The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
Encyclopedia
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1957 play by William Inge
William Inge
William Motter Inge was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, he had a string of memorable Broadway productions, and one of these, Picnic, earned him a Pulitzer Prize...

 about family conflicts during the early 1920s in a small Oklahoma town. It won the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 for Best Play and was made into a film in 1960.

Plot

The drama centers on Rubin Flood, who loses his salesman job. While searching for a new job, he must deal with his wife, Cora, who shuns intimacy and mistakes his joblessness for stinginess, his shy daughter who prepares for her first dance and his pre-teen son who runs to his mother instead of dealing with bullies. He tries to find comfort with a friend, Mavis Pruitt, thus setting off rumors of an untoward relationship. In addition to the themes of modernization (i.e., not enough demand for horse harness, and the impending arrival of the oil industry)

Play

Directed by Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...

, the play opened December 5, 1957, at New York's Music Box Theatre and ran for a total of 468 performances, closing on January 17, 1959. The drama was reworked by Inge from his earlier play, Farther Off from Heaven, first staged in 1947 at Margo Jones
Margo Jones
Margo Jones was an influential American stage director and producer best known for launching the American regional theater movement and for introducing the theater-in-the-round concept in Dallas, Texas. In 1947, she established the first regional professional company when she opened Theatre ’47 in...

' Theatre '47 in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

.

Opening night cast:
  • Eileen Heckart
    Eileen Heckart
    Eileen Heckart was an American actress of stage, screen, and television.-Early life:Heckart was born Anna Eileen Heckart in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther and Leo Herbert. She was legally adopted by her grandfather, J.W. Heckart. Her family was of Irish and German descent...

     as Lottie Lacey
  • Pat Hingle
    Pat Hingle
    Martin Patterson "Pat" Hingle was an American actor.-Early life:Hingle was born Martin Patterson Hingle in Miami, Florida, the son of Marvin Louise , a schoolteacher and musician, and Clarence Martin Hingle, a building contractor. Hingle enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1941, dropping out of...

     as Rubin Flood
  • Teresa Wright
    Teresa Wright
    Teresa Wright was an American actress. She received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her performance in Mrs. Miniver. That same year, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her performance in Pride of the Yankees opposite Gary Cooper...

     as Cora Flood
  • Timmy Everett as Sammy Goldenbaum
  • Frank Overton as Morris Lacey
  • Anthony Ray as Chauffeur
  • Evans Evans as Flirt Conroy
  • Carl Reindel as Punky Givens
  • Judith Robinson as Reenie Flood
  • Charles Saari as Sonny Flood
  • Jonathan Shawn as Boy Offstage


It was nominated for five Tony Awards: Best Play, Best Featured Actor (Pat Hingle), Best Featured Actress (Eileen Heckart), Best Scenic Design (Ben Edwards), Best Director (Elia Kazan) and won Best Play. Timmy Everett won a Theatre World Award
Theatre World Award
The Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...

.

Film

Harriet Frank, Jr.
Harriet Frank, Jr.
Harriet Frank, Jr. is an American film writer and producer. Working alongside her husband, Irving Ravetch, Frank received numerous awards during her lengthy career, including the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and the Writers Guild of America Award, and several nominations...

 and Irving Ravetch
Irving Ravetch
Irving Ravetch was an American screenwriter and film producer who frequently collaborated with his wife Harriet Frank, Jr....

 adapted Inge's play into a 1960 film directed by Delbert Mann
Delbert Mann
Delbert Martin Mann, Jr. was an American television and film director. He won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Marty...

.
  • Dorothy McGuire
    Dorothy McGuire
    Dorothy Hackett McGuire was an American actress.-Career:Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she began her acting career on the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse...

     as Cora Flood
  • Robert Preston
    Robert Preston (actor)
    -Early life:Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth L. and Frank Wesley Meservey, a garment worker and billing clerk for American Express. After attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, California, he studied acting at the Pasadena Community...

     as Rubin Flood
  • Shirley Knight
    Shirley Knight
    Shirley Enola Knight is an American stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and in 1962 for Sweet Bird of Youth....

     as Reenie Flood
  • Eve Arden
    Eve Arden
    Eve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...

     as Lottie Lacey
  • Robert Eyer
    Robert Eyer
    Robert Thomas Eyer is an American actor.Robert the younger brother of actor Richard EyerFilms in which he worked:*Back Street - 1961;*The Dark at the Top of the Stairs - 1960;*The Man from Blackhawk - 1959;...

     as Sonny Flood
  • Frank Overton
    Frank Overton
    Frank Emmons Overton was an American actor.-Career:Overton appeared in numerous television programs during the early 1950s and through the late 1960s, including The Fugitive in 1963...

     as Morris Lacey
  • Lee Kinsolving as Sammy Goldenbaum
  • Angela Lansbury
    Angela Lansbury
    Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...

     as Mavis Pruitt
  • Ken Lynch as Harry Ralston


Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

gave the film a favorable review, noting that it was "well cast and persuasively acted". Shirley Knight earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as "Reenie Flood".
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