The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket

American playwright and television writer Peter Parnell’s play The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket (1982) concerns a 12-year-old boy who discovers he can fly and the complications this ability brings in adulthood. The play was first performed at New York's Playwright Horizons theater off-Broadway with actor Tom Hulce in the role of the protagonist as an adult.

In Act 1, a group of 12-year-old boys ogles at pictures of naked women in a schoolyard. They proceed to mock one of their unpopular classmates, Daniel. Derisively referring to him as "Snood," the boys lack empathy and understanding for Daniel's idiosyncrasies—particularly his unflagging belief in his own ability to fly. Richard is the only classmate who tries to understand and befriend Daniel.

It turns out that Daniel's belief is correct. Afraid that he will be mocked even further for being different, Daniel initially practices flying only in secret. In preparation for revealing his ability to the rest of his classmates, Daniel fashions a set of wings to strap on his back in the belief that this will make his demonstration less troubling to his fellow students.



At first, Daniel only plans to display his talent to two people: Richard and classmate Alice on whom Daniel has a crush. One day, Daniel invites Richard and Alice to meet him at Hatch's Cliff. However, Alice tells her best friend, Penny, who tells at least one other person, and before long, practically the entire town is aware of Daniel's flight attempt. Richard and Alice arrive at Hatch's Cliff at the predetermined time but are followed shortly thereafter by all the boys and girls in Daniel's class. Some of the classmates are merely curious, but others are eager to see Daniel fail and embarrass himself. As the kids await Daniel's arrival, Richard and Alice kiss one another. Moments later, Daniel emerges and leaps off Hatch's Cliff, causing the crowd to gasp in shock. Even more surprising to the classmates is that Daniel proceeds to fly through the air, landing on the ground unharmed.

Daniel takes off into the air once more and flies off into the distance. For some time, nobody knows where Daniel is, and so they leave Hatch's Cliff. When Alice arrives home alone and enters her bedroom, she finds Daniel waiting there. After showing her that he can fly without wings, Daniel makes Alice promise that she will fly with him one day in the future. Daniel exits through the window as Act 1 draws to a close.

In Act 2, 20 years have passed, and Daniel is an international celebrity, known the world over for his flying ability. He wins several awards and distinctions, including a lifetime achievement award. Although he frequently travels the world, Daniel maintains connections to his hometown and the people in it. After many months away, he returns home to see Richard and Alice, who are now married. They have a son named after Daniel, to whom the elder Daniel is godfather.



This isn't an ordinary visit. Rather, Daniel comes home to ask Alice—whom he still loves—to fly away with him as she had promised all those years in the past. However, Alice refuses to leave behind Richard and her son, both of whom she loves dearly. As he wrestles with Alice's choice, Daniel begins to feel that his exceptional gift alienates him from others. He aches for the kind of intimacy and simple domestic bliss enjoyed by Alice and Richard. In his godson, he sees himself as a child, ordinary yet innocent, before he shared his talent with the world.

As these anxieties mount, Daniel begins to feel his gift fade. Despondent, he leaps off Hatch's Cliff for one last flight, but in the air, his gift abandons him completely as he plummets to the ground. Still alive but mortally injured, Daniel is carried by Richard and other former classmates to Alice's childhood bedroom where she promised Daniel to fly with him all those years ago. As his life slips away, Daniel believes he is floating above his body, having regained the ability to fly. Moments after Daniel dies, his classmates observe the bedroom window open on its own volition, followed by the sound of wind chimes just outside as if someone had brushed by them.

The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket " is grounded in truth about the mutual hurtfulness of children and the need for illusion in their young lives" (The New York Times).