The Old Glory

The Old Glory is a play written by the American poet Robert Lowell that was first performed in 1964. It consists of three pieces that were meant to be performed together as a trilogy. The first two pieces, "Endecott and the Red Cross" and "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" were stage adaptations of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the third piece, "Benito Cereno," was a stage adaptation of the novella by Herman Melville. Production history The Old Glory was produced off-Broadway in New York City at The American Place Theatre in 1964 in the company's first production which starred Frank Langella, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Lester Rawlins and won five Obie Awards in 1965 including an award for "Best American Play" as well as awards for Langella, Brown and Rawlins. For this production, all three plays together ran too long and the director, Jonathan Miller, decided to cut the first piece, "Endecott and the Red Cross." However, in 1968, the American Place Theatre mounted a full production of "Endecott and the Red Cross" by itself, entitled The Old Glory: Endecott and the Red Cross, starring Spalding Gray and Kenneth Haigh. In January 1965, Jean B. Webster, in association with the American Place Theatre, produced "Benito Cereno" by itself at the Theatre de Lys, off-Broadway. The cast featured Roscoe Lee Brown, Mark Lenard, James Patterson, and Jack Ryland; Jonathan Miller again directed. The Old Glory was revived for a second off-Broadway production in 1976 in celebration of the United States Bicentennial. Then, in 2011, "Benito Cereno" was produced without the other two plays for an off-Broadway production at the Horizon Theater Rep.<ref>[https://www.playbill.com/article/robert-lowells-benito-cereno-begins-off-broadway-at-the-flea-sept-22-com-182864 Gioia, Michael. "Robert Lowell's Benito Cereno Begins Off-Broadway at the Flea Sept. 22." Playbill',' 22, Sept. 2011.]</ref> Endecott and the Red Cross The characters in this play include Mr. Blackstone, Thomas Morton, and Governor Endecott. The play is set in the 1630s in the settlement of Merrymount (which still exists today as a neighborhood within the city of Quincy, Massachusetts). The three main characters of Blackstone, Morton, and Endecott are based on real historical figures, and the plot is based upon real historical events.