© 1993 Cable News Network, Inc.; Showbiz Today
Vonnegut's ''Monkey House'' Comes Alive on Showtime

Prolific author Kurt Vonnegut feels that his work translates well into screen productions. His "Monkey House" is being presented in installments on Showtime. The following is a CNN transcript of a Janury 28, 1993 feeature on the Showtime series.

BELLA SHAW, Anchor: It's generally acknowledged that people don't read as much as they used to. Indeed, it seems the closest an entire generation gets to a book these days is when one is turned into a TV movie of the week. You'd think that would bother an author of the status of Kurt Vonnegut but as Mark Bailey reports, Vonnegut feels his work transfers quite well from words to visuals.

KURT VONNEGUT: Hello, I'm Kurt Vonnegut. My father was an architect and it seems to me that I myself have designed this structure something like this, except I've provided something that architects don't provide, which is a world behind each door.

MARK BAILEY, Correspondent: ''Welcome to the Monkey House'' and the latest stories in the anthology by the same name to be turned into television for Showtime. Unlike many authors who fear that Hollywood only serves to trivialize serious writing, Vonnegut welcomes the opportunity to see his work performed on screen.

Mr. VONNEGUT: Some of the people you would have to deal with are the scum of the earth, obviously. Really not very nice or gifted people but I've been very lucky and I have said that there are two novelists that ought to be crazy over Hollywood - I'm one of them because the job they did on Slaughterhouse 5.

BAILEY: Vonnegut avows that the other is Margaret Mitchell, Gone With The Wind having held up fairly well. Four new installments of Monkey House are set to air on Showtime beginning Wednesday night with an episode titled ''Fortitude.'' In it, Vonnegut explores just how far man and technology should go to prolong life.

Mr. VONNEGUT: This about a woman who is so wealthy, she's left a billion dollars, that she can hire the best medical help available. And so finally the story opens and she's nothing but a head on top of a post and there's this huge engine room down below which is her kidney or lungs and everything else.

BAILEY: A topic torn from today's headlines? Not hardly. Vonnegut wrote ''Fortitude'' in 1953. Future episodes of ''Monkey House'' promise the same type of biting social commentary, faithful to the author's original work. And if his fans have any doubts, Vonnegut suggests they try something really bold for the '90s - read the book.

Mr. VONNEGUT: I'm very fortunate because everything I've ever done remains in print and it's a usual experience for authors to write something and have it sink like a stone after a year or a couple of years. And then the movie becomes the only representative of the work of art, and so the writer gets hysterical but I wrote the books, you know, that's what I do.