The Gentle People

Gentle People, The (1939), a play by Irwin Shaw.[ Belasco Theatre, 141 perf.] Jonah Goodman (Sam Jaffe) and Philip Anagnos (Roman Bohnen) are gentle souls who would like nothing better than to fish off of the pier near their home. But their simple, idyllic life is threatened by a racketeer, Harold Goff (Franchot Tone), who demands protection money. Goff would also have Jonah's daughter, Stella (Sylvia Sydney), and when he learns the men have saved money to buy a small fishing boat, he would have that, too. So the men take Goff out in the boat, kill him, and throw him overboard but not before retrieving the money and additional sums from his wallet. Shaw called his work a “Brooklyn fable,” adding, “justice triumphs and the meek prove victorious over arrogant and violent men. The author does not pretend this is the case in real life.” Seen by some as an antifascist allegory, the Group Theatre production was dismissed by Brooks Atkinson as “pleasant, discursive writing” that had “the disadvantage of seeming a little uneventful.”