The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden
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Ma, Mrs. Kate Kirby
Arthur, her son
Caroline, her daughter
Pa, Ma's husband Elmer
Beulah, the Kirbys' married daughter who lives in Camden
| The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden | |
|---|---|
 A 1952 production of The Happy Journey at Shimer College | |
| Written by | Thornton Wilder |
| Characters | The Stage Manager Ma, Mrs. Kate Kirby Arthur, her son Caroline, her daughter Pa, Ma's husband Elmer Beulah, the Kirbys' married daughter who lives in Camden |
| Date premiered | November 25, 1931 |
| Place premiered | Yale University theater in New Haven, Connecticut |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | a family travels by motorcar to visit a daughter in Camden |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Setting | the road going from Trenton to Camden in New Jersey |
The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden is a one act play by American novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder written in 1931. It was first published in The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (New York: Coward-McCann, 1931).
The first production of The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden was by the Yale Dramatic Association and the Vassar College Philalethis at the Yale University theater in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 25, 1931.[1] It opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre on March 16, 1948, in a production starring Peggy Allenby as Ma Kirby and Don MacLaughlin as Elmer.[2] A production by Theodore Mann at the Circle in the Square Theatre which opened on April 21, 1993, won both a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play.[3]
Plot summary
Almost the entire play takes place during an automobile journey from Newark to Camden, New Jersey by a family on their way to visit a married daughter, who has recently lost a baby in childbirth. Very little happens, but the father, mother, and children reminisce, joke, and sightsee and somehow, in classic Thornton Wilder fashion, capture something of the universal joy and sadness of life as they motor along.[1]