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The play premiered on Broadway at the Royale Theatre on May 25, 1964, starring Jack Albertson, Irene Dailey, and Martin Sheen, and directed by Ulu Grosbard. A major critical and commercial success, the play ran 832 performances and was nominated for five Tony Awards, winning two: Best Play and Best Featured Actor (Albertson).
- Frank D. Gilroy, Charles Arrigo
- 1965
The Subject Was Roses (Original, Play, Drama, Broadway) opened in New York City May 25, 1964 and played through May 21, 1966.
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Media Adaptations
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
The Subject Was Roses was first presented at the Royale Theatre, New York City, on May 15, 1964. It was an outstanding success with critics and the public alike and it won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The play belongs to the category of domestic realism and has a cast of only three characters. John and Nettie Cleary live unh...
Frank Daniel Gilroy was born on October 13, 1925, to Bettina Vasti and Frank B. Gilroy in the Bronx, New York. He was educated in the Bronx and graduated from De Witt Clinton High School in 1943, after which he joined the U.S. Army. During World War II, he served for two and a half years with the eighty-ninth infantry division, including eighteen m...
Act 1, Scene 1
The Subject Was Rosestakes place in a middle-class apartment in the Bronx, New York, in May, 1946. The play begins on a Saturday afternoon. John Cleary is alone in the kitchen, gazing at an army jacket that hangs on the wall. On an impulse he takes the jacket down and puts it on. When he hears Nettie's key in the door he puts the jacket back and sits at the kitchen table. They discuss their son Timmy, who has just returned from World War II duty and who is still asleep. As they bicker over th...
Act 1, Scene 2
It is later the same day. While Nettie is out, John and Timmy return, having enjoyed the game. Timmy carries a bouquet of red roses. The subject turns to war and Timmy says that he was no hero. He did what he was asked to do but never volunteered. John regrets that he did not fight in World War Iand apologizes to his son after admitting that he did not think he would last in the army. He offers to help with Timmy's college expenses. To John's annoyance, Timmy quizzes him about how much money...
Act 1, Scene 3
They return at 2 a.m. the next morning. John and Timmy are slightly drunk. John recalls the first song he and Nettie ever danced to. Timmy plays the clown for a while and then goes to bed. In the living room, John makes a sexual advance on Nettie, but she does not respond. He refuses to back off and in frustration, Nettie throws the vase of roses on the floor. Timmy emerges and Nettie tells him that the broken vase was an accident. Timmy goes back to bed after which Nettie tells John she was...
John Cleary
John Cleary is Nettie's husband and Timmy's father. He is of Irish descent and is staunchly Catholic. His father was probably an Irish immigrant who came to the Bronx in the late nineteenth century and had to struggle to make a life for himself in America. John had a deprived childhood and recalls being so hungry he had to beg for food. The family's furniture was thrown out on the street because the Clearys failed to pay their rent and they were always hiding from debt collectors. John had to...
Nettie Cleary
Nettie came from a family that was higher on the economic and social scale than the man she married. Nettie recalls that although they were not wealthy, they were never short of nice clothes or tickets to the opera. John's family used to refer to her derisively as "The Lady." As a young woman, Nettie had many suitors, but she chose John because he was witty and charming and looked as if he were going places in his career. She thought he would be able to give her the finer things in life. Alth...
Timmy Cleary
Timmy is the twenty-one-year-old son of John and Nettie. He has just returned home after having served three years in the army during World War II. As a boy, he was sickly and often missed school. But he has acquitted himself well in the army, doing everything he was asked to do, although he made a point of not volunteering for anything. Timmy has never been close to his father and has tended to blame him for the things that were wrong in their family. But when Timmy returns home, it is his m...
The Subject Was Roses was made into a movie by MGM in 1968, starring Patricia Neal, Jack Albertson, and Martin Sheen. It was directed by Ulu Grosbard with a screenplay by Gilroy. It is currently av...
Family Triangle
Over the years, the emotional life of the Cleary family has formed itself into a triangle that functions only to frustrate and disappoint all three members. Love is thwarted or destroyed; good intentions go haywire. The underlying pattern that has created this is the fact that Nettie and Timmy have in the past sided with each other against John. Since love has not been freely exchanged between husband and wife, Nettie has transferred her love into an excessive attachment to her son. She confe...
Research the history of the family in U.S. society over the last one hundred years. What are the main changes that have taken place? Are these changes for the better or worse? Explain your viewpoint.Describe some of the main differences between a functional family and a dysfunctional one. What kinds of behaviors occur in each?Is it better for parents who are always fighting to get divorced or should they stay together for the sake of the children? Are the children better or worse off if their quarreling parents divorce?...How are the conflicts between parents and children today similar to and different from those in the play, which takes place in 1946? Why is it often difficult for families to communicate with each...Setting
The play is a realistic drama, and the set makes an important contribution to the theme. The stage directions describe it as a middle-class apartment but point out that the heavily upholstered sofa and chairs, equipped with antimacassars (small covers on the backs and sides to prevent soiling) are of the type that was fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s. This suggests that the Clearys are not well off and have to make do with what they have. In the play, Nettie brings attention to the sofa whe...
Dialogue
Since this is a family that has difficulty talking openly with each other, Gilroy uses a technique whereby in conversations they talk completely across each other. That is, one person is barely listening to the other and carries on his own line of thought. This occurs in the beginning of act 2, scene 2, for example, when Timmy recalls his feelings when he was six and his baby brother died in infancy, but John does not hear him because he keeps wondering aloud where Nettie is and why she left....
Dramatic Conflict
The nature of drama is conflict; characters in a scene will want, expect, or demand different things, and they will clash. The skilled dramatist uses these differing expectations and needs to create tension and climaxes. He or she will control the rhythm of the buildup, both in individual scenes and in the drama as a whole, to create the right dramatic effect. In this play, most of the scenes build to an explosion of anger or frustration between either husband and wife, mother and son, or fat...
American Realistic Drama
Realistic drama attempts to give the audience the illusion that what they are watching is true to life. It will usually feature ordinary, average characters experiencing the everyday ups and downs and challenges of living. Realism began to dominate American theater in the 1930s. Playwrights of that period discovered that the middle-class domestic play, set in the present, was a useful vehicle for the exploration of psychological themes. Such plays were often set in living rooms and were about...
1940s: Automobile production was suspended during World War II and as a result, stocks are low. In 1945, there are 25 million registered vehicles in the United States, but over half of these are mo...1940s: After World War II, religion in America undergoes a resurgence. This includes Catholicism as well as Protestant Christianity. The notion of church and family as the fundamental pillars of so...1940s: World War II is over, and America is prosperous. Having developed and used the atom bomb to end Japanese resistance, the United States is the sole nuclear power in the world, but the cold wa...The original Broadway production of The Subject Was Roses opened on May 25, 1964.
Summary. Act I, Scene iThe Subject Was Roses takes place in a middleclass apartment in the Bronx, New York, in May, 1946. The play begins on a Saturday afternoon. John Cleary is alone in...
Meet the original Broadway cast of The Subject Was Roses on Broadway, and find out who was in the Original Cast, what parts they played and more.
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Nov 4, 2019 · Frank D. Gilroy's The Subject Was Roses was the surprise hit of the 1964-'65 Broadway season, winning the triple crown: the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the...
