The Green Pastures
The Green Pastures is a play written in 1930 by Marc Connelly adapted from Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun (1928), a collection of stories written by Roark Bradford.[1] The play was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.[2] It had the first all-black Broadway cast. The play and the film adaptation were generally well received and hailed by white drama and film critics.[3] African-American intellectuals, cultural critics, and audiences were more critical of white author Connelly's claim to be presenting an authentic view of black religious thought.[4]
The play portrays episodes from the Old Testament as seen through the eyes of a young African-American child in the Great Depression-era Southern United States, who interprets The Bible in terms familiar to her. Following Bradford's lead, Connelly set the biblical stories in New Orleans and in an all-black context. He diverged from Bradford's work, however, in enlarging the role of the character "De Lawd" (God), played on stage by Richard B. Harrison (1864–1935). The Green Pastures also featured numerous African-American spirituals arranged by Hall Johnson and performed by The Hall Johnson Choir. The cast also included singer Mabel Ridley.The chorus included torch singer Eva Sylvester and members of the Sylvester family as cherubs.
Adaptations
Connolly later collaborated with William Keighley in directing a Hollywood film adaptation of the play, which was made in 1936, starring Rex Ingram as "De Lawd". At the time, the film caused some controversy. It was banned in Australia, Finland, and Hungary on the grounds that it was "blasphemous" to portray Biblical characters in this way.
The play was adapted for television, and presented twice during the days of live TV on the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1957 and 1959. Both productions starred William Warfield as "De Lawd", in the largest dramatic acting role he ever had on television.
In the UK, a radio adaption by Roy Lockwood was produced from New York in October 1945.[5] A UK television version was broadcast by BBC Television in the BBC Sunday-Night Theatre series on 14 September 1958, produced by Eric Fawcett and starring William Marshall as De Lawd.[6]
References
- ^ Internet Broadway Database
- ^ Pulitzer.org
- ^ Dietz, Dan. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals (2018)
- ^ Evans, Curtis J. 'The Religious and Racial Meanings of The Green Pastures', in Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter 2008), pp. 59-93
- ^ Radio Times, Issue 1151, 21 October 1945, p. 8.
- ^ Radio Times, Issue 1818, 14 September 1958, p. 7 and p. 11.
- Bradford, Roark (1928). Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun. New York; London: Harper & Brothers. OCLC 23314714.
- Connelly, Marc (1929). The Green Pastures, A Fable. New York: Faffar and Rinehart.
- Connelly, Marc (1968). Voices Offstage: A Book of Memoirs. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart & Winston
External links
- The Green Pastures at the Internet Broadway Database
- The Green Pastures at IMDb
- 1946 Theatre Guild on the Air radio adaptation at Internet Archive
- v
- t
- e
- Why Marry? (1918)
- Beyond the Horizon (1920)
- Miss Lulu Bett (1921)
- Anna Christie (1922)
- Icebound (1923)
- Hell-Bent Fer Heaven (1924)
- They Knew What They Wanted (1925)
- Craig's Wife (1926)
- In Abraham's Bosom (1927)
- Strange Interlude (1928)
- Street Scene (1929)
- The Green Pastures (1930)
- Alison's House (1931)
- Of Thee I Sing (1932)
- Both Your Houses (1933)
- Men in White (1934)
- The Old Maid (1935)
- Idiot's Delight (1936)
- You Can't Take It with You (1937)
- Our Town (1938)
- Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1939)
- The Time of Your Life (1940)
- There Shall Be No Night (1941)
- The Skin of Our Teeth (1943)
- Harvey (1945)
- State of the Union (1946)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1948)
- Death of a Salesman (1949)
- South Pacific (1950)
- The Shrike (1952)
- Picnic (1953)
- The Teahouse of the August Moon (1954)
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
- The Diary of Anne Frank (1956)
- Long Day's Journey into Night (1957)
- Look Homeward, Angel (1958)
- J.B. (1959)
- Fiorello! (1960)
- All the Way Home (1961)
- How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1962)
- The Subject Was Roses (1965)
- A Delicate Balance (1967)
- The Great White Hope (1969)
- No Place to Be Somebody (1970)
- The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1971)
- That Championship Season (1973)
- Seascape (1975)
- A Chorus Line (1976)
- The Shadow Box (1977)
- The Gin Game (1978)
- Buried Child (1979)
- Talley's Folly (1980)
- Crimes of the Heart (1981)
- A Soldier's Play (1982)
- 'night, Mother (1983)
- Glengarry Glen Ross (1984)
- Sunday in the Park with George (1985)
- Fences (1987)
- Driving Miss Daisy (1988)
- The Heidi Chronicles (1989)
- The Piano Lesson (1990)
- Lost in Yonkers (1991)
- The Kentucky Cycle (1992)
- Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1993)
- Three Tall Women (1994)
- The Young Man from Atlanta (1995)
- Rent (1996)
- How I Learned to Drive (1998)
- Wit (1999)
- Dinner with Friends (2000)
- Proof (2001)
- Topdog/Underdog (2002)
- Anna in the Tropics (2003)
- I Am My Own Wife (2004)
- Doubt: A Parable (2005)
- Rabbit Hole (2007)
- August: Osage County (2008)
- Ruined (2009)
- Next to Normal (2010)
- Clybourne Park (2011)
- Water by the Spoonful (2012)
- Disgraced (2013)
- The Flick (2014)
- Between Riverside and Crazy (2015)
- Hamilton (2016)
- Sweat (2017)
- Cost of Living (2018)
- Fairview (2019)
- A Strange Loop (2020)
- The Hot Wing King (2021)
- Fat Ham (2022)
- English (2023)
- Primary Trust (2024)