''Afore Night Come'' is a 1962 British
play
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
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Computers and technology
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* P ...
written by
David Rudkin
James David Rudkin (born 29 June 1936) is an England, English playwright.
Early life
Rudkin was born in London. Coming from a family of strict evangelical Christians, he was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and read Mods and Great ...
, first staged by the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...
. The subject matter of the play meant that any production in a public theatre would probably have been vetoed by the
Lord Chamberlain, so the RSC mounted the play at the members-only
Arts Theatre. As a result of the widespread critical acclaim that the play received, Rudkin was awarded the
''Evening Standard'' Drama Award for most promising playwright of 1962.
[Lambert (1963, 10).]
The play is set in an
orchard
An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...
in the
Black Country region of
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
's
Midlands. Two young men and a
tramp
A tramp is a long-term homeless person who travels from place to place as a vagrant, traditionally walking all year round.
Etymology
Tramp is derived from a Middle English verb meaning to "walk with heavy footsteps" (''cf.'' modern English '' ...
arrive one morning looking for work picking fruit, but as the day wears on there is violence and bloodshed. Rudkin harks back to a pagan era where the crops were fertilised by human blood.
Kenneth Tynan, reviewing the play in
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
, wrote "Not since ''
Look Back In Anger'' has a playwright made a debut more striking than this."
When writing programme notes for the revival of the play at the
Young Vic in 2001, Rudkin explained that he was afraid that no-one would ever stage the play, firstly because of its coarse language, but also "because I needed to thread through this dark story a counter-element of desire and love to off-set the rage and hatred - and there weren't any girls working in this company, and in any case the rage and hatred were all very male, the desire had to be male as well, inevitably making it have to be homosexual, which according to the laws of the time meant that the play could never be publicly staged. And the logical moral outcome of the play's process would be a climactic act of violence of a sort that I don't think had been done on an English stage since the Jacobeans. So I had to choose: back off and not follow the logical implications of the play; or go through with it and be damned. If I was going to be a writer, there wasn't any choice."
Notes
References
* Lambert, J. W. 1963. Introduction. In ''New English Dramatists 7''. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 7–13.
*
Rudkin, David. 1963. ''Afore Night Comes''. In ''New English Dramatists 7''. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 73–139.
*
Taylor, John Russell. 1963. ''Anger and After''. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
1962 plays
British plays
1960s debut plays
LGBTQ-related plays
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