Being Wilbur

First and foremost, he's a real pig. Who can talk. He prefers sleeping to all else except eating. He craves and creates love.

The danger would be in making him sound like me or some character or anyone other than himself. So to understand Wilbur I'd have to study pigs, as E.B.White had done. I'd have to watch them, smell them, listen to grunts, feed them. And let Wilbur's voice go from there.

As for Charlotte . . .

[photo of page on which Charlotte, chairing a meeting of barn animals, mutters and glares.]

That's as cranky as she ever gets. Her purpose in calling the meeting is to generate new ideas for her web and thus save Wilbur's life. The sage counsel of the oldest sheep is to appeal to the rat, Templeton, who can bring back bits of text from the dump. She convinces him to do so by appealing to his "baser instincts."

Both Wilbur and Charlotte

A while back I got an idea that continues to land as fabulous-plus: have a woman I know play Wilbur, and man I know play Charlotte. Both are veteran actors. They're married to each other. He's taller, more angular, more like a spider negotiating a web or descending on a thin, spun line. She's stronger, more compact, better at rooting and rolling and snuffling at scraps. 
These two would understand/create perfectly Charlotte's love for Wilbur, and his for her.
When I pitched the idea--more a casual lob than a pitch--she said, "Did you mean to cross the genders?" 
"Absolutely," I said. "Charlotte and Wilbur are beyond gender." Which I leave at that.
In making the pitch, I sent an alphabetized list of what both Wilbur and Charlotte do. Here are the first five items:

Wilbur

Act quickly when it matters most

Adore a little girl who believes in you

Aim to please

Be center of attention

Be grateful

Charlotte

Accept what is sure to come, but reach for more

Admit you’ll never get home again.

Be generous without limits, but impatient when necessary

Be invisible at times

Be matter-of-fact about who you are and what you do

Both Wilbur and Charlotte

Ask and answer questions

Be alone together

Be open to new words

Comfort

Discuss stillness

In my imagination, the two actors and I would build the show from 

the actions out. Start with what the actors do, how they move. Let 

the story come from that.

As I Sit Here in the Ugly Red Light of Rainbow Cinema 8 for Sorry We Missed You

I'm thinking of Charlotte's Web (Gerry's version) as fable for a troubled time. No need to allude much to Covid-19. The story already has that sense that current conditions, though lethal, will not last, or, that they mark one of those transitions we're heir to as citizens of this planet, this universe. 
I mean lethal: significant death, much of it harshly experienced.
It must be so, if the corresponding explosion of joy or realization is to reach us. 
Taking precautions, or not, vis-a-vis Covid-19 is not unlike the world of CW. There is threat, uncertainty and volatility in the novel and, as I sit here in the ugly red light, in today's world.
If so, Templeton, the amoral rat, likely gets a new title: Bearer of Disease. (He would say, bring it on.)
The intent of this version of CW might be for everyone viewing it to re-think our contemporary world.
And, as noted, it wouldn't take much to tip the audience that way. A line for Wilbur, one for the rat, a word from Charlotte or fragment of gossip at the Zuckermans' supper table might be enough.

Daily Schedules

Ben Franklin:
5:00     Rise, wash and address Powerful Goodness.
8:00     Work.
12:00   Read or overlook my accounts, and dine.
2:00     Work.
6:00     Put things in their places, supper, examination of the day.
10:00   Sleep.

Jay Gatsby:
6:00     Rise from bed.
6:15     Dumbbell exercise and wall scaling.
7:15     Study electricity, etc.
8:30     Work.
4:30     Basketball and sports.
5:00     Practice elocution, poise and how to attain it.
7:00     Study needed inventions.

Wilbur:
6:30     Breakfast. Skim milk, crusts, middlings, etc.
7:00     Breakfast finished.
7:00     Have a talk with Templeton, the rat. Not that interesting, but better than nothing.
8:00     Take a nap outdoors.
9:00     Dig a hole or trench and possibly find something good to eat buried in the dirt.
11:00   Stand still and watch flies, bees and swallows.
12:00   Lunchtime. Warm water, apple parings, meat gravy.
1:00     Sleep.
2:00     Scratch itchy places by rubbing against the fence.
3:00     Stand perfectly still.
4:00     Supper. Skim milk, provender, prune skins, etc.

Wilbur and Charlotte: Song for Chapter Three

[outline of content for first verse]
Lonely and bored, Wilbur's got no place to go. "That's where you're wrong my friend," says a goose. Wilbur squeezes past a loose board in the fence. With nothing between himself and the big world, now what? The goose replies with 14 different verbs and a main idea: 
          The world is a wonderful place when you're young.

[second]
Wilbur has about ten minutes of free-time. Mrs. Z spots him from the kitchen window. She calls the men. The geese hear the racket. Pretty soon all animals know Wilbur's out and cheer him on. If this is what it's like to be free, Wilbur would rather be penned up.
          The world is a wonderful place when you're young. 

 [action-packed chorus]
A cocker spaniel sneaks up from one way, hired man from the other, ready to head Wilbur off if he broke for the garden. The goose shouts orders, the dog springs for his hind leg. Screams, scrambles, dodges, grabs, cheers.

[third]
It is too much. After all, Wilbur is only a very young pig. He wishes Fern were there to comfort him. When Mr. Z approaches with a pail of warm slops, Wilbur feels relieved. He steps back through the fence. They nail it shut. "He's quite a pig," they say.
         The world is a wonderful place when you're young.

Oklahoma!

This morning I noticed in the Globe & Mail word of the revival of Oklahoma! coming to Toronto. This would be a touring edition of the Tony winner of 2018. I have the cast recording--a gorgeous acoustic rendering of the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein score. 
The show promises to be popular, says the Globe, with those who like their musical theatre classics given a fresh treatment. What matters in such a treatment is what the singers and musicians do. In this revival, they do beautiful, committed work. Sure, it's stripped down, but the pipes on those singers . . . man, they're trained, they're at peak power, they believe in what they're singing.
I've heard the staging is radically updated--including, eight shows a week, fresh cornbread prepared and served on stage. The original staging (1943) was already radical. Until then, musicals began with overtures. (Who knows, maybe this was because Broadway audiences were notoriously slow in settling into their seats, like Dodger fans or Canuck fans.) Oklahoma! opens with a cowboy, Curly, saluting the day.
Here's a taste of a later song . . . performed by Damon Daunno and Rebecca Naomi Jones.

For the Audience

Dial M for Murder, the stage play, is set, almost entirely, in a single apartment room. For his movie version, an interviewer suggested, Alfred Hitchcock would "open up" the piece, wouldn't he? "No," said Hitchcock (according to the Peter Bogdanovich DVD commentary). "You don't open it up, you just shoot it." Of course, "just shoot it" is something one can do only after thirty years of film-making.
Anyway, how would I stage the ending of my Charlotte's Web. The book is note-perfect: Charlotte and Wilbur are alone the day after the big climax at the Fair. Soon it's time to go back to the barn at Zuckerman's, but Charlotte knows she won't make it. Wilbur is heartbroken but acts quickly when they come to load him into the truck. He gets the rat to snip Charlotte's egg sac from her web and deliver it to Wilbur for safe-keeping in his mouth (the sac is waterproof, we already know) all the way home. Their final good-byes consists of a wink by Wilbur, a weak waving of a few front legs by Charlotte. The truck drives away, the Fairground empties, and Charlotte dies alone.
There's one more chapter. Wilbur cares for the egg sac all winter. In spring the 514 eggs hatch and all but three of Charlotte's daughters drift away on their little silk balloons. (He hears their weak "Good-bye, good-bye," the poor guy.) These three build webs around Wilbur's pen. They pledge friendship to him and he to them, and he tells them about their mother.
There is no reason I can think of, at least for now, to open this up. 
How I'd love to be part of presenting this moment to an audience.