Today is Friday is a short, one act play by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). The play was first published in pamphlet form in 1926 but became more widely known through its subsequent publication in Hemingway's 1927 short story collection, Men Without Women. The play is a representation of the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus, in the form of a conversation between three Roman Soldiers and a Hebrew bartender. It is one of the few dramatic works written by Hemingway.
Background
There is little published content discussing the original publication of Today is Friday. George Monteiro simply describes the play as being published in a short story pamphlet by The As Stable Productions, nevertheless, it was both written and published twice during Hemingway's years living as an expatriate in Paris.
Beginning in the early 1920s, Hemingway lived in Paris with his first wife, Hadley Richardson, working as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. Following the publication of The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's divorce from Richardson was finalized. Jeffrey Meyers notes that the divorce prompted Hemingway to convert to Catholicism, which may have influenced the inclusion of Today is Friday in Men Without Women. He subsequently married Pauline Pfeiffer and the two holidayed in Le Grau-du-Roi in the south of France. It was here that Hemingway continued planning his upcoming collection of short stories. John Beall states that Hemingway was actively involved in the planning of Men Without Women while he was still writing The Sun Also Rises, and thus, it was in the South of France that he continued this work. At this point, Hemingway was living comfortably, owing to both Pfeiffer's large trust fund as well as Hemingway's growing income as a writer. Men Without Women was published on October 14 shortly before Hemingway and Pfeiffer moved back to the United States, making the short story collection the last work published in Hemingway's Paris years. Despite seeming so, Today is Friday is not Hemingway's first attempt at writing a piece of drama, having written a piece named No Worst Than a Bad Cold as a teenager.
Plot summary
Three Roman soldiers described as "a little cock-eyed" drink red wine in a "drinking place" in the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. They are in the company of only a Hebrew bartender named George. The first soldier orders more wine from George. The third soldier leans on a barrel in pain, complaining of a gut ache which has rendered him unable to continue drinking. George mixes a drink to fix the third soldier's gut ache. The third soldier drinks the cup and exclaims, "Jesus Christ." The three soldiers then converse about the crucifixion of Jesus they had witnessed earlier that day. The first soldier insists that "he was good in there today," while the soldiers remark on which aspects of the crucifixions they enjoy or dislike. The third soldier continues to feel unwell.
The first soldier asks the others if they "saw his girl," which is implied to be Mary Magdalene. The second soldier replies that he "knew her before he did," further implying he used her services as a prostitute before she became a follower of Jesus. The soldiers continue to talk about the crucifixion, where the first soldier admits that he stabbed Jesus with a spear while he was on the cross, insisting it was "the least I could do for him."
The three soldiers get up to leave. The second soldier tells George to add the price of the wine to his tab, refusing to pay George an advance sum reasoning that payday is on Wednesdays. Outside on the street, the second soldier refers to George with an anti-semitic term to which the third soldier continues to complain about his painful stomach.
Writing style
Hemingway's prose has been extensively analysed for its minimalistic style, which came to be known as the Iceberg theory of omission. According to Meyers, a respected biographer of Hemingway, Hemingway believed the quality of an author's work is assessable by the respective quality of the words eliminated. Furthermore, Meyers asserts that because of Hemingway's mastery of omission in this way, he then went on to become the "most influential prose stylist in the twentieth century."