Four Seasons: Developing an Alda tale into a Fey play

Back to the original movie... 

1981

Liz: I remember really liking Alan Alda’s The Four Seasons.

Eric: Yes. Three couples, holidays, marriages going slightly wrong, people getting older. No serial killers, no dystopian future, no superheroes.

Liz: And the Netflix Four Seasons series keeps that quality. Comedy, yes, but also about people talking.

Eric: And I think Tina Fey understood that the original film’s great asset wasn't really the plot. It was the ensemble. Exploring those relationships over eight episodes.

Liz: And I liked that she didn’t simply turn everybody into Tina Fey characters.

Eric: Mm. Important. Although she plays Kate, she gives the other actors room. And there’s another interesting thing about the production, the directing.

Liz: You mean the actors directing episodes?

Eric: Yes. Colman Domingo directed an episode, actually directing himself while acting. Tina Fey herself directed an episode. The cast taking over some responsibility rather than simply turning up and performing.

Liz: Tina Fey making it participatory?

Eric: I think so. Her greatest skill isn’t coming up with jokes. It’s creating conversations in which people reveal themselves. Casual dialogue, people interrupting, changing the subject, making a joke because they don't want to answer something, but underneath it there’s something happening.

Liz: Harder to write than a punchline.

Eric: Especially with six characters who have known each other for decades. They need histories. A remark has to sound as though it’s the umpteenth time they’ve had that argument, not the first time the writers thought of it.

Liz: Alda made a pretty good film. Fey had to work out how to make that idea keep going.

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Voice-over
In the original Alan Alda Four Seasons we spent time with people. Tina Fey gives you the pleasure, and sometimes the discomfort, of wondering what happens when people like this have to keep living together after something terrible happens. She kept the essence of the Alan Alda film without simply doing a remake of it.