Ethan Hawke Will Direct an Adaption of Tennessee Williams’ Play CAMINO REAL
Ethan Hawke is set to direct an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ wildly experimental play, Camino Real, as a feature film. He will team up with producer Uri Singe, who worked with Hawke on his upcoming film, Tesla.
This has been a passion project for Hawke, one that he actually tried to make before in Cuba while Fidel Castro was still in power. This time, he will shoot the film in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil later this year. He is hoping to wrap production by Christmas. Hawke also would like Juliette Binoche to play one of the key roles. He’s currently putting his cast together for the movie, but he will not act in it.
Hawke told Variety in an interview at Sundance:
“I’ve been obsessed with the piece for years. I kept turning it over and over again in my mind. It’s part rock opera, part ‘Waiting for Godot.’ What I think Tennessee was trying to do, cinema has caught up to and can do better. It’s not dissimilar to what Baz Luhrmann was aspiring to on Moulin Rouge. It’s just more spiritual.
If you’re not familiar with Camino Real, here’s some information for you from Wikipedia:
In the introduction to the Penguin edition of the play, Williams directs the reader to use the Anglicized pronunciation "Cá-mino Réal." The play takes its title from its setting, alluded to El Camino Real, a dead-end place in a Spanish-speaking town surrounded by desert with sporadic transportation to the outside world. It is described by Williams as "nothing more nor less than my conception of the time and the world I live in."
Kilroy, a young American visitor, fulfills some of the functions of the play's narrator, as does Gutman, (named after Sydney Greenstreet's character from The Maltese Falcon, but bearing more resemblance to Signor Ferrari, Greenstreet's character in Casablanca) manager of the hotel Siete Mares, whose terrace occupies part of the stage. Williams also employs a large cast of characters including many famous literary characters who appear in dream sequences. They include Don Quixote and his partner Sancho, Marguerite "Camille" Gautier (see The Lady of the Camellias), Casanova, Lord Byron, and Esmeralda (see The Hunchback of Notre Dame), and others.
Taking place in the main plaza, the play goes through a series of confusing and almost logic-defying events, including the revival of the Gypsy's daughter (Esmeralda)'s virginity and then the loss of it again. A main theme that the play deals with is coming to terms with the thought of growing older and possibly becoming irrelevant.”
That definitely sounds like it will make for an interesting film adaptation. I’ve been a fan of Ethan Hawke for a long time and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what he does with this.