About the Play:

The Power and the Glory is a full-length drama adapted for the stage by Denis Cannan with Pierre Bost from the Graham Greene novel of the same title. A Catholic priest who lives in Mexico at a time when the Mexican government strove to suppress the Catholic Church is the subject this adaptation of Graham Greene's novel. Named one of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century by Time magazine, it stands today as his masterpiece.

The Power and the Glory is a stunning portrait of both physical and spiritual survival by a master dramatist of the human soul, faithfully dramatized for the stage. In the revolutionary days of Mexico a priest decides to stay with his people in disguise rather than escape. It is little consolation, however. For wherever the priest goes with the Mass and the Sacraments, the police are sure to follow executing those who harboured him. Though he is a humanly weak priest, with a past of many sins, he has moments of strength. He steals a bottle of wine from a drunken official, and ends in prison. Released, he travels to another province where he is given food and clothes, and the people make religious processions. At ease again, he slips back into his old pleasures. At the moment of his escape, however, he chooses to go instead to a dying man. Here he is ambushed, and executed.

The Power and the Glory was first staged in 1956 at the Phoenix Theatre in London, directed by Peter Brook, with Paul Scofield playing the "whisky priest." In 1958, the play transferred to Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre in New York.

Cast: 9 female, 28 male

What people say:

"A wonderful play.... Straight into the heart of a sublime theme." — The New York Times

About the Playwright:

Graham Greene (1904-1991) was an English novelist and author regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, he wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Most of his novels have been filmed, including The Third Man, which the author first wrote as a film treatment. He was named Companion of Honour and received the Order of Merit among numerous other awards.

Denis Cannan (1919-2011) was an admired British dramatist, playwright and script writer. Best known for writing elegant, exhilarating and somewhat fantastical comedies about the absurdities of love and war, which were a big success in the West End and enabled him to give up his first career as a repertory actor.

Pierre Bost (1901-1975) was a French screenwriter, novelist, and journalist. Primarily a novelist until the 1940s, he was known mainly as a screenwriter after 1945.