Gentle Jack

by Robert Bolt

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

From IMDB.com:

Son of a small shopkeeper, he attended Manchester Grammar School. He later said that he made poor uses of his opportunities there. He went to work in an insurance office, but later entered Manchester University, taking a degree in History. A post-graduate year at Exeter University led to a schoolmaster's position, first at a village school in Devon, then for seven years at Millfield. During this time he wrote a dozen radio plays, which were broadcast. Encouraged by the London success of his stage play "Flowering Cherry" he left teaching for full-time writing. 1960 saw two of his plays ("The Tiger And The Horse" and "A Man For All Seasons") running concurrently in the West End.

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Bolt's Gentle Jack is his strangest, least successful play; its theatrical failure in 1963 (starring Kenneth Williams and Edith Evans, badly miscast in the lead roles) convinced Bolt to focus full-time on screenwriting, with only a few returns to the stage. Eschewing the naturalism of his earlier works, Jack presents a supernatural parable about Jacko Cadence, a meek office worker who's constantly ground down by co-workers, acquaintances, the flirtatious Penelope and his domineering boss, Violet Lazara. During a business trip to the countryside, Jacko falls in with the nature god Jack-of-the-Green, who invests Jacko with supernatural powers in exchange for giving up his material existence. Jacko finds his life and personality much improved by the change, but as ever there's a Faustian price for his freedom. Bolt's dramaturgy falls down because the first act is clogged with incidental characters, repetitive dialogue and a general lack of purpose; no wonder contemporary audiences snoozed through it. In the second act, the play picks up with Jack's appearance, a fascinating Pan-like figure whose complete amorality and flamboyant personality brings the show to belated life. Bolt presents some darkly amusing story beats in the second act, particularly when Jacko persuades a fusty old couple to divorce each other, before plunging into a tragic denouement. As a satire of modern life it doesn't really work, but as the blackest of comedies about Mankind's disconnect from its natural roots, Jack has some merits. Jack is a complete mess, overambitious and under-realized, but it's fascinating in the way so many messes by talented artists are.

[Cecilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange and creepy play that would require some pretty high production value. It's about man's place in nature and how far we've gone from it and whether that's a good thing or not.