The Unconquered
John Emery,Helen Craig, andDean Jagger on thePlaybill for the Broadway production
Written by	Ayn Rand
Based on	We the Living by Ayn Rand
Date premiered	February 13, 1940 (1940-02-13)
Place premiered	Biltmore Theatre
Original language	English
Genre	Melodrama
Setting	Petrograd,Russia[a]

The Unconquered is a three-actplay written by Russian-born American authorAyn Rand as an adaptation of her 1936 novelWe the Living. The story followsKira Argounova, a young woman living in theSoviet Union in the 1920s. Her lover Leo Kovalensky developstuberculosis. To get money for his treatment, Kira has an affair with aCommunist official, Andrei Taganov. After recovering from his illness, Leo becomes involved withblack market food sales that Andrei is investigating. When Andrei realizes that Kira loves Leo, he helps his rival avoid prosecution, then commits suicide. Leo leaves Kira, who decides to risk her life escaping the country.

Rand sold an option for the adaptation to producer Jerome Mayer and wrote a script, but he was unable to stage the play. Upon learning about the script, Russian actressEugenie Leontovich recommended it to producerGeorge Abbott. He staged the play onBroadway in February 1940. The production was troubled by problems with the script and the cast, including the firing of Leontovich and other actors before the premiere. When the play opened at theBiltmore Theatre, it was a critical and financial failure, and closed in less than a week. It was the last of Rand's plays produced during her lifetime. The script was published in 2014.

Ayn Rand was born in 1905 inSaint Petersburg, then capital of theRussian Empire, to abourgeois family whose property wasexpropriated by theBolshevik government after the 1917Russian Revolution.^[3] Concerned about her safety due to her stronganti-Communist views, Rand's family helped her emigrate to the United States in 1926.^[4] She moved toHollywood, where she obtained a job as a junior screenwriter and also worked on other writing projects.^[5] Her playNight of January 16th opened on Broadway in September 1935 and ran until early April 1936. Later that month, her debut novel,We the Living, was published by Macmillan.^[6] She drew on her experiences to depict life in theSoviet Union in the 1920s, and expressed her criticisms of the Soviet government and Communist ideology.^[7]

Shortly afterWe the Living was published, Rand began negotiations with Broadway producer Jerome Mayer to do a theatrical adaptation.^[8] They reached an agreement by July 1936. By January 1937, Rand had completed a script, but Mayer had difficulty casting the production because of the story's anti-Communist content.^[9] Without a recognized star in the cast, Mayer's financing fell through.^[10]

In 1939, Russian-born actressEugenie Leontovich, who had readWe the Living and heard that an adaptation had been written, approached Rand. Like Rand, Leontovich came from a family that suffered after the revolution; the Bolsheviks tortured and killed her three brothers, who served in the anti-CommunistWhite Army.^[11] Leontovich asked for a copy of the script, which she sent to her friendGeorge Abbott, a successful Broadway producer.^[12][13] Abbott decided to produce and direct the adaptation; he hiredBoris Aronson, ascenic designer who was also a Russian immigrant, to create the sets.^[14] Rand hoped the theatrical adaptation of her novel would create interest among Hollywood producers in doing a film version. This hope was bolstered whenWarner Bros. studio invested in the stage production,^[13] which was retitledThe Unconquered.^[15]

Rand had a bad experience with the Broadway production ofNight of January 16th because of script changes mandated by the producer, so she insisted on having final approval of any revisions toThe Unconquered.^[16][17] The production was quickly troubled as Abbott requested many changes that Rand refused. To facilitate rewrites, Abbott asked experienced playwrightS. N. Behrman to work with Rand as ascript doctor.^[17][18] Abbott also decided to replace actorJohn Davis Lodge, who was hired to play Andrei.^[16]

Although she was much older,^[b] Leontovich planned to star as college-aged Kira.^[12][13] Abbott and Rand developed concerns about Leontovich's approach to the role during rehearsals. Rand later described Leontovich's performance as "ham all over the place", which Rand attributed to Leontovich's background with theMoscow Art Theatre.^[20] Apreview production opened inBaltimore on December 25, 1939, with Leontovich playing Kira alongsideOnslow Stevens as Leo andDean Jagger as Andrei.^[21] Rand's husband,Frank O'Connor, was cast in a minor role as a GPU officer.^[16] The opening night was complicated by a last-minute accident whenHoward Freeman, who was playing Morozov, fell from the theatre's upper tier and fractured hispelvis. No replacement was ready, so his part was read from the script rather than performed.^[22][c] The Baltimore production closed on December 30.^[23]

Prior to the Broadway opening,Helen Craig (left) replacedEugenie Leontovich (right) as the play's lead actress.

After negative reviews for the preview, Abbott cancelled a Broadway debut planned for January 3, 1940, so he could recast and Rand could make script changes.^[23] Rand and Abbott agreed to fire Leontovich. Rand delivered the news so that Abbott did not have to confront his longtime friend.^[24] Abbott made several other cast changes, including replacing Stevens withJohn Emery and replacingDoro Merande withEllen Hall as Bitiuk.^[23]

For the Broadway production,Helen Craig took the lead role as Kira.^[16] Rand made the updates to the script that Abbott requested, but she had lost confidence in the production. She did not usually drink, but got drunk before thedress rehearsal to "cut off any emotional reaction" to the "disaster".^[25] A final preview performance was staged on February 12, 1940, as a benefit for theHome for Hebrew Infants, a New York orphanage.^[26] The play opened on Broadway the next day at theBiltmore Theatre, but closed after five days following scathing reviews and just six performances.^[27][28]

For more than 70 years after its production, the play was unpublished and available only as a typescript stored at theNew York Public Library.^[29] In 2014,Palgrave Macmillan published a volume with both the final script and an earlier version, edited by Robert Mayhew.^[30]

In the Russian winter of 1924, Leo Kovalensky returns to his apartment inPetrograd^[a] after spending two months in jail. The Soviet government has executed his father and expropriated his family's property, including the apartment building. Leo's lover, Kira Argounova, welcomes him home and moves in with him, despite his status as a suspectedcounter-revolutionary.

A few months later, a panel led by Pavel Syerov questions Kira. They are evaluating the ideological suitability of students at the college where she studies engineering. She admits her bourgeois heritage and refuses to become aninformant against Leo. Andrei Taganov, aGPU officer, expels her. After the meeting, Andrei tells Kira that he admires the bravery she showed in defying the panel. He hopes that in a future world everyone can express themselves openly, but until then people like her must suffer. Since she will lose herration card for being expelled, he offers to get her a job in a railroad office.

Kira begs officials in the railroad office to help Leo go to asanatorium inCrimea for treatment oftuberculosis he contracted while in jail. They refuse to help a former aristocrat. Andrei comes to the office with Stepan Timoshenko to confront Andrei's old friend Syerov with evidence that he helps smuggleblack market goods. Syerov promises to end his involvement. Kira asks Andrei for his help with Leo. He refuses, but when Kira becomes upset, he kisses her and admits he has been thinking about her since their previous meeting. Kira tells Andrei she loves him, but no one must know of their affair.

The second act begins six months later. Syerov is in charge of the railroad office and conspires with another official, Karp Morozov, to divert food shipments for the black market. They arrange for Leo, who has just returned from his treatment in Crimea (secretly funded by Andrei's gifts to Kira), to open a store that will sell the stolen goods. Kira warns Leo that his involvement could lead him to afiring squad. Andrei, who has supported Kira as his mistress, proposes marriage. In response, she suggests they should break up. He tells her it is too late for them to separate, because she has changed his view of life.

Timoshenko brings Andrei evidence of Syerov and Morozov's ongoing black market activities. Kira realizes this will implicate Leo as well. She asks Andrei to drop the case, but he refuses. Syerov and Morozov are arrested, but are not charged because they have influence with the local GPU chief. The chief orders Andrei to arrest Leo for ashow trial and execution. Andrei is disillusioned by the corruption he has witnessed. When he goes to Leo's home to make the arrest, he discovers that Kira also lives there.

In the third act, after Leo's arrest, Kira finds Andrei preparing for a speech to aCommunist Party meeting. She declares she is proud that she did what was necessary to save Leo from tuberculosis, and she expresses contempt for the Communist ideology that would have let him die. Andrei says he understands and accepts responsibility for making her suffer. When she leaves, Andrei confronts Syerov and insists that he use his influence to secure Leo's release. When Andrei gives his speech, he deviates from his prepared remarks to speak in favor of freedom andindividualism.

Andrei commits suicide, and afterwards Kira admits to Leo that she was Andrei's mistress. Leo tells her that he is leaving town with Antonina Pavlovna, Morozov's former mistress, to be hergigolo. Kira says she will also leave to attempt an escape across the border. Leo warns that she will be killed, but she says she has already lost everything that matters, except her human spirit.

The characters and cast from the Broadway production are given below:^[31]

The play follows the basic plot and themes fromWe the Living. The plot in both is about a woman having an affair with a powerful man in order to save another man she loves. Rand acknowledged that similar plots had been used in many previous works of fiction, citing the operaTosca as an example. She varied from traditional versions of the plot by making the powerful man an idealist who is in love with the woman and unaware of her other lover, rather than a villain who knowingly exploits her.^[32] The play significantly streamlines the story: Kira's family is omitted, and the plot begins with her living with Leo. Some of the characterizations are also changed: Leo is more passive, and Andrei is portrayed less sympathetically.^[33]

Aronson's sets were elaborate and expensive. He designed them to evoke pre-revolutionary Czarist architecture, but with a red color theme to reflect the use of that color by the Communists. A press report described them as "massive" and "decadent". The sets were placed on two 18-foot turntables that could be spun around to allow rapid changes between scenes.^[34]

The play was a box office failure and received mostly negative reviews. Critics were positive about the acting and Aronson's set design, but strongly negative about the writing and direction.^[26] Reviewer Arthur Pollock called the play "slow-moving, uninspired soup".^[35]The New York Times described it as a "confusing" mixture of "sentimental melodrama" and political discussion.^[31] Asyndicated review byIra Wolfert complained the story had "complications ... too numerous to mention".^[36] A reviewer forThe Hollywood Reporter quipped that the play was "as interminable as thefive-year plan".^[37]

Politically minded reviewers attacked the play from viewpoints across thepolitical spectrum.^[26] In theCommunist Party USA magazineThe New Masses,Alvah Bessie said the play was "deadly dull" and called Rand "a fourth-rate hack".^[38] Morecentrist reviewers described the play as unrealistic, even when they sympathized with its message.^[26] In theCatholic magazineCommonweal,Philip T. Hartung called the play "a confused muddle" and recommended the movieNinotchka as better anti-Soviet entertainment.^[39] From the right,New York World-Telegram drama critic Sidney B. Whipple complained the play understated the dangers of Communism.^[37]

After the play's failure, Rand concluded her script was bad, and it was a mistake to attempt a theatrical adaptation ofWe the Living; she decided the novel "was not proper stage material".^[40][41] She thought that Abbot was more suited to comedy than drama, and that his efforts as producer and director had made the play even worse.^[42] Biographers of Rand have described the play as "a complete failure",^[26] "a dismal failure",^[43] "a resounding flop",^[44] and a "critical fiasco and professional embarrassment".^[45] Theatre historian William Torbert Leonard said it was a "turgid adaptation" that "failed to enchant even the curious".^[23] In an assessment of the play's published scripts, literature professorStephen D. Cox described the writing as "strikingly tedious and artificial".^[46]

The Unconquered was the last of Rand's plays to be produced in her lifetime, and she did not write any new plays after 1940.^[40] She turned her attention to finishing her novelThe Fountainhead. Biographer Alexandra Popoff suggests the failure ofThe Unconquered may have discouraged publishers from picking up the new novel; Rand received several rejections for it after the play closed.^[47]The Fountainhead was eventually published in 1943 and became a bestseller.^[48] Abbott, who had a long track record on Broadway, was not strongly impacted by the failure ofThe Unconquered. His next production, the crime dramaGoodbye in the Night, written by Jerome Mayer, opened a few weeks later.^[49]

• Bessie, Alvah (February 27, 1940). "One for the Ashcan".New Masses. pp. 28–29.
• Branden, Barbara (1986).The Passion of Ayn Rand. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company.ISBN 978-0-385-19171-5.
• Britting, Jeff (2004).Ayn Rand. Overlook Illustrated Lives series. New York: Overlook Duckworth.ISBN 978-1-58567-406-0.
• Britting, Jeff (2014). "AdaptingWe the Living for the Stage". In Mayhew, Robert (ed.).The Unconquered. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 335–347.ISBN 978-1-137-42873-8.
• Burns, Jennifer (2009).Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7.
• Collins, Glenn (April 3, 1993)."Eugenie Leontovich, 93, Actress, Playwright and Teacher, Is Dead".The New York Times. p. 11.
• Cox, Stephen (July 2020). "Posthumous Publications".The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.20 (1):125–136.JSTOR 10.5325/jaynrandstud.20.1.0125.
• Duggan, Lisa (2019).Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed. American Studies Now. Oakland, California:University of California Press.ISBN 978-0-520-96779-3.
• Hartung, Philip T. (March 1, 1940). "The Stage and Screen:The Unconquered".Commonweal. p. 412.
• Heller, Anne C. (2009).Ayn Rand and the World She Made. New York: Doubleday.ISBN 978-0-385-51399-9.
• Kirkley, Donald (December 26, 1939)."The Stage".The Baltimore Sun. p. 8 – viaNewspapers.com.
• Leonard, William Torbert (1983).Broadway Bound: A Guide to Shows that Died Aborning. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press.ISBN 978-0-8108-1652-7.
• Liebman, Roy (2017).Broadway Actors in Films, 1894-2015. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland.ISBN 978-0-7864-7685-5.
• Mantle, Burns (March 19, 1940)."Goodbye in the Night Shiver Drama about Assorted Lunatics".Daily News. p. 35 – viaNewspapers.com.
• Mayhew, Robert, ed. (2014).The Unconquered. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN 978-1-137-42873-8.
• Perinn, Vincent L. (1990).Ayn Rand: First Descriptive Bibliography. Rockville, Maryland: Quill & Brush.ISBN 978-0-9610494-8-5.
• Pollock, Arthur (January 14, 1940)."The Unconquered Has Its Day – A Dull One".Brooklyn Daily Eagle. p. 6 – viaNewspapers.com.
• Popoff, Alexandra (2024).Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success.Jewish Lives. New Haven:Yale University Press.ISBN 978-0-300-25321-4.
• Ralston, Richard E. (2012). "PublishingWe the Living". In Mayhew, Robert (ed.).Essays on Ayn Rand's We the Living (2nd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. pp. 159–170.ISBN 978-0-7391-4969-0.
• Rand, Ayn (2000). Boeckmann, Tore (ed.).The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers. New York: Plume.ISBN 978-0-452-28154-7.
• Rand, Ayn (2014). "The Unconquered (1939/40)". In Mayhew, Robert (ed.).The Unconquered. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 181–289.ISBN 978-1-137-42873-8.
• Svanberg, Carl (September 18, 2014)."Introducing Ayn Rand'sThe Unconquered".Impact Today.Ayn Rand Institute. RetrievedFebruary 2, 2016.
• Wolfert, Ira (February 18, 1940)."The Unconquered Is Full of Complications".The Indianapolis Star.North American Newspaper Alliance. p. 2 – viaNewspapers.com.

• ​The Unconquered​ at theInternet Broadway Database

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