The Drunkard
Opening Night: September 18, 2010
Closing: October 17, 2010
Theater: Metropolitan Playhouse
Young Edward Middleton is honest, charitable, and too easily tempted by drink. When his proclivity is exploited by the malicious lawyer Cribbs, Middleton loses his home, family, and fortune, and he is cast alone and adrift in the city. But under the kind command of temperance leader Arden Rencelaw, salvation is at hand for a man willing to own his weaknesses as well as his strengths. The most popular American play ever (in 1844.)
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October 4, 2010
Of all the old war horses of the American theater, few have been more durable than “The Drunkard,” W. H. Smith’s cautionary tale on the evils of John Barleycorn. The original 1844 staging in Boston was for a temperance crusade and was deadly serious; a 1933 production in Los Angeles was played strictly for laughs and ran more than 20 years. An engaging revival by the Metropolitan Playhouse falls somewhere in between and makes a good case for the piece’s being more than a quaint theatrical curio.
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