whole. Anything less is capitalistic propaganda: “guilt is a sociological accident.” Eliphaz, a Freudian psychiatrist, offers J.B. a diatribe about the illusion of guilt: Men are victims of ignorance, not guilt. There is liberation in assigning responsibility for one’s trials and tribulations to lack of knowledge instead of sin. Finally, Zophar, a theologian, tries to convince J.B. that guilt is an inevitable part of personhood: His “sin” was simply being born a man. J.B. rejects all of their panaceas, finding the words of Zophar most horrendous, for he truly wants to vindicate God and absolve him as the source of his misfortune—even if it means “earning his suffering” to uncover the answer.

In scene 10, at the moment that J.B. reaffirms his faith in God’s righteousness, justice, and mercy, God speaks—in the form of a disembodied voice over the public address system at the circus grounds. To J.B.’s incredulity, God speaks not to comfort or console, but to question J.B.’s presumption in trying to instruct him. Humbled by God’s chastening, J.B. confesses his sin. Stepping out from behind the Satan mask, Nickles speaks to J.B. as a circus vendor, urging him to return all that God is about to restore to Him, but J.B. rejects these Satanic taunts and reunites with Sarah to rebuild their lives, seeking to begin a new world.

While the play-within-a-play device is somewhat conventional by twentieth century standards, Archibald MacLeish uses it to great advantage here. Depicting Zuss and Nickles as simultaneously transcendent and immanent character/narrators (both deity and human) and as part Greek chorus, part spectator, MacLeish manages to juxtapose orthodoxy and rebellion; he portrays both the cold justice and the compassionate mercy of religion with dexterity and unobtrusiveness. This quadruple role-playing allows the playwright to examine critically the cynicism and the false realism of the modern world without resorting to gross moralism or speechmaking—a problem from which a play of ideas such as J.B. could easily suffer.

MacLeish’s further challenge in the writing and staging of the play was to take the ancient and presumably familiar story of the biblical Job and both defamiliarize and contemporize it in ways that would engage the audience and minimize the impact of their expectations. In the retelling of any ancient or mythical tale, an author invites comparison with the original. The options open to the author include deliberately altering parts of the original story to fit the times in which he or she is writing, changing the essential conflicts within the story to make them more relevant to contemporary concerns, or reversing the story so that protagonist and antagonist trade places. Any of these options is a perilous undertaking, and it is to MacLeish’s credit that he successfully employs all three devices.

First, MacLeish moved the setting of God and Satan’s conversation out of heaven and onto earth—into the unlikely locale of a circus big-top. This reverse anthropomorphism—turning men into gods—underscores the dramatic irony that occurs when Nickles and Mr. Zuss later debate the meaning of the lesson J.B. learned, and mirror the more skeptical religious culture of his times. Second, MacLeish took the core conflict of the biblical story, Job’s search for an answer to his suffering, and altered it to encompass J.B.’s search for the specific sin he has committed. Familiar with Job’s plight, J.B. already assumes he has done something to offend God—and proceeds to identify it. This acceptance of responsibility is a different slant on the ancient confrontation between man and God. Finally, MacLeish chooses to make J.B. as much antagonist as protagonist in his story. It is God who is on trial, who is being tested, as much as his servant. The dialogue between Nickles and Zuss continually emphasizes this essential role reversal; Satan is struck by the nobility of J.B.’s fidelity, while God is depicted as seemingly contemptuous of it except in the sense that it corroborates his own faith in J.B.

Heaven

Heaven. Place where God and Satan dispute about the character of people on earth. The simple setting of this play symbolizes the ancient and timeless nature of this drama. Heaven is presented as a flat set of planks set six or seven feet off the floor of the main stage. As the vendors, Mr. Zuss, who sells balloons, and Garrick Nickles, who sells popcorn, search the upper stage, they discover two masks. The mask for God resembles the face of Michelangelo’s Night sculpture with its closed eyes, and the mask for Satan has eyes “wrinkled with laughter,” but a mouth “drawn down in agonized disgust.” These masks recall the ancient Greek tradition of presenting plays by using masks through which actors spoke while conveying their characters through fixed expressions. Mr. Zuss also has a name resembling that of the Greek god Zeus. When he and Nickles don their masks, they take on the masks’ characters and speak timeless insights, much like the Old Testament’s Book of Job, which is thought by many scholars to be the oldest book in the Bible.

*Earth

*Earth. Place where the life and tragedies of the banker J. B. and his wife Sarah are worked out. This setting is also simple—with a table and chairs that make the events seem universal. As these parents lose their children to war, accidents, and crime, and as J. B. loses his wealth and health, they wrestle with the problem of evil in the world, until even Sarah abandons J. B. Once J. B. has lost everything, he is visited by Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz, the biblical characters who question his integrity. Eventually, the voice of God thunders and silences all questions, including J. B.’s. Then the love between Sarah and J. B. is restored and they begin to build anew on the ash heaps of past disasters. In the end, on Earth no one finds an answer to the problem of evil. Earth is filled with injustice and inexplicable disasters. Only in moving forward with love for the life God gives does life become bearable for J. B. and his wife.

World War II
The advancement of technology during World War II resulted in more civilian casualties than any prior conflict. Aerial bombs had far greater destructive capabilities than individual rifle bullets, and their targets were not limited to soldiers. In scene 1, Nickles remarks that “Millions and millions of mankind” have been “Burned, crushed, broken, mutilated,” specifically mentioning those who perished because they were “Sleeping the wrong night wrong city—/ London, Dresden, Hiroshima.” These cities symbolize the countless innocent civilians who perished on both sides during the war.

London, the capital of England, was bombed by the Nazis for fifty-eight consecutive days in 1940 and less frequently over the next six months, in what became known as the Blitz. Nearly one-third of the city was destroyed, and close to 30,000 Londoners lost their lives. Dresden, a cultural and artistic hub in Germany, faced devastation in February 1945 when Allied bombings obliterated six square miles of its downtown, resulting in the deaths of between 35,000 and 135,000 people over two days. Six months later, on August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, killing almost 150,000 people.

When World War II concluded in 1945, the suffering continued for many who had endured the conflict, especially in the regions most heavily bombed. MacLeish conceived the idea for J.B. in the late 1940s during a visit to a London suburb that had been nearly destroyed by Nazi bombings. There, he encountered families who had been bombed out of one town, moved, and then experienced bombing again in their new location. Many had lost loved ones. The senseless nature of their suffering and the growing human capacity for inflicting further suffering deeply disturbed him, ultimately inspiring J.B.

Cold War
Contrary to the nostalgic belief that the 1950s were a period of uninterrupted happiness and prosperity, many people experienced significant suffering both within the United States and globally. The aftermath of World War II left numerous individuals grieving the loss of loved ones and property. The full extent of the Holocaust’s horrors was gradually becoming known. To many, the world appeared to be a place where suffering and evil were not only possible but prevalent and immeasurable.

The Cold War, with its looming threat of nuclear destruction, was a constant concern for many Americans. The term "Cold War" represented the idea that the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were locked in a political and economic struggle for global influence, rather than a direct military conflict. As these two superpowers grew politically stronger, they also increased their ability to engage in armed conflict if needed. This arms race led to both sides amassing enough nuclear weapons to obliterate the planet, which only heightened anxiety rather than providing security. Even children were not immune to this atmosphere of fear; schools trained them to "duck and cover" in case of an atomic bomb threat. The devastation of World War II was already horrific, but the prospect of another major conflict promised even greater suffering.

Renaissance of the Verse Play
Most students know that Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter, yet they expect contemporary drama to be in straightforward, conversational language. Some writers, like poet T.S. Eliot in the 1930s, believed that everyday speech was too mundane to address significant issues. Eliot sought to revive the verse play, creating several dramas in verse such as Murder in the Cathedral (1935), which depicts the assassination of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the twelfth century, and The Cocktail Party (1950), which blends drawing-room dialogue with incantation. Although audiences and critics were intrigued, they did not fall in love with the form. Eliot's plays were deep and thoughtful, but they often failed as compelling drama. Murder in the Cathedral, his first verse play, is generally considered his best work in this genre.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, other playwrights also experimented with verse drama. British playwright Christopher Fry wrote and directed eight verse plays. Some, like A Sleep of Prisoners (1951), were serious and centered on religious themes, using verse to create a mystical, weighty tone. Critics praised these works and often compared them favorably to Eliot's earlier efforts. However, audiences showed a preference for Fry's comedies, such as The Lady's Not for Burning (1948), where the verse facilitated wit, wordplay, and unexpected rhythm. Fry's comedies became the first modern verse plays to achieve both critical and popular success. Notably, Fry was primarily a playwright and director, not a poet, when he embraced this form.

MacLeish took a significant risk when he wrote J.B. in verse. While he had penned two minor radio plays in verse and composed hundreds of poems, he lacked substantial experience as a playwright. Nevertheless, he believed, much like Eliot, Fry, and others before him, that the profound question he was exploring could not be adequately conveyed through prose. When he brought the play to Broadway, his director, Elia Kazan, oversaw months of revisions because the original script did not work well on stage. To everyone's surprise, the revised version of the play was a resounding success; it was initially assumed that a verse play based on the Bible would attract only a small, intellectual audience. Instead, J.B. enjoyed an extended run on Broadway, garnered two major awards, and generated significant revenue.

This success did not spark a widespread trend. Although verse plays still appear from time to time, none have achieved the level of success that J.B. did. Even this play, which was a mainstay for college theatre companies during the 1960s and 1970s, has seldom been performed in recent years.

Allusion
When an author references a well-known character or narrative from history, whether from fiction or nonfiction, they are employing an allusion. This technique acts as a form of shorthand, allowing the writer to convey substantial information quickly and without extensive explanation, as the reader is expected to recognize and understand the references. MacLeish's play is evidently, at least partially, a retelling of the biblical story of Job. There are numerous similarities between the two tales. The name "J.B." mirrors the name "Job." Additionally, Sarah, Nickles, and Zuss occasionally refer to him as Job. The names of J.B.'s comforters in scene 9—Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad—are identical to the names of the three comforters in the Biblical account. Although Sarah and the children are unnamed in the Bible, MacLeish has chosen Biblical names for each of them. The overarching narrative, involving the wager between God and Satan and the systematic destruction of all of J.B.'s possessions, parallels the story of Job. Some lines are even direct quotations from the King James Version of the Bible.

MacLeish—and his characters Zuss and Nickles—assume the audience is already familiar with the biblical story. When the two circus vendors make their entrance, Zuss gestures to the stage area and remarks, "That's where Job sits—at the table. / God and Satan lean above." Nickles does not question Zuss about whom he is referring to; he understands the story and knows the audience does too. In fact, a little later in scene 1, Nickles recaps the torments that Job endured and that J.B. is about to face: “God has killed his sons, his daughters, / Stolen his camels, oxen, sheep, / Everything he has." Clearly, MacLeish not only expects his audience to know what will happen to J.B., but he also relies on this knowledge.

Throughout the play, Zuss and Nickles allude to the impending events and occasionally address the characters directly, urging them to adhere to—or deviate from—their scripted roles. When Rebecca's body is discovered, J.B. attempts to recite one of the most famous lines from the Job story. He manages to say most of the words ("The Lord giveth . . . the Lord taketh away!"), but despite Zuss's encouragement, he is too overcome with grief to complete the line ("Blessed be the name of the Lord"). This scene only resonates if the audience is familiar with the original line and knows how it should end. The objective is not merely to recount the story, but to reinterpret it and comment on it, highlighting that this narrative is replayed repeatedly.

Verse
While MacLeish also wrote plays, essays, and even a screenplay, he is primarily renowned as a poet, dedicating much of his life to the study of poetry. J.B. is entirely composed in verse, a format prevalent in English drama of earlier centuries (many of Shakespeare's plays, for instance, are written in iambic pentameter) but exceedingly rare in the 1950s. When the play succeeded on Broadway, critics were astonished that a verse play could attract an audience. J.B. employs unrhymed four-stress lines without a strict meter. In a conversation with college students cast in a production of the play, published as "MacLeish Speaks to the Players," the author clarifies that "those four syllables are accented ... by the sense of the words; if you read the words to mean, they will take their right emphasis."

The impact of the four stresses is subtle; one can read the dialogue without noting the sound, and many readers might not perceive the rhythm. However, when performed, the four-stress lines create an emotional undercurrent that resonates with the audience. For MacLeish, this undercurrent was based on a fundamental distinction between poetry and prose, and between myth and history. In an interview with Horizon magazine, he explained that while history is specific to a particular place and time, stories like that of Job are mythical, "true at any place and time: true then and therefore true forever; true forever and therefore true then." Thus, chronological time is less significant than "always" in a myth-based drama, and "'always' exists in poetry rather than prose."

For secular readers and audiences of the early twenty-first century, drama in verse might seem as foreign as the language of the King James Bible. The language and the four-stress lines work to elevate the drama, situating it in a somewhat unfamiliar place and time. While the ordeals J.B. and his family endure are starkly recognizable even today, the poetry of the lines achieves MacLeish's goal: it prevents the audience from becoming too familiar, from viewing J.B.'s story as merely the tale of one individual man.

1940s: Major cities in Europe and Japan experience heavy bombings during World War II, resulting in thousands of casualties.

1950s: Americans live under the constant threat of a nuclear attack.

2001: Terrorists hijack airplanes and crash them into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and another site, causing over 3,000 casualties. This marks the first significant attack on U.S. soil by foreign aggressors.

1940s: CBS showcases color television in New York City, and WNBT, the first regularly scheduled television station, begins broadcasting in New York, reaching around 10,000 viewers.

1950s: Approximately 29 million American households own a television, which is about one in five homes. However, newspapers remain the primary source of news for most people.

Today: Nearly every American household has at least one television, with many owning two or more. With 24-hour news channels and live broadcasts from any location, television has become the main news source for Americans.

1940s: During World War II, with the United States and the Soviet Union as allies, American Communist Party membership peaks at 75,000.

1950s: Communists are widely feared and despised in the United States. Senator Joseph McCarthy leads investigations into alleged Communist activities, earning a reputation as a witch-hunter. The fear of a Communist takeover in Vietnam and Asia draws the U.S. into the Vietnam conflict.

Today: The American Communist Party is small, and Communism has significantly diminished in global political influence.

1950s: The United States, the U.S.S.R., and Great Britain possess the capability to detonate atomic bombs. Americans construct bomb shelters and practice safety drills in case of an attack.

Today: Despite over a dozen nations, including several "rogue nations" with unstable governments, possessing nuclear weapons, Americans generally ignore the threat of a nuclear attack.

In approximately 1960, RCA Victor (LD6075) released a record album featuring a recording of J.B., performed by several actors from the Broadway production. This recording has never been reissued on compact disc or audio cassette.

SOURCES
Berrigan, Daniel, "Job in Suburbia," in America, Vol. 100, October 4, 1958, p. 13.

Bieman, Elizabeth, "Faithful to the Bible in Its Fashion: MacLeish's J.B.," in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, Vol. 4, 1974, pp. 25, 27.

Calhoun, Richard, "Archibald MacLeish's J.B.: Religious Humanism in the 80s," in The Proceedings of the Archibald MacLeish Symposium, May 7-8, 1982, edited by Bernard A. Drabeck, Helen E. Ellis, and Seymour Rudin, University Press of America, 1988, pp. 79-80.

Campbell, Shannon O., "The Book of Job and MacLeish's J.B.: A Cultural Comparison," in English Journal, Vol. 61, May 1972, pp. 653-57.

Ciardi, John, "Birth of a Classic," in Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. 41, March 8, 1958, p. 48.

D'Arcy, Martin, "J.B., Wrong Answer to the Problem of Evil," in Catholic World, Vol. 190, November 1959, p. 82.

Gledhill, Preston R., "J.B.: Successful Theatre versus 'Godless' Theology," in Brigham Young University Studies, Vol. 3, December 1961, pp. 9-14.

Kahn, Sy, "The Games God Plays with Man: A Discussion of J.B.," in The Fifties: Fiction Poetry Drama, edited by Warren French, Everett/Edwards, 1970, pp. 250, 255.

MacLeish, Archibald, Foreword to J.B.,, Samuel French, 1958, p. 6.

MacLeish, Archibald, "MacLeish Speaks to the Players," in Pembroke Magazine, Vol. 7, 1976, pp. 80, 82, 83.

MacLeish, Archibald, "On Being a Poet in the Theatre," in Horizon, Vol. 12, January 1960, p. 50.

Montgomery, Marion, "On First Looking into Archibald MacLeish's Play in Verse, J.B.," in Modern Drama, Vol. 2, December 1959, pp. 231-42.

Porter, Thomas E., Myth and Modern American Drama, Wayne State University Press, 1969, pp. 82, 96.

Roston, Murray, Biblical Drama in England: From the Middle Ages to the Present Day, Northwestern University Press, 1968, p. 309.

Trudeau, Gary, Doonesbury, Universal Press Syndicate, October 5, 2001.

FURTHER READING
Donaldson, Scott, in collaboration with R. H. Winnick, Archibald MacLeish: An American Life, Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
This comprehensive biography of MacLeish includes an insightful discussion on J.B., detailing MacLeish's motivation for writing the play and his process of writing and revising it from script to stage.

Drabeck, Bernard A., and Helen E. Ellis, eds., Archibald MacLeish: Reflections, University of Massachusetts Press, 1986.
Compiled from several interviews conducted with MacLeish during his later years, this book is formatted as a Q&A. MacLeish considered it a professional autobiography, with a focus on the differences between the published and performed versions of J.B.

Ellis, Helen E., Bernard A. Drabeck, and Margaret E. C. Howland, Archibald MacLeish: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography, Scarecrow Press, 1995.
Featuring over 2,300 entries and two indices, this bibliography is an excellent resource for finding books, articles, and reviews by and about MacLeish. It also includes a brief biography and a timeline of key events in his life.

Falk, SigniLenea, Archibald MacLeish, Twayne, 1965.
In examining the first 50 years of MacLeish's career, Falk illustrates how MacLeish's poetry evolved from and later diverged from the works of other significant modern poets. Falk also shows how MacLeish's writings increasingly reflected his beliefs about a writer's duty to engage with political and social issues. The book features a detailed thirteen-page analysis of J.B..

Gassner, John, Theatre at the Crossroads: Plays and Playwrights of the Mid-Century American Stage, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.
Following an overview that leads to general conclusions about the plays staged in New York from the end of World War II through the 1950s, Gassner delves into an examination of numerous individual plays. His analysis of J.B. highlights the contrasts between the Yale and Broadway productions.