“In
a sociopolitical play like Sternheim’s The Underpants, meanings change
through time. What was relevant then is historical now. And what was tangential
then can become central. I chose not to present the play as historical
artifact. I decided to uncork the genie that Sternheim had placed in the bottle
– the genie that makes the play relevant to our age. In doing so, I have had to
subordinate some themes in the original, and emphasize others…”
Steve Martin
Carl Sternheim’s 1911 bourgeois
comedy Die Hose was first presented
in English as The Underpants by Eric
Bentley in 1957. In a note regarding the
conversion of the plays within his volumes on The Modern Theatre, Bentley pointedly distances his work from two
terms: translation and adaptation. He
suggests that to label something a “translation” indicates a word-for-word
approach which may neglect the nuances of the original but that calling a work
an “adaptation” might conversely signify that the piece has been subject to an editorial
license which makes the final product overly divergent from the original. Thus
he simply proclaims his as the “English version” of the play.
Steve Martin was no stranger to
adapting works when he undertook his 2002 adaptation of The Underpants for the Classic Stage Company. As he notes, “In other adaptations I have
done – Cyrano de Bergerac became the film Roxanne and Silas
Marner became the film A Simple Twist of Fate – I have come to
understand that however true I intend to remain to the original text, the
adaptation is continuously influenced, altered, and redefined by modern times. Each
time, the process has taken me through the stages of a failing marriage:
fidelity, transgression, and finally separation.” In both of these instances, Martin uses the
familiar tactic of transposing the events of the original story to a different
time and place less distant from our own.
In The Underpants, however,
Martin has chosen to retain the original setting of 1910 Dusseldorf. Despite this adherence to Sternheim’s parameters,
Martin is astute enough to know that, from the vantage point of the current age,
a contemporary audience is unlikely to respond to the scathing send-up of the
bourgeoisie as it was originally presented in 1911 Germany. The artistry of Martin’s adaptation comes in
his deemphasizing of Sternheim’s commentary of middle-class hypocrisy and
pretense while developing and exploring themes of conflicting personal desires,
the fleeting status of notoriety and fame, and the delineation of gender
roles.
The nature of the characters’ relationships to one
another not only demonstrates how far we have come from outmoded tropes and
prejudices but in doing so highlights where remnants of those attitudes might
still be found in our society. By
allowing the setting of the play to remain distant, Martin permits us to
observe the characters’ behavior as laughable and outrageous. Ultimately, Martin’s update of Sternheim’s
farcical lampoon of the snobby and superficial bourgeoisie retains the original
satirical spirit while redirecting the brunt of its barbs at such targets as the vestiges of
chauvinism, the isolating effects of self-interest, and our culture’s
fascination with celebrity.
Further Reading:
Issuu app publication: Teacher Information Packet for Steve Martin’s The Underpants
The
Modern Theatre. Vol. 6, Edited by Eric Bentley.
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