Full Evening, 65 minutes music
19 November 1936, New York, Group Theater, 44th Street Theatre, Lee Strasberg, dir., Lehman Engel, cond. (68 performances)
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Morris Carnovsky, who played Dr. Mahodan in the original production, discusses the psychiatrist scene
It is April 1917, in a small-town square somewhere in middle America. The villagers gather to unveil a monument carved by the local stonecutter, Johnny Johnson. The Mayor reminds them that President Woodrow Wilson has declared America must stay out of foreign wars (). Minny Belle Tompkins, Johnny’s sweetheart, reads an original poem in honor of peace (), though her Grandpa Joe recalls his Civil War combat with unseemly relish (). Then a messenger delivers President Wilson’s declaration of war. The whole town, except Johnny, is instantly inflamed with a mindless martial spirit. Even weakling Anguish Howington, Johnny’s rival for Minny Belle’s affections, vows he will enlist. Johnny finally unveils his monument after everyone exits; it is inscribed to “Peace.”
A few days later, Aggie, Minny Belle’s widowed mother, discusses Johnny with Grandpa Joe as she sews (). Johnny gives a locket with his picture to Minny Belle, who receives it rapturously (). But when Johnny tells her he’s not sure he wants to go to war, Minny Belle breaks their engagement. After studying Wilson’s declaration, Johnny decides to join up after all. At the recruiting station the next day, Captain Valentine reads a movie magazine () while Anguish takes his physical. After he is rejected, Valentine and his staff examine Johnny. His unorthodox replies cause him to flunk the intelligence test, and two hulking privates throw him out. But when Johnny knocks one of them flat with a single punch, Captain Valentine inducts him after all. Despite Johnny’s incompetence at basic training (, ), he is sent to France. As the troop ship passes the Statue of Liberty, Johnny addresses the statue, hailing the ideals she represents. As he falls asleep, she explains that she is merely an inanimate symbol, misused to send young men off to die ().
As the newly arrived American soldiers walk toward the front lines, a cortege of lame and blind French soldiers stumble away (). The new soldiers settle into the trenches with their British counterparts, and Johnny brings tea (). At nightfall, one homesick soldier sings of Texas (), and Johnny dreams of Minny Belle (). Three cannon muzzles take center stage and sing to the sleeping soldiers, saying that they are only metal that might have been put to better use ().
Johnny sets out at dawn to find a pesky German sniper and captures him. Since the young man speaks English, Johnny encourages him to stoke resistance to the war among the rank and file and sends him back to enemy lines. Captain Valentine appears and tries to gun down the sniper over Johnny’s objections. When the Germans return fire, Johnny is shot in the buttocks.
A flirtatious French nurse tends to Johnny in the hospital (). A doctor enters with a canister of laughing gas, but he loses track of it when the Sister enters. Shocked by his lack of fervor, she accuses Johnny of treason; he subdues her with laughing gas and sneaks out with the canister. Later the same night the Allied commanders convene in a splendid chateau. The generals plan strategy, casually discussing the thousands of lives that will be lost (). Suddenly Johnny appears and announces that the German soldiers are ready to call a truce. As the generals try to seize him, Johnny releases the laughing gas. The commanders collapse in hilarity () and send Johnny back to the front lines with an order ending the war, but they revoke it the instant the gas wears off.
Johnny rushes to the battlefield and proclaims the end of hostilities. Despite the joyful reaction from both sides, Johnny is accused of spying and an order is given to continue fighting. Over renewed shellbursts, an American and a German priest simultaneously intone prayers (). When the smoke clears, Johnny is arrested and returned to America.
Johnny is committed to a mental hospital, where the chief psychiatrist, Dr. Mahodan, extols modern psychiatric methods (). He tells Minny Belle that Johnny is suffering from “peace monomania” and must remain indefinitely. Ten years pass. Johnny helps form a debating society () in which each inmate resembles a well-known American statesman. They vote for a Wilsonian “League of World Republics,” and Dr. Frewd–another patient–leads them in the . The hospital directors, accompanied by Anguish (now a benefactor), enter the room on an inspection tour. The directors tell him that Johnny is soon to be released. Anguish coldly informs Johnny that he married Minny Belle years earlier.
In the final scene, a prematurely aged Johnny stands on a street corner hawking handmade toys while a war rally goes on in a nearby stadium. As the roar from the stadium grows louder, Johnny lifts his voice in a song of hope against the cruelty and dishonesty all around him ().
Kurt Weill Edition, Series I, volume 13
(full score and libretto with critical report)
Arranged and orchestrated by Gene Pritsker.
