Thunder Rock is a 1939 play by Robert Ardrey.
The initial Broadway production, put on by the Group Theater and directed by Elia Kazan, closed after a short run, but the play was far more successful in wartime London. Thunder Rock became a symbol of British resistanceSheean, Vincent. "American Play Stirs Londoners." Review syndicated in the New York Times. 29 July 1940. Print: "An American play called 'Thunder Rock' ... has come nearer than anything else to a statement of the emotional or philosophical content of many minds in embattled England today." and was the most notable play of World War II.Undated review. "Best Play Since the War Began." Available through The Robert Ardrey Papers 1928-1974. Special Collections Library: University of Chicago. Box 11, Folder 2.Vincent Sheehan called it "London's Chum Chin Chow of World War II," citing the most emblematic play of the first world war. Quoted in "Concerning Thunder Rock." Undated review, available through The Robert Ardrey Papers 1928-1974. Special Collections Library: University of Chicago. Box 11, Folder 2. It was first produced in a little-known theater in South Kensington but was transferred, with secret funding from Her Majesty's Treasury,Aldgate, Anthony et al. Britain Can Take It: The British Cinema in the Second World War 2nd ed. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. pp. 170-2. Print. to the Globe Theatre in London's West End.
Thunder Rock has seen many adaptations, including a BBC radio version in 1940 and a 1942 film starring Michael Redgrave and Barbara Mullen with James Mason in a minor role. In 1947 CBS broadcast a radio production; it was awarded a Peabody Award.Sterling, Christopher H. (ed.) The Biographical Encyclopedia of American Radio. 2010. London: Routledge. Pp. 256-7. Pring Stage productions have been mounted all over the world, including an unauthorized production in Zurich, a U.S. government-sponsored production in occupied Berlin, and popular post-war productions throughout Europe and Africa, including in Harare and Nairobi.
Synopsis The Dramatists Play Service gives the following synopsis of Thunder Rock: The action passes in a lighthouse on Lake Michigan. Charleston, the keeper, has taken a job there to flee from a detestable world. Opposing Charleston's pessimism, Streeter, his friend, says he is giving up his job to become an active member of society again. Streeter believes our world can be brought out of its chaos if people do something about it. Filled with this determination, he leaves to become an aviator. Charleston retreats further into a fantastic world of his own building. The people of this world are half a dozen of the sixty who were shipwrecked ninety years ago. Believing that "Mankind's got one future—in the past," Charleston breathes life into these creatures of his imagination. They live again on the stage. As he talks to them we see passengers as they really were, each seeking sanctuary from a disturbed Europe, running away from life, yet needing the same hope and strength as Charleston himself. Charleston's sincerity convinces these creatures that he really has the courage to lead his fellow men into a better world, and in this faith they are content to die again. Inspired by their confidence, the lighthouse-keeper returns to useful work, determined to create a new order out of the chaos of the old.Thunder Rock at Dramatists Play Service
Conception The initial inspiration for Thunder Rock came in 1938 while the playwright, Robert Ardrey, then on an extended honeymoon on Nantucket, was working on a different play.Ardrey, Robert. Plays of Three Decades, Introduction. New York: Atheneum. 1968. Print He writes in his autobiography of being taken by the image of the lighthouse at Siansconset and by the drama of the frequent nor'easters.Ardrey, Robert; Ardrey, Daniel (ed.). "The Education of Robert Ardrey: An Autobiography" (unpublished manuscript ca. 1980, available through Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center) At the same time, the conflict in Europe was escalating, and Ardrey took the signing of the Munich Agreement to be a certain harbinger of war. Ardrey did not have the idea for the play, however, until he returned to New York. He writes in his autobiography of the moment of inspiration during a performance of Swan Lake: That afternoon, eyes closed, enjoying the music with moderation, I descended into a world between the Tigris and the Styx. And within the course of the performance I had beheld Thunder Rock. I had the play from beginning to end, complete with the first, second, and third act curtains. I never had the experience again, and I must wonder how many authors have gone through a similar spell. Ardrey moved with his wife, Helen, to New Orleans, where he wrote the first draft.
New York production Having finished the first draft Ardrey showed it to his agent, Harold Freedman, and to his friend, the influential Broadway director and producer Elia Kazan, who had directed Casey Jones. Kazan engaged Harold Clurman to direct members of the theater collective The Group Theater, including Lee J. Cobb, Morris Carnovsky, and Frances Farmer. The production was mounted at the Mansfield Theater (now the Brooks Atkinson Theater). Rehearsals were begun amidst growing tension in Europe, and the company, convinced that war would break out within weeks, resolved to open as quickly as they could. However, after the Invasion of Poland there was a period of relative quiet in Europe, leading to a belief in America that the threat had been overblown. Senator William Borah during this period famously dubbed the conflict "The Phoney War.""Defiant Peace Bid Hurled By Hitler". The Pittsburgh Press. September 19, 1939. The play, which called for American involvement in a crisis in Europe, debuted to an increasingly isolationist audience amid a growing conception that there would be no war.
Reception The negative criticism of Thunder Rock largely focused on its call to intervention. John Anderson wrote, "The Group is playing spook-a-boo at the Mansfield theater."Anderson, John. Quoted in Ardrey, Robert. Plays of Three Decades, Introduction. New York: Atheneum. 1968. p. 24. Print Brooks Atkinson, writing for The New York Times, wrote that "Thunder Rock exudes so much thunder, and contains so little rock."Atkinson, Brooks. Quoted in "The Education of Robert Ardrey: An Autobiography" (unpublished manuscript ca. 1980, available through Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center) p. 65. The play ended up closing after 23 performances."Footnotes on Headliners" Undated review. Available in the Robert Ardrey Papers. Special Collections Research Library: University of Chicago. Box 11, Folder 2
Thunder Rock also won acclaim. In 1940, in recognition of the play, Ardrey was awarded the first ever Sidney Howard Memorial Award for young playwrights.Anderson, Maxwell. Dramatist in America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson, 1912-1958. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Books, 2001. Print It inspired many subsequent productions.
London productions
During the winter of 1939 Ardrey's Broadway agent Harold Freedman sold the British rights of Thunder Rock to the London theater director Herbert Marshall. Marshall sent the script to then rising star Michael Redgrave, who later wrote, "I thought it one of the most exciting plays I had ever read."Redgrave, Michael. In My Mind's Eye: An Autobiography. Sevenoaks: Coronet. Print Redgrave agreed to star, and they launched a production at the Neighbourhood Theatre in London. The company included Bernard Miles, Fredda Brilliant, and Frederick Valk.Marshall, Herbert. "'Thunder Rock' London, June 1940. From The Writings of Herbert Marshall After the Battle of Dunkirk most London theaters voluntarily closed, and when Thunder Rock went up, two nights after the Fall of France, it was one of only two productions in London.
The first London production of Thunder Rock was a huge and unqualified success.“Thunder Rock - An Appreciation,” London Times Literary Supplement, Aug. 10, 1940“Theater Boom in London” New York Times Aug. 23, 1940 The eminent British theater critic Harold Hobson wrote that the opening night was "One of the greatest evenings … in the entire history of the theatre."Hobson, Harold. Theatre in Britain: A Personal View. Oxford: Phaidon, 1984. pp. 122-3. Print.
When Winston Churchill read of the play, he sent his Minister of Information, Duff Cooper; his scientific advisor, Lord Lindeman; and his wife, Clementine.Marshall, Herbert. “Obituary: Robert Ardrey (1907-1980).” ‘’Bulletin of the Center for Soviet & East European Studies’’ Spring 1980. pp. 4-6. Print Duff Cooper reported back to Churchill, who is said to have told his cabinet that "This play is the greatest contribution to British Morale there has yet been." He had Cooper arrange to have the treasury department fund it. Cooper coordinated with Michael Redgrave to transfer the production to the Globe Theatre in London's West End. The role of the government in funding the arrangement was kept secret until after the war. The BBC also broadcast a live radio production with the theater cast on July 15, 1940, at 10:15 PM.BBC Genome Project. http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/2b7a2614481348ef92324ad4d6a18b70
The production at the Globe ran during the worsening Blitz. During air-raids the play would be paused and Michael Redgrave would lead the audience in songs. The playbill carried the following warning:
You will be notified from the Stage if an Air Raid Warning has been sounded during the performance—but that does not necessarily mean an air raid will take place.If you wish to leave for home or an official Air Raid Shelter you are at liberty to do so. All we ask is that—if you feel you must go—you will depart quietly and without excitement.Thunder Rock Playbill. St Martin's Theatre, West st., Shaftesbury Avenue, W.C.2.
Again the production was a massive critical and popular success.Various Authors. Archival reviews of British productions of Thunder Rock. 1940. Box 11, Folder 2. The Robert Ardrey Papers 1928-1974. Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, Chicago, IL. It ran at the Globe until September, when the neighboring Queen's Theatre was hit by a German bomb. With the closure of West End theatres, the production went on tour from September to November, with Alec Guinness replacing Redgrave.JWB, 'Thunder Rock', Yorkshire Evening Post, 16 October 1940, p.3 A West End revival, at the St Martin's Theatre, followed from February to April 1941, with Walter Hudd as Charleston.'The War's Most Serious Play', Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 7 March 1941, p.32
Reception
Both the initial run at the Neighborhood Theater and the government-funded run at the Globe were major critical and popular successes. James Agate wrote that Thunder Rock was "a play infinitely superior in craftsmanship, intellectual interest, pure theater and entertainment value to anything the commercial theater can offer in these heartsearching days."Quoted in the introduction by E.R. Wood to Robert Ardrey, Thunder Rock. London, 1966, p. 16. The News and Chronicle described it as "A tonic to the mind, and a bath to the spirit."Quoted in Redgrave, 1983, p. 133. The reviewer for The London Times Literary Supplement wrote “When Thunder Rock was produced for the first time in this country ... there ensued a chorus of praise that sounded almost suspicious. Can this play be as good as all that? one asked oneself, or is it merely that the gentlemen of the press, starved of something to genuinely appreciate, have leaped with an indiscriminating gusto upon the first good thing that comes their way? A visit to the theatre, however, and a subsequent reading of the play set these doubts at rest."
Eminent theater critic Harold Hobson later reflected on the significance of Thunder Rock: