The Drunkard

The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved is an American temperance play first performed in 1844. A drama in five acts, it was perhaps the most popular play produced in the United States before the dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin  in the 1850s. In New York City, P.T. Barnum presented it at his American Museum in a run of over 100 performances. It was among the first of the American temperance plays, and remained the most popular of them until it was eclipsed in 1858 by T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.

The primary writer of the play was William H. Smith, who also directed and starred in the original production in Boston in the 184445 season. Smith was the stage manager at Moses Kimball's Boston Museum and a recovered alcoholic. An anonymous collaborator, believed to have been Unitarian minister John Pierpont, co-wrote the script.

In the 20th century

A production of The Drunkard opened at the Theatre Mart in Los Angeles in 1933 and ran for 36 years. At one point, Boris Karloff suggested adding an olio, a musical number following the performance, played in front of a olio drop.

The Drunkard (film)

The Drunkard (Greek: Ο μεθύστακας), is a 1950 Greek drama film written and directed by George Tzavellas. It was the highest grossing Greek film in 1950 selling 304.438 tickets.

Plot

Haralabos Lardis (Orestis Makris) is a poor cobbler in Plaka that has become a drunkard and the laughing stock of his neighborhood after the death of his son during the Greco-Italian War. His daughter Anna (Billy Konstadopoulou) falls in love with the son of her boss Alec Bakas (Dimitris Horn) and they plan to marry. Her father attempts to overcome his addiction not wanting to embarrass himself in front of the rich family of his future son in law but gets drunk before meeting the Bakas family. Realizing that he is an obstacle to his daughter's happiness he commits suicide bringing the two families closer.

Notes

The Drunkard was the first big commercial success in Greece. Finos Film established itself as the dominant film production company in Greece. With his iconic portlayal of the drunkard, Orestis Makris became one of the most important actors of Greek cinema.

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The Drunkard

by: Steeleye Span

Traditional
I will walk the streets up, I will walk the streets down
I will see the landlady dressed in a silk gown
With my elbows all out and my breeches without knees
You are the biggest vagabond that I ever did see.
Where I go so raggedy and you go so fine
It's of the good money you have took of mine
Ale and tobacco for you I have paid
If I ain't you'd have gone in your raggedy ways.
If I had a-listened to my old woman at the first
I might have had silver and gold in my purse
To maintain my wife and my children so small
But 'tis I, silly drunkard, have ruined them all.
I will cock up my hat as I had on before
And I'll go home to me wife and I'll love her no more
And the more I will beat her the more she will cry




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