the strings and hear the creaking of the pulleys". The journalist seems further to have taken issue with Polishness in general, first identifying Sienkiewicz as "a polander with the constructive ability of a candle-maker and the lawless imagination of a pack-peddler", then, regarding the orthography of the author's name, writing that "that's the way he spells it – when he wants to pronounce it he fills his head with hot mush, then turns a series of somersaults", and referring to him thereafter as "Sienkiewhatsky". Brann was known to greatly exaggerate, particularly in vituperation, and here he went so far as to write "I had to hire a nigger to swab me off with a wet towel while I read the work, and all I got out of it was a joblot of misinformation and a feverish desire to plug Mr. Henryk Sienkiewhatsky's Georgia watermelon [his head] in a new place." Similarities with Barrett play Playwright-actor-manager Wilson Barrett produced his successful play The Sign of the Cross in the same year as publication of Quo Vadis? started. The play was first performed 28 March 1895. Several elements in the play strongly resemble those in Quo Vadis. In both, a Roman soldier named Marcus falls in love with a Christian woman and wishes to "possess" her. (In the novel, her name is Lycia, in the play she is Mercia.) Nero, Tigellinus and Poppea are major characters in both the play and novel, and in both, Poppea lusts after Marcus. Petronius, however, does not appear in The Sign of the Cross, and the ending of the play diverges from that of Quo Vadis. Adaptations Theatre A successful stage version of the novel by Stanislaus Stange was produced in 1900. Cinema Film versions of the novel were produced in 1901, 1910 "Au temps des premiers chrétiens" by André Calmettes 1913 1913 1924 1924. 1951 1951 version directed by Mervyn LeRoy was nominated for eight Academy Awards. Television The novel was also the basis for a 1985 mini-series starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Nero and a 2001 Polish mini-series directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. Others It was satirized as the quintessential school play gone horribly awry in Shivering Shakespeare, a 1930 Little Rascals short by Hal Roach. Jean Nouguès composed an opera based on the novel to a libretto by Henri Caïn; it was premiered in 1909. Feliks Nowowiejski composed an oratorio based on the novel,