Mister Roberts Notes on the Production
THE ART OF WAR
Since the beginning, war stories have made their impact (both good and bad) on American culture, but regardless of the controversies, they are some of the most well loved stories we have. Soldiers’ stories have been bestsellers and blockbusters, turned into plays, novels, films, and even television series. In 1927, a war film, Wings, was the first film to win an Oscar for Best Picture. In 1948, Mister Roberts became the first play to win Best Play at the Tony Awards. In 1950, Roberts co-author and director Joshua Logan went on to win the second Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to a musical for South Pacific. In 1983, the series finale of M*A*S*H set the record as the most-watched episode in American television history, drawing 106 million viewers. For thousands of years, war has shaped societies world wide, and, from Aeschylus to Mister Roberts, societies have responded with art that has rivaled the importance of the war it portrays.
FROM PAGE TO STAGE TO SCREEN
Mister Roberts, about the USS Reluctant, a sluggish cargo ship during World War II, began as a collection of bestselling short stories in 1946, became a Tony award-winning play in 1948, and then turned into an Oscar award-winning film in 1955, with a sequel in 1964 and a brief run as a sit-com in 1965, not to mention a made-for-TV movie in 1984 and, of course, countless runs on stages nationwide. Author Thomas Heggen, who began the novel during his own service on a cargo ship, originally wanted to write stories of his home life until a friend pointed out that all the material he needed was right there in front of him. His friend was right; soldiers’ accounts of war have become bestsellers and blockbusters. In the past century, the United States went from the World Wars to the Cold War to the Iraq War, and Heggen’s story as well as many others have remained relevant and are frequently revived and adapted. War’s life or death situations, action, and high emotion lend them to many mediums, and many war films that are well known today began as novels and plays.
Many World War II combat films took novels as their inspiration, such as The Guns of Navarone in 1961. In fact, the film of Guns inspired the novel’s author, Alistair MacLean, to write a bestselling sequel: Force 10 From Navarone, which added new characters from the Guns movie and was in turn adapted for the silver screen in 1978. In the 1940s, Joshua Logan would help author both Mister Roberts and South Pacific, two collections of short stories written by soldiers and transformed into award-winning plays and films. Henry Fonda, the original Mister Roberts, would go on to originate the role of Lt. Barney Greenwald in the Broadway production of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, a Pulitzer Prize winning war novel turned play turned film. Nor was Mister Roberts the only story to become a sit-com during the Vietnam War era. Stalag 17, a popular WWII play turned film, joined it as Hogan’s Heroes in 1965.
Just as Athens watched The Persians in 472 BCE, America watched 300, a film about the Persian Wars, in 2006. An experience that generations have shared, war is easily translatable across mediums and years. Mister Roberts remains one of the most adapted of its WWII brethren, its story of bored soldiers reaching audiences during times of war and times of peace, from the novel in 1946 to this production in 2009.
FROM TEDIUM TO APATHY AND BACK
What does it mean to be a hero? The soldiers in Mister Roberts operate a Navy cargo vessel, listlessly delivering supplies far away from any actual fighting. These men do not fit the traditional idea of heroes. In war, a hero is the man in combat, fighting for what he knows is right, willing to lay down his life for his country. Yet Roberts was a best seller, so beloved by fighting soldiers that 800 servicemen showed up to audition for the show. Some of the most memorable war stories of all times have turned out to be these stories of outsiders, those who never reached the battlefields.
- The Trojan Women and Lysistrata: Euripides’ tragedy and Aristophanes’ comedy look through women’s eyes to protest war. Euripides uses the Trojan women’s mourning over their lost husbands and sons to remind his audience of war’s cost. Aristophanes takes a proactive approach; the women in Lysistrata end their war by refusing sex with their husbands until the fighting is called off. It worked.
- Don Quixote: Said by many to be the greatest modern novel, Cervantes’ story follows a man obsessed with the question of heroism, determined to be a knight even if he only battles windmills. He dreamed the impossible dream, and in 1966 the musical, Man of La Mancha, won five Tony Awards.
- All My Sons: Arthur Miller’s 1947 play won him the first Tony Award for Best Author and put the playwright on the map. All My Sons looks at a family struggling with the consequences of World War II, having lost a son, and steadily losing faith in a father who may have sold faulty parts to the army.
- Catch 22: The protagonist of Joseph Heller’s 1961 satirical novel, Yossarian, spends the book doing all he can to escape military service. This great novel of the 20th century owes a debt to Mister Roberts. Along the way, Yossarian meets the unfortunately named Major Major Major Major, who has suffered all his life for his resemblance to Henry Fonda, who won a Tony for his iconic portrayal of Roberts.
- First Blood: Rambo became a defining action hero of the eighties, but his story is truly one of an outsider. A Vietnam vet returned home, he spends First Blood fighting against the citizens of the town of Hope (who want to arrest him) and even the National Guard.
- The Dirty Dozen: This World War II combat film centers around a group of men who are the opposite of heroes: not only are they rapists, thieves, and murderers only training for a suicide mission in order to escape death row, but also their nickname comes from not being allowed to wash. In the end, though, these dirty deviants saved the day and shot to the top of the box office in 1967.
- Saving Private Ryan: This Spielburg film goes deep into the heart of combat (it’s opening 24 minute battle sequence is legendary for its realism and intensity), but its core mission is an unusual one. Tom Hanks and fellow soldiers must defy all odds to bring Private Ryan out of WWII so that his mother will not lose all four of her sons to the war. This story of risking it all to bring a soldier out of a war zone is considered to be one of the best war films of all time.
IN THE NAVY
In 1943, the United States had been in World War II for two years, with two years remaining. The millions of Americans still at home walked past constant reminders of the war, posters encouraging them to buy war bonds, grow liberty gardens, and enlist with Uncle Sam. Henry Fonda, the future star of Mister Roberts in Broadway and Hollywood, was attempting to enlist in the army, but was prevented from boarding his training bus by film producer Daryl Zanuck, who wanted him to play soldier in a new film before going off to fight. Joshua Logan, the future co-author and director, was identifying aircraft for an army camp in North Carolina, and using his Broadway clout to get his staff tickets to Oklahoma!. 1943 was also the year that the USS Virgo AKA-20 was being built off the coast of New Jersey. It would soon be the home of Lieutenant Thomas Heggen, who would spend his fourteen months aboard the ship writing down his experiences in the form of short stories, the beginning of his novel, Mister Roberts.
The USS Virgo AKA-20 was a cargo vessel in the Pacific Theater from 1943 through the end of the war. Much of the cargo delivered during World War II was transported by the Merchant Marine, a fleet of civilian ships that assists the Navy during wartime. The Virgo, though, was an official part of the U.S. Navy, its AKA designation signifying that the ship was an Attack Cargo Ship, intended to deliver needed food and supplies to fighting ships and to Navy posts on Pacific islands, but also capable of attacking the enemy when encountered. Though the ship did occasionally assist other ships during attacks by the Japanese, earning it seven battle stars, the Virgo saw very little action itself, often escaping without any damage at all. Though the Virgo’s medical department accepted many casualties from other ships, only three of the Virgo's men died, one from enemy action, one from a loading accident, and one who drowned while taking a swim.
Most of what the Virgo did was travel from Pearl Harbor to various Pacific islands and back transferring supplies, which ranged from personnel to food to ammunition to barbed wire to bulldozers. At times they repaired damage on other ships and treated wounded soldiers. On days it was not loading or unloading cargo, the ship most often simply sailed. The soldiers ran training exercises, took shifts as watchmen, screened any films they had on board at night, gambled, and brewed makeshift alcohol. Occasionally the captain would allow them off the boat to enjoy liberty, a few days of recreational time on solid ground, but most often they were stuck on the ship for months at a time. Though they fulfilled a necessary duty in the war, they were hardly at the center of the conflict. Yet when director Joshua Logan, who spent time in Europe as an intelligence officer, first read the novel, he remarked, “it was talking to me about my war, the boredom and the idiocy of it, and I felt it was written with a poetic lucidity seldom found anymore,” (Logan 195). Henry Fonda, returning from service in the Pacific, agreed, breaking a contract to star in a film in order to play the main character. Eight hundred servicemen showed up to audition for the crew. The USS Virgo may not have faced much combat, but Thomas Heggen’s experiences on the ship touched many who read and saw Mister Roberts.
Want to know more about the ship? Check out its website! http://www.uss-virgo.com/
References:
1 New York Times; Feb 19, 1948; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times, p. 27.2
2 Official U.S. Navy Photograph, Photo # NH 97301, Naval Historical Center.
3 Logan, Joshua. Josh: My Up and Down, In and Out Life. London: W.H. Allen, 1977
Notes on the Production by Allison Rock