THE RAINMAKER: Know-The-Show Guide
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The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2019 THE RAINMAKER: Know-the-Show Guide The Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash Directed by Bonnie J. Monte Know-the-Show Audience Guide researched and written by the Education Department of Artwork by Scott McKowen The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2019 THE RAINMAKER: Know-the-Show Guide In this Guide – The Rainmaker: Director’s Notes ............................................................................................... 2 – The Life of N. Richard Nash ...................................................................................................... 4 – The Selected Writings of N. Richard Nash ................................................................................. 6 – The Rainmaker: A Short Synopsis .............................................................................................. 7 – Who’s Who in the Play ............................................................................................................. 8 – A Dream of Rain (and Con Men) ............................................................................................... 9 – Commentary & Criticism ........................................................................................................ 10 – In This Production ................................................................................................................... 11 – Explore Online ....................................................................................................................... 12 – Famous Adaptations ................................................................................................................ 13 The Rainmaker is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. 1 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2019 THE RAINMAKER: Know-the-Show Guide FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT “When drought hits the lush grasslands of The Rainmaker: the richly fertile West, they are green no Director’s Notes more and the dying is a palpable thing. What happens to verdure and vegetation, Last summer, two of the gifted apprentices in our Summer Professional I decided, then and to cattle and livestock can be read in Training Program performed a scene for one of our late-night there, that I wanted the coldly statistical little bulletins freely presentations that made me cry. It brought tears to my eyes not because to direct it this season issued by the Department of Agriculture. it was sad, but because it was so moving and beautiful. It was a simple and bring it to life What happens to the people of the West scene – a sweet encounter between two people, but it was so pure and for our audience. I — beyond the calculable and terrible tender that it felt like I had suddenly encountered a clean place – one wanted to share what phenomena of sudden poverty and loss unencumbered by the dirtiness and the constant bombardment of the I had experienced in of substance — is an incalculable and trash “noise” of our modern world. It was a scene from The Rainmaker. reading it with you, febrile kind of desperation. Rain will onstage and in full never come again; the earth will be sere I had never read the play, nor seen the film version. The very next life. forever; and in all of heaven there is no morning, I searched my bookcase for a copy, and to my delight, I had promise of remedy.” one; I sat down immediately and read it. When I got to the end, to my After working on it surprise, I burst into tears – not just little tears, but a sudden burst of for a year now, I have -N. Richard Nash sobbing – the kind of bursting into tears that we do when we are little been further surprised from the Introduction to The Rainmaker and something scares us or startles us, though by the depth of the I was certainly not scared. But, I think the play and its layers of play did startle me; it filled me with a kind complexity. It is too of odd elation. Looking back now, I suspect often dismissed as a romantic comedy, indeed, the author himself labeled that what I was feeling was the ever-elusive it as such. It certainly is romantic in the classical sense, it does contain catharsis that we yearn to feel when we some romancing, and it has many funny moments, but it is an intense experience a piece of theatre. It felt so great drama — one that is often brutal in its honesty and in the pain to have been swallowed up by a tale of such that its characters are going through. It operates on so many basic, true, emotional universality that it filled archetypal, symbolic, and iconic levels that it fits any and me with an overwhelming wave of emotions. all humans like a glove. It is poetic, yet domestically Bonnie J. Monte, Director. 2 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2019 THE RAINMAKER: Know-the-Show Guide familiar, and I suspect that given what has occurred in the world since it One final note – for as simple a tale as The Rainmaker is, it is a very was written that it carries far more weight than it did back in the 1950s. difficult play to perform. It requires brave actors who are willing to be deeply vulnerable with each other and in front of an audience. I have It is a play about yearning, about desire, about a dire thirst for things been blessed with a cast of great skill, courage, and generous spirit. seemingly beyond our grasp, about family, about love and pain and Working on this play has been a joy because of them, because of the loneliness, and it is, for me, most of all, a play about hope. In a time story, and most importantly, because it is a play about decent, good of great drought, a con man arrives in a small western town and brings people who manage to reveal, in the two hours we share with them, with him the promise of rain. Like so many archetypal bearers of gifts, the vast, complicated, beautiful, luminous caverns of the human heart. he is part snake-oil salesman, part shaman, part dreamer, wanderer, These simple, struggling people show us how we can help each other get poet, weaver of tales, conduit, and showman. And while he is indeed through the droughts in our lives – both the real ones and those that are a grifter and con artist, he is a good man, a lost man, and a man with a metaphorical. heart as big as his boasts and as vast in its yearnings as the western sky. -Bonnie J. Monte, Director And with him, he brings hope, and while hope may be the biggest con of all, it is one we all embrace, for it keeps us all going. Just a quick note about the time and place of the play: the author simply says that it takes place in the American West in a time of great drought. I do not think it is about the Dust Bowl era; I think rather that it was inspired by the great drought that plagued a ten-state region in the American West and South – most notably Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas from about 1950 to 1957. It was, by many accounts, far more damaging than the effects of the Dust Bowl drought. It certainly changed the landscape of Texas forever. [You can read more about this drought by following the links in the Explore Online section of this Audience Guide.] I also think that so many references in the play indicate the world of the early 1950’s, and so we decided that our production of the play is set on a cattle ranch on the Texas/Oklahoma A dust storm in Texas during the 1930s Dust Bowl. border in 1953. Credit: NOAA. From livescience.com 3 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2019 THE RAINMAKER: Know-the-Show Guide The Life attended the University of Pennsylvania. There and at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges he taught drama, inspiring at least one of his early N. Richard Nash plays, The Young and Fair. In 1935 he married Helena Taylor, an actress, and with her had a son, ofN. Richard Nash, was born Nathan Richard Nusbaum in Philadelphia, Cristopher. In the late 1930s Nathan Nusbaum’s success attracted interest PA, on June 8,1913. He was the youngest and only boy of 6 children. by the movie studios, so he and his young family moved to Los Angeles. His father, Sael, a bit of a dreamer, convinced a German newspaper It was in Hollywood that Nathan R. Nusbaum became N. Richard Nash. to send him to the U.S. as a stringer to cover a famous actress of the Cristopher remembers several conversations about how the name should time, Eleanor Duse. Sael Nusbaum insisted on continuing to follow be chosen; one evening at the kitchen table, the family gathered around a and report on her long after the newspaper had lost interest... and fired telephone book. He recalls his father saying, “Nash, yes, that’s it.” him. As a boy, Nathan was taken by his father to nightly meetings of local political groups where he would curl up under the table, listening Nash created many screenplays for Hollywood and was soon also writing to the barnstorming rhetoric of the activists of the time. Sael died when for the Broadway stage during what came to be referred to as the Golden Nathan was 16. Age of Television. He was also often called upon by Broadway producers Nathan’s mother, Jenny Nusbaum was a tough, resourceful woman who managed the family grocery store through the Depression, finding ways to feed neighbors and passersby when they were down on their luck. Jenny didn’t have much time or attention for Nate especially after his father’s death. While his older sisters were marrying or getting jobs, Nathan held to his dream of becoming a writer, earning prizes and acclaim — but not much money — in school and through writing opportunities as a young man. He attributed some of his early courage and success to the care and protection, in the family, of his older sister, Mae, who was, in part, the model for the enduring character Lizzie in his most famous work, The Rainmaker. With a full scholarship to the college of his choice but unable to afford to leave Philadelphia in the midst of the Great Depression, Nathan N.