Thunder Rock (play)

Thunder Rock is a 1939 play by Robert Ardrey.

In the United States, Thunder Rock was produced by the Group Theater and opened 14 November 1939 and closed three weeks later. Lee J. Cobb, Frances Farmer, and Luther Adler were among the cast directed by Elia Kazan, who had directed Ardrey's play Casey Jones in 1938.

Thunder Rock closed after only 23 performances on Broadway, but it had a far more successful theatre run in London. It was adapted into a 1942 film starring Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen, James Mason and Lilli Palmer, produced by John and Roy Boulting's Charter Films. The play became much more popular in regional theatre in the United States after its theatre and film successes in England.

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.

Conception

The initial inspiration for Thunder Rock came in 1938 while the playwright, Robert Ardrey, on an extended honeymoon on Nantucket, was working on a different play. He writes in his autobiography of being taken by the image of the lighthouse as Siansconset and by the drama of the frequent nor'easters. 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.

References

• Writer Biography: Robert Ardrey (primarily about the plays and screenplays)
• Wesleyan University Cinema Archives: The Elia Kazan Collection.
• The New York Times 1943 review of film version of Thunder Rock

External links

• ​Thunder Rock​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Thunder Rock (1942 film) at IMDb