As the date for the 87th annual Academy Awards draws closer and closer, talk of Meryl Streep’s long Oscar dry spell is getting more buzz. Streep may be the most nominated actor in Academy history, but she is also the biggest loser – her last Oscar win was almost 30 years ago, for Sophie’s Choice.
Even though the movie (originally a novel by William Styron) came out almost 30 years ago, the heart wrenching story of a woman who has to choose which of her children will die in the gas chambers at Auschwitz is still captivating audiences today. The Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Connecticut, was bringing the movie to the stage. The theater was proclaiming that the production was to be the ‘world premiere’ of Sophie’s Choice on the stage.
“In an effort to ensure the highest quality work on our stages, and acknowledging that creating theater is sometimes a fluid process, we’ve decided that ‘Sophie’s Choice’ wouldn’t be ready for production,” Gordon Edelstein, the theater’s artistic director, said to the New York Times. “After an extensive workshopping process over the last 18 months, the decision was not made lightly.”
Replacing Sophie’s Choice will be “My Name is Asher Lev,” by Aaron Posner. Asher Lev has been performed at a few regional theaters, making it a safer bet production-wise for the theater to undertake. In addition, there is talk of an adaptation of the book as a musical done by In the Heights ‘ Lin-Manuel Miranda. And hey, if it’s good enough for Lin-Manuel, it’s good enough for the Long Wharf.
-Diana Pearl
