Losses and Gains in the Character of Miss Amelia in The Ballad of the Sad Caf - Essay Example

?Losses and Gains in the Character, Miss Amelia, in the Stage Play Adaptation of the Novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe Carson McCullers was known for portraying the tragic cycle of love in the novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1951), and the situation of the three main characters resonates among the novella’s readers. The stage adaptation of the story by Edward Albee shows the similarities in the intended portrayals of the characters within the short story as well as the settings, although some changes were made on how the main protagonist, Miss Amelia, was portrayed, which may not be easily seen based on the script alone, but in combination with the actual dramatization in the play. The changes were essential because not only does the play need to be adjusted for the theater scene but also to portray the changes in the character of Miss Amelia much more convincingly for the audiences. The characters of Miss Amelia in both the novella and stage adaptation are similar in some terms. Her physical description is “a dark, tall woman with bones and muscles like man. Her hair was cut short and brushed back from the forehead, and there was about her sunburned face a tense, haggard quality” (McCullers 4). She also speaks in a manly way based on her choice of words in the stage play adaptation, e.g., when she was talking to the men who patronize her liquor: “I been thinking on some way to get some silence out of you; I been figuring up a nice batch of poison to stop your foolish mouth” (Albee and McCullers 8). The two portrayals show how Miss Amelia possesses a strong will and that she is somewhat asexual in a way that leans toward androgyny, having brute strength despite being female. Amelia is a person that many people look up to despite her looks and her attitude towards other people, especially when it comes to her skills in curing the sick through folk remedies, and that “she enjoyed doctoring and did a great deal of it” (McCullers 4). Her character of being a shrewd businesswoman was also seen as something that is apparent in both the adaptation and the original story, for she only invited people if planed to “trick them in some way, or make money out of them” (McCullers 11). Another similarity is that the persona of the character as being hard on the outside but also capable of loving another was both in the book and in the adaptation as well. In both the play and the original story, Miss Amelia has a soft spot for the young children whose illnesses she treats, and this kind of weakness became more apparent with the appearance of Cousin Lymon into her still. Her facial features somewhat brighten and at the same time express pain, perplexity and certain joy (23). The mixture of brute strength and emotional weakness was also shown during the climax when she physically exchanges blows with a man inside the cafe and later gradually accepts the loss of her beloved after losing the fight, dragging herself slowly into her office (67). It can be inferred that Albee made Miss Amelia faithful to the original character created by McCullers as much as possible by retaining some of her distinguishing traits such as her manly manners and attitude. In both the original story by McCullers and the adaptation by Albee, the general descriptions of Miss Amelia’s persona were very similar, but there were some changes that were made by Albee in order to suit the stage adaptation and dramatization of the story. One contrast is that the Miss Amelia in the story speaks fewer words in the original portrayal compared to the adaptation. This could be a reason why Albee decided to give additional lines to his interpretation of the main female protagonist in his stage adaptation. Also, his rendition of Miss Amelia in the theater was a bit harsher in her use of words, as compared to the Miss Amelia in the original McCullers’s story, and sounds much more coarse and manly, e.g., when she was talking to Marvin Macy during their wedding night: Yeah, I got a bargain goin’ on some kindlin’ I want, an’ I gotta figger. I think I figgered a way to get that kindlin’ good an’ cheap. That farmer owe me a favor: once I fixed boils for him, an’ he ain’t never paid a bill he owed papa when he were alive. I kin get it good and cheap. What you think? (Albee and McCullers 41) By combining the additional harsh attitude of Miss Amelia and her rugged, manly speech patterns, she seems to be a bit more ruthless in the stage adaptation as compared to the character in the novella, and that her masculine attitudes makes her stand out much more than what is to be expected from the original text, making the Miss Amelia of McCullers’s story seem subtle than the one in the stage adaptation of the story. While Albee made the stark contrasts between the two main female protagonists in the novella and the theater adaptation much more noticeable to those that read the book and watched the play, the changes may have increased the intensity of the already harsh and shrewd Miss Amelia. However, this kind of change from the original portrayal of Miss Amelia in the book was essential, and that in adjusting the character’s masculine attitudes in the stage adaptation for the audiences to see, the contrasts as well as similarities between her attitudes to her lover and the beloved would be much more apparent. The character in the play became increasingly masculine, as compared to the book’s portrayal of Miss Amelia, being just brute, quiet, and mannish. Within the story, it was mentioned that when two people are in love, one would be the lover and the other would be the beloved, and that these two are from two different countries (McCullers 25). It was mentioned that the beloved is mostly out of reach of the lover, and that no matter how much the former tries to gain the attention of the former, in the end the lover grows lonely in the state of loving (26). For example, when Miss Amelia married Marvin Macy, she was in the state of being the beloved and him being the lover, so no matter how much Macy shows her his love, she acts like it does not matter to her, and she lets him do as he pleases, even marrying him not out of love but of his incessantness (Albee and McCullers 39). In this case, Macy becomes lonely in loving Miss Amelia for not receiving her love in return. When Amelia becomes the lover of Cousin Lymon, she does many services for him without getting anything from him, and even opening up a cafe so that he has “company and pleasure each night” (McCullers 25). The townspeople start noticing the changes in her attitude, which gives them the idea of her being in love with Cousin Lymon, despite him using her for his own selfish desires. Miss Amelia was lonely for Cousin Lymon does not reciprocate her love, making her the lonely lover in the relationship, which intensifies upon him leaving her for Marvin Macy. Thus, the additional changes in the main protagonist were made by Albee in order to further show the audiences in the theater the strong character of Miss Amelia, as well as her obliviousness to love, and how being in love radically changes her attitude towards others during the course of the play. The changes that were done in Miss Amelia’s character for the stage play are essentially in the style of Albee. However, there were some expected differences that readers of the novella, who also saw the one-act-play, would notice and would see as a disadvantage of deviating from the original portrayal in the book. The most noticeable change would be that the harsher attitude of Miss Amelia in the play through her lines makes her seem much more cold-hearted at first, especially when she wreaked havoc in her 10-day marriage with Marvin Macy after seemingly ignoring his advances (Albee and McCullers 40-41). While in the book, she was only portrayed as a woman that only chose to get married for the sake of marriage (McCullers 29), in the play she seemed like she married Macy to gain, and it further emphasizes her business-minded self (Albee and McCullers 39). It may be hard to further put down the exact differences between the novella interpretation of Miss Amelia by McCullers and the one created by Albee for the stage play, basically since the former has fewer lines mentioned in the story, and that most of the details of her behavior were only shown to the readers through the narrator. In the play, however, it is necessary that Miss Amelia have strong and manly lines in addition to her brutish actions so that her personality would shine through within the one-act play. While the changes would have made her much colder and harsher, the fact that audiences would be much more moved by a strong portrayal of a lonely woman would create a greater impression upon them, which may not be possible if she was to remain only as quiet as she is in the novella. In the portrayal of the female protagonist in the novella as well as the theater adaptation of Miss Amelia from the story The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, certain changes in the female lead character were made, from how McCullers wrote her personality to how Albee interpreted this character into his play. These changes were made to suit the needs of the theater in creating an impression with the audiences, as well as to further show the strong character of the female protagonist, especially to those who would see the story for the first time. The process combined McCullers’s and Albee’s styles in how it was written, and the changes in the character were essential to convincingly portray the initially brute character of Miss Amelia, as well as to show the sharp contrasts between being the beloved and her transformation into Miss Amelia as the lover. Thus, while the changes in the character may have caused some critics or readers to notice that the female lead became much harsher and colder than how she was shown in the book, these changes were integral to the stage play because it may be harder to show her personality transformation if the quiet, stiff character from the novella was not revamped during the dramatization of her character in the theatrical productions. Works Cited Albee, Edward, and Carson McCullers. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Dramatist's Play Service, 1963. Print. McCullers, Carson. “The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe.” The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. 1-72. 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