The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail is a two-act play by Robert Edwin Lee and Jerome Lawrence written in 1970. Hal B. Wallis is producer of the film based on the play, for which both Lawrence and Lee wrote the screenplay. The play is based on the early life of the titular character, Henry David Thoreau, leading up to his night spent in a jail in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay a poll tax on the grounds that the money might be used to pay for the Mexican-American War, which he opposed.
Writing in the New York Times, Howard Taubman described the ideological relevance of the play to contemporary audiences, stating "this play and its protagonist, though they are of the 19th century, are speaking to today's concerns: an unwanted war in another land, civil disobedience, the interdependence of man and nature, education the role of government and the governed."
Read more about The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail: Plot, Characters, Production History
Famous quotes containing the words the night, night, thoreau, spent and/or jail:
“In the still of the night.”
—Cole Porter (18931964)
“Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
If you listen to popular rumour;
From morning to night hes so joyous and bright,
And he bubbles with wit and good humour!”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18361911)
“I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper proved trustworthy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.”
—Marcel Marceau (b. 1923)
“Let me tell you something. Nobody goes to jail unless they want to. Unless they make themselves get caught. They dont have things organized.”
—Nicholas Pileggi, U.S. screenwriter, and Martin Scorsese. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta)