Caray, Caray!

I would love to participate in this great challenge but find it hard to do so because one of the things I liked most about reading the classics was being transported back in time. It would be extremely difficult for me to update my thinking in terms of transforming a classic into a novela. At a young age, I started reading very abridged versions of the classics published by Reader's Digest, which is probably out of business due to books on video. I don't listen to books on audio or e-books because I love the feel of turning a page and the feel of a novela in my hands.

I really look forward to reading others' comments. And think that the dream cast that you came up with is spot-on.
 

You could do it as a novela de epoca, of course. This one could easily take place in another century (although Sofia wouldn't have an MBA).
 

Urban, I love your idea. I think Shakespeare would translate very well into a tn. I can envision Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream (italicize the titles) already. I am not very familiar with tn actors, but I could easily see Nando as Hamlet and Fanny as Ophelia.

I think a producer needs to hire you!
 

Sorry. I posted the last one.

Ecuador Bound
 

As a big fan of King Lear, I would fervently watch this novela.

Cassandra G.
 

Urban,

This is inspired. I love the casting generally, too, though I think that the female cast might be a bit younger.

I wonder if you have read Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, a novelization of Lear that won the Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a movie with Jessica Lange. It might be interesting to ponder as you move forward with this in some way.

You gotta move forward with this. The novela is a great form for the creative retelling of the story and so much more interesting than much of what we watch.
You are a born story teller.
 

No; never read it, but I may.

I dearly wish my Spanish were at half the level of my English. I would be employed at Televisa for years by now and there would already be a Televisa version of Dark Shadows.
 

Oh what wonderful idea UA!! Shakespeare indeed is always a wonderful basis for a good story. Personally, I would love to see a more adult type comedy done for once. Wouldn't Twelfth Night or Much Ado About Nothing be brilliant for a TN plots?
Plenty of lovebirds, a few "comedic" characters, some not so nice characters and plenty of roles for the classic older actors.

The leads are endless I can think of. Silvia or Angelique and Rulli in Much Ado as Beatrice and Benedik? Altair maybe as Viola--she is petite enough to pass as a boy and Nado's actor, sorry forgot his name, could be her twin Sebastian. I could go on....

Now I'm depressed we most likely wouldn't see that.

Daisynjay
 

Sorry meant Nanco's actor in MCET. Typing at the hair salon... not a good idea.

Daisynjay
 

I've mentioned this to you before, Urban and I will mention it again. You have an incredible talent that needs to be SEEN. You would be wonderful at Televisa.

Why wait? Take an intensive Spanish language course and start working on this. Don't let your dream become a "what if?".

Fatima
 

That would be a amazing story UA but i guess we cannot hope to see it ,.Well we saw La Malquerida which was a very original story and there should definetly be more novelas like it. We are tired of tireless remakes some of which are almost a complete copy paste of the original scripts or they had the potential to be good but got ruined from extendtion .
 

Urban, Your idea sounds wonderful and it has everything ... haciendas, horses, and plenty of opportunity for product placements.
 

I wonder whether the product placement thing gets on Mexicans' nerves they way it does ours.

Is nobody else going to take a crack at this?
 

Urban
Your story is amazing
and your attention to detail makes it so easy to imagine this happening
I wish I had the attention span to do the same with As You Like It
but I don't
 

Urban - Don Rafael's illness must take place during a violent thunderstorm!

I would definitely watch and thoroughly enjoy this novella.
 

Is it a novela without a thunderstorm? Those always portend important or evil things.

BTW, my research into Lear (which I did before seeing the film) said that earlier versions of the story had him surviving and Cordelia inheriting his kingdom (although she was murdered a few years later). Shakespeare made the story into the tragedy that it is.

Euripides was the only author in the ancient world who had Medea killing her children. In other versions of that story her younger children either died in accidents or were killed by the mob.

Remakes are nothing new!
 

Yeah, I'm tired of remakes but to say "classics we would all recognize" just rubs me the wrong way since much of the Western Canon is devoid of Latin/Hispanic writers. In fact almost every time you mention an exercise such as this you take some Anglo work and impose it on the TN (Lady Chatterly and Shakespeare come to mind.)

As count mentioned, La Malquerida used a Spanish work as its source. Why not set Caray readers to the task of adapting a specifically Latin/Hispanic work?

 

Maybe "Conquistadora" by Esmeralda Santiago. Maybe that's epic enough. I haven't read it, but I've read a few of her other books and enjoyed them very much.
 

Damn, UA! Just got a chance to read your synopsis. Bummed when it ended. Wonderful!! Still hoping for that Dark Shadows novela. Maybe send a treatment to Televisa?
 

Count: glad to see you again. Agree with your comment.

Perhaps Latin/Hispanic audiences are tired of seeing their stories adapted into whatever form of visual entertainment. Maybe it would be refreshing for them to see non-L/H works of literature adapted.

I'd like to see both. In regards to TN's anything not rehashed a million times.
 

I have discovered that you can revert something to "draft" that has comments and republish the post without losing the comments.

Wish I'd known that three years ago...
 

I would love if you started writing the script of this novela and later post it to Televisa if they would like it! Of course in your part time so you wont feel overwhelmed :)
But i do know that Televisa is interested in money and you are virtually a nobody in the Telenovela if you dont have a big wallet or fame which is quite a negative,.
It would be quite nice if there was a website/blog that you could write fanmade novels. I am sure there are some existing so if its a great job you'll make your fans shouting !
 

I found some website its called Lulu.com,you could check it out sometimes if you wish:) It helps you to write and publish books for free but i think it has a subcribtion model just like everything else today,.
 

Which would make it something I have to pay to get into and publish for no compensation.

I don't think so.
 

Urban, I love your 'King Lear' telenovela remake, but am curious as to your treatment of the evil sisters, as the literary community seems unanimous in the viewing Goneril as the more wicked of the sisters, and hence, someone FAR beyond redemption.

Actually, in reference to the four villains of Lear, I have always loved what A.C. Bradley wrote in his definitive work on Shakespeare's tragedies... I will repeat it here in full, and hope you enjoy it:

"Cornwall seems to have been a fit mate for Regan; and what worse can be said of him? It is a great satisfaction to think that he endured what to him must have seemed the dreadful disgrace of being killed by a servant. He shows, I believe, no redeeming trait, and he is a coward, as may be seen from the sudden rise in his courage when Goneril arrives at the castle and supports him and Regan against Lear. But as his cruelties are not aimed at a blood-relation, he is not, in this sense, a 'monster,' like the remaining three.

Which of these three is the least and which the most detestable there can surely be no question. For Edmund, not to mention other alleviations, is at any rate not a woman. And the differences between the sisters, which are distinctly marked and need not be exhibited once more in full, are all in favour of 'the elder and more terrible.' That Regan did not commit adultery, did not murder her sister or plot to murder her husband, did not join her name with Edmund's on the order for the deaths of Cordelia and Lear, and in other respects failed to take quite so active a part as Goneril in atrocious wickedness, is quite true but not in the least to her credit. It only means that she had much less force, courage and initiative than her sister, and for that reason is less formidable and more loathsome. Edmund judged right when, caring for neither sister but aiming at the crown, he preferred Goneril, for he could trust her to remove the living impediments to her desires. The scornful and fearless exclamation, 'An interlude!' with which she greets the exposure of her design, was quite beyond Regan. Her unhesitating suicide was perhaps no less so. She would not have condescended to the lie which Regan so needlessly tells to Oswald:

"It was great ignorance, Gloster's eyes being out,
To let him live: where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us: Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life."

Her father's curse is nothing to her. She scorns even to mention the gods. Horrible as she is, she is almost awful. But, to set against Regan's inferiority in power, there is nothing: she is superior only in a venomous meanness which is almost as hateful as her cruelty. She is the most hideous human being (if she is one) that Shakespeare ever drew."
 

In the play Goneril takes more initiative but Regan is the more sadistic of the two. She and her husband are well-matched.

My proposed changes are not unusual to the novela world. Even between remakes of the same original story novela writers make changes. My version could also end with Rafael disowning his oldest for the evil she did do even if she repents. Remember that there is a small contingent among viewers that want even the worst villains to achieve redemption, which is not realistic. Regina could end the story alive but paying the price of the loss of her family, including her husband.

Besides, if this played to Shakespeare's ending there would be no suspense.
 

I would love to see this idea taken but the biggest challenge would be modernizing it although that could be handled .I kind of like the hierhacy that seems to be the common place in the house and a great part in the story but it should be kept to the minimum . Cause today in the modern age i cannot see how the sisters would simply escape and run away from their opressive father. I guess the characters would be forced to return because their "better lives" became much worse than staying with Daddy Dearest in Hell Camp so the two sisters have decided to return relucantly because maybe Daddy gets terminally ill ( Or he pretends to be ill just to get the family closer again) .
 

Simply stay and not run away from their oppresive father ,pardon!
 

Urban- that was awesome! I would definitely watch that TN. You've picked a meaty story for revision, but it fits perfectly in the TN world and you've done an amazing job with your setup! Kudos!