Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a Tuesday evening treat. Far more exciting than a night alone in my room attempting revision and far more interesting than watching a film on Netflix. The play had a gentle charm to it as it brought the nostalgia of a simpler time to the Theatre Royal. Set in 1940’s New York, it tells the story of captivating society girl Holiday Golightly winning the hearts of everyone she meets…until her troubled past catches up with her. As an entity in itself, the stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s was an entertaining way to pass an evening in the way theatre traditionally allows. No breaking of the fourth wall, nothing too political or academic to have to consider, just a good old fashioned romantic comedy.
However, the stage adaptation of this American classic is not an entity in itself but, as with any good love story, comes with its own baggage. It is impossible to escape the fact that if you hear Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you think of the 1961 Audrey Hepburn classic film. The iconic cover image of Hepburn in her black cocktail dress with her long cigarette holder comes immediately to mind and it is unsurprising that it does. The film was deemed to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film registry in 2012. It is due to this that the stage adaption falls down.
It is often forgotten that Breakfast at Tiffany’s was in fact originally a novella by the American great, Truman Capote, published in 1958. The storyline of the play, adapted by Richard Greenberg, is based more closely on Capote’s original novella than the film, a change from previous attempted stage adaptations. However Nikolai Foster’s direction seems intent on remembering Hepburn and her timeless portrayal of protagonist Holiday Golightly. The play opens with Holiday Golightly (Emily Atack) walking in the rain through a backstreet in New York singing ‘Moon River’. If the poster image wasn’t enough to make the audience long to relive the Hollywood classic and Hepburn’s portrayal of the well loved Golightly, the ‘fourth most memorable song in Hollywood history’ should just about do it. It seems odd that a director should be so keen to make what should be an original piece of theatre into a dim echo of an international classic film. Perhaps it is obvious that for a title as iconic as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the film that made the icon should be referenced. However, this opening did seem a little too forced.
To the credit of Atack, she played the character well. She had a conviction and elegance to her portrayal that made your eye drawn to her. She presented Golightly as confident and self assured, showing only brief moments of weakness. She did not however play the character as Hepburn had. This only made matters more confusing. Essentially we were being presented with a stage adaptation of a novella, directed to hark back to a classic film but acted in an avant-garde style with new takes on the classic characters. Enjoyable though the piece was, its identity seems as yet confused; unsure if it wants to be the stage version of a book or the stage version of a film or the stage version of something else entirely.
Though it does have potential. This production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s has now finished it’s UK tour and has settled in London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket. It is possible that the piece will see some slight changes and may over time find a more solid medium between film and book or become something new in its own right. However, ultimately for now this stage adaptation is, in the words of Holly Golightly, “not Tiffany’s, but almost”.
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