''The Green Pastures'' is a play written in 1930 by

Marc Connelly Marcus Cook Connelly (December 13, 1890 – December 21, 1980) was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930. Biogra ...

adapted from ''

Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun ''Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun'' is a collection of pseudo-African American folk tales written by white author Roark Bradford and published in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1928. It was compared to the tales about Uncle Remus and ha ...

'' (1928), a collection of stories written by

Roark Bradford Roark Whitney Wickliffe Bradford (August 21, 1896, Lauderdale County, Tennessee — November 13, 1948, New Orleans, Louisiana) was an American short story writer and novelist. Life He attended University of California, Berkeley, and served as a ...

. The play was the winner of the

Pulitzer Prize for Drama The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were a ...

in 1930. It had the first all-black Broadway cast. The play and the film adaptation were generally well received and hailed by white drama and film critics. African-American intellectuals, cultural critics, and audiences were more critical of white author Connelly's claim to be presenting an authentic view of black religious thought. The play portrays episodes from the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

as seen through the eyes of a young

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

child in the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

-era

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, who interprets ''The Bible'' in terms familiar to her. Following Bradford's lead, Connelly set the biblical stories in New Orleans and in an all-black context. He diverged from Bradford's work, however, in enlarging the role of the character "De Lawd" (God), played on stage by Richard B. Harrison (1864–1935). ''The Green Pastures'' also featured numerous African-American spirituals arranged by

Hall Johnson Francis Hall Johnson (March 12, 1888 – April 30, 1970) was an American composer and arranger of African-American spiritual music. He is one of a group—including Harry T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Eva Jessye—who had great success pe ...

and performed by The Hall Johnson Choir. The cast also included singer Mabel Ridley.The chorus included torch singer Eva Sylvester and members of the Sylvester family as cherubs.

Adaptations

Connolly later collaborated with

William Keighley William Jackson Keighley (August 4, 1889 – June 24, 1984) was an American stage actor and Hollywood film director. Career After graduating from the Ludlum School of Dramatic Art, Keighley began acting at the age of 23. By the 1910s and 1920s ...

in the direction of a Hollywood

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dia ...

of the play, which was made in 1936, starring Rex Ingram as "De Lawd". At the time the film caused some controversy. It was banned in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

, and

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

on the grounds that it was "blasphemous" to portray Biblical characters in this way. The play was adapted for

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, and presented twice during the days of live TV on the ''

Hallmark Hall of Fame ''Hallmark Hall of Fame'', originally called ''Hallmark Television Playhouse'', is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City-based greeting card company. The longest-running prime-time series in ...

'' in 1957 and 1959. Both productions starred

William Warfield William Caesar Warfield (January 22, 1920 – August 25, 2002) was an American concert bass-baritone singer and actor, known for his appearances in stage productions, Hollywood films, and television programs. A prominent African American artist ...

as "De Lawd", in the largest dramatic acting role he ever had on television. In the UK, a radio adaption by Roy Lockwood was produced from New York in October 1945. A UK television version was broadcast by BBC Television in the '' BBC Sunday-Night Theatre'' series on 14 September 1958, produced by Eric Fawcett and starring William Marshall as De Lawd.''Radio Times'', Issue 1818, 14th Sep 1958, p.7 and p.11
/ref>

References

* * Connelly, Marc (1929). ''The Green Pastures, A Fable''. New York: Faffar and Rinehart. * Connelly, Marc (1968). ''Voices Offstage: A Book of Memoirs. '' Chicago: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

External links

* *
1946 ''Theatre Guild on the Air'' radio adaptation
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Green Pastures, The 1930 plays Broadway plays Plays by Marc Connelly Plays based on books Pulitzer Prize for Drama-winning works Plays about race and ethnicity Great Depression plays American plays adapted into films Southern United States in fiction Plays set in New Orleans Works based on the Old Testament