In 1993, few people had heard of Leonardo DiCaprio. His breakthrough came that year in the book adaptation of Peter Hedges’ What’s eating Gilbert Grape? In the film, DiCaprio played the role of the autistic Arnie Grape, who is largely raised by his younger brother Gilbert (Johnny Depp, also at the beginning of his career). The film was highly acclaimed for its empathetic look at a disadvantaged family and DiCaprio, then 19, received his first Oscar nomination for it.
In her theater adaptation, director and writer Marije Gubbels chooses to transform the story into a youth musical. At the beginning of the story, a traveling music group (on ud, violin and piano) settles in the village where Donnie Druif and his family live, and all the characters regularly sing about their worries.
Donnie (Gilbert), Eddie (Arnie) and their sister have lost their father, which has led to depressive apathy in their mother: she hasn’t left her chair for years. That means Donnie has to bring in money, but his Deliveroo earnings are immediately thrown over the bar by the other family members. But luckily Donnie finds a soul mate in Rosa, who has come along with the touring music company.
Throughout the performance, the actors move freely on and around the set made of degraded white blocks, which represents the somewhat polluted house of the family. Only the mother remains glued to the house throughout the performance.
Sharp edges
It is a typical coming-of-age story, but Gubbels has smoothed out all the sharp edges in her adaptation and direction. The rawness of the source material stems mainly from the scorn and disapproval that Donnie and his family endure from the outside world. But because we only see the family and Rosa in the performance, the pressure on Donnie and the impending poverty never really become tangible. Where Eddie is arrested in the film by the police, who have no understanding of his mental disability, that danger is far away here. Because Gubbels also puts all the soul stirrings of her characters in sentimental songs according to genre, there is no question of any emotional nuance anywhere.
The sugary tone that the director sets in this way also leads to the tragic ending of the novel and the film being thrown overboard, but she replaces it with nothing: at the end she simply knits a happy ending for everyone , without having worked towards it in a satisfactory way. The only thing that What’s eating Donnie Druif? makes it worthwhile is the fun of both the musicians of the Marmoucha Orchestra and the actors: especially Isha Ferdinandus as Rosa and Korneel Defrancq as Eddie provide their characters with so much zest for life that they manage to win you over.
Read also: Musical generation struggle for climate transition