As San Antonio MacArthur High School's one-act play contest entry, this fast-moving dramatization of the famed 18th century novel won all-state honors. A vibrant, brisk play for adults and young adults. Tom, a foundling, is in love with beautiful Sophia. Although her father envies Tom's reputation as a daredevil and womanizer, he wouldn't consider letting his daughter marry such a scoundrel.

The play is presented in a commedia-like fashion, as a troupe of players unload their trunks, dress each other, and introduce their characters in story-theatre style. A unit set composed of platforms of varying heights provides space for all the scenes so that no blackouts, curtains, or other interruptions are necessary. Doubling suggestions show how the 35 characters may be played by 15 performers.

The story of Tom's love for the beautiful Sophia; his everlasting feud with the despicable Allworthy heir, Blifil; the mad race to London, punctuated by the infamous night in the inn; and the ill-fated masquerade ball are skillfully transferred to the stage in this dramatization.

English-language drama goes back at least to the mid 1500's, with Ralph Roister Doister, Gammer Gurton's Needle, and Gorbodue generally acknowledged as the first "real" plays. But the first novels in our language were written 200 years later. Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) is generally condsidered to be the first novel in English. Henry Fielding (1707-1754) published two novels before his masterpiece, Tom Jones, was published in 1749, firmly establishing him as England's first great comic novelist and the language's first dabbler in realism.

Although the play has strong farcical content, it also has elements of honest drama and romance. Fielding's novel has lived as a classic because of the author's perceptive analysis of human nature, with its inherent hypocrisy, selfishness, boorishness, and indifference toward the welfare of others. These characteristics have been captured in the play; the director and actors are urged to seek them out in the script and point them up in staging the play.

See also The History of Tom Jones 2-Act adapted by Dennis Maganza.

See also: Adaptations of the Classics