Will The New ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ Musical Stay True To The Book’s Christian Themes?
By Movieguide® Contributor
“A Wrinkle In Time” is going to hit the stage!
A Broadway adaptation of the beloved children’s book by Madeleine L’Engle is in the works.
According to Deadline, “The adaptation will feature music and lyrics by Obie Award-winning composer Heather Christian, book by Lauren Yee, and direction by two-time Obie Award winner Lee Sunday Evans.”
“Knowing my grandmother’s love of and devotion to theater, I had long envisioned a musical adaptation of ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ that could transport audiences to a different dimension in a way only music can,” said Charlotte Jones Voiklis in a statement. Voiklis is L’Engle’s granddaughter, as well as the director of L’Engle’s literary estate.
“I am inspired by this creative team who truly love and understand the original novel and yet are ready to explore the possibilities of what it could be on the stage,” Voiklis concluded.
Performance dates will be announced in 2023.
“A Wrinkle In Time” has been adapted before; most recently, for the 2018 Disney movie, starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Storm Reid, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Peña, Zach Galifianakis, and Chris Pine.
However, in the 2018 movie version, Christian elements from the original book were left out. Movieguide® previously reported:
Since Disney’s remake of the classic children’s novel “A Wrinkle In Time” came out this past weekend, a slew of negative reviews and reactions from both critics and moviegoers has surrounded the movie which opened to a weak opening of $32 million (for a movie that needs to gross at least $250 to break even). Many Christian publications, including Movieguide®, have called Disney out for eliminating the overt Christian content and themes from the movie which was included in the original book written by Christian author Madeleine L’Engle. Even the secular website BusinessInsider published an article titled “’A Wrinkle in Time’ ditches the book’s explicit Christian references — and the movie really suffers because of it.”
In an interview with Uproxx, the screenwriter of THE WRINKLE IN TIME, Jennifer Lee, defended her exclusion of the Christian elements, arguing, “What I looked at, one of the reasons Madeleine L’Engle’s [book] … had that strong Christian element to it wasn’t just because she was Christian, but because she was frustrated with things that needed to be said to her in the world, and she wasn’t finding a way to say it, and she wanted to stay true to her faith, and I respect that and I understand those feelings of things you want to say in the world that need to be said that are out there. In a good way, I think there are a lot of elements of what she wrote that we have progressed as a society, and we can move onto the other elements.”
Of course, this did not stop Lee from including heavy New Age elements, celebrating individuals like Gandhi and Buddha, but no mention of Jesus.
Dr. Ted Baehr knew Madeleine L’Engle when he was at the seminary where she was the librarian. Madeleine L’Engle would have been shocked by the removal of her Christian faith from the movie based on her book. This is a violation of any respect for Madeleine L’Engle’s intellectual property and for the faith of the fans who loved her book.
118 million people go to church every week compared to 24 million who go to movies on average. So, Jennifer Lee’s christophobia alienated the large Christian audience as well as the other fans of the book. Walt Disney Company should be concerned about this blatant bigotry and theft and distortion of intellectual property by Jennifer Lee. This is not just a mistake, but it is a travesty.
Fans of L’Engle’s book are hopeful that this latest adaptation of “A Wrinkle In Time” will stay true to the Christian themes of the original book.
