The Weight Of The World

Wim Wender’s film “Wings Of Desire” has been transformed for the stage by Ola Mafaalani for the American Repertory Theater. During the film’s first release I saw a matinee performance — I’d taken the day off from work. I was so affected by it, that I went to see it again later that evening. Some of the most beautiful dialogue in the film comes from Peter Handke’s semi-autobiographical book “The Weight of the World.” Mafaalani talks about bringing the work fully into theatrical performance and the difficulty of leaving the greatness of the film behind. Usually I’m skeptical of adaptations of films for the theater. But Handke himself has paved the way for this kind of work with his play “The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other.”