Christine Urio Fortunato Adaptation

Christine Urio                                                                                                             Fortunato Adaptation

CARNIVAL:  OUTSIDE, DUSK.  PEOPLE ARE MULLING ABOUT AIMLESSLY, WALKING PAST GAMES, EATING FRIED FOOD, AND WAITING IN LINE FOR RIDES—IT IS ORGANIZED CHAOS. IT’S THE END OF SUMMER SO THE NIGHTTIME AIR IS COOL, SO PEOPLE ARE WEARING LIGHT BUT LONGER CLOTHES.  THE SUN HAS JUST SET SO THE SKY IS NOT YET BLACK, BUT DARK BLUE.  WITH THE STARS BEGINNING TO COME OUT AND THE RIDES, THE CARNIVAL IS FULL OF TWINKELING, BRIGHT, FLASHING LIGHTS, GRABBING PEOPLE’S ATTENTION. 

Start with FORTUNATO and the narrator doing things close friends do:  show them eating dinner together at a classy restaurant clinking wine glasses, walking along the greens of a golf course carrying their clubs and laughing, sitting in big arm chairs in a study smoking cigars and talking. 

Portray the narrator’s pride, perhaps with awards or distinguishments upon his walls.  He has is college diploma hung on the wall amidst other distinguisments throughout his life and career.

Shoot to people at a cocktail party; it is set inside a swanky hotel and the men and women are fashionably and appropriately dressed for the occasion.  Waiters are passing h’ourderves on silver platters.   FORTUNATO is drinking wine and laughing amongst a group. Let the audience overhear snippets of him disrespecting the NARRATOR.  The NARRATOR is a little ways off from the group and acknowledges that they are mocking him.  Darkness clouds his eyes but he continues to smile.

Shoot to the NARRATOR cynically plotting his revenge.  He is in his study stooped over a piece of parchment, his brow furrowed, his face red, writing furiously.

Shoot to a carnival.  There is a big Ferris wheel in the background and kids eating cotton candy running about.  There are lots of people so it is loud with conversations mingling together.  Enter FORTUNATO, slightly tipsy, wearing a tight fitting parti-stripped dress.  NARRATOR jovially greets him.

NARRATOR:  

My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met.  How remarkably well you are looking today!  But I have received a pip of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.

FORTUNATO:  

How?  Amontillado?  A pipe?  Impossible!  And in the middle of t he carnival!”

NARRATOR:  

I have my doubts.  And I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter.  You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.

FORTUNATO: 

 Amontillado!

NARRATOR: 

 I have my doubts.

FORTUNATO:  

Amontillado!

NARRATOR:  

And I must satisfy them

FORTUNATO:  

Amontillado!

NARRATOR:  

As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi.  If anyone of them has a critical turn, it is he.  He will tell me

FORTUNATO (interrupting)            : 

 Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry

NARRATOR:  

And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match of your own

FORTUNATO: 

                                                Come, let us go

NARRATOR:  

Whither?

FORTUNATO:  

To your vaults

NARRATOR:  

My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature.  I perceive you have an engagement.  Luchesi—

FORTUNATO (interrupting):  

I have no engagement; come.

NARRATOR:  

My friend, no.  It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted.  The vaults are insufferably damp.  They are encrusted with nitre

FORTUNATO: 

 Let us go, nevertheless.  The cold is merely nothing.  Amontillado!  You have been imposed upon.  And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.