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In 1993, Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger starred in Shadowlands, the heartbreakingly personal story of C. S. Lewis's relationship with Joy Gresham. For many North Americans, it was a first glimpse into the life of this revered Christian writer, but the episode was not new to British audiences: it had been dramatized for BBC television a decade earlier, then made into a highly successful London stage play.

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When North American film buffs and Lewis fans would praise the Oscar-nominated 1993 version, somebody would inevitably pipe up to say how much better "the original" was. But it was impossible to get hold of, so you'd just have to take their word.

What you could get hold of, though, was the playscript, a masterful piece of writing by William Nicholson: indeed, it gripped me even more than the film I loved so much, and I resolved that I would play that role one day. (Writing about movies is just my obsession: I support my habit with my day job as an actor and director at Vancouver's Pacific Theatre.)

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This spring I finally got my chance not only to put Nicholson's amazing script onstage—where I played the role of C. S. Lewis—but also (finally) to view the original BBC production, which was released on DVD as we prepared for rehearsal. It's amazing to see how substantially different the three versions are (two films and a play), all written by the same man. To compare them is a fascinating study in the evolution of a script. 

Just as thrilling is the opportunity to watch veteran British actor Joss Ackland create an interpretation of "Jack" Lewis that's profoundly different from better-known, widely-acclaimed Hopkins performance. We'll never get a chance to meet this man we feel we know so well through his writings—at least not this side of the wardrobe—so it's a great privilege to have two such fully-realized portrayals provide a truly three-dimensional perspective of C. S. Lewis.

The 1985 teleplay begins with an extreme close-up of an eye, blinking. Eerie underscoring distances us from the laughter and conversation as the camera pulls back to show High Table at Magdalen College. Forkfuls of food are thrust into mouths, blotchy-faced Oxford dons cough and chew. We rise from the table and flee outdoors: "Why am I so afraid? I never knew that love could hurt so much, and I love you, and all I want is to love you. Beyond every door I hear your voice saying to me, 'This is only the land of shadows. Real life hasn't begun yet.'" We find ourselves traveling down the long, empty corridor of a house, into an abandoned spare room. The doors of a wardrobe swing open, we push through coats and furs until we come to a lantern, shining in the middle of a snowy wood.

In those first 90 seconds, we're already close to the essence of Lewis—and we know where the coming love story is headed. We see the world through Jack's eyes, but it's a world he's alienated from. And when he turns away, with Joy preoccupying his thoughts, he returns to his own childhood—and the world beyond the wardrobe. It's a story framed by childhood and bereavement, and we've glimpsed its two worlds—the clubby male environs of British academic life, and the crisp, cool magical world beyond.

We also sense how much this teleplay will be informed by Lewis's literary creations—not only in the Narnia reference and the image of the childhood home described in Surprised by Joy, but in the voiceover which resembles the opening of A Grief Observed; "No one ever told me grief felt so much like fear …"

After the title credits roll, we're immersed in Lewis's day-to-day bachelor's life in the early 1950s—but already our ears are being tuned to what's coming: Lewis gives a radio talk on marriage, he's chided by his university peers for his "plain Jack" talks on things he knows nothing about. Ackland is wonderful here: he's intelligent and willing to engage in the argument at hand, but there's a tremendous humility as well. "Shouldn't I have said that I haven't been married?" is played with a winning sincerity: for all the public attention, this is a man who isn't always sure of himself. That warmth and humanity permeates the entire performance, reminiscent of the Lewis we meet in the preface to The Problem of Pain, where he acknowledges not being a "real theologian"—and where he admits not living up to his own principles on the subject of pain, divulging a personal aversion to real suffering.

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