''Burning Bright'' is a 1950 novella by
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck ( ; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social percep ...
written as an experiment with producing a play in novel format. Rather than providing only the dialogue and brief stage directions as would be expected in a play, Steinbeck fleshes out the scenes with details of both the characters and the environment. The intention was to allow the play to be read by the non-theatrical reader while still allowing the dialogue to be lifted and performed with little adaptation by acting companies. While Steinbeck could see that providing little information in the way of physical description or stage direction allowed the director and actors greater freedom and scope for imaginative interpretation, he weighed this against the benefit of making the players aware of the author's intent and making the play accessible to the general reader.
Plot
The story is a simple
morality play
The morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor drama. The term is used by scholars of literary and dramatic history to refer to a genre of play texts from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries that feature personified concepts ( ...
concerning Joe Saul, an aging man desperate for a child. His young wife, Mordeen, who loves him, suspects that he is sterile, and in order to please him by bearing him a child, she becomes pregnant by Saul's cocky young assistant, Victor. The fourth character in the story is Friend Ed, a long-time friend of Saul and Mordeen, who helps the couple through the ordeal after Joe discovers that he is indeed infertile and the child can not be his. The story is meant to be that of an
everyman
The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them.
Origin and history
The term ''everyman'' was used ...
(early in its development Steinbeck had thought of calling the play ''Everyman''), so the setting for each of the three acts recasts the four characters in different situations: the first act is set in a circus, Saul and Victor are
trapeze artists
A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes, metal straps, or chains, from a ceiling support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances. Trapeze acts may be static, spinning (rigged from a single point), swinging or ...
and Friend Ed, a clown; in the second act, Saul and Friend Ed become neighbouring farmers and Victor appears as Saul's farmhand. In the final act Saul is the captain of a ship, Mr. Victor, his mate, and Friend Ed a seaman about to put out on a different ship. Act three is divided into two scenes; the final scene is set in a hospital where the child is delivered; it makes no reference to any of the settings of the three acts, and so serves equally as a conclusion for any of the stories.
Development
''Burning Bright'' was Steinbeck's third attempt at writing what he called a "play-novelette". He had tried something similar with ''
Of Mice and Men
''Of Mice and Men'' is a 1937 novella written by American author John Steinbeck. It describes the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant worker, migrant ranch workers, as they move from place to place in California ...
'' in 1937 and ''
The Moon Is Down
''The Moon Is Down'' is a novel by American writer John Steinbeck. Fashioned for adaptation for the theatre and for which Steinbeck received the Norwegian King Haakon VII Freedom Cross, it was published by Viking Press in March 1942. The sto ...
'' in 1942, but, of the three, ''Burning Bright'' was the most complete attempt at the form. Steinbeck believed that he may have been the first person to attempt the style. At the time of writing the introduction, in which he explained his intentions, he believed it was a form that would bear further experimentation. In a continuation of the experiment, a stage production was planned to open at the same time the book was published. The original title of the book, ''In the Forests of the Night'', was a line from ''
The Tyger'' by
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
, but complaints that it was too long and too literary by the producers of the play led to the change to the shorter excerpt from the same poem: ''Burning Bright''.
Friend Ed has been pointed out as one in a line of characters inspired by Steinbeck's best friend
Ed Ricketts. At the time Steinbeck wrote ''Burning Bright'', Ricketts had recently been killed in a car accident, and as well as reflecting his friend's character in that of Friend Ed, it is thought that the settings of the circus and the sea may have had significance for Steinbeck: he had apparently been at the circus when he learnt of Ricketts' death and Ricketts' burial had been beside the sea.
Adaptation
The stage production in 1950 had
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their musical ...
as producers,
Guthrie McClintic
Guthrie McClintic (August 6, 1893 – October 29, 1961) was an American theatre director, film director, and producer based in New York.
Life and career
McClintic was born in Seattle, attended Washington University in St. Louis and New York's A ...
as director,
Kent Smith
Frank Kent SmithGordon, Dr. Roger L. (2018). Supporting Actors in Motion Pictures: Volume II'. Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance Publishing. pp. 130, 131. . "Kent Smith: Frank Kent Smith was born on March 19, 1907, in New York City. ..He was marrie ...
as Joe Saul,
Barbara Bel Geddes
Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American stage and screen Actor, actress, artist, and children's author whose career spanned almost 5 decades. She was best known for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing in th ...
as Mordeen,
Howard Da Silva as Friend Ed, and
Martin E. Brooks as Victor. The production had a short run at
New Haven
New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...
during which Steinbeck tightened up the second act, but despite his work on the play, confidence in it was fading. When the production moved to
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
for the main run the critical reviews were terrible, and the play closed after only thirteen performances. One of the co-producers admitted that he had known the production was doomed after the first night. Steinbeck was later upbeat about the failure of the play and stated he was still keen to continue working in the theatre:
Despite his apparent continued enthusiasm after the failure of ''Burning Bright'', Steinbeck never made another attempt at producing anything for the theatre.
In 1959
NTA Film Network
The NTA Film Network was an early American television network founded by Ely Landau in 1956 that operated on a part-time basis, broadcasting films and several first-run television programs from major Hollywood studios. Despite attracting more ...
in
The Play of the Week
''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...
broadcast ''Burning Bright'' with
Myron McCormick
Myron McCormick (February 8, 1908 – July 30, 1962) was an American actor of stage, radio, and film.
Early life and education
Born Walter Myron McCormick in Albany, Indiana, in 1908, he was the middle child of Walter P. and Bessie M. McCo ...
as Joe Saul,
Colleen Dewhurst
Colleen Rose Dewhurst (June 3, 1924 – August 22, 1991) was a Canadian-American actress mostly known for theatre roles. She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early dra ...
as Mordeen,
Dana Elcar
Ibsen Dana Elcar (October 10, 1927 – June 6, 2005) was an American television and film character actor. He appeared in about 40 films as well as in the 1960s television series ''Dark Shadows'' as Sheriff George Patterson and the 1980s and 1 ...
as friend Ed and
Donald Madden as Victor. The play can be seen on the streaming service
BroadwayHD.
In 1993 ''Burning Bright'' was turned into an opera by American composer
Frank Lewin.
Critical reception
The reviews of the book were as poor as the reviews of the stage production. While some critics acknowledged it for the experiment that Steinbeck had intended, it was seen as peculiar and at best moderately effective. The artificial use of language, while necessary to allow the characters' development on the stage, jarred with the critics reviewing the novelization, as did Steinbeck's overemphasis of the message of the play.
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burning Bright
1950 American novels
American novellas
Novels by John Steinbeck
Viking Press books