The play was produced by David Merrick and directed by Joseph Hardy, with settings by Jo Mielziner.
The play was presented in London's West End in 1971, opening at the Queen's Theatre on 16 March.
As on Broadway, the director and designer were, respectively, Hardy and Mielziner, with Laurence Harvey, Rupert Davies and Derek Fowlds in the cast.
In 1972, Sidney Lumet directed a screen adaptation under the same title, starring James Mason, Robert Preston and Beau Bridges.
The play centers on the rivalry between two faculty members at St. Charles, an exclusive Roman Catholic boarding school for boys.
Joe Dobbs is an easy-going, well-liked English teacher, while Latin and Greek instructor Jerome Malley is feared and hated by his students for his strict disciplinary methods.
Malley is caring for his dying mother, and his stress is exacerbated by a series of threatening phone calls and written notes he receives.
Into the fray comes Paul Reese, a former student who has been hired to teach PE, and he soon finds his loyalty torn between the friendly Dobbs and Malley, as he becomes increasingly aware of the latter's personal torments.
Compounding his situation is the realization that the unbridled violence practiced by the students may be the result of demonic possession.
Paul Reese, an alumnus of the school, now teaching history and PE, leaves the faculty room to act as a referee for a basketball game played by the boys.
Griffin asks Dobbs to see if he can understand why the boys have been violent (as they have had more fights and injuries in the past few weeks than ever) since he and the headmaster can't seem to get anything out of the students.
It is at this time that Reese comes running into the room carrying a bloody Freddy Banks and screaming for help.
As a result of the incident, Freddy loses his eye, and his mother takes him out of the school, accusing the administration of being negligent in their duties.
Griffin and Dobbs go to class, and Reese realizes that he was wrong about Malley all along — not only was he a good teacher, but he was not as mean as they thought he was.
During this conversation, a beaten-up Carre is thrown off the balcony in the faculty room, down the stairs, to Reese's and Dobbs's shock.
Malley returns to work only to find that he has been fired because inappropriate mail addressed to him was discovered at the school.
Mozian doesn't believe any of this and storms out of the room after officially terminating Malley's contract at the school.