Here's a quick little report I wrote about John Patrick, a playwright! There is no justification for me to be posting this, but I figured, hey. The fellow Dreamers out there may be a bit bored with their summers, and might want a little bit of entertainment, so here you guys go:
John
Patrick: A History
John Patrick was born on the 17th of May, in
1905, to parents that soon abandoned him, knowing so little of what their
little boy would grow to do. Over the course of his 90 years of life, Patrick
would write 34 plays, 26 screen plays, 2 television scripts, and publish 28
works, before his mysterious death in 1995.
For people with an early life like Patrick’s becoming a
successful writer wouldn’t have seemed to be a probable outcome. Patrick
(originally John Patrick Goggan) was born in Louisville, Kentucky in mid-May in
the early 20th century, and was abandoned by his parents. This
forced him to be tossed around between various childcare groups, such as foster
homes, orphanages, and boarding schools. As a result of this early-onset
tumult, Patrick led a young life of truancy, but was able to acquire a job as a
radio announcer at KPO Radio in San Francisco, California, and at age 20,
married Mildred Legaye (in 1925). In 1929, he began writing scripts for the
Cecil and Sally Show on NBC, drafting over one thousand of them before he
stopped in 1933, but it wasn’t until 1935, when his first play, Hell Freezes Over, made it to Broadway.
The show had a short run, but it opened up a world of opportunities for Patrick,
including writing scripts for Hollywood, and writing plays for Broadway.
His next play, The
Willow and I, was produced in 1942, but before it opened, Patrick had
joined the war effort as a member of the American Field Service, and
administered medical aid during the Second World War. In the midst of the War,
Patrick found inspiration for his next play, The Hasty Heart, and had finished writing it before he returned to
the U.S.. This show went on to become a movie in 1949, and a television show in
1983.
Patrick had various other plays produced in the years
after the War, but it wasn’t until 1953 that Patrick wrote his stage version of
the Vern J. Sneider novel, The Teahouse
of the August Moon, (the book and the play bear the same title). The Teahouse of the August Moon tells of
a U.S. Naval Captain, named Capt. Fisby, who is ordered to convert a small
Okinawan town called Tobiki into a democratic, capitalist, “American”
community, but experiences trouble in doing this, almost facing a court martial
for “not turning the villagers into Americans fast enough.” In the end,
everything works out (following the grand tradition of comedies), and the
audience learns that it’s important to slow down and appreciate the beauty of
simplicity.
During the post-War era, it was quite common to see shows
that presented the culture clash of Pacific nations and the U.S. as comical,
but unlike most of those shows (such as South
Pacific), The Teahouse of the August
Moon doesn’t discriminate against the Islanders, but instead reveres them
in a way, saying that they are enlightened through their simplicity. While that
message is still condescending, it was far kinder than “You’ve Got to Be
Carefully Taught.”
The Teahouse of the
August Moon was incredibly well received, winning a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony
Award, and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and latter went on to be made
into a film and a Broadway musical. Today, however, it is seen differently, as
the characters would seem offensive to modern audiences, but that doesn’t make
it any less significant. That once delinquent boy brought out an appreciation
and respect of sorts for a repressed people, in a time when they were thought
to be the devil-incarnate, a view that could have been developed in his truant
youth, or his service in the War.
Works
Cited
"John Patrick Biography."
John Patrick Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 May 2014.
"The Teahouse of the August
Moon." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 May 2014.
"John Patrick
(dramatist)." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 May 2014.
See ya
