The Scarecrow is a play written by Percy MacKaye in 1908, and first presented on Broadway in 1911. It is based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "Feathertop", but greatly expands upon the tale. Mackaye himself stated that he hoped that the play would not be taken as a dramatization of "Feathertop", since the intentions of the two works are so different: "The scarecrow Feathertop is ridiculous, as the emblem of a superficial fop; the scarecrow Ravensbane is pitiful, as the emblem of human bathos." Productions Frank Reicher, known to modern audiences for playing the ship's captain in the original King Kong and its sequel Son of Kong, starred in the title role in the original 1911 Broadway production. The play had what would now be considered an extremely short run in New York (23 performances). In 1923 it was filmed as a silent movie, Puritan Passions, starring Mary Astor. The play was revived twice in New York (most recently in 2005), has been made into an opera, and has become a favorite in regional theatre in the United States. A 1972 television production, first telecast on PBS, is now available on DVD. It stars Gene Wilder, Blythe Danner, Pete Duel, Norman Lloyd, and Will Geer. "Feathertop", the Nathaniel Hawthorne story on which the play is based, has been presented in two television productions - one of them an adaptation on the General Electric Theater starring Natalie Wood and Carleton Carpenter, the other a musical starring Hugh O'Brian in the title role and Jane Powell as Julie Balfour (rather than Rachel). It has also been made as a silent film twice. The play was also adapted into an animated feature in 2000, directed by Brian Nissen and Richard Rich, which bore almost no resemblance to the original play. Plot The play takes place in seventeenth-century Massachusetts. It is in four acts. Years ago, Justice Gilead Merton deserted his mistress Goody Rickby after she gave birth to a son. The child later died because Goody was unable to obtain medical help for him. In the years following, Goody has learned witchcraft from Dickon, the Devil himself. To avenge herself on Merton, she and Dickon manufacture a scarecrow, bring it to life so that it resembles a human, and take him to Merton's house, with the intention of having the Scarecrow seduce Merton's niece, Rachel, away from her fiancé just before their wedding.