The play Anna Lucasta was a breakthrough for writer Philip Yordan, who went on to a prolific career as a screenwriter. The story of a prostitute who struggles for respectability is similar to that of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie.[3] Originally titled Anna Lukaska, Yordan's three-act drama was conceived as being about a Polish-American woman and her predatory family. When he was unable to find a Broadway producer for the play, Yordan offered it to the American Negro Theatre. Company founder Abram Hill obtained the rights and adapted it for an African-American cast.[4]
First produced in Harlem, it went on to become the first Broadway play with an all-black cast in a drama unrelated to race.[3] The play ran for more than two years—a rare achievement at that time—and it was adapted twice for film. Anna Lucasta cast member Alice Childress was inspired to write the Obie Award-winning drama, Trouble in Mind (1955), based on her experiences in the production.[4]
According to Ben Maddow, Yordan based the script on "this B-girl that he knew from a Chicago bar whom he was tremendously in love with... The only person he ever expressed any tenderness for." He said Yordan optioned the play to Sidney Harmon who had produced Men in White and he found a black theatre group willing to do the play.[5]
Synopsis
A girl making her way through life as a prostitute seeks forgiveness from her family. The Lucastas, working-class people in a coal mining town, are selfish people whose daughter, Anna, has left home to lead what they consider a "life of shame" in the city. Rudolf, the son of a friend, comes to visit them on the suggestion of his father. He has several hundred dollars in his pocket and is eager to marry. The family decides that the youth is a hick, but there is a chance to marry off Anna "respectably". However, Rudolf turns out to be rather attractive and has graduated from an agriculture college. When Anna returns home, she is fascinated by him and the two fall in love, though she is still in love with her sailor boyfriend Danny. Anna gradually awakens to find out what it means to be treated by a kind young man. For Anna is not a degenerate, but a high spirited girl driven from home by her father's puritanical cruelty. Without telling Rudolf about her past, she agrees to marry him. But on her wedding day, Danny shows up. Anna, believing that a life with Rudolf is impossible, returns to her old haunts in the city. Rudolf realizes he loves Anna more deeply, and sets out to find her. He makes her realize his love for her and they go off together.[6]
Productions
Hilda Simms as Anna Lucasta
The play was originally produced by American Negro Theatre Company. It was first presented at the Library Theatre in the basement of the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library now known as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The cast worked during the day, rehearsed after work, and were kicked out by the janitor at 11 p.m.[7]
Directed by Harry Wagstaff Gribble, Anna Lucasta premiered June 16, 1944, at the Library Theatre, 103 West 135th Street, with the following cast:[2]
Produced by John Wildberg, Anna Lucasta transferred from Harlem to Broadway, opening August 30, 1944, at the Mansfield Theatre with the following cast:[8]
Notably among the later casts of Broadway performances was Ruby Dee, making her Broadway debut as Anna.[9]
"With the arrival of Anna Lucasta on Broadway," wrote Life magazine, "the 1944–45 theater season had its first worthwhile drama." The magazine praised the top-flight cast, particularly Hilda Simms in her professional debut, but expressed disappointment at the "weak Broadway ending" that had been substituted for the "stinging honesty" of the version of the play seen in Harlem, which ended in Anna's suicide.[10]
Though many biographies list Alice Childress as having received a Tony Award nomination for her starring performance, this information appears to be inaccurate as the Tony Awards did not begin until 1947, some years after the production. The production closed on November 30, 1946, after 957 performances,[8] and then made an extensive tour of the US and Europe. A limited-run return engagement opened at the National Theatre on September 22, 1947.[11]
Anna Lucasta was produced in London in 1947 at His Majesty's Theatre. The cast list is as follows:
The production was an inspiration for independent black British theatre groups as remarked by the actor Pauline Henriques, one of the understudies in the London production.[12] Another production in Paris starred Paulette Goddard and a white cast.[13]
However, the ANT did not get to enjoy the success of Anna Lucasta. The two copies of the Hill-Yordan-Wildberg contracts filed with the Dramatists Guild could not be found. Hill had to renegotiate his entire contract. At first, Wildberg, the producer, refused to discuss it but Yordan said he would take care of it. Just before the Broadway opening, Hill threatened an injunction. Wildberg said he would pay 2 percent of the Broadway production. Hill took it before the ANT committee and explained it. Eight of the company of members were in the Broadway show and three of them are on the committee. They were also under contract with Wildberg, who offered no additional rights from a possible film and no radio rights. He offered only 2 percent of the Broadway show. The committee voted to accept it. The producer said Hill's percentage was included in the 2 percent for ANT. Hill claimed his "lost" contract called for 10 percent of the writing share. He battled for six months. Finally, the producer said, instead of money, they'd produce Hill's drama, Walk Hard, on Broadway. Hill decided that rather than risk losing everything if the play failed, he would take a fee of $25,000 for his writing efforts.[14][15]
Reception
The 1944 production was critically acclaimed particularly for presenting a story that does not condescend African-Americans and performances from an all African-American cast. The Daily News wrote, “Anna Lucasta is a first rate drama. Acted by a company of colored actors players who are a joy to watch… it had first nighters cheering.” The Baltimore wrote, “It is not only a first rate drama, top-notch theatre, with some of the finest acting, both dramatic and comedic, that has ever been seen on Broadway. But it is the first American play designed for an all colored cast to treat of colored life without a certain amused condescension… the first play of colored life to recognize the fact that colored person are individuals with the same problems, ways of living, speech, and point of views as the whites....” The New York Times and The New York Sun praised the performances of Hilda Simms, who plays Anna, and Canada Lee, who plays Danny. The New York Times writes, “Hilda Simms is a wonderful young lady who also understands what to do with the part...in a small role, Canada Lee, normally a star in his own right, but helping out his friends at this time and acting in a way that made him a star." The New York Sun wrote, "Canada Lee, an asset to any play, brings his vigorous playing to any scene..."[16]
The one critical remark about the production was that the acting surpassed the script. Variety wrote, “Play was spotty but the performances are excellent."[17]The Herald Tribune also wrote, “The acting warrants better material…” and The New York Sun also wrote, "Put 'Anna Lucasta' down as a credible presentation of a spotty and uncertain play."[16] Even the director of the production, Harry Wagstaff Gribble, felt like it was not a perfect play but the forefront of what the future could hold for African-American actors in the theatre and it accomplished some of the ideas that he wanted to do with black theatre and how to represent African Americans as individuals.[18]
Spencer Williams was an American actor and filmmaker. He portrayed Andy on TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show and directed films including the 1941 race film The Blood of Jesus. Williams was a pioneering African-American film producer and director.
Philip Yordan was an American screenwriter, film producer, novelist and playwright. He was a three-time Academy Award nominee, winning Best Story for Broken Lance (1951).
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Canada Lee was an American professional boxer and actor who pioneered roles for African Americans. After careers as a jockey, boxer and musician, he became an actor in the Federal Theatre Project, including the 1936 production of Macbeth adapted and directed by Orson Welles. Lee later starred in Welles's original Broadway production of Native Son (1941). A champion of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, Lee was blacklisted and died shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He advanced the African-American tradition in theatre pioneered by such actors as Paul Robeson. Lee was the father of actor Carl Lee.
The American Negro Theatre (ANT) was co-founded on June 5, 1940 by playwright Abram Hill and actor Frederick O'Neal. Determined to build a "people's theatre", they were inspired by the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Unit in Harlem and by W. E. B. Du Bois' "four fundamental principles" of Black drama: that it should be by, about, for, and near African Americans.
Alice Childress was an American novelist, playwright, and actress, acknowledged as "the only African-American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades." Childress described her work as trying to portray the have-nots in a have society, saying: "My writing attempts to interpret the 'ordinary' because they are not ordinary. Each human is uniquely different. Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvellously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne." Childress became involved in social causes, and formed an off-Broadway union for actors.
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Frederick O'Neal was an American actor, theater producer and television director. He founded the American Negro Theater, the British Negro Theatre, and was the first African-American president of the Actors' Equity Association. He was also known for his work behind the scenes as a revolutionary trade unionist.
Alvin Childress was an American actor, who is best known for playing the cabdriver Amos Jones in the 1950s television comedy series Amos 'n' Andy.
Hilda Simms was an American stage actress, best known for her starring role on Broadway in Anna Lucasta.
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Anna Lucasta is a 1958 American drama film directed by Arnold Laven and written by Philip Yordan. It stars Eartha Kitt, Sammy Davis Jr., and Henry Scott. It is a remake of the 1949 film noir version, which itself was an adaptation of the 1936 stage play.
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Georgia Burke was an American actress who had performed on television, radio, and Broadway theatre between the 1930s and the 1960s. In 1934 Burke made her debut in Broadway in They Shall Not Die, and in 1944 she won a Donaldson Award as the third choice for Best Supporting Actress in Edward Chodorov's play, Decision. Burke had performed in the 1952 U.S. State Department-sponsored international production of Porgy and Bess and had taken a role as a nurse in the radio program When a Girl Marries, which had been broadcast for 18 years. She had also performed in the 1944 Broadway production of Anna Lucasta and its second film counterpart in 1958.
Lionel John Monagas was an American actor originally from Caracas, Venezuela. A member of the original Lafayette Players company of Harlem, he appeared in theatrical and film productions.
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↑ Rea, E. (Sep. 9, 1944), "Anna Lucasta Reveals Fine Dramatic Ability of Actors", The Baltimore Afro-American, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Baltimore Afro-American (1893–1988).
↑ Pines, Jim (1992). Black and White in Colours: Black People in British Television Since 1936. London: BFI Publishing. pp.27–28.
↑ "Anna Lucasta Pleases Londoners" (December 1947), The Baltimore Afro-American, p. M_9A, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Baltimore Afro-American (1893–1988).
↑ Abram Hill (2000), interview by Michele Wallace, tape recording, 19 January 1974, Artist and Influence, Vol. 19, p. 120.
↑ Hill, Errol, Vatch; James V. (2003), A History of African American Theatre. Cambridge University Press. New York, ISBN978-0-52162-443-5.
1 2 "What Critics Said About 'Anna Lucasta'" (Sep 9, 1944) The Baltimore Afro-American, p. 8, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Baltimore Afro-American (1893–1988)
↑ Ibee (6 September 1944). "Legitimate: Plays on Broadway – Anna Lucasta". Variety. 155 (13): 38. ProQuest1285837864.
↑ Gribbe, Harry W. (1946, February 9) "'Anna Lucasta' Not His Dream Play", Chicago Defender
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