One interesting incident of the play’s run was a benefit performance given for the blind. (I did not attend it: I could not bear to see the play again, but I was told about it.) All the members of the jury and most of the audience were blind; the foreman of the jury was Helen Keller. Graham McNamee, a famous newscaster, acted as a narrator to describe visual information, when needed. The verdict that night was “Guilty.”
As to the general record of verdicts during the play’s run in New York, they were 3 to 2 in favor of acquittal — according to the stage manager, who kept a tally.
That winter, Woods launched two road companies (starting out of Chicago and Los Angeles) and a third company in London; all of them did very well.
The Chicago production remains in my mind for the unexpected reason that a drama critic, Ashton Stevens, gave me the only review that pleased me in my entire career. I have received reviews that might be called better and some that I deeply appreciated, but none of them said the things I would have wanted to be said. I learned to expect nothing from reviewers because of the so-called favorable reviews, not because of the illiterate smears. What I liked about Ashton Stevens’ piece was that he understood the technique of drama, knew what it takes and praised me for the best aspects of the play’s structure; he praised me for an attribute which only a viewer in full focus can appreciate: ingenuity. He treated the play as a melodrama, since that is all it had become; I am inclined to believe that his sense of life was probably the opposite of mine, since he wrote: “It is not as close and upclimbing a piece as [The Trial of] Mary Dugan. Nor as heart-tearing. None of the characters is lovable.”
But here is what I love him for: “But it is the fastest courtroom melo I ever saw. It shoots its stuff from a dozen angles, and every shot is a surprise.
“The biggest and best surprise is when the prisoner — the tense, Roman-medal-faced Karen Andre — crashes and crumbles as Gunman (‘Guts’) Regan rushes up the aisle and into court and informs her that the man she is accused of murdering IS dead. That, ladies and gentlemen of the audience, is a S E C O N D-A C T C U R T A I N. [Typography his.]. . .
“You see, the play flattered the cunning of the audience. It permitted us to anticipate with some success. But it never left us right for more than a jiffy. . . There is a kind of genius in the play.” (If there was, in the version he saw, I marvel at his ability to see it.)
The play was unusually successful in summer stock: in its first summer (1936), it was presented by eighteen theaters, and was a leading favorite for many summers thereafter. One bright spot of the summer of 1936 was a week at a theater in Stony Creek, Connecticut, where the part of Guts Regan was played by my husband, Frank O’Connor.
In subsequent years, the play was presented, in various translations, in most European countries. In World War II, it was presented by the U.S.O. for the American troops occupying Berlin. It is still being given occasionally in various parts of the world, with or without my knowledge; at least, I receive unexpected royalties from it, once in a while. And, once in a while, it is still played here, in summer stock. It has been presented on the radio and twice (by two different companies) on television.
The amateur market of this play belongs on the horror side of its history. The amateur rights were sold to a publishing house that issued an adapted, “cleaned up” version. The amateur market, they claimed at the time, consisted of church, school and college groups that worked under a strict kind of censorship (I do not know who imposed it): these groups were not allowed to mention a love affair or a mistress, or to smoke onstage, or to swear, etc. For instance, they were not allowed to use the word “Guts,” so that my character’s name was changed to “Larry” Regan. That version of my play was adapted by the publishing house; it was not to be sold in bookstores or to the public, but was to be sold only to amateur groups for amateur performances. Once in a while, I hear — with somewhat helpless indignation — that some fan of mine has somehow obtained a copy of that version. So I want to state formally, for the record and as a public notice, that the amateur version of Night of January 16th is not written by me and is not part of my works.
The movie version of this play is another horror story. I had nothing to do with its screen adaptation. There is nothing of mine in that movie, except the names of some of the characters and the title (which was not mine). The only line of dialogue from my play which appears in the movie is: “The court will now adjourn till ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” The cheap, trashy vulgarity of that movie is such that no lengthier discussion is possible to me.
Through all those years, while the play was becoming famous, I felt a painfully growing embarrassment: I did not want to be associated with it or to be known as its author. I thought, at the time, that I had merely been unlucky in my producer and in the kind of people I had to deal with. Today, I know better: I know that it could not have been different, granting the nature of my work and of today’s cultural trends. But don’t let anyone ever approach me about making changes in my work: I learned my lesson the hard way.
For twenty-five years, I never looked at a script of this play, and winced whenever it was mentioned. Then, in 1960, Nathaniel Branden asked me to let him give a reading of the play at Nathaniel Branden Institute, in response to requests from students. I could not let him read the A. H. Woods version, so I had to prepare a definitive version of the play. I compared the original script of Penthouse Legend, the script of Woman on Trial (which was the same, but with some cuts made by me) and the script of Night of January 16th. I was somewhat astonished by the result: in this final, definitive version, I had to cut out everything that had been contributed by the Woods production (except one line change and the title). I cut out, of course, the gun moll, the gun and all the cruder elements of that sort; but I did not expect to find that even small lines and minor touches were jarringly wrong and had to be discarded.
I felt an odd kind of sadness: my mind went back to a certain argument I had with Woods during the rehearsals. We were sitting in the front row of an empty theater and he was saying indignantly: “How can you be so stubborn? How can you argue with me? This is your first play and I’ve been in the theater for forty years!” I explained to him that it was not a matter of personalities, age or experience, not a matter of who said it, but of what was said, and that I would give in to his office boy, if the boy happened to be right. Woods did not answer; I knew even then that he did not hear me.
The final, definitive version of Night of January 16th is closest, in content, to the script of Woman on Trial. I made no changes in story or substance; the additional changes I made were mainly grammatical. That final version is the one now published here, in this book.
I am glad to see it published. Up to now, I had felt as if it were an illegitimate child roaming the world. Now, with this publication, it becomes legitimately mine.
And, although it has played all over the world, I feel as if it were a play that has never been produced.
AYN RAND
New York, June 1968
Note to Producer
This play is a murder trial without a prearranged verdict. The jurors are to be selected from the audience. They are to witness the play as real jurors and bring in a verdict at the end of the last act. Two short endings are written for the play — to be used according to the verdict.
The play is built in such a way that the evidence of the defendant’s guilt or innocence is evenly balanced and the decision will have to be based upon the jurors’ own values and characters. The two parties opposed in the trial are as radically antagonistic as will be members of any audience, where some will sympathize with the wife, others with the mistress. Either decision will bring the protest of the opposite side; the case is bound to arouse arguments and discussions, for its underlying conflict is the basic conflict of two different types of humanity. It is really the audience who is thus put on trial. In the words of the defense attorney: “Who is on trial in this case? Karen Andre? No! It’s you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, who are here on trial. It is your own souls that will be brought to light when your decision is rendered.”