To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:48:56 -0500
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Adapting Grimm's Fairy Tales...


Hi Pixie Moss.

I don't have specifics about writing a play, but have one piece of advice 
about the grimm brothers...

The most known versions of their tales are diluted to the point of no 
recognition.
Disney is not the only culprit, I'm sure there have been censors and 
sensitive souls who made the gory and violent stuff vanish.

If you want the real deal, start from the original texts in German, and if 
you can't read it, the best you can do is find a direct translation from 
German to English, without any censorship.

One such book is:
THE COMPLETE FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM,
translated and with an introduction by Jack Zipes.

I have it, and it's full of the stuff fairy tales used to be made of.
In one particularly gruesome story, an innocent maiden lets her loving 
father cut off her arms to spare him the fate of being taken away by the 
devil. Which he does! Later she asks someone to strap her arms to her back, 
just in case she finds a way to reattach them someday...


Mostly, I see them as very graphic cautionary tales against the cruelty that 
is part of the world.
The modern versions have so little of the original "meat" that often they 
become pointless and useless.

If you use the originals, even if you have to censor for your audience, at 
least you'll have the full version and get to decide what you can cut.

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