The Green Goddess (play)

The Green Goddess was a popular stage play of 1921 by William Archer. In the three years after its publication, the play toured in both America and England. It was included in Burns Mantle's The Best Plays of 1920-1921.

The Green Goddess
Written by	William Archer
Date premiered	January 18, 1921
Place premiered	Booth Theatre New York City, New York
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	Remote area near the Himalayas

The 1921 Broadway production four-act melodrama was produced and staged by Winthrop Ames. It ran for 175 performances from January 18, 1921, to June 1921 at the Booth Theatre.

Broadway cast

• George Arliss as Raja of Rukh
• Ronald Colman as Temple Priest
• Ivan F. Simpson as Watkins
• Cyril Keightley as Dr. Basil Traherne
• David A. Leonard as High Priest
• Helen Nowell as An Ayah
• Herbert Ransome as Lt. Denis Cardew
• Herbert Waring as Major Antony Crespin
• Olive Wyndham as Lucilla

Adaptations

The play was the basis for both a 1923 silent film and a 1930 talkie. Star George Arliss and Ivan F. Simpson reprised their roles in both films, as the Raja of Rukh and his chief aide, respectively. In 1939, Orson Welles staged a version in New York, which was preceded by a short film prelude – this was two years before the release of his debut feature film, Citizen Kane. The footage is now believed lost. In 1943 a third film adaptation Adventure in Iraq was produced, with the setting shifted from India to the Middle East.

Things named after the play

Green Goddess salad dressing was invented in the 1920s, by the chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, to commemorate the actor George Arliss and this play.

In 1925 a railway locomotive was named after it, the locomotive's owner having been inspired by the stage play.

Bibliography

• Jeffrey Richards. Visions of Yesterday. Routledge, 2014.

External links

• Radio drama version by Orson Welles and his Campbell Playhouse (February 10, 1939)
• 1946 Theatre Guild on the Air radio adaptation at Internet Archive
• The Green Goddess at Faded Page (Canada) book by Louise Jordan Miln which was adapted based on Archer's play