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When Ray Bradbury wrote "Fahrenheit 451" in 1953, only half of U.S. households had television sets. But he foresaw a day when televisions would occupy entire walls of most American homes and a sizable portion of American minds. These days, our TVs may not be quite that big, but our screens are seemingly everywhere, and their influence is pervasive. 
 

 
Even so, enough people were able to drag themselves away from Netflix on Friday night to fill Theatre in the Round for the stage adaptation of Bradbury's novel.
 
 


The title "Fahrenheit 451" refers to the ignition point of paper, and a lot of the story has to do with the burning of books by what are aptly called firemen. Bradbury's broader theme, though, is the extinguishing of the mind, the loss of the art of conversation, and the slow, steady erosion of quality. The society he describes is losing its ability to think. 
 
 


In the story, unthinking people can't object when books are made illegal, or when fire departments commit murder and arson, or when the government pursues wars that threaten mass annihilation. Few can remember when life was any different. All anybody really cares about is what's on TV tonight.
 

 
That fixation on TV programs comes across vividly in the Theatre in the Round production. The offstage television screen in fireman Guy Montag's house seems to occupy a third of the theater, and he and his wife Mildred change channels with the sweeping gestures of a home-plate umpire. The lighting and sound design adds a digital buzz to the set, which appears painted in a curious beige until you look carefully: Every surface, from floor to furniture to modesty panels, is coated with pages taken from books. Up close, the pages are perfectly legible — an effect that would not be possible in a bigger theater. 


 
 
 
It's a marvelously inventive design element that, ironically, must have involved the destruction of a lot of books. It also suggests a fascination with literature that's at odds with the anti-literature themes of the play. 


 
 
Bradbury adapted the stage version from his own novel, after a quarter-century had passed and after the French director Francois Truffaut had reinvented the story for the screen. Bradbury in turn borrowed heavily from Truffaut. The result is a story that focuses less on television's lobotomizing effects and more on the efforts of a few humans to preserve the great works of literature by memorizing them.
 

 
Along the way, Bradbury sacrificed some important elements of the original story and changed others. The looming war has dwindled to a mere mention, for example, and the terrible Mechanical Hound has shrunk to a new, untested invention — a pet project of Montag and his fire chief, Beatty. 


 
 
The book, the movie, the play: Think of them as Fahrenheits 451.1, 451.2 and 451.3. For my money, Bradbury's original novel is still the scariest version. If people in a post-apocalyptic future want to memorize this story, that's the one to choose.

Arts and Culture

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Eric Ringham

Author

Ray Bradbury's stage adaptation of his own novel, now in production at Theatre in the Round, makes some unexpected choices.

Think of this play as 'Fahrenheit 451.3'

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