Jack Richardson
Jack Richardson was an American playwright whose career took off in 1960 with the Off-Broadway success of his play *The Prodigal*, which garnered international attention and critical acclaim, including an Obie Award and a Vernon Rice Award for Drama. Drawing inspiration from German existential philosophy during his time in Munich, the play reinterprets the classical Orestes myth within a contemporary framework. Following his initial triumph, Richardson wrote *Gallows Humor*, a psychological drama about a murderer and an executioner, which also received a positive, albeit more measured, critical response. Despite this promising start, his subsequent Broadway productions, including *Lorenzo* and *Xmas in Las Vegas*, struggled with poor attendance and harsh reviews, leading him to step away from playwriting.
Before his theatrical career, Richardson had a varied background, including service in the army and studying philosophy at Columbia University, where he graduated with honors. After leaving the stage, he shifted to novel writing, producing *The Prison Life of Harris Filmore* and the autobiographical *Memoir of a Gambler*, both of which were met with favorable reviews. Richardson's journey reflects the challenges and complexities faced by playwrights in the competitive landscape of American theater.
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Subject Terms
Jack Richardson
Playwright
- Born: February 18, 1935
- Birthplace: New York, New York
Biography
Jack Richardson’s play writing career began auspiciously in 1960 when The Prodigal appeared Off-Broadway and attracted international attention. The play, written while he was in Munich with his wife, Anne Grail Roth, studying German existential philosophers, is based on the classical story of Orestes’ dilemma when his father, Agamemnon, returned to Greece after a long absence. Richardson sets the Orestes myth in a contemporary context.
The reception of the play placed Richardson among the most promising younger American playwrights. The Prodigal received an Obie and a Vernon Rice Award for Drama. On the basis of this beginning, Richardson in 1963 received both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Brandeis University Creative Writing Award.
A native New Yorker, Richardson was the son of Arthur and Marjorie Richardson. After high-school graduation in 1951, he spent the summer playing stock in the Grist Mill Playhouse in Andover, New Jersey. In the fall, he studied acting at the American Theater Wing, but stopped when it became apparent to him that his talent lay elsewhere.
He served in the army from 1951 to 1954, first in Korea, then in Frankfurt, Germany, and Paris, France, where he attended classes at the University of Paris. Returning home, he entered Columbia University as a philosophy major and completed a bachelor’s degree with honors in two and a half years. He was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
The success of The Prodigal demanded that Richardson follow it with a new play, which he did in 1961 with Gallows Humor, a drama that examines the psychological and emotional reactions of a murderer about to be executed and the person who will serve as executioner. The play suggests that the two virtually become one. Richardson turned this play, also presented Off-Broadway, into a modern morality play. Critics responded favorably but with more restraint than they expressed in reviewing The Prodigal.
Richardson could now attract backing for the production of his next play, Lorenzo, on Broadway, where it ran for just four performances, a far cry from the 167 performances of The Prodigal and the forty performances of Gallows Humor. Lorenzo brought Richardson runner-up status for the Saturday Review’s Most Promising Playwright Award, but the critics were merciless in their reviews.
Despite this, Richardson found backers for one more Broadway production, this time of his loosely autobiographical play, Xmas in Las Vegas, which also ran for four performances, and elicited more vitriolic reviews that anything Richardson had done to date. At this point, Richardson ceased writing drama altogether, although one nonprofessional production of a play he had written earlier, As Happy as Kings, was staged by the New Theater Workshop. He published a novel, The Prison Life of Harris Filmore, which was well received, and began writing an autobiographical novel, Memoir of a Gambler. It was published in 1979 to favorable reviews.