The Valiant (play)

Harold Porter, who used pen name Holworthy Hall (a Harvard dormitory), circa 1917

The Valiant is a one-act play from the 1920s by Holworthy Hall and Robert Middlemass. It became a popular play for local theater groups, and is still performed today.

The play was copyrighted in 1920[1] and first appeared in McClure's magazine in 1921.[2] It first appeared on the stage about 1924, and first appeared on Broadway (for one night) in 1926. Running with success on vaudeville (with Bert Lytell),[3][4] it was made into a film of the same name in 1929 starring Paul Muni,[5] and as The Man Who Wouldn't Talk in 1940. The play became a favorite for amateur and local theater groups.[6][7][8]

Characters

Referred to on the script (their name in the play)

Summary

The play tells the story of James Dyke, a confessed murderer who has been sentenced to die and now awaits his fate on death row at a prison in Wethersfield, Connecticut. The only problem is that no one knows who he really is or where he comes from, and he is determined to take his secret to the grave. The prison's warden and chaplain have nearly given up hope of discovering his true identity until the night of Dyke's execution when a strange young woman arrives requesting to see him. Now, she may be the only key to unlocking Dyke's mysterious past. The woman leaves thinking that James is not her brother, but after she walks out, he recites lines about the Valiant. This is how we know that Dyke is her brother. He did not want to reveal his true identity so that his mother would think that her son died nobly in the war.

Performance and canonicity

The Valiant is frequently listed and anthologized as a very suitable play for production at festivals,[9] in educational programs for troubled kids,[10] in high schools,[11] and by amateur groups in schools or churches.[12]

References

  1. ↑ The Valiant, McClure's (March 1921)
  2. ↑ (18 May 1929). Bert Lytell's Old Act A Hit As Motion Picture, Vaudeville News
  3. ↑ Lawrence, Jerome. Actor: The Life and Times of Paul Muni, p. 130 (1974) (full text not available online)
  4. ↑ Jones, Ken D., et al. Character People, p. 146 (1976) (full text not available online) ("Robert Middlemass appeared as a character actor in many films in the 1930s and 1940s, but he is known best as the author of The Valiant, a famous one-act play")
  5. ↑ (23 Sept 2009) Holworthy Hall, Skaneateles (blog)
  6. ↑ McCulloh, T.H. (8 Nov 1995). THEATER REVIEWS : 'Valiant' Locked in Another Era; No Reprieve in Execution, Los Angeles Times
  7. ↑ (28 Jan 2014). Student-directed The Valiant slated for SFA's Downstage Theatre, Stephen F. Austin University News (example of more recent performance)
  8. ↑ Roach, Bruce; Jack Morrison, Horace Robinson, G. Harry Wright and Loren Winship (1949). "One Hundred Twenty Plays Recommended for Contest and Festival Use". Educational Theatre Journal 1 (1): 41–47.
  9. ↑ MaWhinney, Lucille Gale (1956). "A Program for Potential Dropouts". The Clearing House 31 (2).
  10. ↑ Merrill, John (1934). "A List of Plays of Interest to High-School Students". Francis W. Parker School Studies in Education 10: 242–48.
  11. ↑ Eastman, Fred (1929). "Books Received; rev. of Modern Religious Drama". The Jewish Quarterly Review 20 (1): 93–111.

External links

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