John Colton and Clemence Randolph’s 1922 Adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s Rain
Posted: November 12th, 2016 | 1 Comment »I’ve blogged before about W. Somerset Maugham’s great Far East-set tale of prostitution, temptation and redemption, Miss (Sadie) Thompson – otherwise known as Rain, written in 1921. I had known that there was a Broadway adaptation of the short story by John Colton, who later in 1926 wrote the original stage play The Shanghai Gesture (of course filmed much later in 1941 by Josef von Sternberg).
Anyway, I came across a copy of the stage play version by Colton and Clemence Randolph the other day from 1923 (the play version first being staged in 1922)….
BTW: as you can see the play was first staged at the Maxine Elliot Theatre (note that the word ‘theatre’ was spelled correctly by Americans in the 1920s) in New York. I was not familiar with Maxine Elliot until a couple of weeks ago I read Mary S. Lovell’s new book The Riviera Set, the first half of which is bascially all about her wonderful life in America, London and the south of France.
Dear Mr. French,
Clemence Randolph was my grandmother. Unlike many other references to RAIN: A PLAY in THREE ACTS, the information you have sighted is accurate. A note: Maugham’s short story “Miss Thompson” was barely known until the three act play captured the people’s attention and elevated the short story’s place in literature. It was at that point that Maugham and his publisher changed the short story’s name to “Rain.”