Seven American Nights -- The Plays

Nadan attends two different plays in the story: A Visit to a Small Planet and Mary Rose.

Visit to a Small Planet

Kreton, an alien from another dimension, visits America in hopes of seeing part of the Civil War. He has misjudged the time; it is the 20th century. He decides to provoke a war between America and Russia for his own amusement, playing on Cold War fears of both sides. In the end, another from his dimension comes for him, declaring him "morally retarded" and memories of his visit are erased. It was written by Gore Vidal as a satire during the McCarthy period.

It was drastically revised for a Jerry Lewis movie in 1960. The movie is available on YouTube.

The version presented to Nadan seems to have changed quite a bit from the original.

  1. There is telepathic communication with a cat, but no mention of cats making love. No back-screen projections are used for cat thoughts.
  2. There is no "summoning of the presidents" scene, and no representative of a foreign government making any appearance. Possibly this is a replacement for the television show reporting the news of the reaction to Kreton's war-provoking trick of levitating all the rifles in the world fifty feet off the ground. In a TV-free America, where Roger Spelding publishes scandalous broadsheets instead of being a TV personality, Kreton's powers would be the only way to get instant news.
  3. There is no toy airplane, though other things are levitated.
  4. There is no final perfumed handkerchief scene. Since time is reset rather than simply erasing memories, this wouldn't work in the original.

Why all these changes? Is Wolfe implying the original play has been edited over the years? Maybe this is a clue pointing to the revision of Nadan's diary itself.

Dramatis personae
Kreton -- Bobby O'Keene, former shill for a singing house
General Tom Powers -- former drayman
Roger Spelding, publisher of broadsheets -- former barber
Ellen Spelding, his daughter -- Ardis Dahl, former trollop
John Randolf (renamed from Conrad Mayberry), lover of Ellen -- Terry
Reba Spelding, wife of Roger -- unknown actress 1
Aide to General Powers -- unknown actor 1
Delton 4, alien keeper of Kreton -- unknown actor 2
Foreign President, "Turk" (new part, not in Vidal's play) -- unknown actor 3
President of the World Council (another new part) -- unknown actor 4

"Randolf" is a Norse name meaning "wolf shield" (for those playing "spot the hidden wolf").


Mary Rose

A young woman becomes engaged. Her family reveals to her fiance that she vanished for twenty days during a visit to a small island in the Hebrides, and when she reappeared no time had passed for her. Her interests remain stuck in childhood, never really growing up (the author, J.M. Barrie, also wrote Peter Pan). After a few years of marriage she and her husband revisit the island, and she vanishes again, this time for about 20 years. She comes back expecting her husband, parents, and child to still be the same, but they have all aged. In the end her ghost returns to the other world, after her grown son finally makes her understand what happened to her "lost baby."

Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make a movie from the play, but it was never produced. There is a Hitchcock script for "Mary Rose" here.

Robert Borski points out that "Mary Rose" is "a nifty inversion on Wolfe's wife's name, Rosemary" in his interpretation, "Far Plutonian Shore."

Dramatis personae
Mary Rose -- Ardis Dahl
Simon Blake, her husband -- Terry (later Nadan takes this role)
Mr. Morland, her father -- barber who played Roger Spelding
Mrs. Morland, her mother -- unknown actress 1, who played Reba Spelding
Mr. Amy, a clergyman friend of the family -- unknown, possibly the drayman who played General Powers
Harry, Mary Rose's grown-up son -- Bobby O'Keene (replaced once by Bill in the third act when Bobby was arrested)
Cameron, a Canadian guide to the mystery island -- unknown actor 1, who played the Aide
Mrs. Otery, caretaker of the old house -- unknown actress 2 (must be new)


Now that we have the details in place, it's time for an analysis. How do the plays tie into the story?

First, what is the trend of the play Mary Rose? The character played by Ardis is taken from her loved ones. Her husband, played in the end by Nadan, is powerless to stop this from happening. Although Mary Rose is a ghost by the end of the play, she is never a monster. The real monsters of the play are the "envious and greedy spirits" of the island, and Nadan identifies these with the audience. Ardis says of them: "They --we -- were betrayed. In our souls we have never been sure by whom. When we are cheated we are ready to kill; and maybe we feel cheated all the time."

How might they kill? We can look back to the first play, A Visit to a Small Planet. Superficially one might identify Nadan with Kreton, the alien tourist. His technology and wealth make him seem powerful and in control at first. But mapping back to the other role played by Terry, the part he plays is actually just Ellen's lover (appropriately renamed John), an American. In the play the Americans are nearly fooled into starting a world war by Kreton. If my theory of the background plot is correct, America is hoping to provoke a war between Iran and another country by causing a terrorist attack on the moon colony of New Tabriz and placing the blame elsewhere. So the roles are reversed. The Americans in this story are like Kreton, and the Iranians are like the Americans.

Only a last-minute message by Ellen brings in a deus-ex-machina ending to avert the war. If Nadan's mother can see through the false ending of the diary and expose the plot, then all will be well. We the readers are placed in that position also.

Both Mary Rose and Seven American Nights have a wrapper story about a mother seeking her lost son. The ghost of Mary Rose finds closure and peace when her son returns in a form she didn't expect to reveal what happened to him. The same may happen for Nadan's mother; in this case the diary is the voice of her son. The ghost of Ardis is also represented in the end by Yasmin, with her insubstantial pendant. The lovers of Nadan are seeking justice for what was done to him and to them.

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