"The Man Who Was Thursday" by The Mercury Theatre, 1 of 6

Part 1 - This is from a 1938 radio broadcast by the Mercury Theater On The Air of G.K. Chesterton's novel, "The Man Who Was Thursday (A Nightmare)" performed by The Mercury Players. Many of the people in this broadcast such as Joseph Cotton would later end up in Welles' big screen productions. Orson Welles plays the leading character Gabriel Syme. This production was well acted--John Houseman and Orson Welles managed to scale back the novel to fit a one hour time slot quite well. *The Man Who Was Thursday* is one of the best fantasy novels in the English language.

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• Orson
• Welles
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• GK
• Chesterton
• Man
• Who
• Was
• Thursday
• Christianity
• Mercury
• Theater

[chriscannotbecool]

@priapus56 the subtitle is "a nightmare"



[chriscannotbecool]

DO PEOPLE ALWAYS RECOGNIZE YOU DOES EVERY BODY ALWAYS KNOW WHO YOU ARE?

[chriscannotbecool]

@CliffTheMeerkat you should read descarte. then read plato and get ur mind blown again

[CliffTheMeerkat]

The Prisoner? The Avengers? Philip K Dick? The Matrix? Chesterton anticipated them all with this wildly original blend of spy thriller/comedy/allegory.

[gmdinformation]

@chriscannotbecool I'm not sure if that's correct, but it's interesting. I would guess that's the way Charles Williams viewed it. (He was a huge fan of Chesterton.) He didn't care for things that had no opposite. They didn't make sense in his world. But Chesterton you must remember, saw God in paradox. The fact that something had no opposite would have been a wink from the Creator as far as GKC was concerned.

[chriscannotbecool]

@Rageah0lic it's about eternal reoccurence. The need to have opposing forces in existence to justify existence itself. also alot of religious symbolism and other fun and interesting easter eggs.

[doctorpsycho1960]

I am, myself, an anarchist. I do not approve, however, of throwing bombs to kill people. Indeed, I am the sworn enemy of the sort of organization that builds almost all of the world's bombs, and throws almost all of them.

[gmdinformation]

@aelredtheless I think she is yet another Helen of Troy image. A symbol of universal beauty that is always sought after but never attained. Dante's Beatrice is another in the line. MacDonald's marble lady in Phantastes is another yet. And Cabell's Ettarre or Twain's Platonic Sweetheart. That is, she is symbolic of the Holy Other, in a sense God, and yet somehow not.

[aelredtheless]

@Rageah0lic Sunday was Jesus Christ. He was (is) in the business of reconciling the universe to God, and to itself.

What I wonder is who is Gregory's sister. Humanity? The Church?

[priapus56]

That's the trouble with the book..it is so "improbable" that to an admirer of the realist school of literature such as myself it is almost iritating.