A Note from Book Writer Jen Silverman

The first time I saw the movie of Black Swan, I was a grad student in a small theater in Iowa City. I remember the dismayed joy of the audience as Nina pulled a black feather out of her shoulder, how other moments of body horror (that hang-nail!) unleashed a collective visceral groan.

On the one hand, so much of our pleasure was skillfully delivered by way of the camera’s gaze, how the camera withholds and reveals, how it plays with our dread; on the other hand, the movie draws power from dazzling world of live performance. When I was approached to adapt Black Swan, I thought immediately about that duality.

It made sense to me that there could be a thrilling theatrical version whose power lay in its theatricality and live-ness. But instead of attempting a faithful translation from one medium to another—if such a thing were even possible—it might come to life by way of certain reinventions and reinvestigations.

Some of these have to do with how you transform an audience’s experience of reality using the tools and language of theater, and not a camera’s controlled access. On this subject, to preserve your enjoyment, I’ll say only that the combination of gifted designers and remarkable physical storytellers has yielded some exhilarating stage moments. But other of our reinvestigations have to do with asking new and different questions through the vehicle of certain characters.

The choreographer of the movie—Thomas LeRoy—is a slippery and powerful man whose pressures and provocations to Nina are sexual; made in 2010, prior to the #MeToo movement, Black Swan is teasing a cultural conversation yet to come. From the vantage point of the present, and with the blessings of Darren Aronofsky and the team of producers, the stage adaptation felt like an opportunity to investigate an alternate set of ideas about the choreographer character.

Our Margaux LeRoy has come up in a world run by men and has developed the necessary armor and relentless discipline to make her way to the top. Now she finds herself in the uneasy position of so many brilliant and uncompromising women: caught between the demands of the institution and the dictates of her instincts. She sees a spark inside Nina that reminds her of her youthful self. But as she ushers Nina closer to that spark, she doesn’t realize that she is unleashing something that will both inspire and devour her new star.

I’ve always been fascinated by doppelgangers and reflections, and I loved the moments in the movie in which Natalie Portman glimpses herself on a crowded subway car. From the beginning, I was taken by the idea of Nina’s shadow side—her inner Black Swan—making itself known to her as she falls under the spell of LeRoy’s ballet and what that ballet is demanding of her. As a team, we began to think about Nina’s Black Swan as a manifestation of her hunger and desire, the energies within us as artists that are as creative as they are destructive.

I think this conversation extends past artists, though. How often have any of us taken adrenaline-fueled leaps, lead with savage instincts, or rushed headlong toward something we wish for—at all costs—in our own lives? When our Black Swans speak through us, we are powerful and untamed, we throw off the cage of expectation and etiquette—we become reckless creatures of hunger and desire. How can any of us live like this? But also… how can we not?