changes Diaz didn't approve of. Maria declares that she will leave the ranch with Sofia.

Padre Francisco hears of this from Maria, and goes to Raphael to express his concerns.

That afternoon Martín and Alejandro arrive, almost at the same time. Regina and Bernarda, who relish the thought of taking Sofia's share of the inheritance, gloat at the reactions they are predicting about the two suitors' behavior. Martin satisfies this while Alejandro does not. He declares he will take Sofia far away from this place to his company in DF where her degree will do some good. She agrees to go with him and her father turns his back on her.

Regina and Bernarda laugh privately at their sisters' loss and their own deceit, which was in revenge for their father favoring Sofia. They discuss who will move into the hacienda to take it over and have trouble coming to any agreement. They finally draw cards from a tarot deck and Regina wins... for the first two months.

Sofia leaves the ranch with Alejandro who has phoned his office in advance to get her an apartment. She moves in right away and starts working at the food company within a matter of days. Her father had a contract with them, which is up for renewal in x amount of time. The business connexion continues undisturbed.

During that next two months, Regina embezzles money from the ranch while making it look as though profits are down. She keeps the actual books hidden in the safe to which she has changed the combination while replacing staff with people loyal to her. She begins infantilizing her father so that he starts giving up riding and fishing and other things he loves while she starts gaslighting him into thinking his health is worse than it is. This helps to isolate him from his previous social contacts. Her husband is away on business part of the time and is also running their property the rest of the time. He is away just enough to be unaware of what she is doing and that she is socking the money away in a off-shore account he won't know about.

Don Benecio starts wondering what is happening with his old friend. He has no idea that German is working at framing Julio for a crime to get him out of his way to the entire inheritance. German conspires with Martín to do this. In the meantime both are planning on seducing Regina and Bernarda with the ultimate goal of taking their inheritances. And Sofia just because they think they can. In fact, they are looking to double-cross each other.

Don Rafael starts weakening but also tries to fight back. Regina makes sure he can't contact anyone and tells him lies about Sofia's life in DF.

Sofia is put in charge of international markets and is doing well. She starts dating Alejandro, who adores her. She misses her father and the ranch. Maria knows this better than anyone and keeps in touch with Consuelo, who is her aunt. And Consuelo tells her that something is not right.

German murders a prostitute and frames Julio, who had to run for it and live disguised under an assumed name until he can come up with a plan.

At the end of two months Regina erases evidence of her embezzlement but neglects to change the combination of the wall safe. Bernarda moves in, leaving her husband behind at their place because she is sick of fighting with him about his laziness. She and Regina agree that she will stay there two months and they will review the situation at the end of that time. Bernarda is less patient than her older sister and much greedier. She is also colder and more cruel. After a medical crisis for Don Rafael she begins messing with his meds. Enrique ultimately follows her to the ranch, hoping to get something out of it for himself. He starts inviting his poker friends and goes through the entire wine cellar and stocks of booze. His friends are cruel to Rafael and begin getting violent.

Rafael flees to Regina's and Reynaldo's home and barely gets there in time before he collapses. The only thing that saves his life is the presence of Padre Francisco, who contacts Don Benecio and a doctor. The latter says that his heart is getting worse and he will need to be hospitalized. This gets him out of his older daughters' clutches just long enough to make a near-full recovery and puts him away from their other evil deeds.

Bernarda starts cheating on Enrique with German. Regina is tempted by Martín, but smart enough not to trust him. She begins to distrust Bernarda.

Benecio begins to suspect German is up to no good. Eventually he finds out something and ends up getting blinded by Bernarda and Enrique. German watches this from another room. Benecio is heavily drugged, taken to a distant place and dumped. Eduardo finds him.

Consuelo informs Sofia of her father's hospitalization. She comes to see him but he is too embarrassed to see her.

Both Regina and Bernarda look lustfully at Alejandro. This is where they really begin to distrust each other. When Regina starts coming on to him Bernarda tries to make this look compromising to Sofia, which creates conflict between her and Alejandro.

There will be various murders along the way, including the eventual blinding and murder of Benecio by Enrique.


Eventually this leads to a final confrontation between the two older sisters which ends either with Regina achieving redemption because she hasn't killed anyone or Bernarda killing her. Sofia and Alejandro succeed in rescuing Rafael who realizes her true worth and his own folly. He lives to see grandchildren and a growing estate.

Labels:


Comments:
I would love to participate in this great challenge but find it hard to do so because one of the things I liked most about reading the classics was being transported back in time. It would be extremely difficult for me to update my thinking in terms of transforming a classic into a novela. At a young age, I started reading very abridged versions of the classics published by Reader's Digest, which is probably out of business due to books on video. I don't listen to books on audio or e-books because I love the feel of turning a page and the feel of a novela in my hands.

I really look forward to reading others' comments. And think that the dream cast that you came up with is spot-on.
 

You could do it as a novela de epoca, of course. This one could easily take place in another century (although Sofia wouldn't have an MBA).
 

Urban, I love your idea. I think Shakespeare would translate very well into a tn. I can envision Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream (italicize the titles) already. I am not very familiar with tn actors, but I could easily see Nando as Hamlet and Fanny as Ophelia.

I think a producer needs to hire you!
 

Sorry. I posted the last one.

Ecuador Bound
 

As a big fan of King Lear, I would fervently watch this novela.

Cassandra G.
 

Urban,

This is inspired. I love the casting generally, too, though I think that the female cast might be a bit younger.

I wonder if you have read Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, a novelization of Lear that won the Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a movie with Jessica Lange. It might be interesting to ponder as you move forward with this in some way.

You gotta move forward with this. The novela is a great form for the creative retelling of the story and so much more interesting than much of what we watch.
You are a born story teller.
 

No; never read it, but I may.

I dearly wish my Spanish were at half the level of my English. I would be employed at Televisa for years by now and there would already be a Televisa version of Dark Shadows.
 

Oh what wonderful idea UA!! Shakespeare indeed is always a wonderful basis for a good story. Personally, I would love to see a more adult type comedy done for once. Wouldn't Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing be brilliant for a TN plots?
Plenty of lovebirds, a few "comedic" characters, some not so nice characters and plenty of roles for the classic older actors.

The leads are endless I can think of. Silvia or Angelique and Rulli in Much Ado as Beatrice and Benedik? Altair maybe as Viola--she is petite enough to pass as a boy and Nado's actor, sorry forgot his name, could be her twin Sebastian. I could go on....

Now I'm depressed we most likely wouldn't see that.

Daisynjay
 

Sorry meant Nanco's actor in MCET. Typing at the hair salon... not a good idea.

Daisynjay
 

I've mentioned this to you before, Urban and I will mention it again. You have an incredible talent that needs to be SEEN. You would be wonderful at Televisa.

Why wait? Take an intensive Spanish language course and start working on this. Don't let your dream become a "what if?".

Fatima
 

That would be a amazing story UA but i guess we cannot hope to see it ,.Well we saw La Malquerida which was a very original story and there should definetly be more novelas like it. We are tired of tireless remakes some of which are almost a complete copy paste of the original scripts or they had the potential to be good but got ruined from extendtion .
 

Urban, Your idea sounds wonderful and it has everything ... haciendas, horses, and plenty of opportunity for product placements.
 

I wonder whether the product placement thing gets on Mexicans' nerves they way it does ours.

Is nobody else going to take a crack at this?
 

Urban
Your story is amazing
and your attention to detail makes it so easy to imagine this happening
I wish I had the attention span to do the same with As You Like It
but I don't
 

Urban - Don Rafael's illness must take place during a violent thunderstorm!

I would definitely watch and thoroughly enjoy this novella.
 

Is it a novela without a thunderstorm? Those always portend important or evil things.

BTW, my research into Lear (which I did before seeing the film) said that earlier versions of the story had him surviving and Cordelia inheriting his kingdom (although she was murdered a few years later). Shakespeare made the story into the tragedy that it is.

Euripides was the only author in the ancient world who had Medea killing her children. In other versions of that story her younger children either died in accidents or were killed by the mob.

Remakes are nothing new!
 

Yeah, I'm tired of remakes but to say "classics we would all recognize" just rubs me the wrong way since much of the Western Canon is devoid of Latin/Hispanic writers. In fact almost every time you mention an exercise such as this you take some Anglo work and impose it on the TN (Lady Chatterly and Shakespeare come to mind.)

As count mentioned, La Malquerida used a Spanish work as its source. Why not set Caray readers to the task of adapting a specifically Latin/Hispanic work?

 

Maybe "Conquistadora" by Esmeralda Santiago. Maybe that's epic enough. I haven't read it, but I've read a few of her other books and enjoyed them very much.
 

Damn, UA! Just got a chance to read your synopsis. Bummed when it ended. Wonderful!! Still hoping for that Dark Shadows novela. Maybe send a treatment to Televisa?
 

Count: glad to see you again. Agree with your comment.

Perhaps Latin/Hispanic audiences are tired of seeing their stories adapted into whatever form of visual entertainment. Maybe it would be refreshing for them to see non-L/H works of literature adapted.

I'd like to see both. In regards to TN's anything not rehashed a million times.
 

I have discovered that you can revert something to "draft" that has comments and republish the post without losing the comments.

Wish I'd known that three years ago...
 

I would love if you started writing the script of this novela and later post it to Televisa if they would like it! Of course in your part time so you wont feel overwhelmed :)
But i do know that Televisa is interested in money and you are virtually a nobody in the Telenovela if you dont have a big wallet or fame which is quite a negative,.
It would be quite nice if there was a website/blog that you could write fanmade novels. I am sure there are some existing so if its a great job you'll make your fans shouting !
 

I found some website its called Lulu.com,you could check it out sometimes if you wish:) It helps you to write and publish books for free but i think it has a subcribtion model just like everything else today,.
 

Which would make it something I have to pay to get into and publish for no compensation.

I don't think so.
 

Urban, I love your 'King Lear' telenovela remake, but am curious as to your treatment of the evil sisters, as the literary community seems unanimous in the viewing Goneril as the more wicked of the sisters, and hence, someone FAR beyond redemption.

Actually, in reference to the four villains of Lear, I have always loved what A.C. Bradley wrote in his definitive work on Shakespeare's tragedies... I will repeat it here in full, and hope you enjoy it:

"Cornwall seems to have been a fit mate for Regan; and what worse can be said of him? It is a great satisfaction to think that he endured what to him must have seemed the dreadful disgrace of being killed by a servant. He shows, I believe, no redeeming trait, and he is a coward, as may be seen from the sudden rise in his courage when Goneril arrives at the castle and supports him and Regan against Lear. But as his cruelties are not aimed at a blood-relation, he is not, in this sense, a 'monster,' like the remaining three.

Which of these three is the least and which the most detestable there can surely be no question. For Edmund, not to mention other alleviations, is at any rate not a woman. And the differences between the sisters, which are distinctly marked and need not be exhibited once more in full, are all in favour of 'the elder and more terrible.' That Regan did not commit adultery, did not murder her sister or plot to murder her husband, did not join her name with Edmund's on the order for the deaths of Cordelia and Lear, and in other respects failed to take quite so active a part as Goneril in atrocious wickedness, is quite true but not in the least to her credit. It only means that she had much less force, courage and initiative than her sister, and for that reason is less formidable and more loathsome. Edmund judged right when, caring for neither sister but aiming at the crown, he preferred Goneril, for he could trust her to remove the living impediments to her desires. The scornful and fearless exclamation, 'An interlude!' with which she greets the exposure of her design, was quite beyond Regan. Her unhesitating suicide was perhaps no less so. She would not have condescended to the lie which Regan so needlessly tells to Oswald:

"It was great ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out,
To let him live: where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life."

Her father's curse is nothing to her. She scorns even to mention the gods. Horrible as she is, she is almost awful. But, to set against Regan's inferiority in power, there is nothing: she is superior only in a venomous meanness which is almost as hateful as her cruelty. She is the most hideous human being (if she is one) that Shakespeare ever drew."
 

In the play Goneril takes more initiative but Regan is the more sadistic of the two. She and her husband are well-matched.

My proposed changes are not unusual to the novela world. Even between remakes of the same original story novela writers make changes. My version could also end with Rafael disowning his oldest for the evil she did do even if she repents. Remember that there is a small contingent among viewers that want even the worst villains to achieve redemption, which is not realistic. Regina could end the story alive but paying the price of the loss of her family, including her husband.

Besides, if this played to Shakespeare's ending there would be no suspense.
 

I would love to see this idea taken but the biggest challenge would be modernizing it although that could be handled .I kind of like the hierhacy that seems to be the common place in the house and a great part in the story but it should be kept to the minimum . Cause today in the modern age i cannot see how the sisters would simply escape and run away from their opressive father. I guess the characters would be forced to return because their "better lives" became much worse than staying with Daddy Dearest in Hell Camp so the two sisters have decided to return relucantly because maybe Daddy gets terminally ill ( Or he pretends to be ill just to get the family closer again) .
 

Simply stay and not run away from their oppresive father ,pardon!
 

Urban- that was awesome! I would definitely watch that TN. You've picked a meaty story for revision, but it fits perfectly in the TN world and you've done an amazing job with your setup! Kudos!
 

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