The Bat (play)
| The Bat | |
|---|---|
| Written by |
Mary Roberts Rinehart Avery Hopwood |
| Original language | English |
| Setting | Living Room and a Library of a Country House; Trunk Room on Third Floor. |
The Bat is a Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood first produced in 1920. The plot relates how wealthy spinster Cornelia Van Gorder and her guests uncover a mystery at their rented summer home while being stalked by an enigmatic, costumed criminal known as "The Bat".
The Bat originated as an adaptation of Rinehart's mystery novel The Circular Staircase, published in 1908. Rinehart and Hopwood made a number of alterations to the source to prepare it for Broadway, most notably adding the titular antagonist. The connection to the original novel led to a legal dispute over film rights with the Selig Polyscope Company, producers of a 1915 Circular Staircase film; subsequently, Rinehart denied the relationship between the two works as she attempted to license The Bat for a film adaptation.
The Bat was massive critical and commercial success, running for 878 performances in New York and spawning seven additional companies who brought the show to other areas. It led to a number of adaptations, including a 1926 novelization anonymously written by Stephen Vincent Benét. Three films were produced: the 1926 silent film The Bat, as the 1930 talking film The Bat Whispers, and as the 1959 horror picture The Bat. The play and its adaptations had a wide influence on contemporary media and popular culture, inspiring a number of bat-themed characters in subsequent works, most notably the superhero Batman.
The Bat premiered as a Broadway play on August 23, 1920, at the Morosco Theatre in New York City. The melodrama mystery was produced by Lincoln Wagenhals and Collin Kemper, who also staged the show. The play closed in September 1922 after 867 performances.
Two Broadway revivals of The Bat followed. The first of these opened on May 31, 1937, at the Majestic Theatre, and closed that June after just 18 performances. The second of these opened on January 20, 1953, at the National Theatre, and closed on February 7, 1953, after 23 performances.
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