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Cry Havoc

Cry Havoc
Your Price: $18.95 CDN
Author: Allan R. Kenward
Publisher: Samuel French (cover may change)
Format: Softcover
# of Pages: 123
Pub. Date: 1971
Edition: Acting
ISBN-10: 0573630038
ISBN-13: 9780573630033
Cast Size: 13 female

About the Play:

Cry Havoc is a full-length drama by Allan R. Kenward. Hailed as a female Journey's End, this is the story of the struggle of 13 brave women who volunteered as Army nurses in the Bataan area of the Philippines during World War II. The play, written prior to the historical Bataan Death March in 1943, paints a fierce picture of the darker side of war and the grim drama of doomed women.

Cry Havoc takes the audience on a journey through the lives of 13 volunteer nurses working to survive and help others on the Bataan Peninsula in World War II. The title comes from a famous line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war." In a makeshift dugout subjected to gunfire the individual characters emerge to offer a collective reaction to war. These include the strong minded doctor, her restrained and poised assistant and the volunteer nurses: a vacuous Southern girl, a swaggering bully, a couple of timid aesthetes, an ex-burlesque girl and the inevitable spy. They get on each other's nerves, arrest the wrong person for spying and confront the real traitor. They are rescued from their buried dugout only to face the firing squad. This is a compelling, caustic revelation of human beings under fire.

Cry Havoc had pre-Broadway engagement in 1942 at Beachwood Studio Theatre in Hollywood. But the planned film version had a priority on that title. The play was renamed Proof Thro' the Night and premiered later that year at the Morosco Theatre on Broadway in New York City and was later presented as Cry Havoc on the West Coast and on road tours. The play features a rare all-female cast and has been performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 13 female

About the Playwright:

Allan R. Kenward (1907-2001) was a Canadian-born, Hollywood-based American writer, director, and actor. He had his beginnings as an actor member of the Berkeley Playmakers in the 1930s and is best known for his only play Cry Havoc, which was adapted for the film of the same name.