The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail | Short Question Answer Key

Short Answer Key

Act 1

1. What is the setting for the beginning of the play?

A jail cell in the center of the stage.

2. In what town is the play set?

Concord, Massachusetts.

3. Why is the lighting on the empty areas of the set weak?

To suggest winter.

4. Who is the old man who enters with his wife?

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

5. In another area of the stage, Henry's mother is visibly upset. What does she ask Henry?

What he has done.

6. Henry sits up on his cot, and what is his response to his mother's question?

He has "not done something."

7. Henry and his mother keep talking, and she tells him she does not know who he is. How does he reply?

He is himself.

8. Waldo, who is clearly quite old, is losing his senses, mistakes what for a person?

His umbrella.

9....
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