#but I want my crazy Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-esque interactions in S3 okay?

[cbrownjc]

The theatrical structure and writing of the show are one of my most joyous things about it too. I think the fact that the showrunner and writing staff are all playwrights has allowed them to think outside the box so much when it comes to the structure of how they are adapting the story, rather than if they’d just gotten regular screenwriters. 

I mean, seriously, these people looked at the retcons and inconsistencies in Rice’s book series and actually said, “You know what? We can actually use these things when adapting the story.” And took it all forward from there to not only do a Rashamon/Unreliable Narrator with the show’s narrative structure but went even deeper than that to look at and reflect on the very nature of memory itself. 

I really don’t know if regular standard tv or even film writers would have thought to do that.

And the Dubai scenes are the most theatrical of everything in the show, even if they are the most simple in their setup and filming. Hell, it’s probably because they are simple in their setup. The scenes between the characters during these parts felt like a small cast play, and Rolin confirmed that when he recently said those scenes were a 2-person play, that will become a 3-person play in S2.

And I don’t think I’m wrong that Dubai will become a 4-person play in S3.  

When they jump to screenwriting, many theater writers will usually hold back writing in theatrical structure ways because I mean, we are dealing with a more dynamic visual medium than theater wrt tv, and film. Usually, you just get the standard, straightforward Three Act Structure wrt the writing and telling of the story. And while the arc of each episode of the show still has that Three Act Structure to them, how the story is told within that unapologetically leans in a lot toward theatrical techniques too. And it’s all worked so well, making the show feel very unique in its presentation, IMO.

S1 was very much ACT I of this story adaptation. And I can’t wait to see how they build on all of this as we head into ACT II of the story, i.e. S2. 

i love Interview with the Vampire for 500 million reasons but one of them is how playwright-centric it is. showrunner? pulitzer prize for drama nominee rolin jones. one of the stars? pulitzer prize for drama nominee eric bogosian. half the writing staff? playwrights (eleanor burgess && hannah moscovitch && jonathan ceniceroz for sure, probs others). it's playwrights all the way down motherfuckers, and that pleases me greatly.