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Play of the Week Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
35 Episodes 1959 - 1960
Episode 1
Medea
Mon, Oct 12, 1959120 mins
A betrayed queen takes a terrible revenge.
Episode 2
The Power and the Glory
Mon, Oct 19, 1959
A cynical catholic priest is sent to Mexico to preach. It's the 30's and Mexican government sees the church as competition. They send a secret agent to assassinate the priest.
Episode 3
Burning Bright
Mon, Oct 26, 1959100 mins
The young wife of an aging man who is desperate for a child suspects that he is sterile. Because she loves him and wants to please him by bearing him a child, she becomes pregnant by his young assistant.
Episode 4
Back to Back: The Dock Brief and What Shall We Tell Caroline?
Mon, Nov 2, 1959100 mins
Double bill: A failure of a barrister plots his court tactics with his client, a wife killer. A headmaster and wife infantilise their 17 year old daughter.
Episode 5
A Month in the Country
Mon, Nov 9, 1959
In this rendering of the Turgenev play, a woman toys with the affections of a young admirer while spending a month at a country estate.
Episode 6
The Waltz of the Toreadors
Mon, Nov 16, 1959
The elderly General St. Pe contemplates his memoirs. Unfortunately, his private life is a disaster - his wife, once beautiful, is now a shrewish hypochondriac, whilst the beautiful French girl he has never quite managed to seduce is starting to look elsewhere.
Episode 7
The White Steed
Mon, Nov 23, 1959
Father Shaughnessy forms a vigilante committee to stamp out sin, which includes interfaith marriages, breaking up the engagement of a schoolmaster to Nora Fintry, a Protestant.. Nora is determined to fight the priest.
Episode 8
Crime of Passion
Mon, Nov 30, 1959120 mins
Hugo, a young Communist, must make a choice whether or not to do the party's bidding or suffer the fate of a dissenter.
Episode 9
Simply Heavenly
Mon, Dec 7, 1959
The time: Present - the place: Harlem, U.S.A. - the play: SIMPLY HEAVENLY a delightful musical-comedy about a handful of Harlemites...their joys, their quarrels. their crises, their cares. Rich in humor, high in spirits, scintillating in song, SIMPLY HEAVENLY is an experience you won't want to miss...on this weeks "Play of the Week."
Episode 10
World of Sholom Aleichem
Mon, Dec 14, 1959
Sholom Aleichem composed comic, poignant tales of Jewish life in the ghettos of Eastern Europe. His story, "The High School," is dramatized in this two-hour offering, along with I. L. Peretz's fantasy, "Bontche Schweig," and the folk story, "A Tale of Chelm." Arnold Perl dramatized the stories; Sam Levene, as Mendele the Bookseller, introduces them. 1. "A Tale of Chelm." The wisest man in a town of fools buys a goat. Confusion ensues. 2. "Bontche Schweig" dies and goes to heaven. The angels wonder how to reward this patient soul, plagued by misfortune all his life. 3. "The High School." A Jewish mother fights to enroll her son in the regular town school.
Episode 11
Thieves Carnival
Mon, Dec 21, 1959
Jean Anouilh's comedy about three thieves who invade the palatial summer home of a wealthy old woman. Romance blooms between the youngest thief and one of the two young girls that reside there.
Episode 12
The Cherry Orchard
Mon, Dec 28, 1959120 mins
Madame Ranevskaya is a spoiled aging aristocratic lady, who returns from a trip to Paris to face the loss of her magnificent Cherry Orchard estate after a default on the mortgage. In denial, she continues living in the past, deluding herself and her family, while the beautiful cherry trees are being axed down by the re-possessor Lopakhin, her former serf, who has his own agenda.
Episode 13
The Closing Door
Mon, Jan 4, 1960120 mins
Vail Traherne, once a renowned photographer, is now unemployed.. Only his racetrack friend Ollie knows where he gets the money he brings home to his family.
Episode 14
The Emperor's Clothes
Mon, Jan 11, 1960
Viveca Lindfors and George Voskovec star in "The Emperor's Clothes," by George Tabori. Set in Budapest, at Christmas time, 1930. Elek Odry, a teacher blacklisted by the government, earns a meager living translating American Western stories. Still able to enjoy himself, he uses the stories as a background for games he plays with his delighted son, Ferike. His wife, longing for the prosperous, bygone days, contacts an old suitor who promises to help Elek regain a teaching position.
Episode 15
Lullaby
Mon, Jan 18, 1960
In Don Appel's comedy a truck driver eloped with a nightclub cigarette girl, who has known for three days, to escape from his dominating mother.
Episode 16
Strindberg on Love
Mon, Jan 25, 1960
Adaptations of two separate one act plays for the stage by August Strindberg. The usual English translations from the Swedish are "Miss Julie" and "The Stronger." Each is a two character play.
Episode 17
Juno and the Paycock
Tue, Feb 2, 1960
During the Irish Civil War in 1922, a family earns a big inheritance. They start leading a rich life, forgetting what the most important values are.
Episode 18
Tiger at the Gates
Mon, Feb 8, 1960
Everyone in Troy is most anxious that the Trojan War will not take place. But it grows inevitable.
Episode 19
Don Juan in Hell
Mon, Feb 15, 1960
Finding himself in Hell - where boredom, rather than eternal fire, is the punishment for sinners - Don Juan begins a philosophical debate with the Devil.
Episode 20
A Very Special Baby
Mon, Feb 22, 1960
Drama by Robert Alan Aurthur. The "baby" is 34-year-old Joey Casale, youngest son of a self-made millionaire. Joey's older sister Anna has always taken care of Joey and the big house. Now she wants to sell the house and enjoy herself. It seems Joey and an old Army buddy, Carmen, are going to set up a business of their own. "Just another of Joey's dreams," Papa declares. "He's a kid yet. He has lots of time." Originally a television play, "A Very Special Baby" was adapted for Broadway in 1956.
Episode 21
Climate of Eden
Mon, Feb 29, 1960
"I believe you're mad," 14-year-old Olivia tells her cousin Gregory, "but I'm going to try to get you better." The young man is visiting the family headed by his missionary uncle, hoping the spiritual leader and the peaceful life of a British Guiana village will assist him in conquering the horror of a past incident in his life. Reverend Harmston, a "practical missionary," offers his nephew a share in the rather unorthodox pleasures he encourages on the island. Olivia's main remedy is an offer of her older sister Mabel as a wife for Gregory. The play was produced on Broadway in 1952.
Episode 22
Volpone
Mon, Mar 7, 1960
Volpone, an elderly Venetian, connives with his money-crazed servant to convince his greedy friends that he is dying, knowing that each will try to curry favor with him in order to be named his heir. He is inundated with valuable gifts, and soon finds himself entangled deeper and deeper in a web of lies.
Episode 23
The Rope Dancers
Mon, Mar 14, 1960
"To work is to pray," the harsh-tongued Margaret Hyland maintains to her young daughter Lizzie in their bleak tenement apartment. Lizzie, a frail child, mysteriously kept out of school because she is "sick," listlessly praises her mother's hard work and cleanliness. But when Lizzie is alone and her father, estranged from his wife,appears, she runs joyously to him. Though jobless and hungry, the father loves life and all the "smells of humanity." The play was produced on Broadway in 1957.
Episode 24
The Master Builder
Mon, Mar 21, 1960
A successful, ego-maniacal architect who has spent a lifetime bullying his wife, employees and mistresses wants to make peace as his life approaches its final act.
Episode 25
The Grass Harp
Mon, Mar 28, 1960
After his mother's death, Collin Fenwick goes to live with his father's cousins, the wealthy, avaricious, and controlling Verena Talbo, and her compliant, earthy sister Dolly. When a city slicker comes to town and convinces Verena to market Dolly's locally-famous tonic, Dolly finally gets some backbone, refuses to divulge the formula, and heads for a tree house with Collin and Catherine, the loyal maid. Verena, who has most of the town in her pocket, sics the law on the renegades. Dolly, Catherine, and Collin find a supporter in a retired judge, Charlie Cool, who's attracted to Dolly. Will Verena's venom win out? And what about that city slicker?
Episode 26
A Palm Tree in a Rose Garden
Mon, Apr 4, 1960
Rose Frobisher, an aging beauty queen who reveres the glamor of Hollywood, where she now manages a boarding house catering to young people who want movie fame. Her serious-minded daughter Lila has disappointed her and the only outlet for Mrs. Frobisher's aspirations is in directing the lives of her boarders, who have at least as much career trouble as she once had. The play appeared off-Broadway in 1957.
Episode 27
The Enchanted
Mon, Apr 11, 1960
Officials in a provincial French town gather to investigate charges that a subversive ghost is at work in the community.
Episode 28
The Girls in Room 509
Mon, Apr 18, 1960120 mins
Two eccentric ladies, staunch Republicans who cling to the glories of the past, have created a series of elaborate devices to shut the present out of their lives. They've retreated to a hotel apartment at the beginning of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Now their armor is due for a dent when one of them gets a yen to have a man around the house.
Episode 29
Morning's at Seven
Mon, Apr 25, 1960
In a small Midwestern town the lives of four sisters are turned upside down when one sister's son brings his fiancée home to meet his eccentric family for the first time.
Episode 30
Night of the Auk
Mon, May 2, 1960
A play in blank verse by Arch Oboler. It is a science fiction drama about space travelers returning to Earth after the first Moon landing. Based on the 1945 radio play "Rocket from Manhattan."
Episode 31
A Piece of Blue Sky
Mon, May 9, 1960
An intimate view of the problems besetting a group of Bronx neighbors during the depression. Antonette Verga, clinging to religion as a bulwark against cata-strophe, tries to help Katy Costello, who is addicted to liquor and Russ Colombo records. Katy is planning to leave her husband who has withdrawn from the world--he does nothing all day but sit in a living-room chair and wait for a phone call.
Episode 32
Archy and Mehitabel
Mon, May 16, 1960120 mins
Archy, a cockroach who had been a free-verse poet in a previous life, tries to reform his friend Mehitabel, an alley cat who believes in free love.
Episode 33
Mary Stuart
Mon, May 23, 1960
Mary, deposed Queen of Scotland, has been a prisoner in England for many years. Her presence has proved both an embarrassment and a danger to Elizabeth. Rumors abound concerning plots to free Mary and set her on Elizabeth's throne, now learns that she has been sentenced to death. Only Elizabeth's mercy can save her.
Episode 34
The Grand Tour
Mon, May 30, 1960
A schoolteacher from Bridgeport, CT inherits some money and promptiy arranges a trip abroad. On the ship she meets a young banker and decides he'd be the man to handle her investments.
Episode 35
The House of Bernarda Alba
Mon, Jun 6, 1960120 mins
A domineering, reclusive and ostentatiously pious widow in a small Spanish town keeps such close watch on her daughters that they are unable to have normal social lives. However, the eldest is allowed to become engaged to an unprincipled young man, primarily for the financial advantages it will bring the mother, Bernarda. Jealousy and envy ensues among the other daughters.