All the Drama: The Great White Hope, 1969 Winner, Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Summary

BroadwayRadio Podcast Summary: All the Drama: The Great White Hope, 1969 Winner, Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Release Date: December 14, 2024

---

Introduction

In the December 14, 2024 episode of BroadwayRadio's All the Drama, host Jan Simpson delves into the profound impact and enduring legacy of Howard Sackler's play, The Great White Hope. This episode explores the play's historical context, its journey from a regional theater to Broadway acclaim, and its lasting influence on American theater. Through an engaging narrative and insightful interviews, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of why The Great White Hope remains a pivotal work in the landscape of American drama.

---

Historical Context and Origins [00:02 – 05:00]

Jan Simpson sets the stage by transporting listeners to the tumultuous year of 1969—a time marked by political upheaval, the Vietnam War, and significant strides in the civil rights movement. She highlights key figures such as Muhammad Ali, whose refusal to be drafted and alignment with the Nation of Islam made him a symbol of both anti-war sentiments and black pride.

Amidst this backdrop, Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope emerges as a powerful narrative inspired by the life of Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight boxing champion. Sackler's play not only captures the racial tensions of the era but also underscores the broader struggle for equality and recognition.

Notable Quote:

"The Great White Hope is an epic play about the American experience. And that is exactly what is important to the Pulitzer board." – Mahershala Ali [15:29]

---

From Arena Stage to Broadway [05:00 – 15:00]

Jan Simpson recounts the genesis of The Great White Hope at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Playwright Howard Sackler collaborated closely with the theater's founder, Zelda Fitchandler, crafting a narrative that stayed true to Jack Johnson's tumultuous life while weaving in broader social themes. Despite initial challenges, including significant revisions and personal tensions, the play premiered successfully in the 1967-68 season, captivating audiences with its depth and raw portrayal of racial dynamics.

The show's success caught the attention of Broadway producers, leading to its transfer to the Alvin Theater (now the Neil Simon Theater) in October 1968. Despite concerns over its large cast and extensive runtime, Sackler invested personally to bring the production to Broadway. The play's Broadway run was monumental, lasting 546 performances and earning prestigious accolades, including the Tony Awards, Drama Desk, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Notable Quote:

"The board saw the impact from a political perspective and from a socially conscious perspective as well." – Mahershala Ali [15:29]

---

Key Performances and Impact [15:00 – 25:00]

Central to the play's success were the stellar performances by James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander. Jones's portrayal of Jett Jefferson (a fictionalized Jack Johnson) and Alexander's role as his wife, Ellie, received critical acclaim. Their onstage chemistry and depth brought authenticity to the narrative, earning them individual Tony Awards and cementing their statuses as Broadway legends.

The transition of The Great White Hope from stage to screen in 1970 saw Jones and Alexander reprising their roles in a film adaptation directed by Martin Ritt. While the film condensed the narrative, focusing more on the romantic aspects, it garnered Oscar nominations for both leads, despite modest commercial success.

Howard Sackler's subsequent career, including contributions to films like Jaws, highlighted his versatility, although he struggled to replicate the monumental success of The Great White Hope. His later works, such as Semmelweis and Goodbye Fidel, faced challenges in reaching Broadway, reflecting the complexities of sustaining success in the competitive world of theater.

---

Revival and Legacy [25:00 – 31:55]

Fast forward to 2000, Arena Stage celebrates its 50th anniversary by reviving The Great White Hope. Spearheading this revival is renowned actor and director Mahershala Ali, who shares insights during an interview with Molly Smith, Arena Stage's former artistic director.

Ali discusses the revival's ambitious overhaul—from reducing the cast from 63 to 28 actors to staging the play in a manner reminiscent of a boxing ring. He emphasizes the play's timeless relevance, stating, "it feels as contemporary as can be. It feels very much of this time" [23:20]. Ali also reflects on the challenges of adapting the language and handling the play's potent themes without altering its original essence.

The revival served as a testament to The Great White Hope's enduring significance, demonstrating its capacity to resonate with new generations while honoring its historical roots. Furthermore, it highlighted the evolving relationship between regional theaters and Broadway, fostering greater collaboration and recognition of diverse talents originating outside New York.

Notable Quote:

"This was an aha moment. It was a critical turning point." – Mahershala Ali [28:38]

---

Conclusion

Jan Simpson concludes the episode by dedicating it to the memory of James Earl Jones, celebrating his unparalleled contributions to theater and beyond. The episode underscores how The Great White Hope not only mirrored the societal struggles of its time but also paved the way for future collaborations between regional theaters and Broadway, enriching the American theatrical landscape.

Listeners are left with a profound appreciation for the play's artistic brilliance and its significant role in shaping conversations around race, identity, and resilience in America.

---

Key Takeaways:

• The Great White Hope emerged during a pivotal era in American history, addressing themes of race, identity, and societal challenges.
• The play's journey from Arena Stage to Broadway exemplifies the potential for regional theater productions to achieve national acclaim.
• Stellar performances by James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander were instrumental in the play's success.
• The 2000 revival, led by Mahershala Ali, reaffirmed the play's enduring relevance and highlighted changes in the theater industry's dynamics.
• Howard Sackler's legacy, while marked by this monumental success, also reflects the challenges of sustaining creative achievements in the competitive world of drama.

Join BroadwayRadio for more in-depth explorations of Pulitzer-winning plays and the stories that shaped American theater.

Transcript

[Jan Simpson]

The year is 1969. Richard Nixon is sworn in as the nation's 37th president and promises to reduce the US presence in Vietnam. As opposition to that war intensifies, African American college students are demanding more black studies courses, more black professors and administrators, and more black students, particularly at Ivy League and other top ranked schools. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ali, whose refusal to serve in the army and whose conversion to the black nationalist group the Nation of Islam have made him a hero in both the anti war and black pride movements, continues to fight the World Boxing Association's decision to strip him of his heavyweight title because of his refusal to be drafted. And in that year of 1969, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to Howard Sackler's the Great White Hope, a fictionalized version of the life of Jack Johnson, the first black man to ever hold the title of heavyweight champion of the world, and of the boxing world's racist efforts to find a white boxer, a white hope who would take that title away from him. My name is Jan Simpson. Welcome to all the Drama, a podcast about the plays and musicals that have won American theater's highest accolade, the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The Great White Hope obviously spoke to its moment. It's reported that after seeing it, Muhammad Ali declared, hey, this play is about me. But the Great White Hope is also significant because it marked the first time that a play started in one of the League of Regional Theaters or LORT theaters and then not only moved to Broadway, but took the top honor of the Pulitzer Prize, proving that true talent could flow both ways. The Great Light of Hope was born at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. its playwright, Howard Sackler, was working on a one act play there in 1965 when he told Zelda Fitchandler, the company's founder and artistic director, about an idea he had for a full length play based on Jack Johnson's life. Fitch Handler liked the idea and agreed to take a look at the script when he had one to show her. Sackler turned in his first draft two years later, and according to Fitch Handler's biographer, she and Edwin Sharon, the company's resident director, gave Sackler 14 pages of notes. Later, Fitch Handler traveled to Spain, where Sackler had a home, to work with him on the script even more closely. Some people have speculated that they had an affair, but if they did, it didn't end well. When the show moved to Broadway, arena was cut out of any share of the profits. Fitch Handler tried to sue but lost the case, probably to avoid any problems with Jefferson's heirs. Sackler changed the name of the main character in his play to Jett Jefferson instead of Jack Johnson. Some people have said he also shaved off some of the rougher edges of the real life Johnson, a flamboyant and volatile man who died in a car crash in 1946 at the age of 68. But Sackler's play still stayed fairly close to the basic outline of Johnson's life. The play opens with a group of white boxing insiders talking about their unhappiness that a black man holds the heavyweight title and their plans to take it back from him. But the fighter they put their hopes on fails. This delights the black community, who see Jack Jefferson's victory as a symbol of what they all might achieve. But it further enrages the white insiders who start looking for other ways to bring Jack down. They find it in his common law marriage to a white woman at a time when interracial marriages were illegal in many states and many black men were being lynched for even supposed affairs with white women, charged with violating the man act, which prohibits transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes. But Jack flees the US to escape a jail sentence. But his exile leads to demeaning jobs, the tragic disintegration of his marriage, and eventually to his defeat in the ring and loss of his title. Putting on the play was a massive enterprise. It had 21 scenes, 247 speaking parts and ran for close to four hours. To help produce the play, Irina had to apply for two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts totaling $47,500, which would be about $450,000 today. James Earl Jones, then a New York based actor who had done a few small parts on Broadway and several roles for Joe Papp's Shakespeare in the park, was cast as Jack. Jane Alexander, a member of the arena company, was cast as his wife, Ellie. Alexander would later say that she received hate mail and death threats for kissing a black man on stage. But even so, the play was the hit of Arena's 1967-68 season. So much so that the veteran Broadway producer Herman Levin offered to move the show immediately to New York. But despite its success in Washington, the Great White Hope's subject matter, the size of its cast. The production had 60 actors and its running time didn't make for a sure bet. So Sackler, who also had a career as a screenwriter, put up the money himself. The Broadway production of the Great White Hope opened at the Alvin Theater, now known as the Neil Simon theater on West 52nd street on October 3, 1968. It ran for 546 performances and it won the Tony Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics Circle awards for best play of the season, and of course it won the Pulitzer. The three man jury considered several other really strong contenders, Mark Crowley's the Boys in the Band, Lonnie Elder III's Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, and Sherman Edwards in Peter Jones musical 1776. But the jury ultimately went with the Great White Hope and the board, which has final say on all Pulitzer Awards, agreed with them and gave Sackler the prize. The play they wrote is not only American and topical in its subject matter, it is an ambitious play of considerable actual size. James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander also won Tonys for their performances. Jones, who we just lost in September when he died at the age of 93, would go on to become a true icon and who with three Emmys, one Grammy, one honorary Oscar and three Tonys, is one of just 27 people Kowuf won the EGOT. Jones may be best known to non theater fans as the voice of Darth Vader in the Star wars movie, the voice of Mufasa in the movie version of the Lion King, and the voice announcing that this is cnn. But he was and will always be a beloved part of the theater world and in March 2022 the Court Theater on West 46th street was renamed the James Earl Jones Theater, making him the first black man to hold that honor of having a Broadway theater named after him. Alexander would go to earn seven more Tony nominations, four Oscar nominations and win two Emmys. And from 1993 to 1997 she served as the chair of the National Endowment for the arts, which 30 years earlier had helped fund the original arena production of the Great White Hope, which gave her her big start. She would also enjoy a four decade long marriage with Ed Sheeran, the Great White Hope's director until his death in 2017. Both Jones and Alexander would star in the 1970 movie version of the play which was directed by Martin Ritt. Jones was such a powerful presence in the play, I remember being totally awed by just the sight of him when I saw the Broadway production. So no one else was considered to play Jack, but Alexander was an issue in for the role of Ellie. She later told one reporter that both Joanne Woodward and Faye Duniway had turned the role down and that Rit only turned to her after she won the Tony. The running time for the film was cut in half, leaving out most of the boxing and racial pride stuff to focus primarily on the ill fated love story between Jack and Ellie. The movie wasn't a hit. Still, both actors were nominated for Oscars, although Jones lost to George C. Scott, who won for Patton, and Alexander to Glenda Jackson, who won for Women in Love. At least they were both theater people. Howard Sackler would never have another success as big as the Great White Hope, at least not a credited one. Born in Brooklyn on December 19, 1929, he graduated from Brooklyn College and started selling screenplays Fairly quickly, including 1952's Fear and Desire, about four soldiers trapped behind enemy lines during World War II. It was Stanley Kubrick's first feature film. Sackler made his mark on another film 20 something years later. But it was years after it came out that Steven Spielberg gave Sackler credit for the final rewrite of the original Jaws in 1975. Sackler later got an on screen credit for Jaws 2 in 1978, but it didn't do as well as the original. Sackler continued writing for the stage, too. He always insisted that the Great White Hope wasn't a play about racism. Instead, he said it was a metaphor for the struggle between man and the outside world. And he tackled another man against the system story in Semmelweis, a play about the 19th century Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who fought for the practice of washing hands before medical procedures. It premiered at Buffalo's Studio Arena Theater in 1977 with Louis J. Stetlin as the doctor. And it drew a rave review from the New York Times critic Mel Guthau, who wrote, in the nine years since the Great White Hope, it seemed that Mr. Sackler might be one of many one play American dramatists who failed to equal their initial success. Semmelweis makes it clear that Mr. Sackler is not only a playwright of stature, but an artist of maturity and vision. A review like that drew the attention of Broadway producers. A pre Broadway tryout was scheduled at the Kennedy center in Washington, but Semmelweis closed there after Sackler clashed with his producers over casting and rewrite, so the play never made it to New York. Sackler's next and final Broadway play, goodbye Fidel, was about the Cuban Revolution and ran for just 25 previews and six performances in 1980. We don't know what else Sackler might have done because he died on October 12, 1982 at the age of just 52, probably of a heart attack. Eight years later, in 2000, the arena stage would celebrate the company's 50th season with the revival of the Great White Hope. That production had A smaller cast of just 28 actors that was led by the now two time Oscar winner, Mahershala Ali. Arena's then artistic director, Molly Smith directed that production. And so I am beyond thrilled that Molly Smith, who retired from arena just last year, agreed to talk with me about that revival and the entire legacy of the Great White Hope.

[Molly Smith]

Hello, Molly Smith, welcome to all the drama.

[Mahershala Ali]

Hi. Great to be on your program.

[Molly Smith]

I'm going to start off by asking a question that I ask in all of these conversations, which is why you think the Pulitzer board awarded its prize to the Great White Hope.

[Mahershala Ali]

Well, I think the Great White Hope is an epic play about the American experience. And that is exactly what is important to the Pulitzer board. It's beautifully written. It's written in blank verse. It hit like a shock to the heart of America. And I think that the board saw the impact from a political perspective and from a socially conscious perspective as well.

[Molly Smith]

What was your first experience with the play? Obviously you directed it later, but did you see it before you took it on to direct it?

[Mahershala Ali]

Oh, God, no. I mean, the play was in 1967 and I was still in high school, so I knew about the history of the play. Of course, by the time I was at Arena Stage and even earlier than that, but I had not seen the play. Of course, it's rarely done. And when I was at Arena, I sat down and read it and was shocked at how contemporary it was.

[Molly Smith]

When you guys were thinking about how to celebrate the 50th anniversary of arena, were there other contenders that you considered or was this always the go to play?

[Mahershala Ali]

In my mind, it was always the go to play. The other play that we had in the Anniversary was a revival of K2, which also started at Arena Stage. And I felt it was really important for our audience, since we were doing a number of premieres every year, to be able to show our audiences that a play that may be a brand new play can eventually become a classic, which is what happened, of course. Great White Hope.

[Molly Smith]

What were some of the major challenges in doing a production of the play 50 years later?

[Mahershala Ali]

Oh, great question. I think one of the challenges is when it was done At arena in 67, there were 63 actors in it. And what we were able to do, with the support of a wonderful casting director, Eli Dawson, is to take this play and focus it on 28 actors, which is still a huge number of actors.

[Molly Smith]

Yeah.

[Mahershala Ali]

Follow through on these 20 different characters. And I was reminded that in the program we even had a scene by scene breakdown. So you saw which characters were in each scene since they changed so often. So that was one challenge. Another challenge is we were doing it in the round, and that was the way it was originally done, which is like a boxing ring. Anyway, so right away you have. You have the correct metaphor. And Scott Bradley, who was our set designer, we really thought of it as a. As a huge circus, so we found ways to be able to stage it in that way. But I think there's something like 22, 24 scenes, a long period of time. And it also is in many distinct scenes. It's not like something where you go back a thousand times to this scene and this scene and this scene. So it's quite complicated from that perspective and the length of it. When it was originally at Arena Sage, it was four hours long. When it was done on Broadway, they cut the play by, oh, Gosh, I think 100 pages. So it ended up being three. And that was the version that we used.

[Molly Smith]

What about the language? Did any of that give you a pause?

[Mahershala Ali]

Oh, absolutely. It's liberal use of the N word, right? Absolutely. We really wanted to do it very much in its time period, and we actually had audience members who fought with us and said, my God, you've changed the play. I saw it in 67, and clearly you changed the language because of the liberal use of the N word. And we said, no, it is exactly the way it was done.

[Molly Smith]

I would think that another challenge for you was finding someone to play Jack Jefferson because James Earl Jones left such an indelible mark on that role.

[Mahershala Ali]

Absolutely. And we began our search for the role. And I spoke to Zelda Fitch Handler, who, of course created Arena Sage with her husband Tom, and with Ed Maung. And I said, who can you think of? And she said, there's only one person I can think of. And he has been a student of mine for. I think. I think it was in his junior year at that point, at nyu. And his name is Mahershala Ali. And so we brought Mahershala in to read. And I just immediately said, there's our lead.

[Molly Smith]

He was still a student.

[Mahershala Ali]

I think maybe he had just graduated, barely graduated.

[Molly Smith]

Wow.

[Mahershala Ali]

The play was. It was in the winter. And it may be that he wasn't there for the last semester. He came out for this, or he had just graduated. Anyway, it was his first major production after school.

[Molly Smith]

What was it that both you and she saw? Obviously, you saw it because he's gone on to great success. But what was it about him that made you say, yep, this is the guy?

[Mahershala Ali]

Magnetic personality. Super focused, very athletic, wonderful with language and this energy that was palpable in the room. And what was interesting about Mahershala is as we got into the rehearsal process, my stage manager and I, Sue White, kept saying, yes, he's wonderful for the stage. And it feels like he's a film and television actor. And that was because of his interior life that was so deep that we knew that the camera would pick up in a whole different way than the stage would. And within a few years, Mahershala was doing television and then of course, film. And he's just a superb actor.

[Molly Smith]

Yeah, yeah. What was the audience response to your revival? Obviously, the original production, from what I've read, really hit at Arena. What was the response to the revival?

[Mahershala Ali]

I think that the response to the revival was quite strong. There were some people who had seen the original, so of course they were comparing it back and forth.

[Jan Simpson]

Right.

[Mahershala Ali]

And it's always hard, your memory to what is on stage now. So people would be talking to me about what they liked in the production, what they didn't like in the production. And then as I said, there were a number of people that were saying, oh my God, know, you've changed the language. And of course we hadn't. And then there were many people who said, oh, my gosh, it feels as contemporary as can be. It feels very much of this time.

[Molly Smith]

Which makes me wonder if we took away the economics of it. Could that play work today?

[Mahershala Ali]

Oh, absolutely, I think it could. And there have been people who have looked at it in the past, and I think the piece that has stopped people is the number of actors.

[Molly Smith]

Yeah.

[Mahershala Ali]

That it's been. That's. That's really about people because it's beautifully written and it's an excellent play for actors to dig their teeth into. And for a number of actors that were playing many, many roles, they quite enjoyed it.

[Molly Smith]

We just don't have plays like that nowadays. That's sort of big. I think at the beginning of this epic kind of production, we just don't. This was such a big hit that I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about why we didn't see more plays from Howard Sackler.

[Mahershala Ali]

Oh, I don't know. I don't know. And, you know, it was unfortunate when the play went to Broadway because it was the first time that a play from the not for profit resident theater went to Broadway and half of the acting company went with it. So it just was a huge loss of talent for Arena Sage. And there was no acknowledgement of Arena Sage's part In making this huge play, which was like the size of a Manhattan phone book, there was no financial remuneration, nothing. I think that that caused Tom Schandler, who was, I believe, the head of the league of resident Theaters at that time, to sit down with his colleagues and figure out a contract so that whenever a production from the not for profit resident theaters went into New York, that there was both financial remuneration and also acknowledgement of the part that the theater has played. And of course, you know, the majority of plays now that end up on Broadway are coming out of the not for profit movement, which is ironic because our movement was created against New York productions, against what New York offers as a for profit entity. And now we've moved because of course, in any kind of organization, and I would call what we are in the not for profit movement, a huge organization across the country, there's change and transformation. And so we've changed in our attitudes. And I've found ways to really, with the for profit theater, I think of.

[Molly Smith]

It as particularly of this play as the one that showed that there was talent in the hinterlands, if you want to describe it that way, that the flow of talent didn't just go from Broadway to the rest of the country, but that there were talented playwrights and directors and actors out in the rest of the country that could make Broadway worthy and prize worthy work.

[Mahershala Ali]

I think you're exactly right. I think it shifted attitudes. Of course, you had James Earl Jones, you had Jane Alexander, you know, what a brilliant pairing for this production.

[Molly Smith]

Yeah. This play, I think, even though we don't get to see it as much, and I think some people would say the movie, although it did have Jane Alexander and James Earl Jones in it, the movie isn't quite as powerful as the stage production. Still, it is a really significant part of the theatrical canon, both for its artistry and also for maybe the way it helped to change the industry.

[Mahershala Ali]

Yeah, well, I think that's true. I think that this was really a critical turning point in the way in which the not for profit and for profit theaters work together. It was an aha moment. It was a critical turning point. And I also think that what happened with this is it highlighted what the not for profit resident theater movement was doing with new work, with the examination of new work. Very, very exciting in lots of ways. Even though it was a bloodletting at Arena Stage, Zelda had to rebuild the whole company. It was really a devastating time. And I think that's not what people think of when they think of this, they think, oh, it was a transfer. Everybody was happy. Everything worked out. Well, not the case at all.

[Molly Smith]

But as you say, the Lort theaters came together and created a new way forward. And it is now pretty much the model for how we get particularly plays on Broadway.

[Mahershala Ali]

Yep, you're exactly right. Sometimes you're in the middle of a lot of pain, and that change can transform the way people work. One of the wonderful things about this production in 2000 of the Great White Hope for the 50th anniversary is we had 28 actors, and the majority were from Washington, D.C. and so we were really able to showcase a whole company in Washington, D.C. even though arena no longer had a company. And there's something that happens in a theater when we move into something as huge, overwhelming, exciting, and epic as Great White Hope, and it happened both to us in 2000 and it also happened in 1967, is that the whole theater expands its lung size. And that's why I think taking on some of these great, epic classics is some of the most important work we can do in the theater.

[Molly Smith]

Yeah. Well, thank you for looking back at both the positives and the negatives, although I think the positives outweigh this with the Great White Hope. Thank you very, very much for talking with us about it.

[Mahershala Ali]

Thank you. A great interview, and I loved looking back and looking far back as well. So I appreciate it. Thanks.

[Molly Smith]

And thank you for listening. I hope you'll come back next time, and if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please send them to [e-mail].

[Jan Simpson]

This episode is dedicated to the memory and incomparable artistry of James Earl Jones.