... and done!

I've sent in my script proposal! It's a good feeling knowing that it's done, and that I gave it my best shot. I've enjoyed writing this blog, as well. One funny story before I sign off for the evening. Check the logo below. Notice anything strange?

There's an apostrophe! I borrowed that image from the Xerxes Atlas facebook page on the cover of my proposal, and I noticed the punctuation as I was proofreading the whole thing. The official website has it pretty consistently as XERXES ATLAS, with no apostrophe, so this is probably an earlier logo. This is really only funny because I already blogged about the lack of this particular apostrophe, but to make matters worse, it now appears I have written about the same phantom punctuation mark twice in one week.

(Maybe this apostrophe is like an electron, and exists in two states simultaneously?)

Taking Artistic License?

My interaction with a Rabbi, detailed a couple of posts back, made me realise that this version of the Esther story is not going to be compatible with Jewish orthodoxy. I struggled with that a bit, because I think it's really important to honour the intent of your source text when working on an adaptation. However, the goal of this project is to reach across borders and inspire and entertain. I don't think it could ever be 100% orthodox, and I don't think it should be, either. But I do hope it inspires people to learn more about the story of Esther and about Jewish and Persian traditions. I think that would be great.

I bring this up, because in trying to work out an overarching plot structure for my version of the script I have tried to not contradict anything in the original text. I have embellished a lot, but really tried to not write anything inconsistent with what happens in the Book of Esther.

However, I have been tempted to. I've found two places that could really be improved with a tiny bit of artistic licence.

First of all, there's the assassination attempt which Mordecai learns about and reports to Esther, who reports it back to the palace officials. In the book, this happens after Esther becomes Queen, which would put it in Act II of our musical. However, I'm tempted to think that it might work better in Act I. Act II has enough political intrigue as it is, and Mordecai could really use something to do in the second half of Act I.

Repositioning that scene would also give Esther something to do between being drafted into the harem and having her night with Xerxes. The scene could also give us a chance to see what Esther thinks of Xerxes before she comes face to face with him. Maybe she gets just a glimpse of the king. It's not a huge change, and not completely necessary, but I do think it would balance the script better.

The second thing I've been mulling around is more of an addition than a change. The original treatment for Xerxes Atlas mentions a young Jewish guard who sympathises with Esther, but has no choice but to bring her to the palace. I think that this is a great character, and I'd like to expand his role a little bit into a potential love interest for Esther. Let's call him Hezzekiah. Perhaps he helps her sneak into the palace to spy on the big festival at the beginning of the play. We see him again when he must reluctantly take her to Xerxes' harem, and he could possibly be the link between Esther and Mordecai when she is at the palace -- it would make sense, and be dramatically interesting, if Mordecai wasn't allowed to see her himself.

Hezzekiah could carry a torch for Esther, and maybe even try to help her escape. She likes him well enough, but for some reason doesn't see herself having a future with him. When she becomes queen, he would be very upset, and she would worry that he might give away the secret of her Jewishness out of spite. But he remains steadfast, and eventually they become friends again. This development could be something that makes Xerxes jealous and drives a wedge between him and Esther, right when Esther needs to talk to him the most.

On one hand, I really love the dramatic possibilities that Hezzekiah would offer, but on the other hand I can see the risk of overly complicating the story by adding another major character into the mix. But maybe he should stay out of the story simply because he wasn't in the original?

Cinematic Versions of Esther

I'm working on finishing up my proposal for Xerxes Atlas today, so I don't have a lot of process or research to share today. Instead, I thought I'd take a look at the different versions of Esther that have made it to film (or at least youtube). There are quite a lot of them!

Esther and the King

Here's a song from another musical version of Esther. It's obviously aimed at younger audiences ("What's the real difference between the genders?" "Umm... hair and make-up!"), but it's cute and the hairstyles are a bit of a kick. What this clip does a good job of is emphasising that Esther is an outsider, different and wiser from the other girls. Our Esther doesn't need to be so Polly-Annaish, but I think her outsider quality is key.

One Night with the King

This is the trailer from One Night with the King, which I think is the most recent film based on the Esther story. It's mentioned a couple of times in the Xerxes Atlas treatment as a version that gets things right, and although I haven't seen the full film yet, the trailer looks suitably epic and emotional. I spotted a few things which looked like revisions from the original story, but the trailer at least hits most of the key plot points from the text.

For Such a Time

For Such a Time is a considerably lower-budget affair, and it shows in just about every corner of this trailer. But aside from that, this trailer demonstrates how important it is to be concise and focus on character. Even with great source material, the filmmakers failed to really demonstrate what makes Esther a compelling story. Nice costumes, though. And I liked the narrator, who seemed to have missed the memo that this wasn't intended as a parody.

Purim: The Movie

This is a trailer for an upcoming animated take on the tale, and I rather like the art direction. The trailer nicely and succinctly sums up the characters, although perhaps not in a way that would be obvious to viewers not already familiar with the story. The end of the trailer seems to hint that it will be giving more emphasis to the bloody finale of the book, which most adaptations seem to downplay (and I think we will, too). The concept art on this movie's website features Esther with a mask, which echos an element I want to integrate into Xerxes Atlas.

Watching all of these clips, I was reminded of what a popular, powerful story the Book of Esther is -- these are just a few of the adaptations out there! It's also clear that having a great story for source material doesn't automatically make for a great film. An understanding of the story and its dramatic underpinnings is really necessary in order to produce a successful adaptation.

What's in a title?

I mentioned in my last post how I am trying to incorporate allusions and references into the script where it fits. These sorts of things shouldn't by the focus, and should never distract from the main story, but if woven in properly can create a richer world for our characters, and vital connections to other cultures and works of art. (If you want to get really trippy, you could say that references can work like cultural hyperlinks.)

Another place I've tried to play with this idea is by unpacking the title of the play itself:

XERXES ATLAS

It has a nice ring to it, with all those Xs and Ss, and it almost sounds alliterative if you slur it enough. But what does it really mean? For a while I was writing it in the possessive form, as Xerxes' Atlas, which though encumbered with punctuation seemed more grammatically correct. I think the meaning of the title is best left up to personal interpretations, but I think it does nicely express some ideas and themes of the play. Most notably, "Atlas" reflects its global scope, but in cultural inspiration and creation via the "world wide web."

However, I thought I might try to infuse some extra weight into the title by working Atlas into the scene I'm writing as much as possible. So far I've gotten two separate references to "Xerxes Atlas" into the scene that I'm working on. One refers to Xerxes' self image (or his mask), and the other refers to his relationship with Esther.

You'll have to read the scene to find out what I mean, though!

Masks and more!

Purim sounds like a lot of fun -- it involves being boisterous, eating special foods, sending gifts, getting exceedingly drunk ... and wearing disguises!

Apparently the tradition of wearing masks and costumes on Purim came about because of the nature of God in the Book of Esther. God is never mentioned explicitly in the entire book, but his presence is said to affect everything that happens. Hiding behind masks is supposed to celebrate God's hidden presence in Esther.

I've been trying to work in as many cultural allusions and references into my script as possible, and I think that Purim masks would work beautifully in Xerxes Atlas. Not only do they reference Purim, masks are something that can work really beautifully on stage, and most crucially, they represent some of the greater themes of the play.

Most of the characters wear a metaphorical mask of some sort. Haman wears a mask of respectability and civil order, when in fact underneath he is hateful and treacherous. Xerxes wears his kingship like a mask to rule his kingdom, but underneath it he is vulnerable and desperate for love and companionship. And Esther, finally, hides her heritage from everyone at the palace.

The "mask" that Esther wears allows her to cover her Jewish identity and to persist in the company of people who are plotting against the Jews. When she takes this mask off, and reveals who she really is, this act is so powerful that it reverses the fortunes of the Jews, and of Haman and Mordecai.

Masks really are powerful in this story, and I think setting one of our songs against the backdrop of a Persian masquerade festival of some sort would make for a very cool scene.

Thoughts from a Rabbi

One of the fantastic things about the Book of Esther is that there is an entire holiday devoted to it! I actually knew nothing about Purim before I started working on this project, despite it being a major Jewish celebration, and I've really loved getting to learn more about it.

Jewish culture website Aish.com has a whole section devoted to Purim, and I found a lot of them to be really thought-provoking. I had been thinking about how Esther's marriage to Xerxes crossed culture barriers and what kind of conflict that would have produced in the Jewish community, so I was quite interested to read this article about intermarriage as it relates to Purim. I was surprised to see that it comes down quite hard against intermarriage, considering that Esther's union with a Persian man was integral in the Jew's salvation in the Book of Esther.

I wrote to that site asking why Esther's marriage was not condemned, and got this prompt reply from a Rabbi:

Actually there was a problem (with the marriage) - but there were two mitigating factors: 1) it was a capital offense to refuse the king and 2) Esther was only a passive participant in the physical intimacy. For that level there is no requirement to give up ones life.

I suppose that makes sense ... although the Book of Esther doesn't say that she was a passive participant in the physical intimacy, it also doesn't say that she was active in it. That interpretation of the scripture won't work for our take on the story, which is designed as a romance, but I'm glad to have another point of view if nothing else.

Working Backwards

Just a quick post related to something I mentioned last time.

I wrote:

By determining what conflicts Esther is facing, we can work backwards to work out how her motivation works in this story.

I realised that this might sound slightly strange. After all, a character's motivation supposed to be the most important thing for a writer to determine ... doesn't it make sense to figure THAT out first?

When I'm working on scripts and stories, I often work backwards to ensure that everything from motivation to conflict to plot points all works as a coherent whole before I start writing. Plenty of other writers do it the other way around, but I like to have the whole package in my mind and in my notes before I start the actual draft. It's just the way that I work best, especially in a case like this.

Since Xerxes Atlas is an adaptation, it has to remain relatively faithful to the original text. Working backwards from the details and themes in the Book of Esther is the only way to ensure that the character arcs are satisfying while also remaining true to the source.

Plus, it's fun!

Esther's motivation

In my last post I talked about the challenges in adapting the Book of Esther to make Xerxes and Esther the protagonists instead of Mordecai and Haman. In this post, I'll delve into how to face some of those challenges.

One of the questions the Xerxes Atlas crew raised after reading through the first batch of pitches from writers was what Esther's motivation is given her circumstances.

"Why does she do what she does? On the surface it seems unrealistic..."

Esther does basically two things in this story: first she wins Xerxes' heart, and second she eventually convinces him to counteract Haman's law and spare the Jews. These are not just reasonable things to do given her situation, they are basically essential to her survival. So why is it that on the surface what Esther does seems unrealistic?

I think the problem is not that audience will question Esther's choices, but that they will question whether she had a choice at all. In the original text, things happen to Esther because a). she is beautiful (being taken to Xerxes harem, becoming queen), and b). Mordecai tells her to do things (reporting the assassination, foiling Haman's plot). This means her character in the original text is basically static. The only choice we see her struggling with is whether or not to approach Xerxes to plead the plight of the Jews, and even that choice seems pre-ordained -- if she did nothing, she would be no worse than Haman himself.

If what happens to Esther rings slightly false, it's because her story seems too easy, too devoid of real conflict. In the original story we never get to see what Esther wants, or how she feels about her captivity, her marriage or her Jewish heritage. In reality, she would have felt conflicted about all of these things.

So...

In order to make the story seem realistic, we must see that conflict alive in Esther.

By determining what conflicts Esther is facing, we can work backwards to work out how her motivation works in this story!

More soon.

Esther in the Bible

The Book of Esther tells a terrific story. It's about a common girl with a secret heritage who wins the heart of the king and becomes his queen. It's about the clash between a lowly righteous man and an exalted wicked one. It's about an arrogant king who gains wisdom through love. But most of all, it is about salvation coming from unlikely places.

A very cool book. The Jewish holiday Purim is based around the events in Esther, and it's even got a wikipedia portal.

In many ways, Esther is a great source for a musical. It is full of archetypical characters and classic themes, and crucially for a musical, there are a lot of feasts and parties! However, there are a few issues in the original text which must be addressed in order to retell the story in a way that will be compelling on stage.

The original treatment for Xerxes Atlas presents the story as a romance, which is a good instinct and I think the right direction for the project. However, the Biblical text isn't really a love story in a way that modern audiences can easily relate to. In the book, Xerxes and Esther only see each other in very formal circumstances, and after their initial meeting we don't see them together until much later, when he has not sought out her presence in over a month and she is afraid to approach him on the penalty of death! It's not exactly a Cinderella story.

In fact, Esther and Xerxes are not really the focus of the Book of Esther. The text is more concerned with the battle between Haman and Mordecai, and how Mordecai eventually triumphs with Esther's help, despite Haman's dastardly plans. It's this victory which Purim celebrates.

However, in our play, Haman and Mordecai are secondary characters while Esther and Xeerxes are the leads. This follows a more conventional structure for a fairy tale or love story, but also provides the benefit of protagonists the audience can relate to, since Haman and Mordecai are more or less one-dimensional characters: their fortunes change throughout the story, but their attitudes and dispositions stay mostly the same throughout. Using Esther and Xerxes as our leads provides more room for character development.

The trick is working that character development into the framework of an existing story. More on that in the next post.

Welcome!

The world's first wiki-musical will be a project called Xerxes Atlas, based on the Biblical book of Esther, with songs developed through an open-source process. I'm very excited about this project, and I am bidding on a chance to write the script. This blog will chronicle my process of developing material for Xerxes Atlas as I develop my proposal.