Writings on a Lee and Lawrence play.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee most famous for their 1955 play Inherit The Wind, a dramatic retelling of the Scopes monkey trial of the 1920s.

The Wikipedia entry is weak, but a link will be included anyway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Thoreau_Spent_in_Jail

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail of 1970 dramatizes reflections on life Thoreau could have shared with a fictitious cellmate the night in 1846 he spent in jail after refusing to pay poll taxes over the last 6-years. The same incident would prompt him to write the essay “Civil Disobedience” later an inspiration to Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who used and encouraged non-violent protest to inspire others to work towards social reform.

Throughout the play, events in Thoreau’s life, portrayed as flashbacks as he talks to his cellmate known as 'Bailey', an illiterate man finding inspiration in much of what Thoreau has to tell him. The familiar aspects of Thoreau’s life and the moral convictions that guided him in his life are portrayed including his relationship with Ralph Waldo Emerson; thoughts and writings on transcendentalism; simple living; the building of his shack on Walden pond; his role in the abolitionist movement; and finally his opposition to the Mexican-American war. When the play premiered in 1970, Lawrence and Lee saw historical parallels with Thoreau’s time. Just as Thoreau questioned material progress in his time, people in the ‘70s questioned whether material, new plastics, and technological progress, better automobiles, computers and such, actually advanced human society. In the introduction, “The Now Thoreau” Lawrence and Lee write about 'Emerson’s handy man' how he foresaw how technology and progress are not synonymous:

“To create a better world, we need to make things bigger, faster, stronger and cheaper. But materialism is not the way. THOREAU KNEW THAT.

He smelled the smog before we saw it.

It smarted his soul before it smarted our eyes.” (Lawrence vii)

The Mexican-American war of the 1840s, well remembered because of an American victory and the acquisition of territories becoming much of the Southwest U.S. faced much opposition during Thoreau's time, over not just the legality and morality, but because it also expanded the power of slave-holding states. Thoreau, an ardent abolitionist became a vocal opponent of the war, thus in 1846 as an act of retaliation, and seeing that powerful people only speak in financial terms, he refused to pay poll taxes that could be used to support the war. Sam Staples, the Concord MA constable, jails him for refusing to pay. This historic scene is illustrated in the play when Staples implores Thoreau to just pay the tax, but Thoreau, in the middle of downtown Concord, adamant in his refusal to pay creates a scene, and is thus arrested. (Lawrence)

Serving as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Thoreau let runaway slaves stay at his parent’s house on their trek to freedom. (Harding 3) An experience with a runaway slave is recounted in Act Two. Williams, the runaway slave meets Thoreau at his cabin in the woods, at first afraid of Thoreau, but calming down after Thoreau just talks to him as a human of no lesser or higher status than his own and offers to share his cabin and the little bit of food he has with Williams. (Lawrence 80-86) A beautiful scene, it is not Thoreau, the transcendentalist, the non-violent agitator for social reform, it is just Thoreau the man as he puts his beliefs into practice, without ideology or hidden agenda.

A dramatic nightmare sequence showing the horrors that is war, Emerson, his long time friend and unbiased critic, plays President Polk, as he both justifies his war with Mexico, while making others fight it for him. While this happens, Thoreau’s calls for peace and simplicity go unheard, as people march to “HATE TWO THREE FOUR” over and over. He talks to an Illinois congressman who opposed the war:

“I doubt if the people of Illinois will re-elect you, but I shall remember who you are, Congressman Lincoln” (Lawrence 92-97)

The power of The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail is how it portrays, be it fictitiously Henry David Thoreau's life yet does justice to Thoreau's beliefs, speaking well of the everlasting power simplicity holds and that any man, or woman, if they hold true to their deepest moral convictions must be prepared to not only live the lifestyles they promote, but also never forget that they may have to suffer for them, either through jail time, or the criticism and ridicule of those who do not see life the way you do, whether they be blind or just cynical about it. The play dramatizes events in Thoreau’s life, but it is written so more modern audiences can appreciate the beliefs Thoreau, and those who would be inspired by him hold dear.

Works cited:

Lawrence Jerome, and Lee, Robert E. “The Now Thoreau” The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail 1970

Meyerson, Joel ed. “Thoreau’s Reputation” Cambridge Companion to Thoreau. Cambridge

University Press 1995