Still Life (play) - Adaptations

Adaptations

After the successful production of the play, Coward expanded and adapted it into a full length film script, Brief Encounter (1945), which was filmed by David Lean, with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in the roles originally played by Lawrence and Coward. A radio adaptation of the film was broadcast in 1955, and the following year Coward made a version for two voices which he recorded with Margaret Leighton. A French translation was given in Paris in 1968 under the title Brève Recontre (presented in tandem with Nous Dansons), and in the same year, along with Fumed Oak, it formed the basis for a musical, not by Coward, called Mr. and Mrs. The film was remade in 1974 starring Richard Burton and Sophia Loren. In 2008, a stage version of Brief Encounter was presented in London at the Haymarket Cinema and on tour by Kneehigh Theatre using a combination of the text of Still Life and the screenplay. In May 2009, Houston Grand Opera premiered an opera in two acts based on Brief Encounter, with music by André Previn from a libretto by John Caird.