Anna Lucasta

Anna Lucasta (1944), a drama by Philip Yordan. [Mansfield Theatre, 957 perf.] The African‐American beauty Anna Lucasta ( Hilda Simms) has been thrown out of her Pennsylvania home and has become a prostitute in Brooklyn waterfront dives. When she tries to give up this life by returning home and rehabilitating herself, she falls in love with Rudolph ( Earle Hyman), a young boy from the South. They marry, but then her past is exposed. Anna flees, returning to her old Brooklyn haunts, but Rudolph follows her there and assures her that the past means nothing to him. Many critics saw Anna Lucasta as a latter‐day Anna Christie. Although the basic story is similar, O'Neill had concentrated on his three principal characters, while the effectiveness of Yordan's drama came from richly drawn minor figures. The Chicago‐born Philip YORDAN (1914–2003) had been a successful film writer, and this was his only Broadway success. He originally conceived the principals as Poles, but when he failed to find a producer, he gave the play to the American Negro Theatre Company to mount. It was their production that was brought to Broadway.