Is it best read alone, read aloud, or acted out? A new screen adaptation, “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” directed by Armando Iannucci, is instantly alive to this wealth of possibility. Like “ A Christmas Carol,” in other words, “David Copperfield” is a shape-shifter, blessed from birth with a rare pliability-a story so resilient, and so resourceful, that it can survive whatever you make of it. “I was half dead when I had done,” he said, in the wake of one such event. Later, choice morsels from the novel were added to the author’s repertoire of public recitations.
It finally appeared in book form in November, 1850, and on Janua dramatized (and drastically shortened) version opened at the Lyceum Theatre in New York. Even as it was being serialized, stage adaptations were under way, despite the fact that producers didn’t-couldn’t-yet know how Dickens would conclude his tale.
The novel first appeared in monthly installments, beginning in the spring of 1849. It did not take long for “ David Copperfield” to escape the confines of the page.
0 kommentar(er)
