''Night of the Auk'' is a 1956

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

drama in three acts written by

Arch Oboler Arch Oboler (December 7, 1909 – March 19, 1987) was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer, and director who was active in radio, films, theater, and television. He generated much attention with his radio scripts, particular ...

. It is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

drama in

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and P ...

about space travelers returning to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

after the first Moon landing. The play was based on Oboler's radio play ''Rocket from Manhattan'', which aired as part of ''

Arch Oboler's Plays ''Arch Oboler's Plays'' is a radio anthology series written, produced and directed by Arch Oboler. Minus a sponsor, it ran for one year, airing Saturday evenings on NBC from March 25, 1939, to March 23, 1940, and revived five years later on Mutual ...

'' in September 1945. ''Night of the Auk'' was published in book form in 1958.

Summary

The action takes place aboard a spacecraft returning from the first manned Moon landing, the crew of which witnesses

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear w ...

break out on Earth. In his foreword to the published edition of the play, Oboler expressed the hope that its vision of a potential future would prove to be "a playwright's fancy".

History of the play

''Night of the Auk'' was based on Oboler's radio play "Rocket from Manhattan", which aired as part of ''

'' on September 20, 1945, the month after the

atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

. "Rocket from Manhattan" featured only three characters: Dr. Chamberlain (

Lou Merrill Louis Dilman Merrill (April 1, 1912 – April 7, 1963) was an American actor, who worked primarily in radio from the 1930s through the 1950s. Early life Lou Merill was born on April 1, 1912, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada., and moved to the ...

), Maj. Russell ( Elliott Lewis) and Maj. Reynolds ( Ervin Lee). The play's action was explicitly set on September 20, 2000 (exactly 55 years after the date of broadcast), rather than in the indefinite near future of ''Night of the Auk''. The published edition of ''Night of the Auk'' is dedicated "''To

NORMAN COUSINS Norman Cousins (June 24, 1915 – November 30, 1990) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate. Early life Cousins was born to Jewish immigrant parents Samuel Cousins and Sarah Babushkin Cousins, in West ...

who has tried to hold back the holocaust and to PETER who never had his chance''". On April 7, 1958, Oboler's six-year-old son, Peter, drowned in rainwater collected in excavations for a bomb shelter at Oboler's

Malibu, California Malibu ( ; es, Malibú; Chumash: ) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate and its strip of the Malibu ...

, home, causing Oboler to regard him as a casualty of the atomic age.

Productions

Produced by

Kermit Bloomgarden Kermit Bloomgarden (December 15, 1904 – September 20, 1976) was an American theatrical producer. He was an accountant before he began producing plays on Broadway including ''Death of a Salesman'' (1949), ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1955), ' ...

and directed by

Sidney Lumet Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award: four for Best Director for ''12 Angry Men'' (1957), ''Dog Day Afternoon'' (1975), ''Network'' (1976), ...

, ''Night of the Auks original production starred Martin Brooks (Lt. Jan Kephart),

Wendell Corey Wendell Reid Corey (March 20, 1914 – November 8, 1968) was an American actor and politician. He was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was a board member of the Screen Actors Guild. Biography Early years Corey was ...

(Colonel Tom Russell),

Christopher Plummer Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage, and television. He received multiple accolades, inc ...

(Lewis Rohnen),

Claude Rains William Claude Rains (10 November 188930 May 1967) was a British actor whose career spanned almost seven decades. After his American film debut as Dr. Jack Griffin in ''The Invisible Man'' (1933), he appeared in such highly regarded films as '' ...

(Doctor Bruner) and

Dick York Richard Allen York (September 4, 1928 – February 20, 1992) was an American radio, stage, film, and television actor. He was the first actor to play Darrin Stephens on the ABC fantasy sitcom ''Bewitched''. He played teacher Bertram Cates in the ...

(Lt. Mac Hartman). The play's world premiere took place at the Shubert Theatre in Washington, D.C., on November 12, 1956. Reviewing the play in ''

The Washington Star ''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the Washington ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday Star ...

'', Jay Carmody wrote: "...if prizes were awarded for the most provocative play of the season, Mr. Oboler might already be busy making room on his mantel... a lively and imaginative theater piece." Opening at the Playhouse in New York on December 3, 1956, the play ran there for only eight performances. Writing for the

United Press United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...

, Jack Gaver wrote: "This is a coldly powerful, strangely moving drama of stature... It is a good season that can produce

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...

's '' Long Day's Journey Into Night'' and ''Night of the Auk''."

Brooks Atkinson Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theatre critic. He worked for ''The New York Times'' from 1922 to 1960. In his obituary, the ''Times'' called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his ...

wrote in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'': "Stirring up scientific jargon with portentous ideas, bolerwrites dialogue that is streaked with purple patches and sounds a good deal like gibberish." In the December 17, 1956 issue, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' reviewed: According to his own later account, Oboler came to feel during the play's Washington run that the production was doomed due to its overly realistic presentation, which conflicted with the poetic tone of the dialogue. However, scholar Charles A. Carpenter would later write that the play's "failure as a theatrical as well as literary work... might more accurately be traced to its conflicting modes of parable and melodrama, the first compatible with Oboler's nonrealistic treatment, the second not." In his memoir, Christopher Plummer lamented Oboler's decision to write the play in blank verse, stating that Bloomgarden made suggestions for making the text less pretentious which Oboler ignored. Claude Rains regarded ''Night of the Auk'' as "a damned good play". A television adaptation of ''Night of the Auk'' was broadcast on ''

The Play of the Week ''The Play of the Week'' is an American anthology series of televised stage plays which aired in NTA Film Network syndication from October 12, 1959 to May 1, 1961. Ambitious undertaking The series presented 67 (35 in the first season, 32 in th ...

'' on May 2, 1960, featuring

William Shatner William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the starship USS Enterpri ...

as Lewis Rohnen and

James MacArthur James Gordon MacArthur (December 8, 1937 – October 28, 2010) was an American actor with a long career in both movies and television. MacArthur's early work was predominantly in supporting roles in films. Later, he had a starring role as ...

as Lt. Hartman. This was the first time that Shatner played a spacecraft crew member on television. An

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

production at the Cricket Theatre opened on May 21, 1963, and lasted for three performances. In August 2012, Outside Inside Productions presented the first New York revival of ''Night of the Auk'' at the 16th Annual

New York International Fringe Festival The New York International Fringe Festival, or FringeNYC, was a fringe theater festival and one of the largest multi-arts events in North America. It took place over the course of a few weeks in October, spread on more than 20 stages across seve ...

. Authorized by the Oboler family, this new production, directed by Adam Levi with co-direction by Kaitlyn Samuel, was a 75-minute one-act version of the original play, adapted by playwright Michael Ross Albert (who also played Lewis Rohnen). The production featured women as Hartman and Bruner, but did not change the dialogue to make the characters female.

Notes

References

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External links