Guess who’s preparing a Dinner?
July 20, 2007 at 4:25 pm by Curt Holman in Randomly NotedAccording to this article in Variety, True Colors Theatre Artistic Director Kenny Leon is planning to direct a stage adaptation of the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Leon’s teaming with producer Jeffrey Finn, who worked on the 2005 African-American revival of On Golden Pond with James Earl Jones, and hopes that Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner will be ready for Broadway by fall 2008.
Leon and adapter Todd Kreidler will have their work cut out of them, however. The original movie confines so much of the action to so few rooms that it seems like a filmed stage play, but, in fact, screenwriter William Rose won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. When I wrote about the film in comparison to the 2005 race-reversed remake Guess Who with Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher, Dinner struck me as fatally stodgy and self-important, the epitome of the highly respected “issues film†that ages poorly. It coasts on the star power of Sidney Poitier as the saintly African-American fiance and Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as the white parents who find their liberal ideas put to the test when their daughter brings home her new prospective husband.
Dinner dates to a time when mixed marriage was illegal in parts of America: “In 16 or 17 states you’ll be breaking the law — you’ll be criminals,” declares one character, so hopefully the play version can evoke the high stakes of the era without replicating the condescension of the film. Unquestionably, Leon will be able to assemble an all-star cast (the acting in True Colors’ Ceremonies in Dark Old Men is tremendous across the board). Let’s just hope that the Dinner reservation is worth waiting for.
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