A Study Guide for Jerome Lawrence's "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail"
()
About this ebook
Read more from Gale
A Study Guide for Louis Sachar's "Holes" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's Macbeth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for James Clavell's "Shogun" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA study guide for Frank Herbert's "Dune" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for George Orwell's Animal Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Lois Lowry's The Giver Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Psychologists and Their Theories for Students: JEAN PIAGET Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for James Joyce's "James Joyce's Ulysses" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Psychologists and Their Theories for Students: ALBERT BANDURA Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusiness Plans Handbook: Bakery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for George Orwell's 1984 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Business Plans Handbook: Furniture Businesses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide (New Edition) for F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusiness Plans Handbook: Auto Detailing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Wole Soyinka's "Death and the King's Horsemen" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for "Postmodernism" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to A Study Guide for Jerome Lawrence's "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail"
Related ebooks
A Study Guide for Lillian Hellman's "A Watch on the Rhine" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Amiri Baraka's "The Baptism" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for August Wilson's The Piano Lesson Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tartuffe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHe Who Gets Slapped: A Play in Four Acts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "I'm Not Rappaport" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for David Mamet's "A Life in Theatre" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlare Path Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Image of Man in Selected Plays of August Wilson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Drama in the Age of Film Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cherry Orchard: A comedy in four acts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Leonard Hugh's "Da" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRead-Aloud Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Henry VI: Part Two In Plain and Simple English (A Modern Translation and the Original Version) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes on Falling Leaves Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKazan Revisited Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Lear Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTimon of Athens In Plain and Simple English (A Modern Translation and the Original Version) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSo You Want To Be A Playwright? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Howard Sackler's "The Great White Hope" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Actor's Way: A Journey of Self-Discovery in Letters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Global Nomad in Search of True Happiness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Duchess of Malfi and Other Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOpening Night Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Hannah Cowley's "The Belle's Stratagem" Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A Doll's House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swansong by Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotebooks: 1960-1977 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Taming of the Shrew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Criticism For You
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Behold a Pale Horse: by William Cooper | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Thorns and Roses: A Novel by Sarah J. Maas | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret History: by Donna Tartt | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQuiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for A Study Guide for Jerome Lawrence's "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail"
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A Study Guide for Jerome Lawrence's "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" - Gale
3
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
1971
Introduction
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, was first published in New York in 1971, during the Vietnam War. The play, which was a clear protest against the war, used a related incident from America’s history to comment on the current war. In 1846, the writer, Henry David Thoreau, spent a night in jail for not paying his taxes. Thoreau refused to pay money that would support the war that was currently being waged against Mexico. This incident later provided the basis for Thoreau’s popular essay, Civil Disobedience.
Lawrence and Lee’s immensely popular play, which was deliberately produced in regional theaters as opposed to on or off Broadway, struck a chord with Vietnam-era audiences. In fact, the play was so relevant to the times that it was temporarily shut down shortly after its first performances in 1970, when another anti-Vietnam protest—at Kent State University—resulted in the death of several students.
Despite the lack of critical commentary, the play continues to be one of the most popular works by Lawrence and Lee, a writing team that enjoyed a fifty-two-year collaboration, and who also wrote the immensely popular play, Inherit the Wind. In The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, time and setting are shifted between each episodic scene without indication or explanation, forcing the audience or reader to pay close attention. These dream-like effects serve to highlight the main themes of the play—rebelling against authority and expressing one’s individuality—universal themes that have appealed to many audiences, both nationally and internationally, since the play’s first production.
The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail was published in a reissue edition in 1992, which is available from Bantam Books.
Author Biography
Jerome Lawrence was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 14, 1915. Robert E. Lee was born in Elyria, Ohio, on October 15, 1918. Although both men grew up in the same region of Ohio, attended Ohio universities, and worked in commercial radio, they did not meet each other until 1942, when they met in New York and immediately became writing partners with their production of Inside a Kid’s Head, a radio play. The two men, who had already lived somewhat parallel lives, continued this trend when they both entered the armed forces that summer. They both served in the war until 1945, and together, they co-founded the Armed Forces Radio Service (1942), where they created and produced radio programs.
Following World War II, Lawrence and Lee continued to concentrate mainly on writing, producing, and directing scripts for radio shows, including The Frank Sinatra Show and The Railroad Hour. In 1955, when the advent of television reduced the amount of radio-show programming, they produced their first stage production, Inherit the Wind. The play, which has proved to be their most successful work, also introduced a technique that Lawrence