Slaughterhouse Five... ON ICE?

What would happen if you were to turn Slaughterhouse Five into a play? Wait. I have a better question. What would happen if you were to turn it into a play... ON ICE?! Obviously, it wouldn't be a good idea, so I'll just stick with the original question. Let's think carefully. Can a book as confusing and setting-rich as Slaughterhouse Five be recreated into a "good" play? In my opinion, I think it's possible to turn it into a play, but a "good" play? First, let me define what I think a "good" play is. To me, a good play is one which stays true to the story and themes that a novel or its original form(lack of a better word) presents. A good play is one which never or very little, strays from the events that occur in its original and gives us the same characters, themes, and settings. It must portray these things to a high degree of accuracy and be almost identical to that of the original. The play must also flow smoothly and adds no junk or fille, but can remove a bit of content if it is for the sake of aiding the audience understand the story a bit more or for time concerns. This may seem like a lot, but this is for the sake of having the highest quality work which would make the original author proud that their piece was turned into a play.
So in the case of Slaughterhouse Five, I don't think it's possible to turn it into a play. Here are my seven, main reasons why:

1. Slaughterhouse Five is a book told in third person, with several parts where the narrator(Vonnegut) breaks the fourth wall. This would make the story of Slaughterhouse Five very hard to tell without the aid of a narrator, and with the use of a narrator in the play, the story gets complicated with the addition of another speaker and the play becomes too orally focused rather then the plot.

2. Slaughterhouse Five contains time-traveling. How do you show time-traveling occurring without interrupting the flow of a play? One would probably say you flip the lights off, or the curtains come down, and during that time, you change the backdrops, actors and props. But with this method, it would cause too many interruptions during the play and the audience may get annoyed. Slaughterhouse Five is a very setting-rich novel, with a lot of action occurring at many different places, only made possible through the time-traveling that occurs. Without the time-traveling, you also lose one of the books strong points: the settings. Also, how many times does time-traveling occur in Slaughterhouse Five? Let's see.. Oh. Way too many.

3. Slaughterhouse Five has a huge host of very unique characters, which may be one of the causes of confusions that readers get from reading the book. But with a book, the reader can flip back and turn the pages to refresh their minds on who these previously mentioned characters are. In a play, the audience does not have that luxury. Honestly, who is going to remember who Gerhard Muller is at the end of the play? Heck. I forgot who he was after getting through half the book.

4. In my opinion, Slaughterhouse Five is one of those books which one can only enjoy if you read it and try to envision what happens in your own mind. An example would be the descriptions of Oz-like Dresden and the ravaged, destroyed Dresden. If someone were to give you an image of what it actually looked like, you lose your ability to imagine it since you have a solid image to refer to when you think of it. It's hard to describe, but it's one of those books where it's better to use your imagination to create the recreate the images of the settings and situations, rather then having someone put a "that's what it looks like and it won't change" image.

5. Honestly, I don't view Slaughterhouse as a type of novel that would translate well into a play. Most books that are acted out in as plays were usually written to be plays in the first place(Shakespeare's works or musicals). Slaughterhouse is a very complicated(and sometimes boring) piece that does not contain any drama, much less action. I would compare it to turning the dictionary into a play.

6. I don't think Vonnegut would have wanted it to happen. He wrote the book to tell us what happened to Dresden, and not to glorify war or to gain recognition or fame. I think he wanted to get his feelings and the events that happened to him off his back; he wanted to tell of the tragedy that befell Dresden and ensure we do not forget about the lives lost. Slaughterhouse Five does enough of a good job that a play would be unnecessary to accomplish these things.

7. Tralfamodorians. There will never be anyone good enough to act as a Tralfamadorian. 'Nuff said.