The Tiger and the Horse
The Tiger and the Horse is a three-act play by Robert Bolt, written in 1960. Based on Bolt's own position as a member of the Committee of 100, a British anti-nuclear group, it deals with a university professor faced with choosing to sign a petition to ban nuclear weapons or a chance at vice chancellorship. It takes its title from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." The play's original run coincided with Bolt's A Man for All Seasons in 1960. It was more financially successful than Man, although it received mixed critical reviews. Its original cast featured Michael Redgrave as Dean, daughter Vanessa, in one of her first major stage roles, as Stella, and Alan Dobie as Louis. Plot Jack Dean, a professor of astronomy at a prestigious English university, is the primary candidate for the vice chancellorship after the current vice chancellor, Hugo Slate, retires the position. Dean has a wife, Gwendolyn, and two daughters, Stella and Mary. Louis Flax, a strong-willed, opinionated research fellow who is courting Stella, introduces a petition to ban nuclear weapons. However, Dean refuses to sign it, even though his wife