ИСТИНА

Adaptation audiences are, to use Mikhail Iampolski’s metaphor [Intertextuality and Film, 1993, 1998], Tiresian audiences who, on their encounters with new versions of well-known works, keep recognizing – narrative and intertextual elements, their previous responses, the authors’ style. To recognize is to ‘re-cognere’ – appear in the memory again . Adaptation audiences are provoked to recall and remember, which is part of their enjoyment [Hutcheon, 2012]. Adaptations have turned into a kind of contemporary mnemotechnics – a tool for recollection, a memory aid. This paper shows how recognition works in Richard Eyre’s screen adaptation (2004) of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Complete Female Stage Beauty – a story of the 17th-century theatrical reform (women on stage), which embeds the staging of Othello with a female lead. Four repetitions of the death scene from Othello encourage the audience to juxtapose, compare, and unite. Stage Beauty shows the response of the theatre audience (who went to see the same performance many times) to help the film viewer process his recognition. ‘Sameness’ makes the audience feel in control and empowered. Variations trouble the audience, though novelty seems rewarding in the end. The effect of sameness is created by a trained memory, which helps to (re)connect – texts with other texts, readers with viewers, and today’s response with previous responses to a narrative world.