Sun‐Up

Sun‐Up (1923), a play by Lula Vollmer. [Provincetown Playhouse, 356 perf.] Widow Cagle ( Lucille La Verne), a North Carolina mountain woman whose son is fighting in World War I, discovers that the stranger ( Eliot Cabot) she has been harboring is not only a deserter but is the son of the man who killed her moonshining husband. When she learns that her son has died in the war, the widow determines to kill the deserter. However, as she is about to pull the trigger, the voice of her son warns her that his own death came from such blind hatred and that killing the stranger will serve no purpose. She changes her mind and even refuses to turn the man over to the sheriff. Instead she will spend her remaining years alone, but in peace. She tells her son's voice, “I'm a knowin' God A'mighty is a takin' keer of ye.” Although Vollmer worked for the Theatre Guild, she was unable to get that company to produce the play. Minor producers finally took a chance with it, but its fine reviews and immediate success prompted Lee Shubert to move it to the Princess Theatre. The play was revived Off Broadway in 2003.