Written by Ayn Rand Playwright Ayn Rand Genre Melodrama | First performance 13 February 1940 Setting Saint Petersburg Original language English language | |
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Date premiered February 13, 1940 (1940-02-13) Place premiered Samuel J. Friedman Theatre | ||
The Unconquered is a play written by Ayn Rand as an adaptation of her 1936 novel, We the Living. Producer George Abbott staged it on Broadway in 1940.
Contents
History
Ayn Rand's debut novel, We the Living, was published in April 1936. She had previously written a hit play, Night of January 16th, that had closed its Broadway run earlier that month. Shortly after the novel was published, Rand began negotiations with Broadway producer Jerome Mayer to do a theatrical adaptation. Rand wrote the script, but Mayer's financing fell through. Several years later, she was able to interest George Abbott in producing the play. Helen Craig took the lead role as Kira, alongside John Emery as Leo and Dean Jagger as Andrei. It opened under the title The Unconquered at the Biltmore Theatre on February 13, 1940, but closed after five days following scathing reviews and just six performances.
The play was not published during Rand's lifetime. In 2014, Palgrave Macmillan published a volume with both the final script and an earlier version, edited by Robert Mayhew.
Cast and characters
The characters and cast from the Broadway production are given below:
Reception
The play received negative reviews and closed in less than a week. Reviewer Arthur Pollock called it "slow-moving, uninspired soup". The New York Times described it as a "confusing" mixture of "sentimental melodrama" and political discussion.