Theatrical Review: Play of the Week: Burning Bright, John Steinbeck

There is something different about this play.  It was presented in the TV series Play of the Week in 1959.  It has the same four characters throughout, but they change their background.  In the first two acts they are in the circus.  Fred ed is a clown, and his best friend is Joe Saul, a trapeze artist.  Joe's cousin passed away, and the new trapeze artist is Victor.  Joe's wife is Mordeen.  Something is burning at Joe's heart.  He was previously married for five years, and his wife passed away.  He has now been married for three years, and no baby by either wife.  He is getting old, and is worried his seed will die with him.  Friend Ed and Joe's wife scheme to get him a baby, using Victor.  We then find the same four people working on a farm.  They refer to happenings in the first two acts, but have left the circus behind.  Mordeen announces she is pregnant, and Victor, who works on the farm, realizes the child is his.  He cannot let this go, and he says he cannot leave knowing he is gong to be a father.  No one tells Joe.  In the final act the are on a ship.  Friend Ed is going to take Victor away.  However Victor insists he is staying, and going to divulge the secret, and force Mordeen to be with him.  Friend Ed says he has to tell Victor a secret, takes Victor on deck and dispatches with him, a knife and overboard.  He is still going to sail away with friend Ed.  Mordeen knows what has happened, but is going to life with it.  Then enters Joe, who has been to the doctor, and discovered his sperm are dead.  He has an illness and is dying.  He turns Mordeen away, but Friend Ed gets him to come to his senses, and the final scene is the hospital where the baby has been born, and Joe is there with Mordeen. 
I have thought about why the setting changed, while the characters didn't.  I think Steinbeck was saying that these circumstances could happen in  whatever setting, that wasn't important.  What was important was the struggle to leave something  better after ourselves, but also to be accepting of whatever roll life might give us.  This is a play which touches on infertility, and the attitude of one man towards infertility and how he comes to terms with his infertility.