Spread the Love: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – adapted by Lindsay Price from Washington Irving

This week on Spread the Love we talk about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – adapted by Lindsay Price from Washington Irving.

Transcript

Welcome to this week’s Spread the Love. This week we are talking about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, very supernatural, can’t you tell the wind just swooped up around me! This original story of course is by Washington Irving. It’s the very familiar tale of Icabod Crane and his run in with the Headless Horseman. Craig, what do you love about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

What I love is the efficiency of the storytelling. The play unfolds over several weeks, but there’s never a release in the tension because the transitions are handled through poetry. Poetry that intensifies as we moves toward the climax which is of course Icabod Crane’s encounter with the Headless Horseman. And as a teacher recently said to us, ‘you know it’s a Lindsay Price play because she thinks of everything. She even shows you how to build the Headless Horseman!’ Lindsay what do you love about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

Well, I love the original by Irving. There’s such a vibrancy to the language and a vividness to the story. It is really no wonder there are so many versions of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The thing about a theatrical version, is that you want to put all that vibrancy and all that wonderful language and stuff it all on stage. It doesn’t quite translate. This version is all theatre. All theatre, all the time. It shows the story, it does not tell the story, and focuses completely on bringing the characters to life on stage: Icabod, Brom, Katrina and of course, the Headless Horseman.

That’s it for Spread the Love!