Talk:The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail

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This page should obviously be kept, but needs a LOT of work. In particular, the amount of incoherence astounds me. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 ^{(T | C | @)} 00:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll fix it over the next 3 hours. -- Chris chat edits essays 21:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank me!

</self promotion> I got tired of wiaiting for editors to make this page coherent, so now I'm attempting to wirte it, all by myself, to B or A class. -- Chris chat edits essays 18:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Notes on critical reception

Life

Prideaux, Tom (1971-04-16), "Stage Left: current events — An epidemic of documentaries", Life, 70: 17–18

"The play is, I think, of negligible literary merit..."

"...that the audience devours him [Thoreau] is a reminder that the cross-country market for upbeat drama and youth-heroes is wide open."

"The theater has every right to be as timely as a newspaper. But like newspaper, a strictly newsy play soon loses !ts urgency and is tossed aside. I doubt if any documentary play can have permanent value."

National Review

Crinkley, Richmond (1971-01-12), "Wet TNT", The National Review, 23: 45–46

Writing in The National Review, Richmond Crinkley scorned the play's anti-war message and those with whom the message resonated. "Platitudinous piety explains much of the play's success with universities. All of the clichés and supposedly relevant comments on our own times are there—the apocalyptic and "daring" comment being the implied parallel between President Polk and the Mexican War and President Nixon and the Vietnam war.... [Thoreau is a] real hero for our times, predictable, programmable, and empty."

Crinkley also refers to "numerous, sometimes excellent productions at colleges and universities during the past eighteen months" and asserts that the production at the Arena Stage in Washington "is a marvel at concealing the play's defects. Norman Gevanthour's often inspired direction keeps the action a half-step ahead of the audience's perception that what has just been said is vacuous and dramatically uninteresting." Kenirwin/(talk) 20:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)