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:
“Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“I would like a simple life
yet all night I am laying
poems away in a long box.
It is my immortality box,
my lay-away plan,
my coffin.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Extra vagance! it depends on how you are yarded.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For Afro-Americans, it could be argued that every year they’ve spent in this country since they arrived in chains to perform forced labor has been 1984.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“If, after obtaining Buddhahood, anyone in my land
gets tossed in jail on a vagrancy rap, may I
not attain highest perfect enlightenment.”
—Gary Snyder (b. 1930)