| There Shall Be No Night | |
|---|---|
 First edition 1940 | |
| Written by | Robert E. Sherwood |
| Date premiered | April 29, 1940 |
| Place premiered | Alvin Theatre New York City |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Drama |
There Shall Be No Night is a three-act play written by American playwright Robert E. Sherwood.
The play was presented by the Theatre Guild on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre (now renamed the Neil Simon Theater), from April 29 through November 2, 1940. [1] (The play ran from April 29, 1940 – August 9, 1940, and again from September 9, 1940 – November 2, 1940.) [2]
Directed by Alfred Lunt, the cast starred Lunt (Dr. Kaarlo Valkonen), Lynn Fontanne (Miranda Valkonen), Charles Ansley (Joe Burnett), and Montgomery Clift (Erik Valkonen). [2]
The play won the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. [2]
The title comes from a passage in the Book of Revelation (22:5) which is quoted by Lunt's character in Act 3, Scene 6: There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light... [3] : 150
The play is set in Finland between 1938 and 1940 and concerns a Nobel Prize-winning Finnish scientist (portrayed by Alfred Lunt, whose own stepfather was a Finnish-born physician) and his American-born wife (portrayed by Lynn Fontanne), both of whom are reluctant to believe that the Russians will invade their beloved Finland. But with the final advent of Finland's Winter War with the Soviets, their son Erik joins the Finnish army, and the scientist joins its medical corps. John Mason Brown wrote “No one can complain about the theatre's being an escapist institution when it conducts a class in current events at once as touching, intelligent and compassionate as There Shall Be No Night.” [4]
According to William L. Shirer, Sherwood was inspired to write the play by William Lindsay White's moving Christmas broadcast from the Finnish front during the Winter War and his columns for the New York Post. [5] The son of journalist William Allen White, the younger White had been sent there by CBS to report on that war. [6] Sherwood bases his American journalist (portrayed by Richard Whorf) in this play upon W. L. White, substantiating this in his preface to the first published edition by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1940. [3] : xxx
Fox bought the film rights for $100,000. [7]
Katharine Cornell produced and starred in a television version of the play in 1957 on The Hallmark Hall of Fame with Charles Boyer, Bradford Dillman and Ray Walston. This TV version was reset in Hungary in 1956 (changing the names from their original Finnish) in order to reflect current events in the same way that its original had done. [8] [9]
There Shall Be No Night was presented on Star Playhouse on November 29, 1953. The adaptation starred Fredric March and Florence Eldridge. [10]
Alfred David Lunt was an American actor and director, best known for his long stage partnership with his wife, Lynn Fontanne, from the 1920s to 1960, co-starring in Broadway and West End productions. After their marriage, they nearly always appeared together. They became known as "the Lunts" and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Guardsman is a 1931 American pre-Code film based on the play Testőr by Ferenc Molnár. It stars Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Roland Young and ZaSu Pitts. It opens with a stage re-enactment of the final scene of Maxwell Anderson's Elizabeth the Queen, with Fontanne as Elizabeth and Lunt as the Earl of Essex, but otherwise has nothing to do with that play.
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Elizabeth the Queen was a 1930 Broadway three-act play written in blank verse by Maxwell Anderson, produced by the Theatre Guild, directed by Philip Moeller and with scenic and costume design by Lee Simonson. It ran for 147 performances from November 3, 1930, to March 1931 at the Guild Theatre. The starring roles were played by Lynn Fontanne as Elizabeth and Alfred Lunt as Lord Essex.
John Wexley was an American writer, best known for his play The Last Mile.
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Sherwood, Robert E. (1940). There Shall Be No Night. Kessinger Publishing LLC (2005). ISBN 0-678-02773-0.
