His Dark Materials: New Edition

by Nicholas Wright, Philip Pullman (Source Material)

A two-play dramatisation of Philip Pullman's extraordinary award-winning fantasy trilogy, first seen at the National Theatre.

His Dark Materials takes us on a thrilling journey through worlds familiar and unknown. For Lyra and Will, its two central characters, it's a coming of age and a transforming spiritual experience. Their great quest demands a savage struggle against the most dangerous of enemies. They encounter fantastical creatures in parallel worlds – rebellious angels, soul-eating spectres, child-catching Gobblers and the armoured bears and witch-clans of the Arctic. Finally, before reaching, perhaps, the republic of heaven, they must visit the land of the dead.

Note to performers: although conceived for a theatre with rich resources, this adaptation can also be staged in imaginative ways without the aid of sophisticated technology.

'Nicholas Wright... has risen to the challenge with brilliance' - Mail on Sunday

'"Unstageable" was the first reaction of the National Theatre's artistic director, Nicholas Hytner, to the idea of dramatising His Dark Materials. But last night's opening has triumphantly proved him wrong' - Sunday Times

'Children's theatre of an uncommon maturity and ambition... dazzling in just the right way... moments of heart-stopping simplicity' - Independent

'The hottest ticket in town long before press day... Book to see it next Christmas' - Financial Times

Genres: Plays, Fantasy, Drama, Childrens

267 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 21, 2005

About the author

Nicholas Verney Wright (1940, Cape Town, South Africa) is a British dramatist. He was born in Cape Town, attended Rondebosch Boys' School and from the age of six was a child actor on radio and on the stage. He came to London in 1958 to train as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and subsequently worked as a floor-assistant in BBC Television and as a runner in film, notably John Schlesinger's "Far From the Madding Crowd." He started work at the Royal Court in 1965 as Casting Director and became, first, an Assistant Director there and then the first Director of the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs, where for several years he presented an innovatory programme of new writing. From 1975 - 1977 he was joint artistic director of the Royal Court and he was subsequently a member of the Royal Court Theatre's Board. He is former literary manager and associate director of the Royal National Theatre, and a former member of the National Theatre Board. In 2014 and 2015 he will be the judge of the Yale Drama Series competition for playwrights. His publications include 99 Plays, a survey of drama from Aeschylus to the present day, and Changing Stages, co-written with Richard Eyre.

Reviews

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Golden Compass was my favorite book when I was 9 years old and I grew up to be a playwright, so I found it very rewarding to read and consider Nicholas Wright’s stage adaptation of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy. I enjoyed its self-assurance, its willingness to deviate from the novels in order to tell a story that makes sense onstage. Characters with similar functions are combined: Tony Makarios and Billy Costa; Serafina Pekkala and Mary Malone. Some plot-holes are filled: I really like how it rewrites Lord Boreal’s theft of the alethiometer so it doesn't involve Lyra’s foolish failure to recognize him. And at least one of the play’s innovations—having Lyra learn the truth of her parentage from Mrs. Coulter herself, rather than from the gyptians—is so emotionally compelling that the otherwise lackluster film version used it too.

I have to disagree with my friend Stuart, though, about whether the play seems less anti-religion than the books. On the contrary, I think the atheist themes are more explicit in the play version. But this means it feels better integrated. The books can feel like a bit of a bait-and-switch: the first book mostly reads like a thrilling fantasy-adventure where Dust is a MacGuffin, while the later books push an anti-religion, pro-Dust agenda. In the play, religion is depicted as sinister and oppressive from the start. The people in Lyra’s world are constantly praying to “the Authority,” and the role of Fra Pavel, a high Church official, is expanded into a real villain part.

Of course, in order to condense 1200 pages of fiction into a 2-part play, the action has to move insanely fast. (In the books, Lyra’s stay at Bolvangar covers nearly 70 pages; in the play, it covers 11 pages.) I do wonder how an audience who’s not familiar with the books would react to the play version, especially the relentless pace of the action. I also wonder if I’d find it too rushed, were I to see it staged. That’s unlikely to happen, however: this epic drama requires vast resources and I don’t think anyone besides the UK’s National Theatre has produced it. Still, I enjoyed reading it and thinking about dramatic structure, theatricality, and how an adapter can wield his subtle knife to show us new worlds.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before the HBO adaptation, I had been a little obsessed with the idea of this play. His Dark Materials is one of my favorite series and has been since I was around eleven. It's a series I feel is fundamental to me as a reader and a person. I have always wondered what a full adaptation would look like, and for a long time, this play seemed like the only full adaptation that would happen. With all of that being said, I can’t really rate this as a play in its own right. It's not fair, but I can't divorce it from its source material.

I think this would be really exciting on the stage. It moves extremely quickly, and from what I have seen, visually, it was quite stunning. I also think that if you were unfamiliar with the novels, you would still be able to follow what was happening.

As an adaptation, I think it includes most of what I wanted it to, and I really like the way it is framed around the bench scene. It does focus more narrowly on Lyra and the Church than the original trilogy does, but that's not entirely unexpected. You can't not focus on Lyra, and you can't not focus on the Church. If you don't see behind the Church, you don't understand why they are so fixated on hunting down a young girl, and you also miss out on why she is so important.

The narrowing of focus does come at the cost of a few elements. Will's backstory is largely done away with. We get fragments, but we don't see him before he comes to Citigazze. Ma Costa is missing. Lee Scoresby has a smaller role, and Jopari has a larger one to make up for it. Probably the most egregious change is that Mary Malone is missing, but, and I hate to say it, for me, using Serafina as the snake worked just as well. Another large change that I didn't particularly care for but can understand given time constraints is that Metatron is not brought up. Asriel and Mrs. Coulter sacrifice themselves by taking down an agent of the Church looking to shoot Lyra. It works, but it weakens the moment and Asriel's rebellion (at least for me).

All in all, it's not a bad adaptation. I would still love to see it on stage.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stage version of His Dark Materials is essentially a speedrun of the story. I always respect efforts to create more fantasy theatre and fitting the entire trilogy into this medium is an accomplishment in itself, but I feel Nicholas Wright was concerned with accuracy to a fault instead of working with the advantages of the medium. All the major plot points are hit, but they aren't given any time to breathe and Philip Pullman's deeper, more nuanced reflections on humanity are lost as a result. Not to mention, everything rushes by so fast I can't imagine being able to follow it if I were watching live as an audience member unfamiliar with the source material. This is all most apparent with the adaptation of The Golden Compass/The Northern Lights. Admittedly, that first book is quite different from the other two in the trilogy, but that's why it should have been its own standalone play. Instead, Wright's adaptation consists of only two plays covering one and a half books each, with neither feeling remotely complete without the other. Even if writing three separate plays wasn't possible and it had to be two, it still would have made more sense to keep book 1 separate and whole as the first play and combine books 2 and 3 for the second play. Instead, book 2 (the weakest of the trilogy in my opinion) is awkwardly divided up and given heightened importance.

Despite all that, I'm still glad this adaptation exists. The theatre world is starving for saga-style stories of this scale and the story of His Dark Materials is still entertaining and beautiful. I can imagine the live production being quite a spectacle, especially for children, but the books were much more than that and a good amount of that deeper reflection is sadly lost here.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only had read the first book and watched the movie "The Golden Compass" and vaguely knew about how the trilogy ended, so I figured this two-play adaptation would be a good overview of the rest of the plot that I had missed. It seemed that the important plot points were condensed and presented efficiently; the fast dialogue and multiple characters and scene changes seemed to happen so fast and so much was going on that it was difficult to appreciate important moments, but I think (like most plays) it would work better actually seeing it performed, where the action can be slowed down a bit and the actors' performances would interpret the material better than I could in reading it. I didn't agree with all of the original author's (Philip Pullman) messages (and I especially didn't care for Lyra's and Will's implied "love scene" - weren't they still 12 years old at that point?! Or did I read too much into it?) but the overall story was entertaining, and the production with all the costumes and special effects must have been enjoyable.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great adaptation of Pullman's epic trilogy, but it felt a little too disjointed to merit a five-star rating. It is still worth checking out if you are a fan of the series, because it is interesting to see the story told solely through dialogue and (scant) stage directions.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great adaptation. I read the play version as a way to refresh my memory of the trilogy before starting the Book Of Dust and it worked really well. Though if you haven't read the books, the play kind of gives away the ending with the first scene, so beware spoilers.

[Douglas Yannaghas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure this is an incredible play to watch on stage, the Daemons and Polar Bears and Dust must be incredible to see - but just reading this is fairly dry. And makes me wonder why I haven't just re-read the books.

[Madelén · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's pretty impressive being able to summarise all three long books into a play.

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent stage adaptation of Pullman's classic series.

[Marc Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

An impressive adaption, but a different story to the original, which I regard highly. It's a far better telling than the tv adaption, though, whose major achievement was to erase every characteristic of every major character, and completely miss the central point of the story. This at least retains the heart of the piece. I'd love to see it performed. I'm sure I'd love it.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wright's play is far superior to Pullman's novel, in my opinion, even if he does cut the best character from the book, Mary Malone (he replaces her with Seraphina, the witch, whose part is significantly increased in this version). More importantly, he condenses the action and ditches a lot of Pullman's irritating and far too obvious religion bashing, and he manages to make Lyra, enormously unlikable in the books, into a character you can actually get behind. He humanizes Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel, and in many ways they become the lead characters of the story- certainly their arcs are the most interesting in the play (and were in the books). If I had only read the play, I probably would have liked this series more... but then they're hardly the same thing in the end, and folks who really liked the books might find this play a travesty. Still- much better than the film, I think we'd all be able to agree.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!
Combined all three trilogies of "The Golden Compass" in a very well written play. Really great, I would recommend reading this any day. So good I couldn't stop reading it, finished in one day! :D

[Damien Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pullman's trilogy distilled down to it's essence. All of the power and bite of the novels with none of the watered-down pandering to American Christians that ruined the movie.

No kings, no bishops, no priests. We'll be free citizens of the Republic of Heaven

[Siobhán Bayertz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh how I love 'His Dark Materials'!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic, intelligent adaptation of the novels. Would love to see it staged.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly excellent adaptation, I'm sure. I really wish I'd been able to see the play performed, since reading a script is really no substitute.

[Triniy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot line of this book was hard to keep up with but some parts were good.

[Maria McMahon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fab! Loved it!

[Derek Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doesn't translate well to the stage. The spectacle may help but the writing is clunky and the characters given no time to develop because of the immensity of the story.