Comments on Southerne’s Theatrical Adaptation of Behn’s Oroonoko to Follow
February 7, 2007
Alas, I will not be able to comment further on Behn’s The Rover as promised and I have just realized that I should stop making “blog” promises about what I will write about.
Although I have read Southerne’s Oronooke, I have yet to develop my thoughts on it, so my comments will soon follow. Yet, after having read the play, I can empathize with Krystal and hope to never read it again, even though I found the character of Charlotte/ Welldon to be interesting (to a certain extent).
Oh well, I will comment on the play later on this week.
February 10, 2007 at 10:50 pm
For some reason I actually liked the play a lot better than Behn’s original treatment of the material. Maybe it’s the space constraints that make Oro less of a whiny, twinky character. (And I usually hate dramatic overblown romance, but even though Oro’s “I’ll kill you! No, wait, I can’t!” scene in the play was long and hilarious, I liked it better than the novella simply because it affords Imoinda a bit more… well, anything. She wasn’t much of anything in the novella, I felt.)