A Study Guide for John Patrick's "The Curious Savage"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for John Patrick's "The Curious Savage", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781410393494

Book preview

17

The Curious Savage

John Patrick

1950

Introduction

The Curious Savage, by John Patrick, is a play about the elderly Ethel Savage, very young at heart, whose life has been revolutionized after the passing of her wealthy husband, who effectively left the estate in her hands. The play takes place in the Cloisters, a home for people whose life experiences have left them disconnected from the real world—not an ‘asylum,’ in Patrick's own phrasing in the foreword—which is where Mrs. Savage's three stepchildren have forcibly placed her. In their eyes, her recent behavior has been too erratic, and exactly what has become of the family fortune is an open question, one that becomes more pressing as the play proceeds.

Patrick earned recognition as a master craftsman for his prolific and ultimately profitable work as a playwright in several different media—radio, film, and the stage. The Curious Savage, the fifth of his dozens of stage plays, was first produced on Broadway in 1950 and published in 1951. Opening at the Martin Beck Theatre, the play had an initial run that lasted for only thirty-one performances—but with its loveable characters, nimble wit, and clever plotting, it went on to become one of the most popular modern-day selections for regional production in American history.

Author Biography

John Patrick Goggan Was Born On May 17, 1905, In Louisville, Kentucky, To Parents Who Largely Failed Him: He Was Abandoned By Both And Left To Be Raised In Successions Of Foster Homes And Boarding Schools. In His Recollection, The Boarding Schools Were Like Prisons; He Remembered Only Two Specific Schools, In Austin, Texas, And New Orleans, Louisiana. Resigning Himself To Homeless Life As A Teenager, He Made His Way Through Hobo Camps And Ended Up In San Francisco At Age Nineteen, Where He Eventually Managed To Gain A Post As An Announcer With Kpo Radio. It Was When He First Did Enough Writing To Earn Himself A Byline That He Legally Dropped His Last Name. From 1929 On, Patrick Wrote Hundreds Of Scripts For Cecil And Sally, a skit show that he performed with a coworker. Patrick switched to NBC Radio in 1933 and continued writing radio plays until 1936.

Patrick's first Broadway production came in 1935 with Hell Freezes Over, about an airship crash in Antarctica; reviewers were unanimously unimpressed, and the show lasted only twenty-five performances. Ironically, with one critic of the play, as cited in Patrick's Los Angeles Times obituary, writing, Back to the ashcan with this Hollywood writer—though Patrick