Issue 27 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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"IF OMUY HE HAt> ONt \NTo THE WU «TE Li(rHT AMP JTAYEt> THERE." When asked to tell COLUMBIA in what way his work "Crosses Borders" Bruce Eric Kaplan submitted a cartoon that speaks for itself. INTERVIEW COLUMBIA talks with Lisa Shea and James Bosley TREATMENT A short play based on an interview ACT I The scene opens with playwright/screenwriter JAMES BOSLEY (Fun,) sitting at the front booth of the Film Center Cafe. Enter LISA SHEA, author of the award-winning novel Hula. Tliey greet each other and begin to discuss their collaboration of a screen adaptation of USA's novel. LISA SHEA There were three other directors who were interested at one point. One was very interested in horror, and we met and it was going to be this Canadian deal, but I thought that while her work had a keen eye for adolescent dilemmas and sensibility, but that she would very much take it in the direction of a horror film. Then the two other directors were just student directors. And I wanted to help them in some way, to be available, but I made the mistake of routing them through my agent and then they were never heard from again.
JAMES BOSLEY When the film Fun was out, the writing was admired by some people in Hollywood, and I had lunch with an assistant of J 's and so when they asked if I had any books that I would be interested in adapting, I said Hula. The assistant said that she loved the book, but didn't quite see a movie story in it, but if I could come up with an acceptable treatment. . . LISA SHEA I was quite pleased because even with the changing of scenes and the re-emphasizing of certain events and the downplaying of other events, really nothing was lost in the translation, or nothing of significance. It was also strange just to read a variation on the book. But I didn't feel that the work had been violated or tampered with. JAMES BOSLEY Well, I did add a couple of things. I thought I had to show the good side of the father. I know that's a weird thing to say, but I figured there had to be a real reason mom and the kids didn't split sooner. In the book, you don't have to deal with that so much because it is from the perspective of the little kids. So I wrote a scene where they are in church and dad is singing too loud and they're all kind of laughing at him. So I added a few scenes, I combined scenes, I combined characters. Mostly it was a lot of cutting. There's that scene of the babysitter's boyfriend in the woods, where he sort of comes on to the older sister. I love that scene, but I couldn't find a place for it in the story as it is now. Maybe I'll go back and find it. Maybe that's the key to the whole thing. I also expanded the idea of the hula show being more of an event. LISA SHEA In the book it never takes place. JAMES BOSLEY I thought that was sert of a story in a way. They keep trying to put on this hula show and dad keeps coming in and ruining it for one reason or another. But now they actually do finally put it on, the dad comes home, and that's the beginning of the climax. LISA SHEA What was interesting in the case of your making Fun into a movie script was that on the stage it all took place in this one small space. In the movie, you had to move out of that and imagine these girls in all different settings from what we had seen on the stage...which was like a bed... JAMES BOSLEY Right, it was a bed and a couple of chairs. Most of the scenes were in this girl's bedroom and there were scenes that took place in a juvenile detention center. But we didn't want to build a juvenile detention center, so the bedroom was the center of the story anyway. This counselor and reporter were interviewing the girls, they'd killed an old lady for fun, that's basically the premise of the play. So it basically flashes between the interview to the bedroom and there are a couple of scenes that take place in the street and the woman's house. But we thought the bedroom was sort of the soul of the play. What I like about theater is that you can go anywhere in the audience's minds, you don't have to represent it on the stage. But in the movie, there are dozens of locations. On stage, you just need a stage, and people can see it on their own, which is what I like about theater. LISA SHEA Well, that's what I like about books, because you don't even need a little stage. The little stage is in your head, and the little film is in your head too, as you're reading the book. When I was writing it, I had an inkling that someone was interested in taking it from the page to the stage, and that was because when I was
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TRANSLATION SECTION TRY COAST TO CO
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Editor-in-Chief LORI SODBRLIND Exec
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ELIZABETH MACKLIN SAMN STOCKWELL DA
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IO her with broken locks on pill ca
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18 or his daughter. He said north o
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in charge of the lifted-up-spirits
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The wife says, "Oh, shut up, won't
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then sits down, clutching the baske
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34 They all drink. The wife's head
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Liliana Ursu, a native of Bucarest,
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De la fereastra Ingerului Fan, iarb
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The Key to Mystery Hot is my body a
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5° Everything Kobo Abe ever wrote
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T. 54 "How ironic," the man said, l
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GWYNETH LEWIS Whose coat is that ja
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o < s 0 o In his poem, "Strange Mee
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O o 66 So this is the man you dream
Page 37 and 38: ELIZABETH MACKLIN The Secret Note Y
Page 39 and 40: When a woman loves a man, they have
Page 41 and 42: TERESE SVOBODA At the Castle To say
Page 43 and 44: JUDITH BAUMEL Hot One moment it was
Page 45 and 46: JEAN MONAHAN The Concert —Isabell
Page 47 and 48: One of the Last Days As through a d
Page 49 and 50: only to lift their branches for one
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Page 53 and 54: 102 structure versus vertical, hars
Page 55 and 56: LINDA BIERDS The Breaking-Aways —
Page 57 and 58: KAY RYAN Weakness and Doubt Failure
Page 60 and 61: DANIEL TOBIN At the Egyptian Exhibi
Page 62 and 63: NATALIE KUSZ After Bedtime At night
Page 64 and 65: Q. Z 3 ID 124 me to visit a squat i
Page 66 and 67: 128 VII. Somehow I knew not to tell
Page 68 and 69: 132 It was an illustrated history o
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Page 72 and 73: 3 140 XIV. He must have been there
Page 74 and 75: o z 111 o 144 smiled; she even got
Page 76 and 77: I48 Mostly things are quiet on the
Page 78 and 79: 152 the grass. I imagined him still
Page 80 and 81: 156 other on a mother's shoulder. I
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Page 86 and 87: Dykes To Ulatch Out For AS THE RE W
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Page 92 and 93: i8o Cinematically, there is the req
Page 94 and 95: WINTER COMPETITION MICHELLE MITCHEL
Page 96 and 97: and she looked at him for hours, an
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Issue 27 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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