Plays

Abstract

Motivated by the high financial rewards available to the author of a long-running play, Conrad often dallied with the idea of writing for the theatre and at various times planned a number of adaptations of his fiction, alone or in collaboration, not all of which came to fruition. His one-act play One Day More, adapted from his short story ‘To-morrow’, was produced in London in 1905; according to one of Conrad’s letters. George Bernard Shaw, who was enjoying a considerable success as a dramatist at that time, was ‘enthusiastic’ (the same letter adds modestly, but not too modestly, ‘I don’t think I am a dramatist’). A limited edition appeared in 1919 and another edition (New York) in 1920. Another short story, ‘Because of the Dollars’, was dramatized by Conrad in 1921 under the title Laughing Anne; this play in two acts seems never to have been produced on the stage, though it was printed in 1923 and also filmed. Also in 1921 Conrad had privately printed a dramatization in four acts of his novel The Secret Agent, and a different version in three acts was produced in London in November of the following year. It ran for only a few performances, but Conrad claimed to be ‘affected … not at all’ by the unfavourable reviews it received: ‘I was amused by their touching unanimity in damning the play.