THE jOURNAL OF

AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE

Volume 6, Numbers 2&3 Spring/Fall 1994
Editor
Vera Mowry Roberts
Consulting Editor
Jill Dolan
Managing Editor
Edwin Wilson
Assistant Editor
James Masters
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OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
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Stephen Archer
Ruby Cohn
Margaret Wi I kerson
Don B. Wilmeth
Bruce A. McConachie
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THE jOURNAL OF AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE
Volume 6, Numbers 2&3
Contents
GERALD WEALES, Shaw's American Inheritors
DEBORAH NOVAK, The Forgotten Music
of Triple-A Plowed Under, Power,
and One Third of a Nation
ALAN KREIZENBECK, Garland Anderson
and Appearances: The Playwright
and His Play
WILLIAM FARICY CONDEE, The Search
for America's National Theatre
at the Vivian Beaumont
CHERYL BLACK, Ida Rauh:
Power Player at Provincetown
M. SUSAN ANTHONY, "This Sort of Thing . . . "
Productions of Gothic Plays
in America: 1790-1830
Spring/Fall 1994
1
12
28
49
63
81
CLAUS-PETER NEUMANN, Tennessee Williams's
Plastic Theatre: Camino Real
INDEX TO }ADT: VOLUMES 1-6
BOOK NOTES
CONTRIBUTORS
93
112
121
124
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
Shaw's American Inheritors
1
GERALD WEALES
"But the delight and abundance that we have all had of him should
put us on our knees," Stark Young wrote to Eric Bentley on 13 January
1948, acknowledging Bentley's Bernard Shaw: A Reconsideration.
Not that Young was given to genuflection in the presence of Shaw's
work. In the same letter-in fact, in the sentence preceding the call to
reverence-he says that "there are moments when I think him not
entirely sincere, not by intention but through lack of imaginative depth
or through being heavily set on one theme."
2
Whatever his doubts, Young was too appreciative a critic not to see
the importance of Shaw. Such was not the case with his predecessors.
William Winter, who was drama reviewer for the New York Tribune for
more than forty years, beginning in the last year of the Civil War, had
an abiding distaste for the new drama seeping into this country from
Europe. As late as 1908, in Other Days, in his celebration of the actor
john McCullough, he could write that the actor's "breezy laugh would
have blown the Ibsen bubble from the stage. He would have set the
heel of amused contempt on all such sickly humbugs as Maeterlinck,
Sudermann and Shaw."
3
One might have expected that his attitude
toward at least one of the sickly humbugs would have hampered him
in his biography of Richard Mansfield, faced with what Shaw scholars
take as an important event-Mansfield's production of Arms and the
Man, which introduced Shaw to the American stage in 1894. Yet
Winter managed to transcend the problem by focusing on the actor and
speaking only briefly and condescendingly of the playwright and his
1
This article is based on a talk given at " The Once and Future Shaw," a
symposium held at the Long Island Stage, April 20-22, 1990.
2
Stark Young, A Life in the Arts, Letters, 1900-1962, ed. John Pilkington (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975), 1041.
3
William Winter, Other Days (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1908),
224.
2 WEALES
play: "at its best a dilution of 'Used Up,' garnished with satirical
additions."
4
George Pierce Baker was no William Winter, but he, too,
had a taste for conventional theatre that made him suspicious ofShaw
and, as a scholar/teacher, he was presumably in a position to protect
embryo playwrights from Shavian influence. A student of Baker's from
Harvard-E. Bradlee Watson, if I correctly read the rather obscure
identification of sources in Wisner Payne Kinne's book on Baker-told
the biographer, "I recall his insistence that Shaw was too contemptuous
of the limitations of good dramatic technique, especially in his
unrestrained bent to 'talk things out.' " After seeing Fanny's First Play
in London in 1912, Baker commented, "If only Shaw would take his
art seriously and himself not so seriously, he might do great things."
5
These are critics, of course, and playwrights notoriously refuse to
be led by them. (On the occasion of a new play's opening in late
1990, Mike Weller told an interviewer that he had not read reviews of
his work since 1984, when The Ballad of Soapy Smith was so badly
received.)
6
Back in 1904, before Winter's belated shots across the
bow of modern drama and before Edward Sheldon went off to Harvard,
the young man, whose Salvation Nell (1908) would be the first
commercial success to come out of Baker's English 47 workshop,
discovered Shaw's Plays Pleasant and wrote his mother that they were
"very amusing indeed."
7
At best, a mildly worshipful phrase. Still,
the question here is not whether American dramatists sank to their
knees before Shaw, but whether they sat at his feet. American
playwrights seem willing to acknowledge a debt to Ibsen (Arthur Miller)
and to Strindberg (Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams), but there is
oddly very little testimony to Shaw as mentor. More likely, as my later
remarks on Robert E. Sherwood will indicate, there was back-pedaling
to escape any Shavian taint.
4
William Winter, Life and Art of Richard Mansfield (New York: Moffat, Yard
and Company, 1901) val. 1, 226. Other unenlightening references in val. 1, pp.
221, 335, 358; vol. 2, pp. 30, 222-224. Used Up (1844) is a farce by Dian
Boucicault and Charles Matthews, adapted from a French original.
5
Wisner Payne Kinne, George Pierce Baker and the American Theatre
(Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1954), 110, 160.
6
Patrick Pacheco, "The Critic Tastes Comeuppance/' New York Times, 25
November 1990, sec. 2, 5.
7
Quoted, Loren K. Ruff, Edward Sheldon (Boston: Twayne, 1982), 27.
Shaw's Inheritors
3
I have come across no admission of direct influence among
playwrights of Edward Sheldon's generation. It might be amusing to
consider the possibility of Shavian traces in a play such as Clyde Fitch's
The Girl with the Green Eyes (1902)
1
but as The City (1909) indicates,
even when he approaches a social/political theme, Fitch's emphasis is
on personal weakness. Simi larly, Sheldon, in The Nigger (1909) and
The Boss (1911), could turn to business and politics for his setting
without quite putting them under Shavian scrutiny. Rachel Crothers
may be the best bet as an incipient Shavian in this generation of
playwright. Lois C. Gottlieb has said that He and She (1911) ''shows
the strong influence of Shaw and the drama of discussion" and that it
was criticized for that reason-" all talk and no action." Elsewhere, in
a discussion of Crothers's feminism in the 1920s, Gottlieb made an
important distinction between the two playwrights. "While Shaw built
his comedies around a single deviant in a crowd of 100, Crothers
resolves her comedies on the basis of the majority."
8
It is a point that
applies to most of the serious dramatists of the pre-World War I
American stage. What these playwrights have in common is a sense of
a theater in transition, one willing to approach if not quite embrace
serious themes, and the influence here is generalized rather than
specific-the Americanization of the new European drama that would
not become acclimated until after the first World War. Each of these
dramatists-in his or her own way-is closer to Shaw than the
playwrights who turn up in the saltatory catalogue that follows, if only
because they share with him a sense of new drama in the making. The
hop, skip and jump through American drama below is more likely to
turn up evidence of Shaw than of Shavianism.
Louis Sheaffer may have had grounds for finding "overtones of both
Ibsen and Shaw" in the early Eugene O'Neill play, Servitude (1914),
but his conviction that Strange Interlude (1927) was based on Man and
Superman seems a bit far-fetched.
9
It takes a leap of critical faith to
see Nina Leeds as Ann Whitefield, Ned Darrell as John Tanner, and
"dear old Charlie" Marsden as Ricky Ticky Tavy.
10
It is easier to
accept that O'Neill-as he told Lawrence Langner-was more influ-
8
Lois C. Gottlieb, Rachel Crothers (Boston: Twayne, 1977), 51, 119.
9
Louis Sheaffer, O'Neill, Son and Playwright (Boston: Little Brown, 1968), 285;
O'Neill, Son and Artist (Boston: Little Brown, 1973), 240.
10
Eugene O'Neill, Strange Interlude, in Complete Plays, 7920-1931 (New York:
The Library of America, 1988), 641 and repetitively all through the play.
4 WEALES
enced as a person than as a playwright.
11
That puts us back with the
generalized influence of the paragraph above, and it is best illustrated
in O' Neill's nostalgic comedy Ah, Wilderness! (1933). In the first act,
an alarmed Mrs. Miller confronts Richard, O'Neill's sanitized version
of himself, after having discovered Ibsen, Wilde, Swinburne and the
Rubaiyat on the boy's bookshelf:
MRS. Ml LLER: And then there were two books by that Bernard
Shaw-
RICHARD: The greatest playwright alive today!
MRS. MILLER: To hear him tell it, maybe! You know, Nat, the
one who wrote a play about-well, never mind-that was
so vile they wouldn't even let it play in New York!
MILLER: Hmm. I remember.
MRS. MILLER: One was a book of his plays and the other had
a long title I couldn't make head or tail of, only it wasn't
a play.
RICHARD: The Quintessence of Ibsen ism ... It's about Ibsen,
the greatest playwright since Shakespeare!
12
Ah, Wilderness! is set in 1906, shortly after the forced closing of Arnold
Daly's 1905 production of Mrs. Warren's Profession and the young
O'Neill's finding and becoming "wildly excited"
13
by The Quintes-
sence of Jbsenism at Benjamin R. Tucker's Unique Book Shop, which
is where O'Neill found most of the books that Mrs. Miller thought of
as "advanced and wicked."
14
Shaw helped form the teenage radical
more than the dramatist.
Malcolm Goldstein has called Robert E. Sherwood "the most
Shavian of American playwrights of his time."
15
Certainly, that was
the perception of Sherwood when William A. Brady Jr. and Dwight
Deere Wiman produced his first play, The Road to Rome, in 1927. It
had earlier been rejected by Gilbert Miller, who complained, "I don't
11
Lawrence Langner, G.B.S. and the Lunatic (New York: Atheneum, 1963), 4.
12
Eugene O'Neill, Ah, Wilderness!, in Complete Plays, 1932-1943 (New York:
The Library of America, 1988), 16.
13
Langner, 4.
14
Ah, Wilderness!, 15.
15
Malcol m Goldstein, The Political Stage (New York: Oxford, 1974), 146.
Shaw's Inheritors
5
like even first-rate Shaw."
16
Both Percy Hammond in the New York
Herald Tribune and Brooks Atkinson iri the Times compared Sherwood
to Shaw and "our own sardonic John Erskine," to use Atkinson's phrase
for the then-popular satirical novelist; Atkinson threw in Anatole France
as well .
17
None of the comparisons worked to Sherwood's advantage,
and it was the Shaw connection that stuck. Both John Mason Brown
in his biography of Sherwood and Walter J. Meserve in his critical
study of the dramatist repeat the phrase "Shaw in short pants" as
though it were an actual label that a reviewer had fastened on the
playwright.
18
I suspect that it is a concoction derived from George
Jean Nathan's "The Theatre" column in American Mercury, in which
Sherwood appears as the prime example in a section called "The Knee-
Pants Drama."
19
In the preface to the published version of The Road
to Rome, after more than thirty pages on the historical background of
the play, Sherwood says, "I have attempted to make all the people in
the play credible and recognizable-and in doing so, I have c u s ~ d a
great many dramatic critics to cry, 'Shaw-Shaw-Shaw!' " He admits
to having been influenced by Shaw's remarks on the too poetic
Melissinde in Rostand's La Princesse Lointaine, but insists that there is
no connection between The Road to Rome and Caesar and Cleopa-
tra.20 Perhaps, like the pre-Shavian queen, he protests too much (all
those pages on the conflict between Carthage and Rome), but the best
place to look for Shavian traces is in the play itself. There may be a
touch of Shaw in an exchange such as this:
HANNIBAL: The gods are on our side. That's why we're
winning.
AMYTIS: You mean, what's why the gods are on your side.
16
Quoted, John Mason Brown, The Worlds of Robert E. Sherwood, Mirror to His
Times, 1896-1939 (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 216.
17
J. Brooks Atkinson, "Hannibal's Wild Oat," New York Times, 1 February 1927,
24.
18
Brown, 219; Walter J. Meserve, Robert E. Sherwood, Reluctant Moralist (New
York: Pegasus, 1970), 83.
19
George Jean Nathan, American Mercury 10 (April 1927): 501-503.
20
Robert Emmet Sherwood, The Road to Rome (New York: Scribner's, 1927),
xxxix-xli. Shaw's Rostand review (22 june 1895) is in Our Theatres in the Nineties
(London: Constable, 1932), 154-163.
6 WEALES
Yet when Meta says, "Of course he doesn't know what he' s talking
about. He's not supposed to. He's a Senator,"
21
one is less likely to
think of Shaw than to remember that, a few years before he turned
playwright, Sherwood shared an office at Vanity Fair with Robert
Bench ley and Dorothy Parker. The most Shavian thing about The Road
to Rome is that Sherwood turns Fabius Maximus(the original Fabian)
into a pompous cipher and lets an invented wife (Amytis) keep
Hannibal out of Rome. She does it in a French comedy way (seduc-
tion) not a Shavian one (persuasion). Shaw would have turned her into
Lady Cicely Waynflete.
"When one drunken moron (whether in dinner clothes or overalls)
murders another in a brawl over a woman," said S.N. Behrman in the
prefatory note to his Rain from Heaven (1934),
it is only a sanguinary bore. There is not here any of the
dignity of tragedy. But should George Bernard Shaw, for
example, have walked across Adelphi Terrace one day and
killed J. M. Barrie in a quarrel over Mrs. Patrick Campbell, that,
for the dramatist, would have been news. For it would have
involved a struggle beyond the physical contest between Mr.
Barrie and Mr. Shaw. The tragedy would inhere not in the
death of Mr. Barrie, regrettable as that might be, but in the
sudden destruction of Mr. Shaw's acquired characteristics by
his inherited ones.
22
The exemplary use of Shaw (the real subject of the note was Gerhart
Hauptmann's turning his Teutonic back on his old friend and supporter,
the Jewish critic Alfred Kerr) does not indicate that Behrman is a Shaw
disciple except that he, like Shaw, assumes that drama I ies somewhere
in the interplay of action and ideas. John Howard Lawson makes that
point negatively in Theory and Technique of Playwriting, in which his
analysis of Rain from Heaven and the earlier Biography (1932) is an
extension of his distrust of Shaw:
The fact that the play deals so abstractly with contemporary
issues is due to a one-sided approach to these issues; the idea
of a destiny which overrides and paralyzes the human will
influences Behrman's method, leading him to treat the total
21
Sherwood, 119, 11 .
22
5.N. Behrman, Rain from Heaven (New York: Random House, 1935), 11-12.
Shaw's Inheritors
environment as an unknown and final power; the decisions of
the characters are jerky and incomplete; the impact of social
forces is shown in talk rather than in its deeper effect on the
consciousness and will. The characters are not fully realized;
they have certain qualities which cause them to struggle against
the environment but the roots of these qualities are not
exposed. We have noted these tendencies in Shaw; similar
modes of thought give a Shavian flavor to Behrman's tech-
nique.
7
There is, as usual with Lawson, much aesthetic and social truth in his
remarks, but his view of Behrman and Shaw-and his own early
work-is a product of his having become a Communist ideologue. He
admired the direction in which Behrman seemed to be moving in Rain
from Heaven, but he was unable to accept the play without the kind
of hedges he erected around Shaw even though he could call him "the
most eminent critic and most important English-speaking dramatist of
the period following lbsen."
23
What of Lawson's fellow playwrights on the Left? Li II ian Hellman
told Ward Morehouse in 1951, "Now that Mr. Shaw is dead, nobody
is next to O'Casey for my money."
24
It is an indication of h ~
admiration for Shaw, but he did not mark her plays as Chekhov did
The Autumn Garden (1951) . Others saw Shaw as a predecessor or
sought his approval. After Theater Union's production of Stevedore
(1934), by Paul Peters and George Sklar, "the social play became
acceptable," according to Sklar. "It wasn't new, God knows; the critics
had forgotten their history-Shaw, Ibsen, Moliere, and so on. I think
we made them realize that we were within a long-standing and great
tradition."
25
Clifford Odets, who always embodies a nice mixture of
social concern and conventional ambition, is supposed to have written
"I am your playwrighting son!" to Shaw, demanding that the older
playwright acknowledge him.
26
George jean Nathan tells the story
(Vogue, March 1936) and, sjnce Nathan was always trying to cut the
23
John Howard Lawson, Theory and Technique of Playwriting (New York: Hil l
and Wang, 1960), 214, 107.
24
Conversations with Lillian Hellman, ed. Jackson R. Bryer Oackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 1986), 23.
25
Quoted, Jay Williams, Stage Left (New York: Scribner's, 1974), 120.
26
Quoted, Gerald Weales, Odets the Playwright (London: Methuen, 1985), 13.
8 WEALES
successful new playwright down to size, it may be apocryphal. In any
case, there was no answer from Shaw unless a letter to Cecil Lewis (5
June 1937) be taken as a hidden response. Although he never
mentioned Odets, who did the screenplay, Shaw describes his pain in
sitting through The General Died at Dawn: "From time to time they
made i narticulate noises with American accents, with all the consonants
left out. Not one word could I understand, nor could Charlotte."
27
And other playwrights of the 1920s and 1930s? In "St. Bernard, "
his contribution to the celebration at the Waldorf-Astoria for Shaw' s
90th birthday, Maxwell Anderson sometimes sounds as though he is
talking about Maxwell Anderson.
28
Yet, as a playwright, his sights
were more likely to be on Shakes than on Shav. In Poetry and Drama,
T.S. Eliot-an American playwright of sorts-said of the prose scene
with the knights in Murder in the Cathedral, "I may, for aught I know,
have been slightly under the influence of Saint ]oan."
29
The remark
was made in 1951, sixteen years after Murder was produced at the
Canterbury Festival; the passage of t ime and the playfulness of "for
aught I know" suggest that the Shaw-EI iot connection here is as tenuous
as the one Robert Brustein conjures in The Theatre of Revolt when he
suggests that the "weird ritual chant" at the end of Act I of Heartbreak
House is "a foretaste of the kind of choral technique T.S. Eliot will use
in The Family Reunion."
30
One could make as good a case for the
extravaganzas of Shaw's late years as a direct influence on American
playwrights of the 1960s who thought they were being shaped by
Beckett and lonesco. But Brustein's word is foretaste not influence.
Shaw apparently worked more directly on Don Marquis. In a New
York Times article before the 1932 opening of The Dark Hours (1924),
the playwright explained his use of an offstage voice for Jesus, "Shaw
says that if you attempt to show Jesus on the stage you have simply a
27
Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters, 1926-1950, ed. Dan H. Laurence (New York:
Viking, 1988), 466-467.
28
Maxwell Anderson, Off Broadway, Essays about the Theater (New York:
William Sloane Associates, 1947), 12-1 7.
29
T.S. Eliot, Poetry and Drama (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
19sn 3o.
30
Robert Brustein, The Theatre of Revolt (Boston: Atl antic-Littl e Brown, 1964),
222.
Shaw's Inheritors
9
handsome actor." Even if Marquis is misremembering the Shaw
preface that he does not name, this is an influence of sorts.
31
Of the postwar dramatists, Tennessee Williams has the most
interestingly oblique connection with Shaw. In a paper on Candida
that he wrote at one of the colleges he attended in the 1930s, he
concluded that Shaw "is not an artist" because he is too temperate, too
sane, too intellectual. "Shaw's plays work out like formulas or
algebraic problems," he complains/
2
an odd criticism from a young
man who would later build Summer and Smoke (1948) around a
formulaic body-spirit split. Williams was not beyond borrowing from
the temperate Irishman. In You Touched Me!, the play that Williams
and Donald Windham made from the D.H. Lawrence short story of that
name, Lawrence's quiet potter becomes a noisy retired sea captain,
whose study is a replica of a ship's cabin. Captain Shotover is not the
only denizen of Heartbreak House to invade You Touched Me!;
Randall the Rotter plays a part as well. At the end of Act I, Scene I,
when Emmie badmouths Hadrian, he answers from his hiding place
with his penny flute as Randall uses his flute to talk back to Lady
Utterwood in Act Ill of the Shaw play. When I described these
similarities in The Shaw Review back in 1965, I did not know-what
Donald Spoto has since told us-that Williams saw a production of
Heartbreak House in Provincetown in the summer of 1940. His letters
to Windham at that time-a chronicle of sex and gossip-do not
mention the Shaw play, but it was clearly still in his mind when he
turned to the Windham collaboration in 1942.
33
31
Don Marquis, "Dramatizing the Greatest Subject," New York Times, 13
November 1932, sec. 9, 2. Marquis is probably thinking of the preface to Androcles
and the Lion in which Shaw discusses what he perceives as Luke's sentimentaliza-
tion of Christ: "the Christ of Luke has made possible those pictures which now
hang in many ladies' chambers, in which Jesus is represented exactly as he is
represented in the Lourdes cinematography, by a handsome actor." Bernard Shaw,
Complete Plays with Prefaces vol. 5 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963), 356.
32
Tennessee Williams, " ' Candida' : A College Essay," The Shaw Review, 20
(May 1977): 60-62. Williams, who was uncertain where he wrote the paper,
dismissed it as an "undergraduate outburst," but still gave permission to have it
reprinted.
33
Gerald Weales, "Tennessee Wi I Iiams Borrows a Little Shaw, The Shaw Review,
8 (May 1965): 63-64; Donald Spoto, The Kindness of Strangers, The Life of
Tennessee Williams (Boston: little Brown, 1985), 80; Tennessee Williams' Letters
to Donald Windham, 1940-1965, ed. Donald Windham (New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1977), 5-12.
10 WEALES
Edward Albee has been compared to everyone from Noel Coward
to T.S. Eliot, but Shaw is not a name that surfaces often in Albee
criticism. Back in 1967, however, D.C. Coleman, who was supposed
to be writing a dissertation on the early plays of Shaw at the time,
published a good article called " Fun and Games: Two Pictures of
Heartbreak House," which compared Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool f?
to the Shaw play. He treated both, quite properly, as unmasking plays,
but-not quite properly-he found Virginia Woolf the more impressive,
partly because he saw Albee' s ending as more positive than Shaw's.
If having "practical hope for the future" is a desirable attribute of a
play, surely the ambiguous final ascent of the stairway i n Virginia Woolf
is not as clearly positive as the call for destruction at the end of
Heartbreak House.
34
A final, brief incursion among very recent American playwrights:
In the first scene of Some Americans Abroad (1989), Richard Nelson' s
professorial types-particularly Joe and Phi I ip, old antagonists-play at
serious discussion over dinner. They have just seen an unidentified
Shaw play that Philip dismisses as " intellectual mush":
PHILIP: Straw men-set up to be knocked down. That's how
Shaw works. The world presented i n that play was tricky,
not complicated. Shaw enjoyed tricki ness, not real
thinking.
JOE: And that is one opinion. (To the others.) Shaw's rep-
utation this half-century has gone up and down, up and
down. (He laughs.)
PHILIP: The world today makes such a play ridiculous.
JOE: Come on, it was funny. You laughed.
PHILIP: I laughed. At a play. I didn' t appreciate the effort at
political argument. Or rather the trivialization of political
argument. (Beat.) Look, in the end I think we're saying
the same thing. The world is complicated. Too compli-
cated for a George Bernard Shaw to express-
JOE: I think that play is very profound.
The argument goes on, Joe defending, Phil ip attacking, and it resurfaces
in the final scene over still another dinner.
35
All this has less to do
34
D.C. Coleman, " Fun and Games: Two Pictures of Heartbreak House," Drama
Survey, 5 (Winter 1966-67): 223-236. Quote, p. 236.
35
Richard Nelson, Some Americans Abroad (london: Faber and Faber, 1989),
3, 64.
Shaw's Inheritors 11
with Shaw than with the two characters, who behave badly through
much of the play; their hesitation and insecurity faced with the
necessity of making decisions is set off nicely by their verbal assurance
which lets them escape into academic afflatus. Does Nelson's use of
Shaw discussion once removed mark him as a Shavian? Well, sort of.
He does try to write serious comedies; here and in his other plays he
is preoccupied, as Shaw was, with the way words effect action or
substitute for it. This is a familiar enough theme in current American
drama (namely David Mamet, whom surely no one takes as a Shavian);
so even though Nelson's work is often performed in London before it
comes home to New York, he may reflect not Shaw as much as the
American Zeitgeist.
This gathering of American playwrights is an arbitrary one. A
diligent searcher might turn up an American who is an admitted
disciple of Shaw, but anyone who seines American drama as I
have-even if he pulls in a catch of other playwrights-is likely to find
only Shaw references. For American playwrights, Shaw is not a direct
influence. He is simply a presence-even now, after all these years.
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fal l 1994)
The Forgotten Music of
Triple-A Plowed Under, Power,
and One Third of a Nation
DEBORAH NOVAK
To students of the Federal Theatre Project, one more article on the
New York productions o"f Triple-A Plowed Under (1936), Power (1937),
and One Third of a Nation (1938) is sure to be met with a hearty
yawn.
Yet there is one glaring omission in the study of these performanc-
es. While many scholars have referred to their music, no one has
considered the function or the social imp I ications of Lee Wainer's
scores. Some have centered their research on visual aspects and have
ignored music altogether, while others have assigned it a limited role,
such as a "I inking device" between scenes. Like documentary films of
the 1930s, the research on Triple-A, Power, and One Third is incom-
plete without considering their extensive musical accompaniment.
1
1
Abdui-Aziz Hammouda, The Living Newspaper: A Study in Sources and Form,
Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, June 1968, 84, relegates music to the role of a
"linking device" between scenes. Carol Ann Highsaw, A Theatre of Action: The
Living Newspapers of the Federal Theatre Project (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1988), 17-18, 58, concedes that Wainer's work was an integral part
of these productions, but does not include analysis of the scores and assigns music
generalized functions, such as setting the scene, emphasizing dialogue, and pointing
up climaxes. Because musical cues were not noted consistently in the printed
scripts, many inaccuracies have arisen. Douglas McDermott, The Living Newspaper
as a Dramatic Form, Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, August 1963, 80, says that
Triple-A Plowed Under used music "in only two scenes, i and vi i," whereas a look
at Wainer's score shows that there are 29 music cues, which are played throughout
the performance. In his analysis of Power, McDermott says that, while the category
of sound " exists as a logical entity, it has never been widely used" (p. 148), but
Wainer's score for Power contains 91 cues. Regarding One Third, McDermott cites
"only one instance" of music, in Act I, Scene ii i, when " the orchestra is used to
make a satiric comment" (p. 173). In fact, Wainer composed a 125-page orchestral
score for this production.
Forgotten Music 13
The purpose of this essay is to examine how Lee Wainer's composi-
tions operate within these three productions. By analyzing the scores
and comparing musical plots with scripts and directorial notes, I have
determined that Wainer employed three basic compositional strategies:
musical illustration, defamiliarization, and independent commentary.
Furthermore, Triple-A, Power, and One Third relied upon their musical
scores to propagandize for the Roosevelt administration's policies.
While critics agree that these productions were sympathetic to New
Deal politics, no one has noted that Wainer's musical scores were
themselves a major carrier of propaganda.
MUSICAL ILLUSTRATION
According to Hallie Flanagan, the living newspapers showed "the
struggle of many different kinds of people to understand the natural,
social and economic forces around them and to achieve through these
forces a better life for more people."
2
Many papers have recounted
how projections, film, blocking, dance, and open staging have
demonstrated societal forces, but I would like to suggest that Wainer's
scores also revealed them through musical illustration of the mise en
scene.
When the curtain rises on Triple-A's opening scene, the stage
directions note that a "red spotlight is on soldiers marching in continu-
ous columns up ramp placed upstage left."
3
With an emphatic
marziale in D major, punctuated by fanfares, Wainer illustrates the
militaristic atmosphere through the musical line.
4
As Triple-A's soldiers continue up the ramp, three speakers exhort
American farmers to aid the war effort by increasing agricultural
production to record levels. With columns of soldiers marching up the
ramp and three actors standing above the farmers, Carol Ann Highsaw
argued that the staging of the opening spectacle provides a visual
2
Hallie Flanagan, Arena: The History of the Federal Theatre (New York: Duell,
Sloane and Pearce, 1940; reprint, Arno Press, 1980), 184.
3
Federal Theatre Plays vols. 1 and 2, ed. Pierre DeRohan (New York: Random
House, 1938), 9. Subsequent references for all three productions are cited in the
text.
4
Despite claims sometimes heard that music was used solely for linkage between
scenes, Wainer's compositions were integrated into all three productions. Triple-A's
opening spectacle, for example, was choreographed to Wainer's music.
14
NOVAK
representation of wartime inflation (Highsaw 1988, 56). However, she
neglected to add that the music provides an aural representation by
modulating up half steps to illustrate an inflated economy that is
spiraling. out of control.
To demonstrate societal conditions, the Federal Theatre Project's
living newspapers employed visual projections. Previous papers have
recounted the major role of projections, but few have dealt with the
fact that slides were accompanied by music. In all three productions,
Wainer translated projected images into the musical line, thus extend-
ing the visual image into the aural realm. In Triple-A, for example,
when the overseas market for American crops diminished in the 1920s,
a chart indicating the decline of foreign sales is projected throughout
three quick scenes in which an exporter refuses a shipment of wheat,
a city banker calls in loans from a country banker, and a country
banker forecloses on a farmer (Triple-A, 11-14). As Highsaw pointed
out, these three scenes are played on descending levels and "the
downward movement of the subscenes mirrors the descending line on
the chart" (Highsaw 1988, 56). But it should be added that after each
blackout, the chart remains visible while Wainer illustrates it musically
with a chromatic scale that descends two octaves and ends on a
somber minor third. By auralizing wartime inflation and the resulting
deflation, Wainer makes social conditions clear not only for the eyes
of the audience, but also for their ears.
In Power, projections often employed metaphors to simplify
complex issues, such as the growth of holding companies within the
electrical industry. When Mr. C.E. Groesbeck, an entrepreneur
involved with over forty corporations, comes forward, an octopus is
projected onto the scrim. As Groesbeck's extensive credentials are
listed, the octopus grows larger. Wainer accompanies this scene with
a series of tri lied chords, which ascend chromatically to iII ustrate the
expanding octopus and Groesbeck's increasing influence. Contrary to
Highsaw's conclusion that the cartoon projections of Power were
"silent satirists," the metaphor was actually composed of visual and
aural elements, both of which clarify the growth of monopolies within
the power industry (Highsaw 1988, 236).
Power often employed choreographed blocking with musical
accompaniment to demonstrate social problems. After Thomas Edison
invents the light bulb, "enter six businessmen excitedly, left and right.
They surround Edison. Their speeches are excited . .. as they try to
wrest the bulb from his hands" (Power, 17). To illustrate both their
movement and the greedy speculative atmosphere, Wainer composed
a staccato theme that ascends the scale and ends on an augmented
chord (See Figure 1 ).
Forgotten Music
~ ~ ~ b
i
J
J
qj
~
J J J
IJ
J
J
a
J
J
!,J
.
Figure 1. As nineteenth-century businessmen try to wrest the
bulb from Edison's hands in Power, Wainer employs an
ascending staccato theme. (From the Federal Theatre
Project archives at the Library of Congress.)
15
9'
16 NOVAK
Choreographed blocking is also evident in One Third, which
documents how portions of Manhattan island were divided into private
property owned by individual investors. To illustrate this point, a
typical eighteenth-century landowner enters carrying "a grass mat,
rolled up, under one arm" (One Third, 28). During the course of this
scene, the landlord rents small pieces of his mat to tenants, who sit on
it "in restricted cramped positions" while "they are all engaged in
going through some part of their daily routine" (One Third, 34). When
they are squeezed together on the mat, Wainer finishes his line with
minor seconds, pushing the notes together like the people to illustrate
their physical situation and the discordant social situation in which they
live (See Figure 2).
In her 1947 dissertation, Marjorie Dycke argued that the Federal
Theatre's living newspapers achieved a style of "cartoon realism,"
which she defined as "the brief, realistic presentation of an improbable,
if not impossible situation, having individual or social significance."
5
Thus, the Landowner calls his grass mat "Land," and with the theatrical
convention established, proceeds to lease portions of his mat and to
demonstrate the landlord-tenant relationship (One Third, 28).
Dycke's observation has been recounted in previous studies. But
what is not generally known is that Wainer often "mickeymoused" the
action-a phrase that describes a film technique derived from Walt
Disney's early animations and widely used in sound scores of the
1930s. Specifically, "mickeymousing" refers to translating physical
movements into musical terms in precise synchronization.
6
After the
Landowner has rented his "land" to a group of tenants, for example,
he attempts to squeeze a large fat man onto the crowded mat. To find
a space for him, the Landowner "forces all in the first row to topple
over" (One Third, 34) . The organ "mickeymouses" this action with a
descending glissando, which heightens awareness of the production's
cartoon style and. its socially significant overtones.
While not slavishly faithful to Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's
theories on epic theatre, Wainer's music exhibits elements of so-called
"gestic music," particularly with regard to character illustration. Brecht
wrote that the epic theatre is "chiefly interested in the attitudes which
people adopt towards one another, wherever they are socio-historically
5
Marjorie Dycke, The Living Newspaper: A Study of the Nature of the Form and
its Place in Modern Social Drama, Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1947, 21-22.
6
lrwin Bazelon, Knowing The Score: Notes on Film Music (New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 1975), 24.
........
,......
u
Vl
::J

c:
(1)
.......
.......
A
-.r
,...
--,
Figure 2. To illustrate the cramped tenants of One Third of a Nation, Wainer finishes his line with minor
J: seconds. (From the Federal Theatre Project archives at the Library of Congress.)
18 NOVAK
significant."
7
As a result, he conceived of the gest, which "is not a
matter of explanatory or emphatic movements of the hands, but of
overall attitudes" (Brecht 1964, 1 04). At times, Wainer's accompani-
ment directs the audience's attention toward the attitude of a character
so that the social situation emerges clearly.
In Power, for example, Wainer established leit-motifs for the
Consumer and the electric company, both of which express their
overall attitudes. The script describes the Consumer as "a meek-
looking little man" (Power, 19-20). To introduce him, Wainer em-
ployed a piccolo and piano duet in 6/8 time that ends in a delicate trill.
Even before the character utters a single line, the music has established
him as a gentle, mild creature. By contrast, the formation of the
monolithic power companies is accompanied with a series of pompous
ascending chords, which likewise end on a piccolo solo. Through
these themes, Wainer not only illustrates the submissive and dominant
attitudes that formed the social situation, but also I inks the Consumer
and the power company through the piccolo's line, thus foreshadowing
their coming confrontation.
In certain cases, live music from the pit took the place of words in
the text, speaking for characters and revealing their attitudes. In Power
the industrialist Samuel j. lnsull asks a Consumer-Investor if he would
like to own "a sixteen-cylinder Cadillac" or "a real home on Long
Island" or "your own yacht-the biggest in the world" (Power, 41). To
each question, the Consumer-Investor does not respond with words.
Instead, he gestures his interest, while the music answers for him with
an ascending line, i llustrating the ambitious attitude that created
speculation in utilities' securities.
At other times, Wainer's music objectified a subjective reaction that
is not expressed in the text. After the Investor hands over his hard-
earned four million dollars to lnsull, he learns that the Industrialist will
decide key issues, such as how to invest the company's money, how
much he will pay himself, and whether he is going to give himself a
bonus. At the close of the scene, the Investor asks:
CONSUMER-INVESTOR: How much have you got invested
in it?
INSULL: Not one red cent! (Power, 39-42) .
7
Bertolt Brecht, Brecht on Theatre, trans. John Willett (New York: Hill & Wang,
1964), 86. Subsequent references to this work are cited in the text.
Forgotten Music
19
Wainer continues the scene through the blackout by objectifying the
stunned reaction of the Investor with a dissonant seventh chord. He
also includes a descending chromatic scale, which illustrates his
shrinking dreams of getting rich quick on speculation.
Wainer's music also served to clarify the emotional life that is
missing from the episodic script, type characters, and presentational
style of acting. In One Third, after cholera is discovered in the
tenement, the building is whitewashed andre-rented to new immigrant
tenants. When they discover that they are about to live in a disease-
ridden building, they demand their money back, but the Landlord
reminds them:
LANDLORD: In case you're forgetting. . . . You' ve got to
have a place to live!
The tenants do not respond in words. The stage directions note that
"There is a pause, slowly they all pick up their belongings and start
cl imbing the stairs into the structure" (One Third, 65). But Wainer's
music, played doloroso in C minor, clarifies their pain and anguish at
having to live in a filthy slum.
Wainer also included music that would heighten the emotional
climate, as in traditional melodrama or film music . . In One Third, two
young men in Harlem declare a rent strike, withholding monthly
payments until repairs are made and increases are rescinded. Wainer
heightens their indignation with a dissonant fanfare in minor seconds.
In the following scene, as housewives on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan also decide to strike, Wainer reprises the same figure, but
modulates up a half step. When the scene shifts to Brooklyn, Wainer
modulates upwardly once more to heighten the tension of an expand-
ing social uprising (One Third, 92-4).
MUSICAL DEFAMILIARIZATION
In his second compositional strategy, Wainer employs musical
defamiliarization to foster a critical perception of key places, arguments,
and events. In Triple-A, he defamiliarizes the Chicago commodities
exchange by introducing these scenes with a loud gong, suitable
perhaps for the entrance of an Oriental emperor, but unfamiliar to the
business world. By making a familiar place strange, Wainer's music
engages the audience and i nvites them to consider the occurrences at
this place, including the rising price of wheat under the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration (Triple-A, 30, 36).
20 NOVAK
Of the three productions under consideration, One Third is the
most naturalistic and includes typical, yet realistic, scenes of life in an
urban tenement. In Act I, for example, the audience witnesses a dinner
scene with an Irish tenement family, whose daughter is being sucked
into a life of crime. All of these scenes begin and end with a repeated
timpani figure, which has been associated with the hard facts of
tenement life since the overture. By surrounding the naturalistic scenes
with the timpani, Wainer defamiliarizes the realistic environment, thus
inhibiting audience identification with the personal stories of these
characters and fostering a critical consideration of the events portrayed.
Similar to the notion of defamiliarization is foregrounding or the
granting of unusual prominence to certain elements. As a focusing
agent, music can be used to direct the audience's attention to any part
of the mise en scene. lri Power, when the United States government
decides to provide electricity for the Tennessee Valley, the play shows
simultaneous scenes "depicting the tremendous interest and argument
the TV A question has provoked all over the country" (Power, 83).
Over musical illustration of the debate, the plot notes that "the small
kettle drum is to be hit sharply in the middle, after the spoken words
'constitutional' and 'unconstitutional' each time they occur" (Power,
Plot XIX). Of all the theatrical signs evident on stage during this scene,
this percussive effect foregrounds the major issue of the debate and
invites the audience to appraise the argument for themselves.
Throughout the three productions under consideration, the so-
called Loudspeaker is increasingly involved in the action, while he
retains the narrator's role of introducing scenes, characters, and
providing the audience with time, place, and background information.
What is not generally known, however, is that the Loudspeaker's
comments often were accompanied by music to foreground major
points. In Power, statistics that support publicly owned electrical plants
are spoken to a drum roll accompaniment:
LOUDSPEAKER: In the United States the average domestic
rate per kilowatt hour in 1926 was 7.4 cents. In the
province of Ontario, Canada, where the system is publicly
owned and operated, the average cost per kilowatt hour is
1.66 cents (Power, 43).
To foreground key moments, Wainer also silenced his orchestra at
certain points. In Power, when a farmer goes to the manager of the
electric company to beg for electricity for his farm, the manager replies:
Forgotten Music
MANAGER: You can have all the lights you want. All you've
got to do is pay for the cost of poles and wires.
FARMER: But I haven't got four hundred dollars!
21
Coming face to face with the power monopoly, and learning that he
has no other options, the farmer exclaims:
FARMER: By God, the Government ought to do something
about this! (Power, 66).
Wainer foregrounds this pivotal line through silence, drawing the
audience's attention to it and inviting them to reflect on the social
implications of the farmer's statement.
MUSICAL COMMENTARY
In his third compositional strategy, Wainer employs music to offer
an independent point of view through counterpoint and direct
commentary. According to Norman Lloyd, the actor who played the
Middleman in Triple-A and the Consumer in Power, the music of these
productions "contributed enormously as comment on the action."
8
To provide subtextural comment, Wainer often counterpoints his
score to projected visual images. In Triple-A's church scene, a minister
in the midst of the dust bowl asks God to "bless the labors of the
husbandmen" while Wainer illustrates his monologue with a hymn
(Triple-A, 35-6) . As the lights on the minister slowly dim out, projec-
tions of dying cattle slowly appear. In counterpoint to these grotesque
images, the audience hears an expanded version of the preceding hymn
with a tremolo in the bass. In short, church music is juxtaposed with
images of dying cattle to comment on the futility of religious solutions.
The scene, then, seems to suggest that avenues of relief, outside the
church, need to be explored.
A similar counterpoint between stage picture and music occurs in
Power. After the Consumer discovers that electricity is controlled by
a monopoly, the Loudspeaker introduces T. Commerford Martin, who
is launching a publicity campaign for the power industry. Wainer
introduces Martin with a snare roll, which provides an official " public"
flavor to the scene. But this is counterpointed to a projected cartoon
8
Thi s quotation is taken from personal correspondence with Lloyd dated 11
September 1992.
22 NOVAK
of a convention banquet. While the audience hears a traditional
introduction, usually reserved for serious public announcements, it sees
a setting that undercuts the announcement. This counterpoint creates
a disjunction that provokes audience members to evaluate the
appearance and reality of power company officials.
Similarly in One Third, after members of Trinity Church bribe
Aaron Burr to drop his investigation of its real-estate activities, a row of
eighteenth-century gentlemen "execute a few delicate figures of the
period with their hands" (One Third, Plot 1). To accompany this
graceful choreographed movement, the organ plays a rococo-esque line
with trills. But on its final cadence, Wainer counterpoints the "delicate
figures" with augmented dissonance. While spectators see gentle
period mannerisms, they hear the discord behind them. The counter-
point of music and visuals, then, reveals a social situation, in which
questionable real-estate practices were conducted behind a facade of
decorum.
Wainer's music often made bold, direct comments on the stage
action. In Power, as lnsull bilks the Consumer-Investor, he assures him
"I wouldn't cheat you for the world." Following this line, the orchestra
undercuts lnsull's assurances with a descending trombone slide (Power,
Plot XVII). In One Third, when Trinity Church petitions the city for
more land, a brass fanfare ends in dissonance, commenting on the
impious and unharmonious manner i n which the Church is behaving.
In the grass mat scene, the last tenant to rent a small piece of "land"
is the large fat man, who backs away and then jumps into the pile of
tenants. Immediately after, the orchestra plays "Home Sweet Home"
in open fifths to comment satirically on their hopelessly cramped
situation (One Third, 35) .
Wainer's music often comments by suggesting a cause for the
action on stage. In Triple-A, when farmers protesting the low price of
their crops overturn a milk truck and burn the wheat in their fields, the
score comments on these actions by including an echo of the war
theme from the opening spectacle. This reminds the audience that the
farmers were victims of the war-time economy and comments that the
root cause of their violence is the war effort, which forced them to
expand their productivity, and then abandoned them once the armistice
was signed. Their violent acts, then, are portrayed through an aural
veil of sympathy. Without knowledge of the music, however, this
dimension of the performance is lost.
Similarly in Triple-A, Wainer comments on the case of one Dorothy
Sherwood of Newburgh, New York, by providing causality for her
actions. On 20 August 1935, Mrs. Sherwood entered a pol ice station
with a dead infant in her arms:
Forgotten Music
MRS. SHERWOOD: I just drowned my son. I couldn't feed
him, and I couldn't bear to see him hungry (Triple-A, 43).
23
After nine voices offstage pronounce her "guilty," Wainer again inserts
an echo of military fanfares to provide a root cause for the child's
death. The music, then, comments that the war effort, not Dorothy
Sherwood, is the guilty party, since it was responsible for bankrupting
farmers and, thus, starving American citizens (See Figure 3).
Such contemporary commentators as Ira Levine have noted that the
Federal Theatre's living newspapers "exhibited a progressive position
that was aligned with the New Deal."
9
Critics of the 1930s, including
john Mason Brown, voiced concern over the pronounced politics of
these productions. Brown, in particular, wondered if they "should not
be called a 'living editorial' for the administration."
10
But whether in
recent years or at the time of production, no one has noted that much
of the favorable propaganda for the FOR administration was created
through Wainer's musical scores.
In Triple-A, which recounts the Supreme Court's 1936 decision
invalidating the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the justices are
discovered in shadow behind a projection of the Constitution. Wainer
illustrates this image with a public ceremonial theme. After the high
court "plows under" the program, the scene proceeds to show the
disastrous effects of the Court's decision on the average person.
Against a landscape of cold and hungry citizens, the orchestra reprises
the ceremonial "Constitution Theme," thus creating a disjunction
between the cries of the people and the will of a privileged structure.
This moment in Triple-A replicates the arguments of the Roosevelt
administration. By 1936, the Supreme Court had become the enemy
of the New Deal, invalidating many key programs. New Dealers
complained that the Court was abusing the power of judicial review to
thwart the will of the people.
11
By contrasting the grand "Constitution
Theme" against images of angry citizens, Triple-A reproduces the
sentiments of the Roosevelt administration. Though no word of text is
9
1ra A. Levine, Left-Wing Dramatic Theory in the American Theatre {Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1985), 153.
10
John Mason Brown, " 'The Living Newspaper' Acted at the Biltmore," New
York Post 16 March 1936.
"Roger Biles, A New Deal for the American People {Dekalb: Northern Illinois
University Press, 1991), 137. Subsequent references to this work are cited in the
text.
24
NOVAK
3 3
JJJ 16 [;;;
Figure 3. Wainer reprises the war theme and provides
causality for Dorothy Sherwood's violent acts in Triple-A
Plowed Under. (From the Federal Theatre Project archives
at the Library of Congress.)
Forgotten Music
25
uttered against the Court, propaganda for the administration's point of
view comes from the juxtaposition of music and action.
In his acceptance speech at the 1936 Democratic National
Convention, Roosevelt denounced "economic royalists" seeking to
maintain "privileged enterprise, not free enterprise," thus establishing
the anti-business focus of the Second New Deal (Biles 1991, 131). In
Power, Wainer accompanies the appearance of two power company
executives with a descending trombone glissando and an echo of the
power company march from the opening spectacle. But this time the
march ends on a somber C minor chord to comment negatively on
them (Power, 81) . In One Third, Wainer propagandizes for the
administration's point of view by commenting on famous New York
City real-estate speculators, such as Robert Goelet and John Jacob Astor,
with crashing dissonant chords that provide a succinct, negative view
of their ruthless business practices (One Third, 35-6).
In the 1936 campaign, Roosevelt characterized himself as a
national reformer who was a political advocate for the "forgotten
people" of America. The Federal Theatre's living newspapers adopted
this emphasis, tailoring their productions to the concerns of the
American working class. With a G major chord in One Third, for
example, Wainer establishes a positive atmosphere for Angus K.
Buttonkooper, the so-called "little man," even before he makes his
appearance. Yet Wainer's music does more than merely announce his
presence, it actively takes the side of the Consumer and amplifies his
point of view. In Power, when the Consumer complains about his
bills, he learns that the utility is a monopoly that sets their own rates.
Wainer punctuates this scene by reprising the pompous "power
company theme." But this time the music takes the little man's side
and ends in dissonance. From the company's viewpoint, there is no
discord, but from the Consumer's point of view, the situation is not
harmonious, since he has no recourse but to pay the high rates dictated
by the monopoly. Wainer's music, then, subtly channels the audience
to the Consumer' s point of view.
Kurt Weill wrote that theatrical music has the power to ''create a
kind of basic gestus (grundgestus), forcing the action into a particular
attitude that excludes all doubt and misunderstanding about the
incident in question" (Brecht 1964, 42). In these three productions, the
musi c often acts boldly to interpret the entire scene in favor of the
Roosevelt administration's policies.
Indeed, the prime example of interpretive musical politics occurs
in Power. One of the main objectives of the Second New Deal was to
i nstall municipally owned power plants in the rural Tennessee Valley.
At the end of Act I:
26 NOVAK
a motion picture of TVA activities and water flowing over the
Norris Dam appears on the scrim, and through the scrim and
on projection curtain upstage. A parade of men and women
comes on stage behind scrim, singing the TVA song (Power,
68).12
With its upbeat tempo, major key, and lyrics printed in the program,
the TVA song interprets the film for the audience and imposes a
positive attitude toward the government's project. Moreover, Wainer
reprises the TVA song in Act II in order to interpret subsequent scenes.
When a group of small-town businessmen gather in a grocery store in
Dayton, Tennessee, and decide to build their own power plant with a
government loan, the music approves of their action by reprising the
TVA song. Conversely, when the power companies decide to fight
back against the government, Wainer expresses disapproval of their
action by moving the song into D minor.
In the final scene of Power, the Loudspeaker informs us that the
Supreme Court will rule on the legality of the TVA project. Once again
"the scrim comes in, and movies of TVA activity are shown" (Power,
91). Behind these images, the rear traveler curtains open and lights
come up on nine masks representing the Supreme Court. The films
fade out and the actors on stage "take one step forward" as "a huge
question mark is projected on to the scrim" (Power, 91 ). Directing
their question to the audience, the ensemble asks in unison:
ENSEMBLE: What will the Supreme Court do? (Power, 91).
After the music ascends to a final E flat major chord, Wainer's exit
music answers the projected question with another reprise of the TVA
song, which directs the audience to support the administration's
viewpoint. This explains critic Brooks Atkinson's comment that Power
comes out "impartially against the electric light and power industry and
for TVA, practically defying the Supreme Court in the last scene."
13
In short, through musical illustration, defamil iarization, and
commentary, the New York productions of Triple-A Plowed Under,
Power, and One Third of a Nation relied upon Lee Wainer's scores to
12
Wainer orchestrated the TVA song, which is an authentic Kentucky mountain
ballad.
13
Brooks Atkinson, "'Power' Produced by the Living Newspaper Under Federal
Theatre Auspices," New York Times 24 February 1937.
Forgotten Music 27
keep the social and political landscape at the forefront of each
performance. By considering Wainer's scores in detail , this essay seeks
to stimulate musical-theatrical research and to encourage scholars to
consider the forgotten music of America's past productions.
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
Garland Anderson's Appearances:
the Playwright and His Play
ALAN KREIZENBECK
Appearances, Garland Anderson's initial playwriting attempt, was
the first full-length drama by an African-American author to be
produced on the Broadway stage. First presented in 1925, it was also
one of the earliest legitimate productions in New York to use a racially
mixed cast. Play and author, however, receive scant attention in
American theatre history texts. Information about Anderson and
Appearances has been published by Doris Abramson, James V. Hatch,
and James Weldon Johnson.
1
But the nature of these volumes does
not allow for a full picture of Anderson and his accomplishments.
Further, the overtly religious motif of Appearances distracts from the
racial attitudes and conflicts central to the play's existence. This essay
is intended to provide a more complete look at Anderson, and a new
analysis of Appearances.
Garland Anderson's life story reads like a Horatio Alger novel, in
which hard work, perseverance, belief in one's self and luck combine
to reward a hitherto unknown individual with fame and fortune.
Anderson's story is based on presentation and perception: He present-
ed himself to the press as a humble servant, desiring only to serve
mankind; the press perceived him as the "right" kind of African-
American and presented him to the public as such, with many column
inches describing him and his quest. The public perceived in
Anderson .a personification of the national belief in self-realization
through self-determination and presented him with the respect and
1
Doris Abramson, Negro Playwrights in the American Theatre 1925-1959 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 27-32, 39-40; Black Theater U.S.A.: Forty-
Five Plays by Black Americans ed. James V. Hatch (New York: Macmillan, 1974),
100-101; James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (New York: Antheneum, 1969),
203-5. References to these works will be cited in the text. The Hatch book also
contains the only published version of the play (pp. 1 02-134). The only other
discovered copy of Appearances is on microfi lm at the main branch of the New
York Public Library.
Garland Anderson 29
rewards he sought. Anderson's circumstances as an African-American,
poor, and under-educated intensified the public's interest in him and
made his eventual success not just personal, but societal and racial as
well.
Most of the primary information available concerning Anderson
comes from his own scrapbooks, now part of the Billy Rose Collection
at the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.
2
Most of the
material in these scrapbooks is newspaper clippings about Anderson
and his play. Most of these clippings are not annotated with publica-
tion or date. The source of the information in many of those clippings
is Anderson himself: The record of much of Anderson's life is
according to Anderson.
So-according to Anderson-he was born in Wichita, Kansas, in
1886, the fourth of twelve children. When he was eight, his family
moved to Sacramento where his father had secured a job as a post
office janitor. Four years later, Garland's mother died. This event
deeply affected him: He ran away from home, hopped a freight train,
and spent six months living among hoboes in Chicago. He returned to
San Francisco, but did not return to school. At the age of thirteen,
equipped with a fourth-grade education, Anderson joined the work-
force. He was first a newsboy, then a dining car waiter. In 1917 he
found permanent employment as a bellhop and switchboard operator
at the Braeburn Hotel Apartments.
Genteel and well-mannered, Anderson talked whenever he could
with the hotel's guests, asking questions, discussing the news and
current events. He was-despite his limited formal education-a
voracious reader. He became a believer in Coueism, also known as
New Thought, a dogma that emphasized the power of the mind and
the effects of positive thinking.
3
These beliefs sustained Anderson
throughout his life, and are the basis for Appearances and his later
writings. Although its tenets seem naive and simplistic to many,
American mythology supports Coueism's notion that belief in one's self
and in one's own rightness can bring fulfillment.
One evening an elderly couple suggested to Anderson that he see
a local production of Channing Pollack's The Fool. He attended the
production, an event that changed the course of his life:
2
Subsequent references to these scrapbooks will be cited in the text.
3
Emile Coue (1857-1926) was a French psychotherapist who lectured in America
on autosuggestion. New Thought is similar to Christian Science, a denomination
with which Anderson is closely identified.
30 KREIZENBECK
After seeing it the thought came to me that it would be
wonderful if I too could write a drama in which I could give
my message to the world. So I decided on a three act
play .. .. For three months before I tackled it I kept telling
myself "you can do it, you can do it!" (Anderson, scrapbooks) .
Between hopping bags and answering the switchboard, Anderson
wrote his play, using a pencil to put down lines and scenes on
whatever scraps of paper were handy. He never had more that a few
minutes between interruptions, but he applied positive thinking
techniques, to use the disruptions constructively:
Whenever the switchboard would ring while I was writing I
would say to m y s l f ~ "This is just a loving call coming just at
the right time to refresh my thoughts in order that I might be
able to write better"; and when someone would speak to me
I would mentally say, "This is a loving interruption coming at
just the right time to prevent me from writing the wrong thing"
(Anderson, scrapbooks).
The technique evidently worked. He finished the first draft of his play
in three weeks.
Positive support for Anderson's efforts came from his typist, who
told him that she had become engrossed in the play and that it had
helped solve a difficult problem in her life. In interview after i nterview,
Anderson would say, "I only want to serve" (Anderson, scrapbooks).
Armed with this "proof" from his typist that his play could indeed
serve humanity, Anderson took Appearances to George Warren, the
drama critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. Warren told him that the
script contained some excellent ideas, but suggested a rewrite.
Anderson followed that advice, submitting a second version to the
actor-manager Richard Bennett, who was appearing in San Francisco.
Bennett assured Anderson that his play could be successful on
Broadway, but that he was unable to produce or perform in it himself.
Although this "assurance" may have been Bennett's polite way of
extricating himself from the situation, Anderson seems to have believed
Bennett totally, taking his remarks as further proof of Appearances's
appeal.
Anderson was, however, at a loss as to what to do next. He gave
the script to another newspaperman. He was not influential in
theatrical circles himself, but he had a cousin who was-AI Jolson.
When Jolson was next in town, the newsman showed him the play.
Jolson liked it and although he too was unable to produce or star in it,
Garland Anderson 31
as a gesture of his support he offered to pay Anderson's way to New
York so that the playwright might try to convince a Broadway producer
of the play's potential.
Greatly flattered, Anderson took a leave of absence from the hotel
and departed for Manhattan. He arrived in November 1924, and took
up residence at the Harlem Y.M.C.A. He spent the next several months
attempting to attract a producer. The Amsterdam News-the city's most
influential African-American newspaper-became aware of Anderson
and published several articles about him, his beliefs and his back-
ground. "White" newspapers picked up the story and published
similar articles, most picturing Anderson as a personification of the
American quest for recognition and fulfillment, only in blackface.
Anderson instigated many of these stories by visiting newspaper offices,
introducing himself to appropriate reporters, and offering them the
opportunity for an interview. It is important to note that there seems
to have been little or no cynicism indulged in on either side of the
desk: Anderson believed in his play and the reporters believed in
Anderson. All this free publicity, however, did not convince any
producers to back Appearances.
Discouraged by his lack of success (or as discouraged as he ever
seemed to get), Anderson devised a plan to create national attention.
He took the train to Washington, D.C., where he persisted until he was
allowed to personally present a copy of the script to President Calvin
Coolidge. The President reportedly promised to give the script a
careful reading and wished Anderson every success. Governor AI
Smith of New York later received a similar visit, made a similar
promise, and provided Appearances with even more publicity. The
reported endorsements of America's two most famous politicians (one
from each party) still failed to attract a producer.
In Apri l of 1925 Appearances was still unstaged. Undeterred,
Anderson invited all the city's well-known theatrical personalities and
politicians to a public reading. It took place on 5 April in the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel ballroom. Anderson's rapport with the press resulted in
extensive publicity. "That name AI Smith on the invitations brought
them in," Anderson recounted to the San Francisco News of 11
September 1935. Whether Smith's name actually did appear is
unknown, but more than 600 people attended, including the Governor,
John Hylan (the mayor of New York), Heywood Broun, David Belasco,
Richard Bennett, and Channing Pollock. Richard B. Harrison, later
famous as "De Lawd" in Green Pastures, performed the reading, and
according to the Herald Tribune, "changed his voice at times to suit the
characterization" (Anderson, scrapbooks). Anderson-wearing his
bellhop' s uniform-sat next to Harrison on the stage; at the end of the
32 KREIZENBECK
reading he took up a collection for the play's production. Receipts
amounted to one hundred and forty dollars cash and several pledges.
Response to the play was positive. One unidentified newspaper
reported, "They [the audience] were favorably impressed, often
interrupting Harrison with applause. Some of them wept at the more
touching portrayals" (Anderson, scrapbooks). Harrison also performed
a second reading on 21 April at the Manhattan Opera House. Reports
of this presentation also indicate a responsive audience, but no mention
is made of prominent guests or funds collected.
Anderson's efforts were finally rewarded in june when Lester W.
Sagar, the manager of the Central Theatre on Forty-fourth Street, offered
to produce the play. He had been associated with the Shubert brothers
on several productions; Appearances was to be his first venture as an
independent producer. He received an option to purchase half the
show for fifteen thousand dollars, while Anderson retained separate
rights for presentations on the West Coast. Sagar hired john Hayden
to direct.
The sale of his play accomplished, Anderson returned to his
bellhop-receptionist job in San Francisco. He could not have stayed
away from work much longer, as he provided the sole support for an
eight-year-old son (no mention of a wife has been discovered), his
brother's widow and her four children. He planned to remain at the
Braeburn until late August, then return to New York to supervise
rehearsals. On the way to San Francisco, Anderson stopped in Chicago,
gave a reading of his play at the Blackstone Hotel, and received an
enthusiastic response.
While he was in San Francisco, Anderson managed to sell half of
his interest in West Coast production rights for another fifteen thousand
dollars. This sale was accomplished after two public readings, one
given on 9 July at the Knights of Columbus Hall featuring Anderson's
niece Tabitha, "a colored elocutionist of some note" according to one
newspaper (Anderson, scrapbooks). The second, broadcast over radio
station KFCR, featured Tabitha, the City of Paris Players, and Anderson
himself reading the leading role. The purchasers, Fergus and H.S.
Wilkinson, planned to present the play in San Francisco before it
opened in New York. They later decided to first observe the Broadway
rehearsals.
The playwright (and the Wilkinsons) received a well-publicized
send-off from the people of San Francisco for the trip east. The mayor
wrote Anderson a letter of introduction to his New York counterpart,
which was printed in several San Francisco papers (Anderson, scrap-
books). When Anderson arrived in Manhattan he was greeted by His
Honor on the steps of City Hall. Mayor Hylan managed to use the
Garland Anderson 33
event for a little politicking: "This colored man bears a letter from
Mayor Rolph of San Francisco, who, like myself, has preserved the five
cent fare to the city" (Anderson, scrapbooks).
Rehearsals began on a potentially destructive note when the two
actresses hired to play the female leads quit the production after
discovering that African-American performers were included in the cast.
Sagar, contrary to the custom, had not hired white actors for the
African-American parts, but had filled them instead with principals from
the Lafayette Stock Company. In an interview concerning her decision,
one of the actresses
emphasized the fact that her decision must not be construed as
indicative of race prejudice, but said the production of the play
called for so close an association with the other players that
she felt she could not be happy under the circumstances
(Anderson, scrapbooks).
4
Luckily, replacements were quickly found, so no real harm was done.
The two walk-outs created more free publicity for the production
through the notice that their actions generated.
The play premiered on 13 October 1925 at the Frolic, which was
situated atop the New Amsterdam Theatre. The opening night
audience gave the performers a standing ovation and would not leave
the theatre until Anderson answered their call for "author." John
Forbes, writing for the Morning Telegraph, reported that
Mr. Anderson made a modest speech, in which he said in
effect that if a man desires to do a good thing earnestly
enough, he will succeed, even though a bellhop. Mr Anderson
had a nice address, appeared very happy at the reception of his
play, and regretted he could not express in words the feeling
of gratitude in his heart. He appeared sincere (Anderson,
scrapbooks).
Appearances is divided into a prologue, three acts and an epi-
logue.5 The prologue takes place in a San Francisco hotel lobby,
4
The actresses were Myrtle Tannerhill and Nedda Harrington. They were
replaced by Hazele Burgess and Daisy Atherton.
5
The original cast of Appearances included Lionel Monagas as Carl, Doe Doe
Green as Rufus, joseph Sweeney as Mr. Wilson, Edward Keane as Mr. Thompson,
Mildred Wall as Elsie, and Evelyn Mason as Ella.
34 KREIZENBECK
where a retired judge (Thornton) and an active one (Robinson) are
discussing a case tried by the latter earlier in the day. They ask Carl,
the "colored" bellhop, his opinion of the verdict. He tells them of a
dream he had the night before which included a trial remarkably
similar to the one being discussed. Carl's dream constitutes the play,
and as he begins to relate it, the curtain opens on Act One.
It is set in the same hotel lobby. The hotel's owner, Mr. Thomp-
son, has been unfaithful to his wife. She has discovered his deceit and
now Thompson is asking Carl what he should do. Their exchange
presents Anderson's philosophy in a context preoccupied with race; it
exemplifies much of the play's dialogue:
THOMPSON: I've heard you talk about these ideas of yours
and I've seen them work. Now what would you do if you
were in my place? Forget your color, what would you do?
CARL: I'd put myself right, sir, and everything would be all
right (Hatch 1974, 1 05) .
Rufus enters and interrupts the discussion. The audience knew his
race by his name, an example of Anderson's awareness and use of
white stereotyping of African-Americans. Rufus is an uneducated "field
negro" who provides most of the play's comedy. Anderson will later
reveal another side to his character, but the audience's first impression
hearkens back to the minstrel show, an impression that Anderson
reinforces in an exchange that occurs when Thompson offers Rufus a
job at eighteen dollars a week. Rufus says he didn't hear him.
Thompson, in a louder voice, offers him fifteen dollars, to which Rufus
replies, "I heard you. the first time boss"(Hatch 1974, 106). Rufus is
also the minstrel Malaprop, fracturing the English language in a variety
of ways: "Oh, which reminds me of a story if I may exude"; "I
suttenly avail myself of your professional procivilities"; and "I gives yuh
both my firmest condemnations" (Hatch 1974, 106-107).
Ella enters. Although African-American and a maid at the hotel,
she is the antithesis of Rufus, as different in the audience's mind as
Harvard was from Harlem. Ella is educated and well-spoken; in fact,
she is attending law school at night. Her character is an early clue that
Anderson will not always satisfy white audience preconceptions of
either gender or race: But Appearances is not about Ella. She is Carl's
fiance and does little in the play but exist as proof of his seriousness
and high ideals.
Anderson continues an entrance-exit pattern as a way to introduce
the play's other characters. Efficient but unimaginative, this technique
betrays Anderson's lack of writing experience and is probably one of
Garland Anderson 35
the structural weaknesses referred to in the play's reviews. Ella exits,
Kellard enters. Kellard is a he-man rancher whose land contains
valuable mineral deposits. Louise, judge Thornton's daughter, enters.
She meets Kellard, and they are instantly smitten. She exits to the
street; Kellard, saying he has to mai I a letter, follows her.
Wilson enters. He is the District Attorney and the play's villain.
More important to the play's conflict is his overt-and until much later
in the play-unchallenged racism. His first line exposes his prejudice:
(to Carl and Rufus) "What is this, a colored convention?" (Hatch 1974,
106). Wilson wants to mary Louise and believes that Carl is influenc-
ing her against him. Carl refuses Wilson's offer of five hundred dollars
to convince Louise to accept his proposal. An angry Wilson accuses
Carl of being a "slick nigger," and suggests that the "big thing he is
after is money." Carl's response is playwright Anderson speaking,
explicating a strong belief in his own self-worth, while acknowledging
that he lives in a society that degrades him. Anderson allows Carl to
tell a white man that he is wrong, but the telling is restrained:
CARL: You call me a "slick ni gger" and say these things I work
so hard to believe in are "bunk." You're wrong Mr.
Wilson. You're wrong when you say I'm slick, wrong
when you call my ideas "bunk." Mr. Wilson, I'll admit
that I'm just a Negro servant, a good servant to everyone,
even to you (Hatch 1974, 1 07).
Carl and Rufus exit; Louise and Kellard return together to an angry
and jealous Wilson, who berates them. A commotion is heard offstage.
A white woman, Elsie, is helped on stage. She accuses Carl and Rufus
of attacking her. The curtain falls on Carl's line "I ' ve done nothing
wrong and have nothing to fear" (Hatch 1974, 114).
Act Two is Carl's trial. Critics of the time thought it provided most
of the play's drama, particularly after a first act that was mostly
exposition. Judge Robinson is presiding. Carl opts to defend himself,
while judge Thornton comes out of retirement to defend Rufus. Wilson
is the prosecuting attorney, and Elsie is his first witness. She testifies
that Carl grabbed her, tried to force himself on her, and that Rufus
helped prevent her escape. A policeman testifies that he saved Carl
from an angry mob that came to Elsie's defense. Two members of that
mob-Saunders, a house painter who has some comic business with
the pronunciation of his name, and Matthews, an extremely slow talker
who also provides some comic moments-then take the stand to verify
Elsie's defense. Both men are white, and so must be believed when
36 KREIZENBECK
testifying against an African-American, but Anderson emphasizes both
character's buffoonery, negating the value of their testimony.
Carl then takes the stand. He has no witnesses; the truth will be
his defense:
I firmly believe that when a man tells the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth, knowing in his heart that it will be
reacted to as the truth, no other result can possibly follow. I
am speaking now simply to tell the truth (Hatch 1974, 117).
He tells the court that he met Elsie on the street, and that she demand-
ed money from him, threatening to cry rape if he didn't give it to her.
Events very similar to this happened to Anderson himself. He told an
unidentified newspaper reporter:
One day a white woman stopped me in a lonely corridor and
said, "You owe me ten dollars." "I don't owe you ten
dollars," I said. "Maybe you don't," she replied, "but I'm
going to say you do, and unless you hand it over I'll scream
and tell 'em you attacked me. You know whose word the
police will take." I knew. . . . I'd never seen the woman
before, but I couldn't do anything else but pay (Anderson,
scrapbooks) .
Carl steps down, and Kellard testifies that it appeared to him that
Carl was attempting to escape from the woman's clutches, not vice
versa. Now Rufus speaks. His testimony is predictably humorous, but
offers two chilling glimpses of American racism. In the first, Rufus
recalls how he was nearly lynched once before:
I was workin' for a lady back home and she 'cused me of
stealin a ring, so they takes and locks me in the smoke house
till the Constable can come. So I digs myself out and gets
away an' into the swamp an' hides myself. In the middle of
the night the baying of the dogs wakes me up and I knows
they got the scent by the way they bays, and I starts travel in',
but 'taint no use, so I climbs up a big old stump and soon the
dogs is all around me, then the white folks come and they
want to string me up, but the Constable wouldn't let them; and
they drags me back to the house, where he gets the lady. She
finds her ring where she lost it and tells the folks I didn't steal
it at all (Hatch 1974, 122-23).
Garland Anderson 37
The second episode struck much closer to home for the urban
audience member. It took place just before the alleged attack. Rufus
says that he had been sent from the hotel to buy some ice cream, but
I knows these places around here don't sell ice cream to no
colored folks, so I goes way down South, takes me ten minutes
on the car and I go to the Carling drug store, the colored drug
store your Honor (Hatch 1974, 122).
When Wilson points out to him that such discrimination is against the
law, Rufus replies that some stores will serve him, but "they put some
flavor on the ice cream that just spoils it for eatin." Wilson calls this
observation "preposterous," and, as Abramson points out, Anderson
uses humor to take the edge off the story by having Rufus respond "Is
that so sir? I never hears what they calls it before. It sure tastes worse
than it sounds" (Hatch 1974, 123;Abramson 1969, 30-31). Anderson' s
frequent use of humor to deflate tension is another structural pattern in
Appearances; the tension he deflates frequently arises from racial rather
than personal conflicts.
Throughout the trial, in fact, race is never far from anyone's mind.
Anderson's recognition of racial prejudice in the following exchange
between the two judges is as close as he comes in the play to naming
and condemning the attitudes exhibited in varying degrees by nearly
every white character in the play. Judge Robinson has questioned why
Judge Thornton (now Rufus's lawyer) wanted Rufus to recount the
"ring" story:
JUDGE THORNTON: Only that it shows the blind hatred that
seems to inflame certain types of white minds where a
Negro is concerned; and will explain to the jury why some
of the testimony may have been influenced by this hatred.
JUDGE ROBINSON: You wouldn't wish to infer that the Court
has been influenced by that, Judge?
JUDGE THORNTON (to bench): No, Your Honor, but the jury
have to decide this case on evidence perhaps influenced
by this prejudice (Hatch 1974, 122).
Wi I son's closing argument attempts to exploit this very prejudi ce:
WILSON: The law says there must be one law for white and
the same law for black, and I subscribe to the law, but
there is something that the law cannot control and that is
the honor of a white woman when attacked by a black
38 KREIZENBECK
man . .. . [guilty is] the only verdict you, as men can bring
in, for by it you will prove your humanity; by it you will
prove your protection of your own homes, your daughters,
your wives, your sweethearts (Hatch 1974, 125).
Just as the jury is about to begin deliberations, a message is passed
to Judge Robinson. It says that Elsie is a Negress-not white-and that
Wilson forced her to entrap Carl. Abramson is again astute with the
observation that by making Elsie black, it sat isfies "that element of the
audience which might worry about a white woman being portrayed as
an immoral character in a play about a highly moral Negro" (Abramson
1969, 31).
A mistrial is declared, and Carl and Rufus are released. It is
revealed that Mrs. Thompson (the hotel manager's estranged wife) was
compelled by some "irresistible force" to write the note that freed
them. The second act curtain drops on a happy Carl, a dazed Rufus,
and a fuming Mr. Wilson.
Act Three returns to the hotel lobby. Wilson has successfully
blamed the hapless Elsie for everything, and she has been escorted out
of town. Mrs. Thompson has disappeared. A new character is intro-
duced, "Mr. A.A. Andrews," Wilson' s business partner. Andrews
attempts to convince Kellard to sell his property, and the two exit
discussing a possible deal. Elsie sneaks into the lobby and hands Carl
a letter. From Mrs. Thompson, it defends Elsie as a victim of Wilson's
treachery, and reveals that the two (Elsie and Wi I son) cohabited for a
time in Oakland.
Carl confronts Wilson with this information just as Andrews enters
to announce that he has convinced Kellard to sell his land for much
less than it is actually worth. Wilson's gloating over his financial
chicanery is cut short as Kellard enters to reveal that "A.A. Andrews"
is actually his brother and that they have been working together to
expose Wilson's dirty dealings. The brothers leave to fetch the sheriff,
telling Rufus to guard Wilson. The two are alone on the stage.
In the short scene that follows, Anderson, through this reversal of
the accepted dominant-subservient social relationship, exposes the rage
behind the minstrel mask, revealing emotions to the white audience
that they may have imagined, but probably preferred not to think
about. Rufus drops the guise of the fun-loving, good-humored, not-
very-bright dupe to express his anger at Wilson in a confrontation that
is once again as motivated by race as it is by personality. Wilson tries
to get to the telephone and Rufus threatens him with bodily harm:
WILSON: You wouldn't dare strike a white man.
Garland Anderson
RUFUS: Ain't never did it yet, outside the ring, but the Boss
man told me to watch that 'phone.
WILSON (starts for 'phone): Get out of my way.
RUFUS (stops him): Mr. Wilson, if you like your face don't
start nothing, because if you does you ain't going to
recognize you' own self for months and months.
WILSON (sits) : You damn orang-outang you!
RUFUS: What's that you called me?
WILSON: An orang-outang.
RUFUS: I don't know what that is, but if you don't take it
back, l'se going to lam you one for luck. Now is I what
you said, or isn't I? Answer yes or no.
WILSON: No.
RUFUS: What? What you say?.
WILSON: No, I mean-yes.
RUFUS: What you mean-No, I mean yes.
WILSON: You stay in your place!
RUFUS: One of the rules of the prize ring is . . . never hit a
man when he's down . . . and you're safe while you're
setting .... But don't rise, white boy ... don't rise (Hatch
1974, 129-30).
39
Anderson again diffuses the confrontation by writing a laugh line later
in the scene, as Rufus misspells the word "eat." But the laughter is
distant enough from the tensions of the above exchange for Rufus's
anger to have an undiluted impact.
Before the police can arrive, Thompson returns. In a last-ditch
effort for revenge, Wilson insinuates that Carl is having an affair with
Mrs. Thompson, offering as proof a letter she has sent to Carl. What
the letter implies so angers Thompson that he physically attacks Carl,
choking him and throwing him to the floor. Only Ella's intervention
saves his life. When she explains that Mrs. Thompson's true intention
was to inform Carl that she was returning to her husband, Thompson
rushes upstairs to see her. To the dying strains of Rufus singing "a
spiritual-an old convict song," Carl tells Ella that he is leaving white
society to "go back among our own people. For I realize how much
we need them, and they need us" (Hatch 1974, 131).
This decision comes as a surprise. It has not been foreshadowed
and it is not consistent with the openly autobiographical content of the
rest of the play. Carl has endured Wilson's overt racism, an accusation
of rape, a near lynching by a white mob, a trial in which his race
presupposed guilt, and now mistrust and violence from a white person
who had previously shown him some respect. Perhaps the racism
40 KREIZENBECK
impl icit in Thompson's actions are simply the last straw. Carl provides
no explanation for his decision, possibly because an explanation would
seriously compromise the positive Christian message that Anderson
wanted his play to deliver.
Anderson denied that his play had any social relevance in a quote
that speaks volumes regarding his treatment of race relations in the
play:
"My play doesn't touch upon the race question at all. There
is a Negro bellboy who is the central character, but he is
always polite and courteous, remembers his position and
speaks only when spoken to" (San Francisco Chronicle, 15 july
1925).
Throughout his adult life Anderson strove to become and finally
was recognized as a genteel Christian gentleman-but he lived most of
that adult life in a society that saw only an African-American bellhop.
Anderson's beliefs taught him that he was as good as the next man, yet
he was quite aware that it would be judicious to keep that opinion to
himself if that next man were white. This duality is exhibited through-
out Appearances. Anderson was writing a play about what he knew,
providing the audience with a factual picture of how the races related
to one another in his world. He is also writing his play for a primarily
white audience. His solution was to walk a thin line between telling
the truth and tell i ng the truth in such a way that would not make his
i ntended audience feel uncomfortable, immoral, or guilty. Carl wi ll
defend himself, but retain the servant's demeanor; he wi ll advise the
white characters, but only when they seek him out; he will be privy to
their secrets, but never become their intimate; and he will leave white
society, but never tell his reasons.
6
In the play's original version-the one presented at the pub I ic
readings-Carl performs an act of faith healing, and at the play's end is
rewarded with a position managing a restaurant. It is easy to see why
the first event was deleted from the final draft-the play is already
permeated with religiosity. For Carl to accept the restaurant position
implies that the white world has the power and the right to reward him
for his good behavior. That their "reward" is that Carl ' s servitude will
simply take on a grander t itle is a diminution that was probably not lost
6
Abramson writes that Anderson "was as brave as he dared to be" (p. 40.) It is
hard to argue with her on this point, but it is hoped that this articl e shows Anderson
braver and more aware of racial i ssues than she supposes.
Garland Anderson 41
on many African-Americans who read or heard this early draft. But
Carl's new decision would not be consistent with the attitudes
expressed throughout the play or consistent with Anderson's own life.
A possible explanation for this change is that while Anderson was in
New York, he came into contact with what would have been for him
new ideas about being African-American in white society, and that
these ideas affected him enough to change the ending of Appearances.
Although he may not have been aware of it, Anderson was having it
both ways on a major issue facing African-Americans in the 1920s.
When he rewrites the play so that Carl rejects the imp I ied rights of
white society and its "rewards," Anderson is siding with those African-
Americans who supported the notion of an integrated equality; in the
final draft, in which Carl will leave to work among his own people,
Anderson is siding with those who supported a "separate but equal"
doctrine. The latter is the philosophy presented to the audience, but
the arrival at that position represents thinking that was much more
radical than Carl's action represents.
A policeman arrives to take Wilson to jail; Louise and Kellard
embrace; the Thompsons are reunited. The lights begin to dim, and in
a Pirandellian sequence, the characters in the dream (who, like
Thornton and Robinson, are real people) appear and demand to know
if they are flesh and blood, or figments of Carl's imagination. He
assures them they are actual people:
CARL: And as my dream came to an end, I could hear Mr.
Kellard say "Wait a minute! You mean to say I'm a
dream?" And then Miss Thornton said, "Am I engaged to
marry him?" Then Mr. Thompson spoke-and all I could
hear was "Real-Real-" then I knew my dream had
ended in a wonderful reality, for they were dreams and
now they were real people. And I thank God my dream
came true (Hatch 1974, 134).
The play's premiere was reviewed by all the major New York
papers.
7
Most critics noted the audience's enthusiasm, but were
unimpressed by the production. It is clear from the reviews that
Appearances was not a critical success, while at the same time it is
7
The following publications printed reviews: The Drama Calendar; Billboard;
New York Sun; New York Herald Tribune; New York Evening World; New York
Graphic; New York Star; Brooklyn Standard Union; Wall Street journal; New York
Morning Telegraph; New York Times; New York American; and Woman's Wear.
All are found in Anderson's scrapbooks.
42 KREIZENBECK
hard to escape the feeling that it would have been impossible for the
newspapers to publish an unflinchingly damning critique. The publicly
recorded support that Anderson had sol icited from the and
theatrical establishment, the rags-to-riches romance that surrounded the
production, and the critics' desire to prove their right-mindedness in
racial matters (condescending though it was) all compelled the writing
of reviews that strained to be kind.
8
It seems clear that the press did
not want to be responsible for destroying what it had helped create,
what one newspaper described as the "Garland Anderson fairy tale
come true." The Herald Tribune grappled with the problem in its
review:
The new play . . . is a strange potpourri of not ineffective melo-
drama and Pollyannish preaching that is made worthy of
respect, if not whole hearted admiration by the transparent
sincerity of the author. . . . Written by a white playwright,
these addresses to the audience would have been unbearable,
but i n the hands of a Negro actor and writer they breathe a
profound truth and disarming spirit of belief (Anderson,
scrapbooks).
The condescending racism of the above review was more blatant in the
New York Morning Telegraph: "[The character Rufus] fell in with the
American idea of the Negro. He talked like a negro, acted like a negro,
and made you laugh as negroes do make you laugh in everyday life.
He liked gin and ice cream" (Anderson, scrapbooks) . The review from
the New York Sun attempted to excuse Anderson, blaming acting and
directing that were "below par" and explaining that "no author with
his dogged earnestness and meager knowledge of the techniques of his
craft could write a thoroughly effective play." But the review ends with
the frank admission that: "If the circumstances surrounding the play
had been less romantic, the reviewer is well aware the above remarks
might have been a great deal sharper" (Anderson, scrapbooks).
Burdened with such lukewarm reviews, the first week's gross for
Appearances amounted to less than two thousand dollars. Extra
advertising was purchased in the next week's newspapers, but it did
8
A good example of this is the review from the New York Evening World, which
said that "There is much naive pomposity about the piece and a tendency to
interrupt its action with long speeches furthering its frankly partisan propaganda.
But the driving sincerity of its purpose gave it an impetus that many more polished
works lack."
Garland Anderson 43
little good. At the end of the third week, Sagar announced that he was
closing the production.
Anderson refused to give up, but he had to raise thirty thousand
dollars to keep the play alive. He turned to Belasco and )olson for
help. It is reported that each gave Anderson a thousand dollars and
convinced several others to do the same. The press once again sensed
a good story in Anderson, and several papers ran prominent articles
describing his latest difficulties. The Amsterdam News continued to be
Anderson's major champion. Once a week it published a list of
contributors and encouraged its readers to support Anderson's cause.
One unidentified publication reported that a large corporation-"one
of the most widely known firms in Greater New York"-was willing to
pledge twenty thousand dollars if Anderson could raise ten thousand
on his own (Anderson, scrapbooks). But before this could happen,
help came from a totally unexpected source. Three white businessmen
from Dallas pledged the entire thirty thousand dollars, asking nothing
in return for their investment except that the production continue.
9
Despite the publicity that this story generated, ticket sales did not
improve. Appearances finally closed in mid-January, 1926.
Anderson was saddened and disappointed, but all was not lost. He
had made many valuable contacts in New York's theatrical and political
circles, but more important, he sti II owned one-half interest in West
Coast production rights. He was quick to turn this potential into
reality. On 9 April1927, amid the same bellhop-makes-good newspa-
per stories that preceded its New York premiere, Appearances opened
in Los Angeles, where it was reported that that city's socially prominent
first-night audience gave the play a standing ovation. Their enthusiasm
was moderately infectious: The play enjoyed a five-week run.
Shortly afterward, several Los Angeles newspapers reported that
Anderson was attempting to sell the film rights to his play (Anderson,
scrapbooks). One tabloid erroneously reported that they had been sold
to Universal; another said that Anderson would produce the film
himself, backed by local African-American financing "so as to keep this
wonderful production within the hands of the race" (Anderson, scrap-
books). While it is possible that some film companies were interested
in the play, it seems probable that most were waiting to see how Cecil
B. DeMi lle's predominantly African-American production of Porgy did
9
The men were James 5. Strader, H.W. McQuinn, and Jack Hodgson.
44 KREIZENBECK
at the box office, particularly in the heavy movie-going South.
10
Although conservative socially, the stage of this time was far ahead of
the screen in tackling sensitive issues. Film director Lois Weber,
recently fired from Uncle Tom's Cabin, summed up Hollywood's
attitude toward Broadway's relative liberalism, saying "There is no
reason for the decadence of the stage being reflected in motion
pictures."
11
Similar sentiments from producers and studio moguls
may be another factor that kept Appearances from ever being filmed.
On 19 March 1928, Anderson and his play returned to their
hometown, opening in San Francisco's Community Theatre. Civic
pride contributed to a heavy advance ticket sale that was credited with
saving the historical show place from the wrecker's ball. The theatre's
management spurred sales by offering half-price tickets to attorneys and
to anyone employed in the hotel industry.
It was also announced that members of the audience would be
selected to portray the jurors in the trial scene. The response by
would-be thespians was so great that the scene was re-staged so that
the entire audience became jury and courtroom spectators. The play
received further free publicity with the story that one of the actresses
in the cast was the daughter of a local millionaire who disowned her
because of her role in the play. It was reported that this was not
because the millionaire was opposed to the racially mixed cast, but
because he was opposed to the stage in general (Anderson, scrap-
books).
The play closed in San Francisco on 9 June. An extensive tour
began almost immediately, and included dates in Oakland, Seattle,
Vancouver and Minneapolis among other cities. Harry B. Mills, a critic
in Seattle, described the play as a Christian Science lecture, but also
said it was "decidedly unusual and interesting"; in Vancouver, the
critic's reaction was printed on the editorial page: "Young people who
want to succeed in life should visit the Empress Theatre today or
tomorrow and see ... Appearances. . . . to enjoy the comedy ... is
just like going to the bank and drawing money in the form of inspira-
tion and courage" (Anderson, scrapbooks). The production then
traveled to Chicago, where it was received with more favorable reviews
10
This despite the fact that both the Micheaux and the Lincoln film companies
had produced films with black themes and black casts that played well to white
audiences in the South-Troopers of Troop K, (Lincoln), and Homesteaders,
(Micheaux).
11
Quoted in a column by George Perry, dated 2 September 1927. Publication
not known. In the Anderson scrapbooks.
Garland Anderson 45
and a press corps predictably as interested in Anderson as they were in
his play. Yet another millionaire was involved in the Chicago produc-
tion, with yet another daughter in the cast. But this millionaire was
supportive, actually investing a substantial amount in the production.
Advance ticket sales were heavy in all locations, notably so in Chicago,
where they were strong enough to guarantee a profitable run. The critic
of the Chicago Whip wrote the most positive review the play received
in the paper's 29 December 1928 edition: "Appearances should be
compelled by law ... to remain in Chicago until every citizen has seen
it. It is educational, marvelous, great, unbelievable."
Buoyed by the tours' success-and, as Anderson saw it, the success
of his message-the playwright decided to try New York once more.
Appearances opened for the second time on 1 April 1929 at the
Hudson Theatre with C. Mischel Picard producing. A new- cast was
hired, except for Doe Doe Green, who repeated his role as "Rufus."
Green had appeared in all the road productions and-after Los
Angeles-was the only African-American in the cast.
Reviews for the first production had tried to be kind. Critics
commenting on the revival were not so forgiving. Most took extensive
notice of the play' s structural faults. The Herald Tribune performed a
notable about-face. It had praised the play in 1925 for its "profound
truth and disarming spirit of belief." In 1929 it acidly commented that
''the revival of the production at the Hudson stamps it again as naive
and pointless" (Anderson, scrapbooks) . Sympathetic reviews failed to
save the first production; negative ones helped close the second.
Appearances lasted only twenty-three performances.
A legal dispute further marred the revival. Several newspapers
reported that one John Locke claimed to have rewritten the play and to
have introduced some original material. Locke asked for two percent
of the play's gross receipts, and Anderson refused. Both men agreed
to submit their differences to the Author's League of America for arbitra-
tion (Anderson, scrapbooks). The League's decision is not recorded,
but Anderson continued to be known as the play's author, and articles
about Locke no longer appeared.
Other stories reported that Anderson had completed a second script,
a collaboration with Tom Overton (stage name: Doe Doe Green)
called The Prison Farm. It was reported that one reader for a promi-
nent Broadway producer thought "there are several reasons why this
play should be an outstanding success," but Ella Weiler, who held a
similar position at a Hollywood film studio had a different opinion.
Her report is dated 28 July 1929: "Absolutely useless. It is written
very badly. The dialogue is stilted and muddled. The construction is
even worse. The characters are dead" (Anderson, scrapbooks) .
46 KREIZENBECK
Needless to say, The Prison Farm never became a movie, and although
Anderson told several newspapers that Belasco was interested in the
script, a stage version was never produced.
Despite Appearances's second failure on Broadway, Anderson still
believed in the play and its message. Audiences and critics outside
New York had responded enthusiastically. So like all evangelists, he
went searching for more converts; and like many American theatrical
entrepreneurs before him, he looked to England. Appearances opened
in london on 11 March 1930, Anderson's unique personal history
again garnering extensive pre-show publicity. The reviews were
generally better than the last ones from New York, although london
critics found Carl to be priggish and the plot poorly constructed. The
london response was best exemplified by the Sunday Graphic of 16
March, which called the play "ingenuous" and appealing, "owing to
its sincerity."
After a run of several weeks, the production left london for
performances in other English cities, Wales, Scotland, Brussels, and
Paris, a tour lasting twenty weeks. It is interesting to note that,
although Anderson was the first African-American playwright to be
produced at most of the production's European stops, very little
mention of that fact appears in the newspapers from those locations.
Doe Doe Green was sti II with the show, and was also by far the
play's most popular performer. He continued to be the only African-
American in the cast. Promoters took advantage of his popularity,
stressing in their advertisements the aspects of Green's role that they
believed the audience would consider typical of African-American
behavior. The advertisements often consisted of a cartoonish drawing
of a minstrel-style "blackface" and a quote from one of Doe Doe's
speeches, usually one of his malaprops (Anderson, scrapbooks).
There were no millionaire's daughters or racially motivated
walkouts in the london cast, but there was a well-publicized story
concerning one of its actresses, Ann Herriot. Crippled in an automo-
bile accident some years earlier, doctors told her she would never walk
again. She turned to faith healing, miraculously grew new tissue and
regained the use of her legs. She met Anderson at a religious service,
told him her story, and got a part in the play. None of the Herriot
clippings in Anderson's scrapbooks contain any corroborating evi-
dence-from a doctor or a hospital, for example. Once again, the press
was infatuated with stories about or connected to Anderson.
Anderson remained in london while Appearances was on tour. He
was in demand as a public speaker, especially from religious groups.
He gave a series of "tea talks" at the Mayfair Hotel, discussing topics
such as "Mastering Your Environment," "Seeking and Finding," and
Garland Anderson 47
"Why Prayers Are Answered." He later traveled to Paris, Vienna, and
Berlin, spreading his message of prayer and positive thought.
Anderson became the first black member of P.E.N. and had his
portrait painted by A. Christie. He wrote a well-received book of
inspirational thoughts called Uncommon Sense, which led to a B.B.C.
program, "The Voice of Uncommon Sense," on which Anderson
answered letters about personal problems sent in by listeners. He also
found time to open a combination snack bar-night club-"Andy's Nu
Snack"-which specialized in malted milks.
Anderson returned to the United States in 1935 for a lecture tour,
designed to "bring the people out of their depression" (Anderson,
scrapbooks). Beginning at Town Hall, New York City, on 20 May,
Anderson traveled for two years, visiting Canada, Hawaii, and every
state in the Union except those in the Deep South. While ih Seattle,
Anderson became a minister for the Center of Constructive Thinking
(Abramson 1969, 27). And at an unspecified location he married his
secretary, Doris Sequirra, the daughter of a prominent London
physician. Only the most liberal considered racially mixed marriages
acceptable. Upon the couples' return to England in 1937, Sequirra
wrote a book called Nigger Lover, which chronicled her experiences
among the intolerant.
Back in London, Anderson continued lecturing, writing, and
managing his business interests. He purportedly finished a new play,
also called Uncommon Sense, but was unable to interest producers in
London or New York. He suffered a heart attack while speaking in a
London church in 1939. He was immediately flown back to the
United States, where he died on 31 May at the age of 53.
It must have seemed remarkable to the 1925 American public that
an African-American bellhop could write a Broadway play. It must
have seemed equally remarkable to Londoners of the 1930s that they
would be receiving personal advice over the radio from this same man.
But this uniqueness was also reassuring, as it reaffirmed the truth of the
American Dream in times . that were making belief in that dream
increasingly difficult. Anderson presented himself as an honest,
humble, and religious person whose only real interest was serving
those around him-the perfect "darky" for the white audience. He was
not "uppity," he was not threatening, and his reward was that he
became an English gentleman. And although he would seem the
perfect role model for African-Americans who found solace in the self-
sacrificing tenets of Christianity, African-Americans of that time did not
buy many tickets to Broadway plays. Those who did were probably
offended by the play's passive attitude toward the racism of some of its
characters, and by the social naivete of Carl's belief in the powers of
48
KREIZENBECK
positive thought. This may have been Anderson's reality, but it was not
theirs. After Carl announces that he is returning to his ''own people,"
Ella responds, "Oh, I'm so proud of you. You're going up and up-and
will take your place along with Frederick Douglas and Booker T.
Washington" (Hatch 1974, 131 ). Given the popularity of the concepts
of "integrated" and "equal" put forth by such leaders as W.E.B. Du
Bois, Carl's move back to his "own people" must have seemed a
surrender, and his admiration of "separate but equal" proponents such
as Booker T. Washington outdated. For whatever reasons, Anderson
never became a leader or a role model in the African-American
community. His place in African-American history is poignantly noted
at the conclusion of Hatch's introduction to Appearances in Black
Theatre U.S.A. :
A newspaper in Regina, Canada reported on one of Mr.
Anderson's lectures (in 1936), that "He is the first Negro since
Booker T. Washington to tour the country speaking to white
people only. Seldom, he admitted, does a Negro ever appear
to hear him. 'They are not interested/ he said rather sadly
(Hatch 1974, 101).
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
The Search for America's National Theatre
at the Vivian Beaumont
WILLIAM FARICY CONDEE
The United States has no officially designated national theatre.
Some believe this status is best: There shouldn't be a single national
theatre in a culturally and ethnically diverse nation. Others argue that
Broadway or America's regional theatres form a collective national
theatre. There have been efforts at establishing a single, formal national
theatre, most recently Roger Stevens and Peter Sellars's short-lived
attempt at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Tony
Randall's National Actors Theatre, running to mostly bad reviews in
New York for the last three seasons. But the Vivian Beaumont might
have a claim to the title, much as that theatre has run from the
designation at times or been nationally disowned at others.
The words "national theatre" have hovered around the Beaumont
from the beginning, dimly seen in its massive wing space, occasionally
darting out for a turn center stage, only to get the hook. Each
administration, now the sixth, has had to grapple with these two words.
Sometimes these words have been embraced, at other times they join
the ranks of the unspoken-the "N" and "T" words. The advantage of
adopting the title is that it lends prestige and stature, and with that,
perhaps, money. The disadvantage is that one expects greatness from
a national theatre, something rarely glimpsed at the Beaumont. And
the title may, i n fact, make fund raising harder. Donors may assume
that an officially sanctioned arts institution, clad in marble, must have
full pockets.
National Theatre, then, is not a title for the Beaumont, but the
subject of a dialogue over the last thirty years of American theatre
history. This dialogue can be seen in the initial programming,
architecture and subsequent choice of play.
The Vivian Beaumont Theater was born out of plans for the Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts in the late 1950s. John D. Rockefeller
Ill and the Lincoln Center board decided that the arts complex ought
to contain a drama constituent, but New York, dominated by commer-
cial Broadway theatre, had no permanent theatre company that could
50
CoN DEE
be considered a counterpart of the other constituents of Lincoln
Center-the Metropolitan Opera Association, the New York Philhar-
monic-Symphony Orchestra, or the dance and opera companies of the
City Center.
The Repertory Theater, then, was created by Lincoln Center. It
started out with no history, no productions and no time-ripened
philosophy. Nonetheless, the Repertory Theater had to prepare for an
opening in the most prestigious performing-arts address in the nation.
As Walter Kerr, who was involved in the planning, asked,
Where was something comparable to be found in the legiti-
mate theater? Broadway offered no clue; good as its work
sometimes was, it did that work piecemeal, assembling single
companies for single plays, without continuity. The outlands
did not offer what European municipalities often do: already as-
sembled, time-ripened repertory groups. . . . There was no
single functioning unit anywhere fully prepared or even
half-prepared to settle next to the Met without wincing. Which
meant that if a dramatic unit was to be included it would have
to be created. But this was an appalling requirement. It was
a demand for instant greatness.
1
The initial, and enduring, architectural trap for the Repertory
Theater lay in the building's geographical location: in Lincoln Center
and between the Met and the Phi I harmonic. The Repertory Theater
could not be just another theatre; it had to measure up.
As its leaders, the Repertory Theater had people who were widely
considered to be the best in their profession. Robert Whitehead was
one of the top Broadway producers, and Elia Kazan, who was a
member of the Group Theatre and one of the founders of the Actors'
Studio, was perhaps the most prestigious Broadway director of the
1950s. Also associated with the theatre were Jo Mielziner, one of
Broadway's top designers for decades; Harold Clurman, one of the
founders of the Group Theatre and a respected critic; and Arthur Miller,
who was designated the company's resident playwright. These choices
were consistent with the Lincoln Center concept of the "best" in each
of the performing arts.
The Repertory Theater was created not only to house the "best" in
American theatre, but to act as a spur, in travertine and concrete, to
1
Walter Kerr, "Repertory Was the Impossible Dream," New York Times 25
February 1973, sec. 6, 36.
Vivian Beaumont 51
change the nature of American theatre. The goals were derived from
the "New Movement" for theatre reform, initiated by Adolphe Appia
and Edward Gordon Craig just before and after the turn of the century,
and the Beaumont was the first, and only, major theatre to be built in
New York based on these goals.
Kazan and Whitehead diagnosed the American theatre as being on
the periphery of American culture. Theatre was not a habit or need of
either the cultural elite or the average American. Other art forms were
seen as more vibrant and alive, both in attracting artists to create for the
form and in expressing the tenor of the times. To Kazan, the "great
theaters of the past" were "necessary" and "dealt with the big themes
of their day. They brought clarity to feeling and meaning to exis-
tence."2 Whitehead felt that the current indifference was a valid
reaction to what had become a vapid art form: "There is a dearth of
ideas about life, about morality, and there is a dearth of theatricality, of
emotionalism, if you like."
3
Kazan's remedy was to make the theatre
more relevant to contemporary American life. The Repertory Theater
would be "pertinent ... involved ... [and] committed."
4
As with the reformers earlier in the century, Kazan and Whitehead
believed this narrowing of the vision in American theatre was the result
of realism. Though Kazan and Clurman were associated with groups
that produced the greatest achievements of American realism, they
wanted the Beaumont to move American theatre to a more "presenta-
tional" and "classical" style of production. Whitehead hoped the
Beaumont would be "a way of getting away from psycho-sexual-nat-
uralistic theatre-the influence of the thirties and the Group Theatre.
We were all bred in that. But we were losing our ability to cope with
bigger plays or verse plays."
5
The choice of plays for the Beaumont has over the years taken on
a public character because of the implicit assumption-or hope-of this
being America's national theatre, and many in the arts have not shied
away from giving advice. The New York Times once polled profession-
2
Elia Kazan, "Theater: New Stages, New Plays, New Actors," New York Times
23 September 1962, sec. 6, pt. 2, 18.
3
Quoted on page 3 of Maurice Zolotow, "Whitehead and Kazan Strategy," New
York Times 17 April 1960, sec. 2, 3.
4
Quoted on page 77 of Barry Hyams, "A Theatre: Heart and Mind," Theatre:
The Annul of the Repertory of Lincoln Center 1 (1964): 49-77.
5
Robert Whitehead, interview with author, 20 February 1986.
52 (ON DEE
als and concluded, "The Vivian Beaumont should house a national
repertory company, devoted to the tried and the new."
6
.
Whitehead and Kazan's program of plays centered on three themes:
classics, American drama, and new plays. The European classics would
be "Americanized" by an emphasis on vibrant, energetic performances
and concepts relevant to modern times. According to Whitehead, "The
vitality with which these are presented will make them American in
character."
7
Kazan declared his allegiance to producing American
drama:
These plays must be kept alive, and that means kept onstage.
They describe the American experience and the contemporary
condition. They delineate our lives. They are our theater
heritage. They are part of our national wealth and they should
be so valued.
8
This emphasis on "American," in production style and choice of plays,
was critical to the Beaumont achieving the status of national theatre.
The flaw in any plans for an "American Classical Theatre" is that
there are not many American classics. If the administration accepted
the idea that some period of time must elapse before a play receives
this approbation, it was left with O'Neill's works and a handful of other
plays; not enough to be the raison d'etre of a theatre.
Because a body of American drama did not exist, an aim of the
Repertory Theater was to manufacture one; as the Repertory Theater
had been created, so it would engender new American drama. As
Harold Clurman said, "I believe since we possess very few 'classics' of
our own, one of the main goals of an American repertory theatre
should be the development and production of native plays of serious
intent and sound craftsmanship."
9
Specifically, Whitehead hoped the open-stage form would inspire
playwrights to write plays of a more presentational style-not the
real ism associated with the proscenium theatre:
6
"What Now for Lincoln Center?" New York Times 26 june 1977, sec. 4, 18.
7
Quoted in Laurence Barrett, "Whitehead Is Adviser on Lincoln Sq. Center,"
New York Herald Tribune 16 May 1958, in Performing Arts Library Scrapbook, n.pg.
8
Kazan, 26.
9
Harold Clurman, "The Subject Is Not Roses, or The Grandeur and Misery of
Repertory," Theatre: The Annual of the Repertory of Lincoln Center 2 (1965): 117.
Vivian Beaumont
I thought it would change American theatre. When we were
working on the design I got all the writers I knew to look at a
model. I said, 'Let it sink in. Think about the freedom you
can find writing for that stage.' I thought it would invite an
adventure.
10
53
Critics also saw this purpose for the new theatre. Howard
Taubman of the New York Times wrote: "The Lincoln Center theatre
can be a power for growth, not constriction. It can be a seminal force
in the development of talent and ideas . .. . It can be an inspiration to
the country."
11
The architecture of the proposed theatre was critical to the
Repertory Company, since it did not yet exist as a producing organiza-
tion. The plans for their building would be the first manifestation of
the Repertory Company. As Kazan expressed it: "The building is a
declaration of intention in reinforced concrete."
12
Three basic principles guided Mielziner and architect Eero Saarinen
in designing the theatre. First, it had to have the capability for
presenting a schedule of rotating repertory. Second, the theatre had to
be adaptable between proscenium and thrust configurations. Finally,
and more generally, Whitehead and Kazan wanted a theatre that would
be unique, and, because of that quality, attract attention, audiences and
artists to it: "Answer the requirements of the past, cater to the fashions
of the present and be capable of meeting the unknown demands of the
future."
13
The architecture had to make a clear statement: This
theatre is grand, impressive and official. This theatre deserves to stand
next to the Metropolitan Opera, New York State Theater and Philhar-
monic Hall. This theatre deserves to be America's national theatre.
Though Whitehead initially opposed having a rotating repertory,
the weight of opinion was that if the Beaumont aspired to be America's
national theatre, it had to operate in rotating repertory. Shakespeare
had a repertory theatre, Moliere had a repertory theatre, England's
National Theatre was going to be a repertory theatre, and, in Lincoln
Center, the Met operated as a repertory theatre. If the Beaumont had
10
Whitehead interview.
11
Howard Taubman, "A New Beginning," New York Times 26 November 1961,
sec. 2, 1.
12
Kazan, 18.
13
Quoted on page 1 in Taubman.
54 CON DEE
aspirations of being considered among this class, it too had to be a
repertory theatre.
As for the theatre form to be employed, Whitehead was "drawn to
the use of the open stage."
14
This stage form had been linked for
decades to the reformist camp in American theatre, as opposed to the
association of the proscenium with the conservatives, and Whitehead
wanted to place the Beaumont in reformist territory. A thrust would
also make a clear architectural statement about the difference between
the Lincoln Center theatre and commercial Broadway theatres, which
are all proscenium. In addition, the thrust stage was most closely
associated with "classical" drama, which would be performed at the
Beaumont. Performing American plays on a "classical" stage would
also indicate that this drama had attained the stature of Greek and
Elizabethan drama.
But the Beaumont planners were not willing to abandon the
proscenium altogether and commit themselves to a thrust for America's
would-be national theatre. In large measure, this was because of the
conservative and institutional nature of this theatre. It was being built
for Lincoln Center and John D. Rockefeller Ill. While the Beaumont
was to revitalize American theatre, it was not to be, in itself, revolution-
ary or avant-garde. The theatre would have to support a traditional
repertoire and be supported by traditionally minded patrons. Because
of this reluctance, the planners chose a dual-form theatre that could be
shifted mechanically from proscenium to thrust.
Whitehead and Kazan ran two unsuccessful seasons at the
ANTA-Washington Square Theater, the temporary home for the
Repertory Company while the Beaumont was being built. Faced with
mounting deficits and vehement attacks on their productions, White-
head was forced from his position and Kazan resigned in protest. The
Lincoln Center board was faced with a theatre soon to open and no
one to lead it. After a major, nationwide search, two relative un-
knowns from a small theatre group at the opposite end of the continent
were plucked to head the new theatre: Herbert Blau and Jules Irving
from the Actors' Theatre in San Francisco.
Blau and Irving's program was similar to Whitehead and Kazan's
in that it called for classics and new plays, but the emphasis was more
European and less American. In addition, there were subtle differences
in codes referring to the era in which these pronouncements were
made-the Vietnam War and the social upheaval of the sixties. They
announced that the Beaumont "will be a crossroads, a meeting hall, a
14
Whitehead interview.
Vivian Beaumont 55
shrine, a playground, a battleground and an Open Society-a place of
wonder and confrontation where the prophetic soul of the wide world,
in an age of revolutions, may do its dreaming of things to come."
15
While Whitehead and Kazan spoke to the establishment, Blau and
Irving spoke to the younger generation. Blau and Irving saw the
Beaumont as a focal point for reinvigorating and revolutionizing
American theatre and, by extension, society, not according to the goals
of the turn-of-the-century reformers, but with the ideals of the sixties.
Blau later described the apocalyptic goals they had set for themselves:
Change the repertoire, shape up a divid.ed company, avoid the
use of stars, alter the economic structure of the theater,
renovate the unions, develop a newer audience, protect the
actors from sudden firings, open a new theater and test out the
stage, use the machinery, introduce a new and radical music,
bring in the blacks, take on the Vietnam War, anticipate the
self-defeating excesses of protest, educate the Board, reconcile
the Underground and the Establishment-and stay, in spirit,
3000 miles off-Broadway .... What we had proposed was a
virtual reformation of the American theater at almost every
level, aesthetically and politically.
16
In tune with the anti-establishment feelings of many, Blau and
Irving avoided any reference to a national theatre. In fact, some of their
actions deliberately undermined any official status for the Beaumont,
including a program note for the opening that some felt equated
Lyndon johnson with Fidel Castro.
The theatre opened with Blau's production of Danton's Death by
Georg Buechner, and critics, while damning the production, were
generally positive about the new theatre, stressing its attractiveness,
intimacy, sight lines and acoustics. These comments are interesting in
light of the body of criticism that has developed around this problemat-
ic theatre. Richard Watts Jr., for instance, said it was ua perfectly
15
Quoted in Robert MeG. Thomas Jr., "Soaring Visions and Dashed Hopes, "
New York Times 10 June 1977, C17.
16
Herbert Blau, Take Up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point (Urbana:
Universi ty of Illinois Press, 1982), 40.
56 CON DEE
beautiful playhouse ... the theater itself is charming, large but
intimate, admirably arranged for seeing and hearing comfortably."
17
There were those who attacked the Beaumont from the outset,
though. julius Novick called it "somewhat candy-box and over-
plush."18 Gordon Rogoff found the stage insufficiently strong or
committed, denouncing it as "too namby-pamby in its apron thrust."
19
The two seasons under Blau and Irving were a disaster. Their
choice of plays was often commended as just what the Beaumont
should be presenting-classics and new plays that would not be
produced in the commercial theatre-but their execution was almost
universally condemned by critics. Martin Gottfried wrote that their
plays were "choices of sensitivity, taste, education, culture and
adventure, produced with a flabbergasting lack of technique."
20
Mediocrity would not suffice here, because the Beaumont was in the
spot! ight and there was sti II the aura of national theatre about it.
Blau resigned from the theatre in 1967, and Irving stayed on as the
sole director. Irving tended to produce well-known classics, and the
caliber of the productions improved. Over the six years that Irving ran
the Beaumont, though, critics became impatient with the lack of
experimentation in his choice of plays and style of production. Robert
Brustein brushed off Irving's program as "anthology plays in conven-
tional productions."
21
Blau later observed that there are "two honor-
able courses a repertory theatre may take." The first is "to become a
kind of museum or art gallery . .. and provide a permanent trust fund
of important plays"; the second is "to conceive a repertoire . . . as a
kind of Quest, even a Way of Life."
22
Blau had conceived his anti-
17
Richard Watts, Jr., "The Revolution Destroys Itself," New York Post 25
October 1965, in Performing Arts Library Scrapbook, n.pg.
18
julius Novick, Beyond Broadway: The Quest for Permanent Theatres (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1969), 200.
19
Gordon Rogoff, "Notes Toward a Definition of Impossible Theatre," The
Drama Review 10 (1966): 194.
20
Martin Gottfried, The Theatre Divided: The Postwar American Stage (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1969), 158.
21
Robert Brustein, Critical Moments (New York: Random House, 1980), 144.
22
Herbert Blau, "The Valley to the Waterers," Theatre: The Annual of the
Repertory of Lincoln Center 2 (1965) : 99-100.
Vivian Beaumont 57
national theatre as a Way of Life, but the Beaumont was conceived
more as a museum, and Irving hesitantly reasserted that course.
In 1972, Irving resigned when the season at the Forum, the smaller
theatre downstairs, was cut short for lack of money.
With Irving's resignation, the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center
ceased to exist; the New York Shakespeare Festival at Lincoln Center,
under the leadership of joseph Papp, became the drama constituent.
Papp was enormously influential in American theatre at the time,
successfully managing the Delacorte Theater in Central Park and the
Public Theater. A cartoon in the New Yorker spoofed his influence,
depicting the Manhattan skyline with a banner above reading, "A
joseph Papp Production."
23
Papp himself announced that he was
taking over the Beaumont "for personal aggrandizement and to
establish a cultural power base here in New York so as to take over the
rest of the repertory theaters in the country, and to create a liaison with
China and Russia."
24
Since its inception, the Repertory Theater had been troubled by the
fact that it lacked an artistic basis-the production history and legitima-
cy of the other Lincoln Center constituents; now, Mel Gussow wrote,
"many feel that lincoln Center has, in Mr. Papp, a director with the
force and personality to give the theater its rightful, equal place among
the constituents."
25
Papp's arrival, then, marked a different approach
in the ongoing search for a national theatre: Bringing in an established
company with a dual emphasis on classics and new American drama.
Papp's first two seasons marked a significant shift in the Beaumont's
programming. Far more than Whitehead-Kazan, or even Blau-lrving,
Papp stressed the social role of the theatre. Papp stated that his goal
was to bring inner-city blacks and Hispanics into Lincoln Center:
A theater in New York must respond to the reality of what is
happening in the city, principally the exodus of great numbers
of the white middle-class to the suburbs. It must relate to the
indigenous culture and aspirations of the city's residents,
whatever their previous relationship to a theater. . . . If the
23
Quoted on page 17 in Stanley Kauffmann, Persons of the Drama (New York:
Harper and Row, 1976).
24
Quoted on page 38 in Mel Gussow, " Papp's Troupe to Replace lincoln
Repertory," New York Times 7 March 1973, 1, 38.
25
Mel Gussow, " Papp and the Future of lincoln Center, " New York Times 9
March 1973, in Performing Arts library Scrapbook, n.pg.
58 CON DEE
principal audience we plan to play for is an amalgam of white
and black middle-class-professionals, young people and the
elderly, with representatives of the evolving Puerto Rican
middle-class-we have then to produce a certain selection of
plays in certain kinds of ways.
26
Papp's plan was to produce predominantly new plays, with a special
emphasis on plays by blacks and Hispanics, and occasional classics.
Papp saw the importance of a would-be national theatre reflecting the
social, ethnic and cultural diversity of the nation. While the reformist
aspect of the Beaumont had been artistic under Whitehead and Kazan,
and political under Blau, it was social and cultural under Papp.
Papp was aware of the disparity in artistic goals between the New
York Shakespeare Festival and lincoln Center: "We are coming in as
a contemporary force in what is basically a classical constituency."
27
At the same time, he would accommodate his theatre to the new
architectural surroundings: "You can't separate the from the
Met or the Philharmonic. The concept suggests size and scope. The
nature of lincoln Center demands a particular kind of attraction."
28
Specifically, Papp saw the Beaumont as a "showcase" for well-devel-
oped plays produced with stars, whi le the Public Theater downtown
would be "a growing situation."
29
After two seasons of presenting new works (including plays about
a bisexual go-go dancer, Puerto Ricans in prison and a comedy about
mastectomy), and confronted with critical resistance and a diminishing
subscription, Papp abandoned this policy. Saraleigh Carney observed,
His policy of new American plays for the Beaumont was an at-
tempt to make theater at Lincoln Center into his situation, and
his return to the classics is an indication that he underestimated
26
Joseph Papp, "To Break Down the 'Wall,'" New York Times 22 July 1973,
sec. 2, 1.
27
Quoted on page 38 in Gussow, "Troupe."
28
Quoted on page 50 in Mel Gussow, "Mrs. Newhouse Gives Papp $1-Mil-
lion," New York Times 31 May 1973, 50.
29
Quoted on page 38 in Mel Gussow, "Productive Papp Follows the Writers'
Lead," New York Times 4 March 1974, 38.
Vivian Beaumont
his power to effect radical change in that unyieldi ng environ-
ment.30
59
Papp's plan was now to produce classics with stars. Again, pressure
from the marbled walls and audiences to make this into an official
museum of approved "classics" won out.
After four seasons of criticism and siphoning off the profits from A
Chorus Line to finance the Beaumont's deficit, Papp decided to take the
New York Shakespeare Festival back downtown.
Richmond Crinkley, the next to lead the Beaumont, was a theatre
administrator and producer. Consistent with this background, his plan
for the Beaumont was for him to operate as the producer overseeing a
"di rectorate" of people with a range of interest, expertise and back-
ground. In addition to those long involved in theatre-Liviu Ciulei ,
Robin Phillips and Ellis Rabb-there were others with little experience
i n legitimate theatre-Woody Allen (film) and Sarah Caldwell (opera).
Edward Albee was named company playwright.
The "theatre-by-committee" aspect of Crinkley's Beaumont plan
was met with a flood of criticism. Variety summed up the reaction of
theatre professionals as
markedly negative. It's the trade' s consensus that the differ-
ences of viewpoint and philosophy will inevitably arise, given
the sharply contrasting backgrounds of the six-member direc-
torate. As one producer put it, 'What do Woody Allen and
Edward Albee have in common with each other and with Liviu
Ciulei?'
31
According to Papp, "It's going to be like a Marx Brothers comedy."
32
The program of plays for the "new Vivian Beaumont Theater" was
to i nclude "classic plays from world dramatic literature and Ameri can
classics."
33
Crinkley admitted that the program was essentially not
new:
30
Saraleigh Carney, "The Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center: Aesthetics and
Economics 1960-1973," Ph.D. diss. , Ci ty University of New York, 1976, 458.
31
Richard Humml er, " Group Rule Left Beaumont Jinx?" Variet y 20 December
1978, 85.
32
Quoted on page 85 in Hummler.
33
"The Play's the Thing," (New York: lincoln Center Theater, n.d.), n.pg.
60 CON DEE
Under many managements, the Beaumont went through a
series of artistic policies, almost all of which came back to tlie
same: a theatre for the classics. . . . Everybody's policy
amounts to the same thing- you can put, as they say in Holly-
wood, a different 'spin' on it.
34
In fact, Crinkley produced only one season of three plays: The
Philadelphia Story, Macbeth and a new play by Woody Allen, The
Floating Light Bulb. All three were critical and popular failures. The
theatre then remained dark, except for an outside production of Peter
Brook's La Tragedie de Carmen, from 1981 until Crinkley resigned in
1984.
The issue that kept the theatre dark was Crinkley's belief that the
Beaumont needed major reconstruction. Crinkley had two major
objections. First, he felt the thrust was an outdated fad of the sixties,
while the proscenium had "a historic inevitabi lity about it."
35
Second, he thought that the theatre was not financially viable, in that
there were too few seats for the overall size of the building and to
support the style of production that the architecture calls for. As it
stood, Crinkleysaid the theatre required "irresponsibly large donations"
and called the problem "an insoluble moral/civic conundrum."
36
Cri nkley's step in the national theatre search, appropriately taking place
in the eighties, was to reassert a conservative architectural form and to
use American "business sense" to make the Beaumont financially
viable.
Crinkley refused to reopen the theatre without this reconstruction,
but the Lincoln Center board refused permission and he was forced to
resign.
The fifth administration of the Beaumont was led by Gregory
Mosher, formerly the director of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
(Bernard Gersten, ; the managing director, had told a friend that five
administrations wasn't so bad; after all, France is in its Fifth Republic.
The friend responded, "Yes, but France wasn't dark for four years!"
37
)
34
Richmond Crinkley, interview with author, 12 February 1986.
35
Quoted on page C3 in Harold Schonberg, "A Physical and Acoustic Facelift
Waits in the Beaumont's Wings," New York Times 20 March 1981, C3.
36
Crinkley interview.
37
Bernard Gersten, interview with author, 21 February 1986.
Vivian Beaumont 61
Mosher's administration was undoubtedly the most successful to date.
He seemed to have removed the "jinx" from the Beaumont, and, along
with director jerry Zaks and designer Tony Walton, showed that it is,
in fact, a workable theatre.
Mosher renamed the company the Lincoln Center Theater, avoiding
the bad associations of the name Vivian Beaumont, but also embracing
his more well-established neighbors. From the outset, Mosher accepted
the inevitable national theatre implications of his building but wisely
eschewed the name.
Mosher's stated program differed little from previous ones: "The
Beaumont will be the home of world theater classics (mainly),"
38
but
would also house visiting companies and "new vaudeville" entertain-
ments.39 A crucial difference from Crinkley's administration, though,
was the emphasis on new plays. Mosher brought to the Beaumont his
long-standing collaboration with David Mamet, one of America's
foremost playwrights, and went on to produce several of Mamet's
plays, in addition to plays by john Guare and other emerging play-
wrights. Mosher reached out not only to new American plays, but also
to African drama, non-text-based performance art, and unexpected
casting choices. Performance art at the Beaumont included the work
of the Flying Karamazov Brothers, Bi ll Irwin and Spalding Gray.
Casting included Madonna, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Avner the
Eccentric, and Ethyl Eichelberger.
The Lincoln Center Theater also produced bona fide hits, some-
thing rare in the history of the Beaumont. These included The House
of Blue Leaves, The Front Page, Anything Goes, Speed-the-Plow, Our
Town and Six Degrees of Separation. Mosher was also more wi lling
than past directors to operate like a commercial producer. He
transferred some of the hits to Broadway, and also used the Lincoln
Center Theater apparatus to produce plays outside the complex,
including a " promenade" production of Road at the LaMama Annex,
and Our Town on Broadway.
Mosher, Zaks and Walton were also the most consistently success-
ful in their use of this difficult theatre. They understood that the
architecture demands a large-scale production that acknowl edges the
audience and celebrates the presentational aspect of performance.
36
Lincoln Center Theater, " l etter to Subscribers," 1985-86 season, n. pg.
39
Mel Gussow, " Four Dark Years to End at lincoln Center Stage," New York
Times 5 November 1985, C15.
62 CON DEE
Walton created sets that filled the vast Beaumont stage, whi le not
overwhelming the play or the actors.
The Beaumont is not, and perhaps never will be, America's
national theatre, but it cannot escape the association altogether. Andre
Bishop, formerly the director of Playwrights Horizons and the new
director of the Beaumont, would do well to learn from the theatre's
history. Whitehead and Kazan set the Beaumont on its stately course,
with its fancy address and epic size. Blau battled the Establishment,
and Irving succumbed. Papp endeavored to broaden the artistic policy
and pote'1tial audience, but the new audience wouldn't come and the
old one stayed away. .
Mosher was the most canny at j uggling the national theatre issue.
The words, or others like them, never passed his lips, but he acknowl-
edged the Beaumont's neighborhood. He reached out beyond the
classics in his programming to include "safe" avant-garde performance
art and African (not African-American) drama. In this way, he intrigued
the middle-class audience without driving it away. He produced major
American drama, but not the "literary" works of the recognized
American "masters." Instead, he chose works of slight "literary" value,
therefore considered lesser by many scholars and critics (such as
Anything Goes and The Front Page), but proved thei r worth on the
stage as performance-based drama. By producing performance art and
drama that must be seen to be appreciated, Mosher demonstrated the
l ink between the popular tradition in American theatre and current
experimental work.
The Vivian Beaumont may not be a national theatre, but a large-
scale, nonprofit theatre in the nation's theatre capital, creating exciting
productions of new and old American drama, experimental and
traditional, with a dash of international flavor, may be as close as we
can get. Mr. Bishop, let the dialogue continue.
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
Ida Rauh:
Power Player at Provi ncetown
CHERYL BLACK
Critics called her the "Duse of Macdougal Street," an "experi-
mental Bernhardt," the "star" of the Provincetown Players. Her name
was Ida Rauh, and today she is virtually unknown. Scholars with a
particular interest in the American Little Theatre movement may recall
that she became one of the most influential members of the Province-
town Players and that she rather suddenly and mysteriously ended her
association with them at a critical time in their history. The particulars
of her association with the Provincetown Players, however, are
unknown or forgotten. Little attempt has been made to account for
Rauh's rise to power or her subsequent abdication. How did Rauh
attain her position of influence within the company and why did she
lose (or relinquish) that position?
Long before the Provincetown Players organized as a theatre
company in the fall of 1916, Rauh's intellectual, political, and artistic
achievements had earned her an esteemed position within the
Greenwich Village group that made up the company's founding
membership. Rauh's husband Max Eastman, the editor of the socialist
journal The Masses, considered Rauh his political mentor: " half-
Nietzschean, half-Marxian, half-anarchist, believing in free love and a
freed proletariat."
1
Rauh's feminist activism included appearance i n
a suffrage film, arrest for distributing birth-control pamphlets, and
lecturi ng on behalf of the Women's Labor Union League. Her artistic
pursuits included sculpture, poetry, and amateur theatrical perfor-
mance.2
1
Max East man, Enjoyment of Living (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948),
342. Subsequent references to this work will be cited in the text. See also Max
Eastman, Love and Revolution (New York: Random House, 1964), 4.
2
Several of her contemporaries, including Lawrence Langner, Max Eastman, and
Hutchins Hapgood have written admiringly of Rauh's plastic and histrioni c talents.
Rauh 's best-known sculpture, a bust of D.H. Lawrence, i s in the Lawrence Memorial
64 BLACK
Essentially, the Players were journalists, novelists, painters, and
teachers who decided, at the urging of former classics professor George
Cram "Jig" Cook, to write plays. For Rauh, who wrote only poetry,
acting provided the most likely opportunity for involvement.
As an actor, Rauh enjoyed two advantages over most of her peers.
The first was a striking physical presence. According to contemporar-
ies, Rauh possessed the bearing of a lioness,
3
the head of an Old
Testament heroine,
4
the grace of a panther, and the voice of a viola
(Eastman 1948, 342). The second was theatrical experience. Although
she had no formal training, Rauh was an ardent amateur actor; she had
participated in Floyd Dell's "communal rituals"
5
at the Liberal Club
and had performed with the Washington Square Players.
In addition to performance skills, Rauh brought a distinct aesthetic
philosophy and valuable organizational abilities to the task of creating
an experimental theatre company. Rauh had long envisioned a
subscription theatre "which could ignore box office and adhere to pure
standards of art" (Eastman 1948, 521 ). In 1914, Rauh attempted to
realize that goal by creating, along with Lawrence Langner and Albert
Boni, the Washington Square Players; artistic disagreements with her
co-founders, however, led to Rauh's resignation within a year.
6
Apparently, Rauh anticipated a more harmonious collaboration with her
close friend Jig Cook, who yearned for a theatre based on spontaneous
and joyous communal creation. Despite her aesthetic ideals, however,
Rauh was not (as Cook has so often been described) a dreamer. She
was a doer. Descriptions of Rauh's character indicate a resolute
personality. "When a woman of Ida Rauh's character and will power
is determined to act," declared Lawrence Langner, "she can move
Library in New Mexico. She published a book of poetry, And This Little Life, in
1959.
3
Mabel . Dodge Luhan, Intimate Memories (New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 1936), 199.
4
Joseph Foster, D. H. Lawrence in Taos (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1972), 220.
5
Fioyd Dell, Love in Greenwich Village (Freeport, NY: Books for Librar ies Press,
1926), 32.
6
Lawrence Langner, The Magic Curtain (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.,
1951), 94. Rauh encouraged Cook and Glaspell to join the Washington Square
Players, but they lost interest when the company decided against producing their
one-act play, Suppressed Desires.
Ida Rauh 65
mountains-and she did."
7
Her husband, Max Eastman, made the
somewhat rueful observation that "she lacked the yielding and
surrounding instinct so notably possessed by water and other liquids"
(Eastman 1948, 527).
Apparently, Rauh's experience and determination enabled her to
assume a primary role in the creation and organization of the Province-
town Players. Following the group's first season of amateur theatrical
performance at Provincetown in the summer of 1915, Rauh, Cook, John
Reed, Floyd Dell, and Lucian Cary "appointed themselves" to plan the
next season. This informal committee constituted the "first definite
movement toward any organization whatever."
8
When the group formally organized as the Provincetown Players in
September 1916, Rauh was one of twenty-nine active members. As an
active member, her duties included play selection, participation in the
production of plays, financial decisions, and election of officers and
new members.
Theoretically, the Provincetown Players was a collective but, from
the outset, it was clear that a hierarchy existed. Cook, the group's
guiding spirit, was elected President;
9
playwrights were clearly the
primary artists, with O'Neill perhaps the first among equals;
10
an
executive committee was elected to determine what questions of policy
would be submitted to the active membership for deliberation.
11
Although Rauh was not a playwright and was not, at this time, a
member of the executive committee, the personal circumstances of her
life at this time allowed her to become the most "active" of active
members. An independent income precluded the necessity of outside
employment; separation from Max Eastman in 1917 reduced her
domestic responsibilities. Rauh was therefore able to devote more time
and energy to the day-to-day operations of the company than most
7
1bid., 92.
8
Edna Kenton, "History of the Provincetown Players," Fales Collection, Bobst
library, New York University, 8.
9
Cook's actual position in the company corresponded to what we now call an
"artistic director."
10
At O'Neill's insistence, the Players agreed to name their New York facility
"The Playwright' s Theatre."
11
Minutes, 4 September 1916, Cage Collection, New York Library of the
Performing Arts.
66 BLACK
other members.
12
Contemporaneous accounts and company records
portray Rauh as one of the most influential members in all matters
subjected to membership vote. Rauh never missed a membership
meeting; in fact, meetings were frequently held at her home.
13
As a I icensed attorney, Rauh was able to provide the Provincetown
Players with free legal counsel, successfully defending them against a
charge of building-code violation during their first New York season.
14
Rauh used her increasing influence to initiate significant changes
in the company's artistic policies. The Players' constitution stipulated
that playwrights were to direct their own plays "without hindrance,
according to his [sic] own ideas."
15
Before the end of the first New
York season, however, some members, including Rauh, were beginning
to doubt the wisdom of this policy. Rauh was one of the first to try to
remedy the situation. lri October 1916 she volunteered to serve on a
committee to solicit other producers (i.e., directors) to work with the
Players. In December, the Players officially recognized the Producing
Committee and elected Rauh a member.
16
The Players hired a
company director in February 1917; from that time on, playwrights
rarely directed their own plays at Provincetown.
Rauh's unanimous election to the Executive Committee in February
1917 indicates her continued interest in policy-making as well as the
Players' confidence in her ability.
17
Despite her preoccupation with operational policy, Rauh managed
to develop an acting career of astonishing range and volume. Her
performances during two summer seasons at Provincetown evidently
established her as one of the group's most talented actors: She
appeared in seven of the twenty new plays produced during the
12
At this time, only two members of the group received (small) salaries: Cook
and secretary-treasurer Margaret Bordfelt.
13
Edna Kenton, in "History," and Deutsch and Hanau in The Provincetown: A
Story of the Theatre (New York: Farrar & Rinehart Inc., 1931) make many
references to Rauh's involvement in all matters of company policy. See also
Minutes.
14
Deutsch and Hanau, 19.
15
Minutes, 5 September 1916.
16
1bid., 11 December 1916.
17
1bid., 21 February 1917.
Ida Rauh 67
company's first New York season. Throughout her Provincetown career
(1915-21 ), Rauh performed twenty-five roles, more than twice as many
as any other woman in the company, and eight more than any other
performer (male or female) during the same period.
18
The productions in which she appeared represent virtually every
dramatic genre: drama, melodrama, comedy, farce, satire, and poetic
fantasy. Character types she portrayed include a cocaine addict, a
working-class Irish wife, a New England farm widow, and a sophisticat-
ed professional woman. She was the only Provincetown performer to
engage in cross-gender portrayals, playing male characters in two
productions.
19
Critical acclaim of Rauh's performances brought the company
valuable publicity, thereby strengthening Rauh's position within the
company. Although critics generally ignored Provincetown in the early
years (partially because the company refused to send critics complimen-
tary tickets), and in later years concentrated on playwrights, Rauh's
performances garnered a considerable amount of favorable critical
attention, beginning in the first New York season with her portrayal of
a drug-addicted prostitute in Cocaine.
20
By the fall of 1918, her
name had been linked with two of the world's greatest female actors.
Jane Heap dubbed her the "Duse of Macdougal Street"
21
and Current
Opinion hailed her as "an experimental Bernhardt," who "brings keen
intelligence to the interpretation of her parts."
22
Heywood Broun,
drama critic for the New York Tribune, became one of Rauh's strongest
supporters, commending her performances in The Athenian Women,
Where the Cross is Made, The Squealer, and Berniece.
18
Bianche Hays performed twelve roles during the same period. James light
holds the record for male performers (17 roles). Sources for this information include
Deutsch and Hanau, playbills, and cast lists in published versions of plays.
19
For a complete listing of Ida Rauh's acting roles, see Appendix.
2
Complimentary comments by critics Thomas Buchanan and Henry Kolker are
quoted in playbill, Novvember 1917, Cook papers, Berg Collection, New York
Public Library. Kenneth Macgowan praised the "truth of the acting" in Cocaine
(quoted in Deutsch and Hanau, introduction, vii).
21
Quoted in Deutsch and Hanau, 51.
22
"How Experimental Theaters May Avoid the Pitfalls of Professional i sm,"
Current Opinion 65 Uuly 1918): 28-29.
68 BLACK
Susan Glaspell's full-length drama Berniece brought Rauh her most
critically acclaimed role: the intuitive and compassionate Margaret
Pierce. Reviews in the Baltimore Sun, the Daily Herald, Daily Times,
and New York Tribune applauded her performanceY Heywood
Broun was most effusive, paying tribute within his review to her past
accomplishments as well:
Miss Rauh's performance was magnificent. This was hardly
accident, for Miss Rauh has given enough f irst class perfor-
mances to convince us that she is a splendid player in emo-
tional roles; more particularly in roles in which the emotion
is designed to smoulder.
24
A few weeks later' Broun included Ida Rauh in his list of the
season's twelve best female actors, a list that also included Minnie
Maddern Fiske and Helen Hayes:
Miss Rauh has not been seen on Broadway. All her experience
this season has been at the little Provincetown theatre. She
belongs in the list because of a superb performance which she
gave in Susan Glaspell's inspiring Berniece. Miss Rauh can
hold a role under the tightest rein throughout an evening and
yet convince everybody in an audience that something is
smouldering underneath the repression.
25
In addition to critical approval, Rauh received the admiration of
many of her peers. Provincetown chronicler Edna Kenton considered
Rauh one of the best actors in the company
26
and recalled her
performance in Cocaine as "brilliant."
27
In a letter to john Reed,
23
Newspaper clippings in Cook scrapbook, Berg collection, New York Public
Library.
24
Heywood Broun, Review of Berniece, New York Tribune, 30 March 1919,
sec. 4, 2.
25
Heywood Broun, "All-American Dozen of Our Best Actresses," New York
Tribune, 13 April1919, n.pg. In Cook scrapbook, Berg Collection, New York Public
Library.
26
Kenton, "History," 11.
27
lbid., 556.
Ida Rauh 69
Robert Emmons Rogers reported that "Ida Rauh did beautifully in Neith
[Boyce]'s play [fnemies]."
28
George Cram Cook's correspondence
contains many tributes to Rauh's ability as an actor.
29
With this sort of critical attention and peer approval, it is hardly
surprising that Ida Rauh was considered by some "the star" of the
company.
30
Beginning in the Players' third New York season,
however, Rauh began to establish her value as a director as well as an
actor.
Evidently Rauh had been interested in directing plays for some
time. During rehearsals for Floyd Dell's A Long Time Ago in the fall
of 1916, Louise Bryant reported that director Duncan Macdougal
wanted to stage the play "his way ... not Ida's or Teddy's [E. J.
Ballantine]."
31
A letter from Cook to Glaspell in October 1918
indicates that Rauh and Ballantine were overseeing rehearsals In Cook's
absence.
32
Later that fall, Rauh assumed full responsibility for direct-
ing Eugene O'Neill's Where the Cross is Made. The play presented
several staging difficulties: There were seven characters (the stage
measured 12 x 26 feet), exits through the ceiling, and the appearance
of three ghosts onstage. The greatest challenge, however, ar9se from
conflict with O'Neill during a rehearsal period that Edna Kenton
remembered as "one prolonged argument."
33
Despite the difficulties,
28
Robert Emmons Rogers to John Reed, 2 December 1916, Houghton Library,
Harvard, quoted in Sarlos, "The Provincetown Players: Experiments in Style," Ph.D.
diss., Yale University, 1965, 98.
29
See George Cram Cook to Susan Glaspell, October 1916 and 23 August 1921,
Berg Collection, New York Public Library. See also George Cram Cook to Ida Rauh,
Undated (1922-24), Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
30
Barry O'Rourke, "At the Sign of the Sock and Buskin, " Morning Telegraph,
1 6 February 1919, 3.
31
Louise Bryant to John Reed, 2 December 191 6; Reed papers, Harvard, quoted
in Sarlos, Jig Cook, 71.
32
George Cram Cook to Susan Glaspell, 24 October 1918, Berg collection,
New York Public Library.
33
Kenton, "History, " 104.
70 BLACK
critic Heywood Broun considered Where the Cross is Made "among
the best things which the players have done."
34
It is an indication of Rauh's power within the company that she
directed O'Neill's The Dreamy Kid in the fall of 1919, despite their
conflict during Where the Cross is Made.
Rauh's casting of The Dreamy Kid is the most significant aspect of
that production. Rather than following the custom of using white actors
in blackface to portray non-white characters, Rauh went to "the YMCA,
the library, the churches, and everywhere else in Harlem,"
35
eventual-
ly acquiring an entirely African-American cast, the first Provincetown
director to do so.
36
Rauh's casting received almost as much attention
as O'Neill's prose; although a few critics labelled the performances
"amateurish," their theoretical support of Rauh's break with tradition
was strong.
37

Rauh directed three other plays for Provincetown: Rita Creighton
Smith's melodrama The Rescue, in which she also performed a role;
Winthrop Parkhurst's comedy Getting Unmarried; and Bosworth
Crocker's The Baby Carriage. With small casts and single sets, these
plays presented no unusual staging problems and aroused little interest.
An interview with Rauh during a rehearsal of The Baby Carriage,
34
Heywood Broun, "Provincetown Players Give Fine Thrill in a Sea Play," New
York Tribune, 25 November 1918, 9.
35
lda Rauh, interview by William Vilhauer, 11 December 1962, quoted in
William Vilhauer, "A History and Evaluation of the Provincetown Players," Ph.D
diss., University of Iowa, 1965, 245.
36
0'Neill himself (in blackface) portrayed the mulatto sailor in Thirst (1916), and
white actors in blackface played the West Indian prostitutes in Moon of the Caribees
(1918). In The Emperor Jones (1920), the play cited as pivotal in introducing
African-American actors in serious roles, Charles Gilpin was the only African-
American actor. The other "native" roles were performed by white actors in
blackface. Rauh's insistence on casting African-American actors for all the roles,
rather than only the lead, indicates political as well as artistic motivation and
represents a sharper break with the tradition of casting white actors in African-
American roles than the later production of The Emperor }ones.
37
See Burns Mantle, The Mail, 3 November 1919, n.pg.; Rebecca Drucker, New
York Tribune, 13 November 1919, n.pg.; Jay Kaufman, The Globe, 3 November
1919, n.pg., in Barnes collection, Maryland Room, University of Maryland at
College Park; Boston Transcript, 5 November 1919, n.pg., in Provincetown
Scrapbook, New York Library of the Performing Arts; and Alexander Woollcott, New
York Times, 9 November 1919, sec. 8, 2.
Ida Rauh 71
however, demonstrates that Rauh the director, as well as Rauh the
actor, provided desirable publicity for the company.
38
As the Players began their fourth New York season (1919-1920),
Rauh was indisputably their leading actor, a proficient director, and a
trusted administrator. When Cook announced his plans to take a leave
of absence, the Players appointed Rauh and James Light, who had
joined the Players as an actor in the fall of 1917, as co-directors for the
1919-20 season. Light, seventeen years Rauh's junior, was much less
experienced than Rauh and had not yet directed for the Players,
although he was interested in directing and design.
Whatever Rauh may have thought about the situation, it is
reasonable to assume that she accepted co-directorship with the
intention of fulfilling her responsibilities for the entire season. She
began enthusiastically, directing two of the four plays on the first bi II,
The Dreamy Kid and Getting Unmarried, and performing in one, Djuna
Barnes's Three From the Earth. After the first bill, however, Rauh was
not actively involved with any other production for the remainder of
the season. During the middle of this season, in fact, Rauh appeared
in the Theatre Guild's Power of Darkness, which opened in january
1920. Although she remained a member of Provincetown's executive
committee, she did not actively participate in a Provincetown produc-
tion again until February 1921. Seven months later, Rauh officially
resigned from the Provincetown Players.
The reasons for Rauh's apparent abdication of responsibility in the
fall of 1919 become less mysterious when viewed in the context of her
relationships with other influential members of the company and with
the particular historical circumstances surrounding the watershed
season of 1919-20.
By 1919, many of the founding members had drifted away and
newer, younger individuals had replaced them. The newer member-
ship, which included james light, Cleon Throckmorton, Jasper Deeter,
Charles Ellis, and Edna and Norma Millay, differed markedly from the
original membership, which included Cook, Rauh, Kenton, and
Glaspell. The new members, to the "old guard's" dismay, harbored
"uptown" aspirations. At least one significant "old" member seemed
to share those aspirations: Eugene O'Neill.
As the season began, the inexperienced James Light posed no real
challenge to Cook's leadership or Rauh's celebrity. And even the
promising O'Neill could at best only match Rauh's influence, particular-
ly after her triumphant performance in Berniece in the spring of 1919.
38
See O'Rourke, 3.
72 BLACK
Cook was well aware, when he decided to take a sabbatical
season, of the rebellious element in the company. Perhaps he was
confident in Rauh's ability to protect his interests and maintain the
company's ideals. One of his letters to Rauh indicates that she was one
of his most intimate friends and strongest supporters:
One person saw through the veil of slow, stupid pat ient
honesty to the fire, and I told her [Susan Glaspell] that you
were that person .... it seems to me that you, more than any
other friend or lover of me, believed in my prophetic gift,
knowing that I knew-in flashes-what must be . . . .
39
Light, on the other hand, was the company's "chief rebel,"
40
responsible for initiating a "wise-cracking, arrogant," attitude within the
company.
41
During the fall of 1919, Broadway producer George C. Tyler
intensified the incipient power struggle by optioning Eugene O'Neill's
Beyond the Horizon. One of the Players was about to make it uptown
and the amateurs at 133 Macdougal buzzed with excitement.
42
As Light fostered rebellion and O'Neill approached the limelight,
Ida Rauh decamped. It is quite likely that closer association with Light
made Rauh realize the degree to which an anti-Cook faction (encour-
39
George Cram Cook to Ida Rauh, n.d. (1922-24), Berg collection, New York
Public Library. As late as 1962, Rauh upheld the validity of Cook's maxim: "the
gifted amateur has possibilities the professional has lost." See Sarlos, jig Cook,
221. Sarlos cites an interview with Ida Rauh in June 1962.
40
lbid., 108.
41
Ibid. Sarlos cites an unattributed letter from a former company member.
Antipathy between Light and Cook may be inferred in a letter from Susan Glaspell
to Edna Kenton, written in 1929, in which Glaspell expressed considerable-
resentment at the continued connection in the public's mind between The
Experimental Theatre and the Provincetown Players: "You know about how pleased
Jig would be to have his spirit continued in a theatre directed by Jimmy Light."
Susan Glaspell to Edna Kenton, 30 April1929, Fales Collection, Bobst Library, New
York University.
42
1n fact, negotiations between O' Neill and Tyler began in the summer of 1919
regarding possible Broadway productions of three of O'Neill's plays: Beyond the
Horizon, Chris (later Anna Christie), and Straw.
Ida Rauh 73
aged by light and supported by O'Neill) had developed.
43
She must
have realized that a growing O'Neill/Light faction in opposition to Cook
threatened her position within the company. Given what we know
about Ida Rauh's character as well as her previous career, was her
departure an abdication? Or was it, perhaps, an attempt to preserve
her position? Perhaps O'Neill's uptown expectations enticed Rauh, in
the spirit of competition, to be the first. If so, she accomplished her
goal. Rauh made her Broadway debut one month before Beyond the
Horizon opened.
44
If, however, Rauh hoped to match, or surpass,
O'Neill's achievement, she did not succeed. Rauh's Broadway debut
went unnoticed; O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon won a Pulitzer and
launched his career as a successful and critically acclaimed playwright.
Cook returned in the fall of 1920, fired with enthusiasm for
O'Neill's new play, The Emperor jones. Subtle shifts in ttie power
structure were apparent, however: Cook shared both directorship of
the season and the staging of The Emperor jones.
45
The overwhelm-
ing success of this production, the first Provincetown venture to move
to Broadway, settled the question of power politics at Provincetown
forever. Eugene O'Neill, not Jig Cook, and not Ida Rauh, brought fame
and commercial success to the Provincetown Players.
Rauh's altered status within the company became apparent soon
after The Emperor jones moved uptown. Because of its brevity, The
Emperor jones required a curtain raiser; rather than using Lawrence
Langner's Matinata, which had shared the bill with The Emperor jones
downtown, Tick less Time was chosen, as "more representative" of the
company's membership, to share the uptown run. The addition of
Tickless Time provided an opportunity for more company members,
including its co-authors, Cook and Glaspell, to share the glory and the
43
Rauh once commented in an interview that she was offended by the removal
of Cook's name from the company's letterhead, an action she attributed to light and
managing director Eleanor Fitzgerald. See Vilhauer, 170. Robert K. Sarlos, while
expressing doubt that Rauh was unaware of this action, accepted this statement as
Rauh's explanation for her departure. See Sarlos, jig Cook, 121.
44
As Three From the Earth closed on 13 November 1919, Rauh must have
gone almost immediately into rehearsals for Power of Darkness.
45
Piaybills for this season name Cook and light as co-directors. Although the
playbill for The Emperor Jones credits Cook with direction, he apparently received
assistance from several sources, including Clean Throckmorton, Jasper Deeter, and
James light. See Harry Kemp, "Out of Provincetown," Theatre Magazine 51 , (April
1930): 22. See also Sarlos, Jig Cook, 131-134.
74 BLACK
profits.
46
The cast included Jimmy Light, Norma Millay, Blanche
Hays, and Christine Ell. The omission of Ida Rauh from this "represen-
tative" selection of Provincetown membership is significant. She was
sti II a member of the executive committee; there is no reason to believe
that she wished to be excluded, particularly as both Cook and Glaspell
were involved.
The explanation for Rauh's exclusion can possibly be found in her
relationship with O'Neill, which was at least as antagonistic as Cook's
with Light. As early as the spring of 1918, O'Neill had asked Rope
director Nina Moise not to cast Ida in that production.
47
It is unclear
from his letter to Moise whether he believed her to be untalented or
unsuited for this particular vehicle, or whether he disliked Rauh
personally. At that time, Rauh had appeared in O'Neill's The Sniper
and The Long Voyage Home. It is possible that Rauh, characteristically
"too hard, too rigidly herself in dealing with people" (Eastman 1948,
526), may have offended O'Nei ll with criticism of those plays.
Whatever reservations O'Neill may have felt regarding Rauh previously,
the conflict during Where the Cross is Made created genuine hostility
between them. According to O'Neill scholars Arthur and Barbara Gelb,
O'Neill did not want Rauh to direct his play: "although O'Neill did not
care much for the arrangement he tried not to be too disagreeable at
first."
48
The "prolonged argument," that constituted the rehearsal
period, however, began right away. The major source of conflict
involved the ghost effect. As a contemporaneous account states, "Ida
Rauh went right to the point and without too much tact,"
49
insisting
that the audience would simply laugh. O'Neill refused to cut the
ghosts, reminding her of his prerogative to have his play directed "his
own way, without hindrance."
50
The conflict accelerated; sides were
taken. Many members of the company agreed with Rauh and urged
46
AII company members directly involved in the production of The Emperor
jones and Tick/ess Time received a share of the profits. This included the casts
of both plays as well as Cook and Glaspell.
47
Eugene O'Neill to Nina Moise, 9 April 1918, American Literature Collec-
tion, Beinecke Library, Yale, 2.
48
Gelb, 384.
49
Boulton, 242.
50
Louis Sheaffer, Eugene O'Neill: Son and Playwright, (Boston: little, Brown,
and Company, 1968), 342.
Ida Rauh 75
O'Neill to follow Rauh's advice. O'Neill, however, was adamant. The
ghosts stayed. Even though O'Neill got his way, "the struggle rasped
his nerves."
51
At least one critic ridiculed the special effect, which
probably did not soothe O' Neill's agitation.
52
Conflict between O'Neill and Rauh was heightened by the fact that
she played a significant role in the production. Although Broun
admired her "telling" performance,S
3
O'Neill complained that the
dual responsibility was "a bad handicap" and that her direction was
"punk."
54
Given his reaction to Where the Cross is Made, O'Neill
could not have wished for Rauh to direct The Dreamy Kid the
followi ng season. At that time, however, apparently Rauh wielded
more influence than O'Neill . By the fall of 1920, that situation was
reversed.
The shifting of power and influence continued throughout the
1920-21 season; in February 1921 Rauh performed the female lead in
Evelyn Scott's drama Love. It was her first performance at 133
Macdougal since November 1919 and it would be her last. Rather
than reaffirming her status as Provincetown's leading lady, however,
this experience confirmed her decreasing influence. In a season that
included O'Neill's Broadway-bound Diff'rent, plans for the London
production of The Emperor jones, new full-length plays by both Cook
(The Spring) and Glaspell (The Inheritors), Love was "somehow lost in
the shuffle."
55
Meanwhile, conflict accelerated between those who wanted the
Provincetown Players to remain "amateur," in the French sense of the
word, and those who favored "professionalism, " in the Broadway sense
of the word. In a letter to Cook, Edna Kenton urged him to take action
against the disruptions within the company:
I do not believe that a "row" is inevitable at all , if you come
down. But bri ng Sue's proxy! . . . Nothing in all this matters
51
Dori s Alexander, The Tempering of Eugene O'Neill/ (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, & World, Inc., 1962), 266.
52
Unsigned revi ew, Morning Telegraph, 23 November 1918, 12.
53
Broun, 25 November 1918, 9.
54
Eugene O' Neill to Nina Moise, 17 January 1919, American Literature
Collection, Beinecke Library, Yal e.
55
Deutsch and Hanau, 78.
76 BLACK
to me but next year's policy and authority .. .. And let me say
again that there need not be trouble over reorganization if we
decide just not to have it.
56
In a letter written after the dissolution of the Provincetown Players,
Cook reflected bitterly on the "disloyalty" of Eleanor Fitzgerald, Light,
and others ~ that time: "Where was your inner light?" At the same
time, he clearly indicates Rauh's position in the struggle, listing her as
among those who "have the gift," who felt, like him, that "it would be
better to be destroyed than not create one's own beauty."
57
In the midst of the turmoil, as tension heightened and talk of
reorganization continued, as Cook quoted Plato in a vain attempt to
rekindle idealistic fires, as playwrights and actors looked longingly
uptown/
8
Ida Rauh offiCially ended her association with the Province-
town Players. On 10 September 1921, she voted by proxy to remove
her name from the executive committee.
Many factors account for Ida Rauh's rise to power within the
Provincetown Players company. She brought to the venture an
established reputation as a cultural and political leader, a well-defined
aesthetic vision, and practical experience in the creation and organiza-
tion of an experimental theatre company. She possessed significant
leadership qualities; she was intelligent, committed, ambitious,
determined, and energetic. She wanted an influential role in the
enterprise and she used every asset she possessed, from her physical
beauty to her law degree, to get it.
Rauh's striking physical presence and theatrical experience brought
her numerous performing opportunities. She made the most of those
opportunities, proving herself to be, in three seasons, the company's
most talented and versatile performer. Rauh attracted attention; her
celebrity, as an actor and a director, brought publicity and prestige to
an experimental theatre company that was, at that time, obscure.
In promoting the use of directors, Rauh helped the Players achieve
a higher level of aesthetic consistency, at the same time somewhat
56
See Edna Kenton to George Cram Cook, 8 May 1921, Fales Collection, Bobst
Library, New York University.
57
George Cram Cook to Eleanor Fitzgerald, Berg Collection, New York Public
Library, n.d. (1922-24)
56
Even Cook, inexplicably, or perhaps in a desperate attempt to prove himself
O'Neill's equal, moved his experimental The Spring uptown, for a brief and
unheralded run, in September 1921.
Ida Rauh 77
lessening the dominance of the playwright and assuring herself of
additional artistic opportunities.
Rauh's mobility within the company indicates a consistent
progression toward ever-increasing influence. She involved herself in
every aspect of operation, continually seeking and accepting a greater
voice in decision-making, and therefore more control over her own
career as well as the future of the Provincetown Players.
Ida Rauh's sudden decline in influence grew out of the power
struggle that plagued Provincetown during the latter half of its short
history. Rauh's allegiance to Cook's ideals and policies, which were
also her own, placed her in a position of opposition to others, most
notably Eugene O'Neill and James Light. Evidence strongly suggests
that O'Neill resented Rauh's influence within the company and as soon
as he was powerful enough to lessen that influence, he did so. Here
it seems that one of Rauh's greatest personal assets is relevant to both
her rise and fall from power. If she had not "lacked the yielding
instinct," she might not have alienated Eugene O'Neill. But then, she
would probably never have achieved a postition from which to
challenge his preeminence in the first place.
It is difficult to believe, considering the degree of Rauh's commit-
ment to both Jig Cook and the Provincetown Players, that she suddenly
lost interest in the Provincetown Players in November 1919 or that her
decreased activity for the next year and a half was entirely her choice.
It seems more likely that the decisions she made to remain on the
executive committee, and finally, to perform in Love in the spring of
1921, were related to her commitment to the Provincetown Players and
in the interest of continuing that association. It was only after the
chaotic summer of 1921, when the outcome of the conflicts raging
within the company seemed clear and reorganization inevitable, that
Rauh resigned.
59
What Rauh realized in September 1921 was that the
subscription theatre she had dreamed of and helped to create, "one
which could ignore box office and adhere to pure standards of art," no
59
1n February 1922 the Provincetown Players suspended production for one year.
In the fall of 1923, Eugene O'Neill, R. E. Jones, and Kenneth Macgowan formed a
new producing organization. After an acrimonious struggle with Cook, Kenton, and
Glaspell regarding the use of the name "Provincetown Players," the new group
called themselves "The Experimental Theatre, Inc. at the Provincetown Playhouse. "
James Light was one of their leading directors.
78
BLACK
longer existed. Like the good, instinctive actress she was, she knew
when to make her exit.
60
60
After divorcing Max Eastman in 1922, Rauh moved to New Mexico with artist
Andrew Dasburg. She concentrated on painting, poetry, and sculpture for the
remainder of her life. Other than a brief association with the Workers Drama
League in 1926, she never returned to the theatre, even declining a role written for
her by D. H. Lawrence. She died in New York in 1970.
Ida Rauh 79
APPENDIX
PROVINCETOWN ROLES PERFORMED BY IDA RAUH
Summer 1915 (Provincetown, Massachusetts)
Myrtle Dart, Change Your Style by George Cram Cook (comic
satire)
The Mother, Contemporaries by Wilbur Daniel Steele (social
drama)
Summer 1916 (Provincetown, Massachusetts)
Estelle, The Eternal Quadrangle by john Reed (romantic satire)
Fall 1916-Spring 1917 (First New York season)
She, Enemies by Neith Boyce (domestic satire)
The Queen, A Long Time Ago by Floyd Dell (fantasy)
Rachel, Winter's Night by Neith Boyce (melodrama)
Marta, Barbarians by Rita Wellman (comic satire)
jean, The Sniper by Eugene O'Neill (drama)
Miriam, The Prodigal Son by Harry Kemp (comedy)
Nora, Cocaine by Pendleton King (drama)
Fall 1917-Spring 1918 (Second New York season)
Freda, The Long Voyage Home by Eugene O'Neill (drama)
The Woman, Night by james Oppenheim (fantasy)
Alma Willys, Finiculi-Finicula by Rita Wellman (drama)
Mrs. Patrick, The Outside by Susan Glaspell (drama)
Life (the Slave), The Slave With Two Faces by Mary Caroline
Davies (fable)
Aspasia, The Athenian Women by George Cram Cook (drama)
Zelma, The Rib-Person by Rita Wellman (satirical farce)
The Scornful Woman, Woman's Honor by Susan Glaspell (satire)
80
BLACK
Fall 1918-Spring 1919 (Third New York season)
Sue Bartlett, Where the Cross is Made by Eugene O'Neill
(melodrama)
Anna Worden, The Rescue by Rita Creighton Smith (melodrama)
Margaret Kerrigan, The Squealer by Mary H. Barber (drama)
Fanny Tate, Not Smart by Wilbur Daniel Steele (farce)
Margaret Pierce, Berniece by Susan Glaspell (drama)
Fall 1919-Spring 1920 (Fourth New York season)
Kate Morley, Three From the Earth by Djuna Barnes (drama)
Fall 1920-Spring 1921 (Fifth New York season)
Carroll Lamont, Love by Evelyn Scott (drama)
PROVINCETOWN PLAYS DIRECTED BY IDA RAUH
Fall 1918-Spring 1919 (Third New York season)
Where the Cross is Made by Eugene O'Neill (melodrama)
The Rescue by Rita Creighton Smith (melodrama)
The Baby Carriage by Bosworth Crocker (comedy)
Fall 1919-Spring 1920 (Fourth New York season)
The Dreamy Kid by Eugene O'Neill (melodrama)
Getting Unmarried by Winthrop Parkhurst (comedy)
ADMINISTRATIVE DUTIES PERFORMED BY IDA RAUH
Active Member, September 1916-September 1921
Member, Producing Committee, December 1916-September 1921
Member, Executive Committee, February 1917-September 1921
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
"This Sort of Thing ... "
1
Productions of Gothic Plays
in America: 1 790-1830
M. SUSAN ANTHONY
Although many scholars have examined the Gothic novel, few have
examined the Gothic play. In fact, the Gothic play has received so
little attention that no clear, generally accepted definition exists.
Scholars who use the term in describing plays rarely define it; instead
they compare the plays to the fiction and point to the characteristics
associated with that form.
2
In his book Gothic Drama From Walpole
to Shelley, Bertrand Evans explains that Gothic plays share features long
associated with Gothic novels, such as "specialized settings, machinery,
character types, themes, plots, and techniques selected and combined
to serve a primary purpose of exploiting mystery, gloom and terror"
(Evans 1947, 5). David Grimsted describes the Gothic play as having
the "usual trappings of Gothic horror," including "terrible visions,
secret passageways, dankly unwholesome settings, weird figures of
awesome power, clanking chains and old bones and flickering candles,
all wrapped in an aura of ancient crime and gui It and with supernatural
elements explained away in earthly terms in the end" (Grimsted 1968,
16). Both these descriptions of Gothic plays feature a frightening atmo-
sphere created by an oppressive setting. After examining plays
described as "Gothic," written between 1790 and 1830, I suggest the
following definition:
1
George C.D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1927), 23, refers to Gothic plays as "this sort of thing."
2
Sources that use the term "Gothic" to describe specific plays include: Bertrand
Evans, Gothic Drama from Walpole to Shelley (Berkeley: University of California,
1947); Michael Booth, English Melodrama (London: Herbert jenkins, 1965); David
Grimsted, Melodrama Unveiled (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); and
Odell's Annals of the New York Stage. Subsequent references to these works will
be cited in the text.
82 ANTHONY
The Gothic play of this period is a form of melodrama that
features a dark, oppressive, and frightening space, isolated from
everyday life, which is controlled by a murderous, guilt-ridden
villain who seNes as a main character in the plot, usually
threatening a heroine. Supernatural events may or may not
occur and may or may not be given rational explanation.
3
Although many people appear to have viewed Gothic plays merely
as an extension of the fiction, the plays became popular in their own
right. Michael Booth in English Melodrama notes that Gothic plays
were "the earliest type of melodrama," and that they proved very
popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries on the
English stage (Booth 1965, 67). Despite their popularity, Gothic plays
have received relatively little attention from scholars.
4
Studies that do
examine productions of these plays deal with the British stage only; no
comparable study considers the role of the Gothic play on the
American stage at the height of its popularity from 1790 to 1830.
3
This definition is based on comments from Evans, Grimsted and Booth in
addition to an analysis of fourteen plays described as Gothic by two or more
historians: The Count of Narbonne by Robert Jephson, 1781; The Carmelite by
Richard Cumberland, 1784; The Sicilian Romance by Henry Siddons, 1794;
Fontainville Abbey by William Dunlap, 1795; The Castle Spectre by Matthew G.
Lewis, 1798; Adelmorn the Outlaw by Matthew G. Lewis, 1801; A Tale of Mystery
by Thomas Holcroft, 1802; One O'Clock; or, The Knight and the Wood Daemon
by Matthew G. Lewis, 1807; The Iron Chest by George Colman the Younger, 1808;
The Mysteries of the Castle by Miles Andrews, 1808; The Travelers Benighted; or,
Raymond and Agnes by Matthew G. Lewis, 1809; The Woodman's Hut by Samuel
Arnold, 1814; The Warlock of the Glen by C. E. Walker, 1820; and Frankenstein by
Richard Peake, 1823. I further suggest, in keeping with Booth's distinction between
the castle-dungeon-ghost strain of Gothic and the later form of cottage-forest-banditti
strain, that the villain changes from a nobleman to a lower-class villain.
4
Sources that examine Gothic plays on the English stage include: Walter
Adelsperger, "Aspects of Staging of Plays of the Gothic Revival in England, " Ph.D.
diss., the Ohio State University, 1959; Michael Booth, "Gothic and Eastern
Melodrama," in his English Melodrama, 67-92; Evans's Gothic Drama from Walpole
to Shelley; Mary Diana Neufeld, "The Adaptation of the Gothic Novel to the English
Stage, 1765-1826," Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1977; Paul Ranger, " Pity and
Terror Reign in Every Breastn: Gothic Drama in the London Patent Theatres, 1750-
1820 (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1991 ); Robert Reno, "James
Boaden's Fontainville Forest and Matthew G. Lewis' The Castle Spectre: Challenges
of the Supernatural Ghost on the late Eighteenth Century Stage," Eighteenth Century
Life (October 1984): 95-1 03; and Willard Thorp, "Some Stage Adventures of Some
Gothic Novels," PMLA 43 (1926): 476-486.
Gothic Plays 83
A study of Gothic plays in America during this period should be
extremely informative inasmuch as American Gothic plays appeared at
a critical time in the development of American theatre and American
society, when the art of theatre had only recently been legalized in
most American cities.
5
Even with legal acceptance, however, theatres
still needed to please their audiences in order to suNive. Gothic plays
first gained popularity with American audiences in the 1790s, and they
remained popular through the 1830s.
Gothic plays appeared in four of the major theatrical centers of the
United States: Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Boston, and
they fared well in competition with other types of plays (See Figures 1 a
& 1 b). This study first discusses the widespread popularity of the
Gothic play in the United States and then critically examines the three
most popular Gothic plays to offer possible explanations tor their
popularity, particularly with audiences of the middle and lower
classes.
An examination of the production patterns for fourteen plays
described as "Gothic" by two or more historians provides evidence of
the enduring popularity of these plays with audiences.
6
Gothic plays
appeared in all four cities in the 1790s in the first permanent theatres.
These early theatres apparently served all classes of people, although
5
Weldon Durham, American Theatre Companies 1749-1887 (New York:
Greenwood Press, 1986), 548, notes that, in 1792, Charleston repealed its Vagrancy
Act of 1787 and, in 1793, the Charleston Theatre was built. In 1793, Boston
repealed its Act of 1750, which had forbidden theatricals and, in 1794, the Federal
Street Theater was built. Subsequent references to theatre companies will refer to
this source.
6
Subsequent references to performance dates are based on these daybooks:
Thomas Pollock, The Philadelphia Theatre in the XVIII Century (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935); Reese James, The Old Drury of Philadel-
phia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1932); Arthur Wilson, A
History of the Philadelphia Theatre 1835-1855 (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1935); Eola Willis, The Charleston Stage in the XVIII Century
(Columbia, S.C.: The State Company, 1924); W. Stanley Hoole, The Antebellum
Charleston Theatre (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 1946); Mary Ruth Michael,
"History of the Professional Theatre in Boston," Ph.D. diss., Radcliffe, 1941; and
Odell's Annals of the New York Stage. Michael's daybook is complete only until
1816 for Boston theatres. The daybook for The Old Drury has no information from
1800 to 1810.
84 ANTHONY
classes were separated by divisions of box, pit, and gallery.
7
As cities
increased in size, however, class lines "were often transferred to
particular theatres, and some theatres became associated with specific
classes."
8
Gothic plays, then, first proved popular with the wide range
of classes present in the early theatres but later became associated
primarily with lower-class audiences.
In Philadelphia, the Chestnut Street Theatre was the first permanent
theatre in the city; audiences included representation from every
economic class.
9
The Chestnut produced Gothic plays from its first
year of operation but presented the greatest number from 1811 to
1823; interestingly, in these same years the Chestnut faced its first
serious competition. The Olympic theatre began offering dramas in
1812 (Durham 1986, 181). But even after the Olympic failed in 1819,
the Chestnut managers continued to offer regular production of Gothic
plays. During these years the population of Phi !adelphia continued to
boom (See Figure 2). However, the Chestnut decreased productions of
the Gothic plays after 1827, perhaps to meet competition of a new
type. In 1822, Stephen Price and Edmund Simpson, the managers of
the Park Theatre in New York, took over the Walnut Street Theatre in
Philadelphia. By 1828, Price and Simpson's theatre "began to rival [the
Chestnut] in the affections of American and visiting British actors"
(Durham 1986, 181 ). Both the Chestnut and the Park eventually
acquired reputations as theatres for the upper classes. Perhaps the
Chestnut responded to the competition by emphasizing plays more
appealing to these patrons, which suggests that the Gothic plays were
perceived as plays for the lower classes.
10
7
Grimsted, 52, argues thatthe theatre brought "all ranks of the people together."
He notes that this phrase was first used by John Henry and Lewis Hallam in their
petition to the Massachusetts General Assembly to repeal its laws against theatre.
3
Grimsted, 56. He notes, however, that in spite of the existence of separate
theatres for economic classes, any theatre might continue to have representatives
from differing economic classes until the mid-1 800s.
9
Grimsted, 57, says that "the proportion of pit and gallery attendance to that in
the boxes of Philadelphia's Chestnut Theatre remained fairly constant" despite the
offering.
10
Charles Pritner, "William Warren's Management of the ChestnutStreetTheatre
Company," Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1961, 6. Pritner quotes from the
Theatrical Censor and Musical Review in 1828, w.hich says that the "fashion and
beauty of the city were present" in the audience.
Gothic Plays 85
New York theatres offered more Gothic plays than any other city
between 1790 and 1830 and also sustained enormous increases in
population during these years (See Figure 2). The Park Theatre was
erected in 1794 and was the major theatre in New York City at that
time. Gothic plays appeared regularly in the repertory. However, the
managers of the Park sharply increased the number of Gothic plays
between 1825 and 1830, possibly to meet competition from new
theatres; Chatham Garden, opening in 1824, and the Bowery, opening
in 1826, also offered Gothic plays in their repertory. The Chatham
became known as a theatre for the lower classes; the Bowery at first
was known as a theatre for the middle class.
11
The Charleston Theatre offered productions of Gothic plays after
1797. Productions of Gothic plays increased from 1815 to 1827 in the
midst of rapid population growth. The city added more people
between 1810 and 1820 than in any other decade between 1790 and
1830 (See Figure 2).
Boston audiences exhibited an "appetite for gothic melodrama"
(Durham 1986, 78). Theatres there offered the most performances
between 1796 and 1803 at a time of competition from a rival theatre.
Charles Stuart Powell and a company of unknown English actors
opened the Federal Street Theatre in 1794. The season failed and
Powell was replaced. In the 1796-97 season, Powell opened the
Haymarket Theatre to compete with the Federal Street. Perhaps
because of competition for the audience at the .Haymarket, the Federal
Street increased its number of Gothic plays. The Haymarket failed in
1803, leaving the Federal Street without competition for twenty-four
years. Even without direct competition, however, the Federal Street
continued to perform Gothic plays, perhaps to attract the ever-growing
population of working class to the theatre. By 1812, the theatre
"catered to the less literate with novelties and spectacles" (Durham
1986, 77).
An examination of the patterns of production for the four theatrical
centers suggests that productions of Gothic plays first appeared in
theatres catering to all classes, that these theatres increased productions
of Gothic plays when competing with new theatres catering to lower
classes, and that the plays maintained their popularity with lower-class
audiences into the 1830s. Additionally, in the case of the Chestnut, the
theatre decreased productions of Gothic plays when competing with a
"Grimsted, 56. He argues that, by the 1830s, "the Park was associated with the
upper classes, the Bowery with the middle and the Chatham with the lower."
86 ANTHONY
theatre associated with upper classes, suggesting that, by this time, the
Gothic plays were perceived as fare for middle and lower classes.
If managers increased productions of Gothic plays to attract' rising
numbers of working-class audience members to the theatre, we may
assume they believed that audiences found them appealing. What
elements in the Gothic plays may have proved especially attractive to
working-class audiences between 1790 and 1830? The appeal of these
plays may have been partially due to their compensatory nature.
Gothic plays presented castles, traditional symbols of wealth and
power, as dark and dangerous places. And the plays revealed that the
aristocratic villains, blessed with position, money, and power, were
doomed to mental anguish during their lives and eternal torment after
their deaths. Audiences received the message that worldly possessions
and privileges of rank did not guarantee happiness. Each of the three
most popular Gothic plays of this period, The Castle Spectre, The Iron
Chest, and One O'Clock; or, The Knight and the Wood Daemon,
possessed these compensatory elements.
12
The Castle Spectre, by Matthew Gregory Lewis, was the overall
favorite in the four cities, receiving a total of eighty-nine performances
between 1790 and 1830 (See Figures 3a & 3b). The Castle Spectre is
set in a castle, which, though luxurious, is described as a "melancholy
mansion." The climactic scene takes place in a "gloomy subterraneous
Dungeon, wide and lofty; the upper part of it has, in several places,
fallen in, and left large chasms" (Lewis 1990, 15). To an audience
member, the dream of living in a castle might prove less appealing after
viewing this one.
If members of the audience revised thei r opinions of life in a castle,
they may also have reconsidered their desire for wealth and position.
Those in the audience who envied the aristocracy may have felt
differently after viewing the sufferings of the villain in The Castle
Spectre. The Earl of Osmond, though powerful and wealthy, suffers so
terribly from guilt that he is utterly unable to enjoy his worldly wealth.
He is described by his servant as "gloomy and ferocious," a man who
"never utters a sound except a sigh, has broken every tie of society and
keeps his gates barred unceasingly against the stranger" (Lewis 1990,
2). Osmond suffers from gui It and fear of everlasting torment for the
12
Subsequent references to the plays are taken from: Matthew Lewis Th e Castle
Spectre (London: j .Bell, 1798; reprint, New York: Woodstock Books, 1990);
George Colman the Younger, The Iron Chest (London: Hurst, Rees, and Orme,
1808; reprint, in The British Theatre vol. 21 (New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970);
and Matthew Lewis, One O'Clock; or, The Knight and the Wood Daemon in English
and American Drama of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Readex Microprint) .
Gothic Plays 87
murder of his sister-in-law Evelina and the supposed murder of his
brother Reginald. The villain is so tormented by his guilty secret that
he has no peace. He compares his conscience to a serpent, which
"winds her folds round the cup of my bliss, and ere my lips reach it,
her venom is mingled with the draught" (Lewis 1990, 8) . Osmond is
particularly horrified by the thought of eternal damnation, at one point
crying, "Let me not hear the damning truth. Tell me not, that flames
await me, that for moments of bliss, I must endure long ages of torture"
(Lewis 1990, 11) Yet despite his fear of hell, Osmond cannot repent
his crime because he desires Evelina's daughter Angela and repentance
would mean losing her. So despite his fear of damnation, Osmond
declares,"Mine she is; mine she shall be, though Reginald's bleeding
ghost sit before me, and thunder in my ear-'Hold! Hold' " (Lewis
1990, 5). Osmond comes to a predictably bad end. The ghost of
Evelina intervenes to save her daughter. Her appearance so terrifies the
villain that he is momentarily distracted, and Angela is able to stab him
through the heart. Thus, audiences witnessed the downfall of the
seemingly invincible Earl of Osmond, who lay defeated in the
moldering dungeon of his own castle, killed by the woman he loved,
and possibly doomed to eternal torment. All of his wealth and power
is unable to save him. Perhaps, after witnessing his disastrous fall,
lower-class audiences felt better about their own lot in life.
The Iron Chest received only fifteen performances before 1816;
however, between 1817 and 1830, it was often revived, enjoying its
greatest popularity in the 1820s and 1830s (See Figures 3a & 3b). The
Iron Chest is typically Gothic in its oppressive setting. The play is set
in an isolated lodge in the middle of a forest, the house described as
"the very cave of melancholy" (Colman 1970, 55). The old library
frightens the hero, who exclaims, "The old wainscot cracks, and
. frightens me out of my wits" (Colman 1970, 48) However, audiences
also would have realized that the surrounding forest also represented
danger. The forest served as home to a band of robbers. In this play,
then, both the isolated old house and the surrounding forest, potentially
desirable spaces in the lives of urban audiences, are used to inspire a
sense of fear.
The villain in The Iron Chest, Sir Edward Mortimer, is referred to
as "hi s melancholy worship." Servants describe a "wild glare" in his
eyes, and observe that he appears to be "devoured with spleen and
melancholy" (Colman 1970, 19). Sir Edward' s gloom comes from his
guilty secret; he murdered the uncle of the heroine, and although he
was publicly exonerated of the crime, his foul deed haunts him. After
the scandal , Sir Edward withdrew from society to live a reclusive life in
the forest. However, he continues to suffer, " Oh I have suffered
88 ANTHONY
madness! None know my tortures .... " (Colman 1970, 49). Sir
Edward's guilt, like that of the Earl of Osmond, causes him to fear death
because of the certainty of his damnation. He gloomily reports, "These
warnings which that grisly monarch sends, forerunners of his certain
visitation, of late, are frequent with me" (Colman 1970, 63) Yet, like
Osmond, Si r Edward declares that he cannot repent his crime: "Hurt
honour, in an evil, cursed hour, drove me to murder;-lying;-'twould
again. My honest, sweet peace of mind,-all, all! are barter'd for a
name. I wi II maintain it" (Colman 1970, 52). Sir Edward also comes
to an unenviable end in the play. As his gui It is revealed he descends
i nto madness shri eking, "Who dares to mock my guilt? ls't you-or
you? Rack me that grinning fiend! Damnation! Who spits upon my
grave? I'll stab again!" (Colman 1970, 81) The Iron Chest, like The
Castle Spectre, portrays a villain who apparently has every-
thing-intelligence, wealth, and position-yet he loses it all. Audiences
may have considered the enormity of his fall and concluded that
perhaps losing so many worldly advantages was worse then never
possessing them in the first place.
One O'Clock; or, The Knight and the Wood Daemon received
thirty-six performances between 1790 and 1830 (See Figures 3a & 3b).
The play is set in a castle that hides a secret, isolated space described
as a "Mystic cavern." In the climactic scene, the heroine must venture
into this frightening space to save a child from the villainous Count
Hardyknute who plans to sacrifice him to the Wood Daemon. When
the heroine first enters the cavern she exclaims, "What dreadful place
is this!" Horrors in the cavern include an altar, around which "curl
two enormous snakes." To one side of the altar stands a pedestal, on
which "kneels the Brazen Statue of a Giant, who supports a clock on
his left shoulder .... " The clock plays an important role in the climax;
the young boy manages to turn the hands of the clock ahead so that the
evi I Count runs out of time to find a sacrifice and must suffer eternal
damnation.
Count Hardyknute, like the other villains, suffers constantly from
guilt. Like the others he also expresses his fear of damnation, crying,
"Ages of agony crowd before me! the earth vomits flames to blast me;
no, no, there's no retreating!" Yet, Hardyknute cannot repent his
crimes because that would require sacrificing the pleasures of his
present life. Although he mourns his sins, he says, "and even might I
sti II retract, could I bear to exchange wealth and power for obscurity
and contempt? Could I endure to resume my nature deformity of
person? Could I resign Una? Never! Never! " Like the other villains,
Count Hardyknute loses everything by the _end of the play, including
Gothic Plays 89
his life and his hope of heaven. As the clock strikes one, he is pulled
down to Hell by the Wood Daemon and various attendant demons.
Each of these plays, The Castle Spectre, The Iron Chest, and One
O'Clock, fits the definition of a "Gothic" play. Each features an
oppressive setting removed from everyday life. Each also features a
guilt-ridden villain who serves as a main character.
Gothic plays proved popular with audiences of all classes in the
cities of Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Boston between 1790
and 1830. Perhaps their appeal was due partially to the novelty of
special effects. For example, two of the plays featured supernatural
figures who threatened the villain. In The Castle Spectre, the ghost of
Angela's murdered mother, "her white and flowing garments spotted
with blood," suddenly appears to save her child from the villain (Lewis
1990, 79) . In One O'Clock, Sangrida the Wood Daemon appears "in
a car drawn by dragons" to remind Hardyknute of his obligation to
provide a sacrifice.
In addition to their appreciation of spectacle and special effects,
audiences of all classes may have been attracted by the performances
of well-known actors who had incorporated the roles of the villains into
their repertoire. The role of Osmond was performed by John Hodgkin-
son,
13
and the role of Sir Edward Mortimer was a favorite of many
leading men, including Thomas Cooper, Edmund Kean, Henry Placide,
Junius Brutus Booth, and Edwin Forrest.
14
Although audiences of all
classes probably appreciated the special effects and the performances
of famous leading men, lower-class audiences may have found these
particular plays especially appealing because of their compensatory
nature. To working-class Americans, who may have had difficulty
affording a ticket to the play, the villains' luxurious lifestyles, complete
with wealth, posi tion, and beautiful estates, must have appeared highly
desirable. Yet, these particular Gothic plays suggested that, though the
villains had an abundance of worldly goods, they had lost thei r peace
of mind and their hope of eternal salvation. These plays, then, not only
provided escape for lower-class audiences, they also reassured them
that they were happier than the aristocratic villains. As they left the
theatres for their own homes, members of the audience perhaps
reflected that, despite any dissatisfaction with their own lives, they
13
James Ireland, Records of the New York Stage vol. 1 (New York: 1866;
reprint, New York: Benjamin Blom, 1966), 179.
14
For information on the various roles performed by these actors, please see
Odell, vols. 1-3.
90 ANTHONY
would not trade places with the doomed villains in the dark and
dangerous Gothic castles.
Gothic Plays
91
Figure 1a. Performances of Gothic plays compared to performances of
Shakespearean plays in Philadelphia and Charleston from 1800-
1816.15
Plays Philadelphia Charleston
Shakespeare 94 53
Gothic 23 48
Figure lb. Performances of Gothic plays compared to performances of
Shakespearean plays in Philadelphia and Charleston from 1817-1831.
Plays Philadelphia Charleston
Shakespeare 81 93
Gothic 27 36
Figure 2. Population Figures for Philadelphia, New York, Charleston,
and Boston from 1790-1830.
16
Decade Phil. NYC Chari. Boston
1790 28,522 49,401 16,359 18,320
1800 41,220 79,216 18,824 24,937
1810 53,722 119,734 24,711 33,787
1820 63,802 152,056 24,780 43,298
1830 80,462 242,278 30,289 61,392
15
Figures for the Gothic plays were compiled for the fourteen plays that make
up the sample of this study. Figures for performances of Shakespeare's plays in
Philadelphia and Charleston were taken from Grimsted, 250-252.
16
Figures are taken from John Andriot, Population Abstract of the United States
vol. 1 (Mclean, VA: Andriot Associates, 1983), 362, 548, 673, 712.
92 ANTHONY
Figure 3a. Performances in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston and
Boston from 1 790-1 81 6.
Title Total
p
NY c B
The Castle 73 5 16 17 35
Spectre (1797)
One O'Clock; 25 0 4 3 18
or, The Wood
Daemon (1807)
The Iron Chest 15 3 4 3 5
(1808)
Figure 3b. Performances in Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston
between 1817 and 1830.
17
Title
Total
p
NY c B
The Castle
16 3 8 5 0
Spectre (1797)
One O'Clock;
11 3 4 4* 0
or, The Wood
Daemon (1807)
The Iron 39 9 22 8 0
Chest (1808)
*Adaptation of Lewis's play by John Turnbull
17
The daybook for Boston theatres is complete only until 1816.
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
Tennessee Williams's Plastic Theatre:
Camino Real
CLAUS-PETER NEUMANN
Tennessee Williams's play Camino Real seems, at a cursory look,
to present a major deviation within the body of Will iams's dramatic
works. Instead of a clear-cut story line, which involves what the
audience and critics tend to read as realistic characters and unfolds in
a place that actually exists, Camino Real consists of an enumeration of
apparently unrelated episodes happening in a mythical, nameless place
that is inhabited by characters from literature and symbolical figures.
Some critics regard Camino Real as almost diametrically opposed to all
other dramas of Tennessee Williams. Louis Broussard writes:
"Williams, who has been in all his plays, both before and since, so
earthy and starkly realistic, chooses here to work almost entirely in
symbols."
1
In his review of the play, Eric Bentley admits he is
undecided whether to laud or deprecate it. To him "the genuine
element in Tennessee Williams had always seemed . .. to reside in his
real ism"
2
of which Camino Real is almost completely devoid.
This line of argument can only be supported if one subscribes to
the notion of Williams as a realist playwright. Taking a closer look at
some of Wiliiams's plays, one can, however, discern a number of
symbolist traits in ostensibly realistic components. Many of Williams's
characters achieve a higher, symbolic meaning apart from their place
in the story as i nteracting individuals, some of the most prominent
examples being Val Xavier in Orpheus Descending, Chance Wayne in
Sweet Bird of Youth, and Jim O'Connor, the gentlemen caller in The
1
Louis Broussard, American Drama: Contemporary Allegory from Eugene
O'Neill to Tennessee Williams (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 116.
2
Eric Bentley, The Dramatic Event: An American Chronicle (New York:
Horizon, 1954), 107.
94 NEUMANN
Glass Menagerie.
3
In some of the plays, for instance, The Rose Tattoo
and Sweet Bird of Youth, the location is almost as unspecific as in
Camino Real and serves as a general, atmospheric backgroun-d that
raises certain connotations: Both the Gulf Coast and the seaport of a
presumably Latin-American country suggest heat but also give the plays
an intimation of a political climate, that of the segregated Deep South
and the military rule in Central and Latin American countries. The
home where Blanche and Stella of A Streetcar Named Desire grew
up-Belle Reve-is as nonexistent and as evocative as the seaport in
which the Camino Rea/ turns into the Camino Real. Furthermore,
Williams had abandoned the linear form of narration in favor of an
episodic structure several times-The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar
Named Desire-before he wrote Camino Real.
Most significantly, however, Williams makes ample use of
nonverbal devices in almost all of his plays in order to "emphasize that
his plays are not realistic"
4
Indeed, as early as in the production
notes to The Glass Menagerie, Williams outspokenly turns against "the
exhausted theatre of realistic conventions" and proposes instead a
"new, plastic theatre," which becomes a program not only for The
Glass Menagerie but for all ensuing plays as well. The purpose of this
"plastic theatre," of which lighting, music, set, and props are essential
'elements, is to provide "a more penetrating and vivid expression of
things as they are" than mere realism can accomplish.
5
The representation of reality thus achieved is "organic" rather than
"photographic,"
6
and, as Williams professes in his afterword to
Camino Real, organic, alongside with dynamic, are the terms that "still
define the dramatic values that [he] value[s] most. ... "
7
Notwithstand-
ing the impression many viewers and critics receive of Camino Real as
having nothing to do with reality, Williams maintains in its foreword
3
ln the first two cases, the symbolic dimension of the characters is made explicit
by the use of telling names.
4
The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama, eds. John Gassner and Edward
Quinn (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1969), 912.
5
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (New Classics, 1945; reprint, New
York: New Directions, 1978), 7.
6
1bid., 7.
7
Tennessee Williams, Camino Real (New York: New Directions, 1954), xiii.
Subsequent references wi II be cited in the text
Camino Real 95
that a play represents "nothing more or less than [his] conception of the
time and world that [he] live[s] in" (Williams 1954, viii). This
representation is effected through symbolic sets, props, lighting, music,
and characters. Thus, far from being a deviation from the pattern estab-
lished by his preceding plays, Camino Real is actually the culmination
point of Williams's efforts at depicting reality "organically." It is not
a fantasy play written by a realist playwright but rather the most radical
of Williams's "attempt[s] to impose nonrealistic plays on the essentially
realistic American theatre."
8
As Harold Clurman points out, Camino
Real is not a maverick but indeed "significant of its author's seed
thoughts. "
9
It is an example of the "plastic theatre" in its purest
form.
10
The interrelation between observations on the world and the formal
devices of the play is so close in Camino Real that C.W.E. 13igsby is
induced to regard the very "form of the play [as] its message."
11
Lighting, music, and sound effects all contribute significantly to the
world view expressed in the play. The predominant feature, however,
remains the setting, the way in which Williams divides the stage into
the basic parts of the world as he sees it.
The center of the stage, the place where much of the action of
Camino Real takes place, is taken up by the plaza of an unspecified
town. This plaza can be seen as a metonymy for the town itself, the
Siete Mars hotel and Skid Row on either side of it representing two
variations. The site is known, as Sancho reads to Don Quixote from a
guide book, as "the end of the Camino Rea/ and the beginning of the
Camino Real" (Prologue, 5). The shift in emphasis indicates the double
meaning that ''real" has: The second version represents the English
corruption of the Spanish title and connotes reality or realism, since the
English adjective "real" basically has only this one meaning. The first
version represents the Spanish pronunciation, where "real" is polysem-
8
Reader's Encyclopedia 1969, 921 .
9
Harold Clurman, Lies Like Truth: Theater Reviews and Essays (New York:
Macmillan, 1958), 83.
10
Esther Merle jackson, The Broken World of Tennessee Williams (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), 102, quotes Williams on Camino Real and
affirms that he " believes that in this drama he has achieved plasticity."
11
C.W.E. Bigsby, A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama
2: Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984), 76.
96 NEUMANN
ous: It can stand for reality but also for nobi I ity (the Eng I ish equivalent
being "royal"). Thus, the plaza and the whole town on the audience's
side of the wall are marked as the realm of reality, to which nobility
has given way.
12
The relentless demand for realism made by this
place is seen in the guards of the town and when Kilroy is immediately
stripped of the disguise that he has donned to veil his plans of escape.
Similarly, pieces of apparel are forced onto some characters, not in
order to disguise them but to show them for what they really are.
Thus, Kilroy, making himself ridiculous in his repeated futile and
pathetic attempts to flee, has to wear the "Patsy outfit" (Block 6, 53),
(which, for Signi Falk, is a "grotesque symbol of man's loss of
dignity")
13
to be marked as the butt of the joke of the real forces in
power. And Casanova is crowned by the street people with antlers and
thereby exposed as the cuckold he really is, being betrayed by
Marguerite and divested of his pretenses to be an irresistible lover.
The powerful sway that reality holds over the people in the town
is frightening for someone who approaches the plaza from the "royal"
part of Camino, after a lifetime of greatness. Sancho Panza is scared
away from the town by the dreary description the guide gives him, and
even Don Quixote, although courageous enough to enter town and
thereby face reality, is unpleasantly affected by the atmosphere of the
plaza, which strikes him as desolate and lonely in spite of the many
people inhabiting it. He cannot bear to stand too long in the plaza and
therefore moves to the wall to take a nap. All that follows is declared
to be Quixote's dream; the action, then, becomes representative of the
nightmarish view that Quixote has of reality.
All the other famous characters of the play enter the plaza as mere
shadows of their former selves. Their spirit is gone, although they seem
all right physically. Marguerite, for instance, is described as "a
beautiful woman of indefinite age" (Block 7, 59) but, as Gutman
explains to the audience, her once passionately burning fever has
faded. Correspondingly, Lord Byron, who has still enough physical
power to fill the plaza with his voice, has temporarily forgotten his
"onetime devotion" (Block 8, 74) . Casanova still carries himself with
12
Signi Falk, Tennessee Williams (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978), fails to
recognize this double meaning, which is why her interpretation of the town is one-
sided. She does not discern the struggle between realism and romanticism that is
at play in Camino Real. For her, the plaza is a place of romantic decadence and the
play is Williams's "own version of hell" (94). If the plaza is a kind of hell for
Williams, it is the hell of stark realism and not that of dark romanticism.
13
Falk 1978, 96.
Camino Real 97
pride but he is no longer able to win women over as easily as he once
did. This mixture of old grandeur and an overall lacking spirit is
reflected in the costumes of the legendary figures, which are "general-
ly 'modern' but with vestigial touches of the period to which [they
were] actually related" (Prologue, 8). The confrontation with an all-too-
stark reality evidently has a devastating effect on the characters' mental
disposition; they give up their dreams and high romantic aspirations
and give in to reality in resignation.
14
This sense of disappointment, frustration and hopelessness reaches
its highest intensity after the Fugitivo departs and leaves those who
pinned all their hopes for escape on it behind with shattered spirits. All
this i s not expressed in dialogue or action but merely conveyed by
having the plaza lit by flickering lights "as if ruins were smoldering" to
"suggest . . . a city desolated by bombardment" (Block 10, 94).
But the presence of the dreamer and the conversion of Byron and,
eventually, Kilroy indicates that, even in the midst of bleak reality, there
is still a slight hint of the possibility to transcend it, to gather what is
left of one's spirit and to rise above mere realism. This, too, is
indicated by the way the plaza is lit at certain moments. It " i s seen
fitfully" lit by a flickering white light that suggests daybreak, which is
compared by Williams to "a white bird caught in a net and struggling
to rise" (Prologue, 1 ). This little trace of spirit or romanticism is
necessary to be able to bear the demoralizing effects of pure reality.
It works as a kind of bolster, like the pad at the bottom of a eat' s paw.
When Esmeralda prays to God to "bless all cats without pads in the
plaza" (Block 16, 155), she pronounces one of the central ideas of the
play: that those who lack even that slight intimation of romantic spirit
while facing real ity are worse off than anybody else.
The idea that dreams and romantic aspirations are essential
prerequisites not only for the spiritual survival of the individual but also
for the creativity and fertility of human culture is reflected by the
fountain at the center of the plaza, which has run dry, failing to supply
the population of the town with water .. The fountain no longer fulfi lis
its function as life-giver or life-preserver, as we see most clearly in
Block 2 when the survivor, dying of thirst, finds the fountain dry. The
survivor is shot, and his first impulse is to approach the fountain one
14
lt is thus only to some extent that the "royal road is the dream of past youth
and the real road is a view of present age" as Roger Boxill sees it in Boxill,
Tennessee Williams (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 136. Youthfulness is part
of the issue, but the general focus seems to lie on spirit and courage rather than age.
{Don Quixote is also not the youngest of characters, but he never really leaves the
royal way and lets the real way pass him by in a dream.)
98 NEUMANN
more time, clinging to its rim as if desperately trying to hold on to life.
But the attempt is futile-the survivor of the expedition through the
desert receives no help from the fountain nor from the surrounding
people. He dies within the limits of the town. The comment in the
stage directions that he is "ignored, as a dying pariah dog in a starving
country"(Biock 2, 1 5) calls to mind Prudence's dog, which is found
dying near the fountain earlier. Thus, the fountain has not only
stopped being a symbol of life, but also has become closely associated
with death and with the lack of human kindness that is to be found in
the plaza.
The fountain also bears negative sexual connotations, which arise
when Prudence refers to Casanova as the "one fountain that hasn't
gone dry" (Block 1, 11 ). Judging from Casanova's sensitive reaction
and Gutman's laughter; her estimate is evidently wrong. The dry
fountain hints at physical impotence but this connotation is elevated to
a moralistic level when Marguerite manifests her infidelity by tossing
her ring over the fountain toward Abdullah, an act by which she
symbolically discards and even defies the idea of true love. Not only
physical love but also, and more important, the ability to become
emotionally attached to a person, to make a romantic commitment to
somebody, to feel pure love, has become lost in the world of bleak
realism.
Even when someone makes some kind of commitment, when
Esmeralda chooses Kilroy as her hero, the fountain stays dry. As the
Gypsy tells Nursie, this is because the choice has been made without
the old spirit, which has become obsolete among the shallow manifes-
tations of popular culture, "television . .. be-bop [and] Screen Secrets"
(Block 12, 1 08). In the ultimate analysis, therefore, the fountain
remains dry because the cultural values have been neglected, because
the omnipresent instances of cheap entertainment have numbed the
people's sensibility so that they can no longer appreciate a special
moment and transform it to something higher than reality, something
romantic. Roger Boxill points out that the carnival, a potential source
of renewal and strengthening of cultural values, becomes "the spoiled
occasion or ruined festivity of Camino."
15
Furthermore, instead of
choosing a poetic personality who inspires people's dreams, Esmeralda
settles for the pathetic figure, the fighter who left the ring and his wife
because his heart is too big. Esmeralda's aspirations, I ike those of
everyone else, have stopped being high and, instead of a poetic tale
from A Thousand and One Nights, we experience a scene as full of
15
Boxill 1987, 137.
Camino Real 99
banality, shyness, and awkwardness as may happen in real life. Having
given in to reality, the inhabitants of the town are no longer able to
love or to come forth with something of real cultural value. As
Sancho's tour guide says: "The spring of humanity has gone dry in this
place" (Prologue, 5). Thus, the fountain epitomizes what Francis
Donahue calls the "spiritual depletion of the world."
16
Most of the characters are sti II somehow attracted to the fountain
as if there were a natural impulse to turn to one's spiritual center for
help after reaching a point from which it seems impossible to go on.
Kilroy, when he has been robbed of his wallet and refused help by the
police; Baron de Charlus, when he is desperate for physical love; Lord
Byron, when he cannot remember his onetime devotion; Marguerite,
after the Fugitivo has left without her; and even one of the guards,
when he cannot brush off the complaining Kilroy-they all cross to the
fountain. But they never receive any inspiration from it, are left
helpless and confused. Like the fountain, their spiritual resources have
run dry, and only Byron manages to at least reach his former determi-
nation. Most of the characters only approach the fountain, circle it, sit
down on a bench before it, or hang on to its rims. Don Quixote is the
only one actually to step inside. As soon as he approaches the
fountain, it starts to flow. Quixote's vigor has not been numbed by his
short exposure to reality, which he perceives as a dream anyway.
Dreams and ideas inform his reality, and with this romantic attitude he
can make the spring of human life flow again and bathe in its spiritual
essence. Through his romanticism and indefatigable spirit of moving
forward instead of stagnating or retreating when faced with frustrating
circumstances, he can inspire other people, such as Kilroy, to do the
same. Following his example, the whole of humankind could partake
in this spirit of forward movement.
The plaza, apart from its symbolic dimensions stressed by the
central position of the fountain, also serves a structural purpose (which
eventually becomes symbolic itself): It divides the town into two parts,
the Siete Mares hotel and Skid Row. Within the area encircled by the
wall, the Siete Mares presents a refuge, the one place where people can
still find consolation in living together in pairs, where they achieve at
least some degree of happiness due to the comforts of physical love.
Although idealism and romance have gone from couples and lovers in
the Siete Mares, the mere warmth of physical love is enough to mellow
the harrowing effects that reality has on them. As an emblem of the
16
Francis Donahue, The Dramatic World of Tennessee Williams {New York:
Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1964), 63.
100 NEUMANN
strained yet comforting happiness of the lodgers in the Siete Mares, the
first floor displays "a pair of elegant dummies ... looking out into the
plaza" (Prologue, 1 ), whose smiles are painted but who are at least
shielded from the plaza by the great bay window. Thus, the Siete
Mares provides the characters of the play with a hiding place to
withdraw to when reality becomes too strong to bear. Casanova, for
example, rushes into the Siete Mares to escape from Prudence's
remarks on the corrupting effect that the passage of time has on
people's love life, a fact Casanova loathes to be reminded of because
it is an essential part of his own personal dilemma.
The Siete Mares is a means of escapism, a shelter that allows its
inhabitants to avoid both a confrontation with the real world and a true
effort at breaking away from the strict confinements of reality. This
retreat, however, is not accessible to everyone; only the privileged are
allowed in. And this privilege is not based on moral virtues. Quite the
opposite. The Siete Mares has become the stronghold of the corrupt
and the unscrupulous, "a mecca for black marketeers and their
expensively kept women" (Block 7, 62). The key to admittance is
wealth. The guests of Siete Mares are members of the upper classes
who guard their position with jealousy. They hoard their water, the
only natural spring water in the town, and shut themselves off from the
suffering of the other townspeople. They show no mercy for the
underdog and, while they may be shocked by the events happening in
the streets, they affect absolute indifference. Tumult and uproar may
toss the Siete Mares like a ship in a storm, which is hinted at when, in
reaction to the civil unrest invoked by the utterance of the Spanish
word for brother, the hotel is transformed into something like a .
steamer. But the stronghold of the rich will eventually weather the
crisis and come out of it without major damage as long as dreams can
either be contained within the system (sublimated in the celebration of
fanciful pageants or in the hope for an easy way out-the Fugitivo,
which comes to the people and ostensibly offers them a chance to
escape without any efforts of their own) or suppressed by the guardians
of the system.
The hotel provides its guests with a separate world, where gossip
and small talk have become objects of their interest. "Fashionable
couturiers and custom tailors, restaurants, vintages of wine, hair-
dressers, plastic surgeons, [and] girls and young men susceptible to
offers" (Block 2, 16) replace the miserable conditions of the people in
the streets or the killing of a guileless man looking for help as the most
important news items in their conversations. They turn their backs to
human suffering and let themselves be taken in by Gutman's speech
Camino Real
101
about the need to protect their privileges, with ruthless violence if
necessary.
The clientele of the hotel shares another major. attribute with the
bourgeoisie: double moral standards. While people like Gutman
himself have secret lovers or, like Lord Mulligan, are renowned to be
"black marketeers" who keep women with the help of their money,
they do not allow any form of excessive sexuality as displayed by
Baron de Charlus, the prostitute Marguerite, and the notorious lover
Casanova. Conformity is the rule of the Siete Mares, which marks all
bohemians as outsiders.
In the Siete Mares, the authority of the law effectively asserts itself:
People not only hide from facts about themselves, but they also never
dare to openly confront the system. "Questions are passed among
them like something illicit and shameful, like counterfeit money or
drugs or indecent postcards" (Block 2, 15). Thus, it is not difficult for
Gutman to run the place. The lodgers are too comfortable in their
conformism and too afraid to break away from it to present a serious
threat to the established order. Gutman does not need to keep their
spirits from rising up against the hand that provides them with luxury
and relative security.
This is illustrated by the white cockatoo, Aurora, who cries out
wildly when the sun rises. But as Gutman later reveals, the bird cries
"at daybreak only" (Block 7, 70) and then remains quiet for the rest of
the day. In a passage quoted earlier in this essay, Williams symbolical-
ly connects birds, daybreak, and a struggle of the human spirit to rise.
Aurora's outcry, therefore, seems to be a pronouncement that she will
gather her spirits and fly away. But instead, she stays on Gutman's
wrist, although no visible leash holds her there. Parallel to Aurora's
outcry, Casanova outspokenly denies that he has given up hope but,
like Aurora, he is one of those who cannot muster enough courage or
determination to stand and leave the realist side of the world or turn
against Gutman by joining the public upheaval. Quite appropriately,
then, does Sancho's tour guide mention that, at this place "wild birds
.. . are tamed and kept in ... cages" (Prologue, 5). For the guests of
the Siete Mares, the hotel has become a cage, but it is one they do not
even try to escape, for, as Williams says in the foreword, "a cage
represents security as well as confinement to a bird that has grown used
to being in it" (Foreword, xi). Comfort and luxury are part of the
ideologization that keeps the members of the bourgeoisie in their place.
From the balcony of the hotel, Gutman oversees the action in the
plaza, gives orders to the guards and, evidently, controls the events of
the play. As manager of the Siete Mares, Gutman is also the ruler of
the Seven Seas (the English equivalent of Siete Mares), the unmistaken
102 NEUMANN
sovereign of the realist side of the world, with only one person to
whom he is answerable: the Generalissimo. This mysterious leader
figure, who never appears on stage and does not care about what goes
on in the plaza as long as his subordinates are in control , bears
connotations of fascism, which ruled i n some Latin American countries
at the time the play was written. Thus, the world on the audience's
side of the wall achieves a double meaning: It is the world of
unmediated realism but also a paradigm for the workings of totalitari-
anism. Donald Spoto sees Camino Real as a "frankly political play,"
a "denunciation of the fascist demagoguery then spreading over the
country in the voice, especially loud, of Senator Joseph McCarthy."
17
Exactly which characters are in power is indicated by the phallic
power symbol, the cigar. Gutman and the guards are constantly
smoking cigars when they appear in the plaza and only put the cigars
out when they leave. The only individual in possession of cigarettes,
obviously the effeminate version of the power symbol, is the Gypsy,
who condescendingly offers one to Kilroy, as if she were trying to tease
him by offering him empowerment shortly before his death. The
powerlessness of everyone else becomes evident when Kilroy asks
Baron de Chari us: "Where is your cigarette?" (Block 4, 40), a question
that the Baron never answers. Of the people who appear on stage,
Gutman has the most power, which he demonstrates by commanding
both the Gypsy, the representative of the ideological apparatuses
drugging people with feasts and games, and the guards, the incorpora-
tions of the repressive forces called into action when ideology fails to
keep people in their place.
In spite of all these dreary aspects, the Siete Mares has one
redeeming factor: It allows people to live in pairs. This togetherness
is the precondition for love. And it is love that is able to resurrect
people. It is with the touch of roses, the symbol of love, that the
Madrecita raises Ki I roy from the dead, and it is because of her need for
love that Marguerite finally delivers Casanova from his predicament.
Therefore, it is no wonder that the hotel, the site of love, however
constrained, also bears the emblem of resurrection, the phoenix
(Prologue, 1).
Escape or new beginnings seem much further out of reach for those
who live across the plaza from the Siete Mares hotel, on Skid Row, the
last resort for people who cannot afford the comfort and protection that
the tenants on the luxury side of the plaza enjoy. This part of town is
17
Donald Spoto, The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985), 185, 187.
Camino Real 103
cheap and dilapidated, but it is also much more colorful and vibrant
than the other side of town. In spite of its shabbiness, there is a certain
vitality that is lacking in the Siete Mares. Williams wants "this side of
the street [to] have all the color and animation that are permitted by the
resources of the production" (Block 3, 32). But this festival-like
liveliness conceals a certain despair. People on this side of town have
had to give up their ideals completely in order to make a living.
The loan shark's shop is the place where people trade tokens of
their former aspirations (e.g. instruments) for cash. The most prominent
example of this loss of self-respect is Kilroy, who sells his golden
gloves, symbols of his past greatness but also a token of the potential
strength he still has. When he first sells his gloves, which were given
to him as a prize for his greatest success and have become more
important to him than his "heart's true blood" (Block 4, 37), his
intentions are admirable. He plans to use the money to finance his
expedition beyond the wall. Thus, he appears to be released from the
tie that has bound him to the past and to be able to face a new begin-
ning. However, Esmeralda persuades him to stay, and we see that his
vanity is too strong to let go of the past. Thus, he remains trapped on
Skid Row, stripped of his symbol of grandeur; the selling of the gloves
has become an act of self-degradation. He seems to sink even lower
when he filially sells his golden heart in order to impress Esmeralda
with material wealth, which he intends to be a signifier of his real
value. But Esmeralda dismisses him as a cat in her dreams; she does
not acknowledge material values as a marker of what makes a person
real.
But even before that, he has to practically steal his golden heart
from the hands of the authorities, who are just about to dissect it. As
he runs away with the heart, Gutman alerts the guards, saying that the
"gold heart is the property of the state" (Block 16, 152). Thus, the
heart becomes a symbol not only of Kilroy's good-natured disposition
and ability to love, but also of the control that the state has wielded
over him. Manipulating Kilroy by luring him with sex and romance,
the real forces of the town are successful in keeping him from escaping
from the world encircled by the wall. Kilroy has to dispose of his heart
before he can venture out of town. Significantly, Casanova, when
encouraged by Kilroy earlier to join him in his expedition, has pointed
to his heart as an explanation of why he cannot go. The heart and the
commitment that one makes force Casanova and, for a time, Kilroy, to
stay inside the realm of realism. This allows a consoling sentimental-
ism to be mixed into that realm and is apt to make one forget the
frustrating aspects of reality or else bear up to them for the sake of
104 NEUMANN
sexual satisfaction. Therefore, love and sex in Camino Real are another
form of escapism.
Beside the loan shark's shop is the Gypsy's stall. The Gypsy
achieves on her side of town what the security of the Siete Mares, and
Gutman and the guards achieve on the luxury side: She keeps people .
in line. She does so, however, not by threats of violence but by giving
them visions or distraction from the harsher sides of reality. At the first
sign of civil unrest, she is called upon to organize "some public
diversion" (Block 2, 22). Here, and in general, Williams has the Gypsy
make her announcements over a loudspeaker; they are amplified and
pervade the entire town. The Gypsy talks about fiestas, mythical
celebrations, and visions that she promises those who have doubts
about the world of realism. "If anyone on the Camino is bewildered,
come to the Gypsy. A poco dinero will tickle the Gypsy's palm and
give her visions" (Block 3, 31 ). But of course those visions never
concern the nature of the system that the people live in or ways in
which to overcome it. Rather, the visions divert the people with
questions concerning reality and refer to mystic rites, love and death.
As Marguerite has realized, the Gypsy is a fake. She is not primarily a
fortune-teller but rather the chief propagandist of the town. Williams's
use of the loudspeaker helps convey this, evoking memories of
propaganda blurted out through loudspeakers and booming through the
streets of the totalitarian states of the twentieth century.
The Skid-Row counterpart to the Siete Mares hotel is the "Ritz Men
Only," a cheap, run-down hotel, the very name mocking its real
character. In many respects it is the opposite of the Siete Mares.
Instead of luxury, it offers shabbiness. While the Siete Mares can be
symbolically transformed into a steamer when trouble arises, the Ritz
Men Only is just "a little white ship to sail the dangerous night in"
(Block 4, 34), a refuge much too fragile to really provide sufficient
protection. In addition, it is cramped and its rooms are stuffy, forcing
the tenants to lean out of the only window that can be opened "as if
suffocating" (Block 3, 32). The people who stay here don't have
enough room to live or even enough air to breathe. Their confinement,
forced on them by their economic destitution, is so complete that (with
the exception of Casanova, who only moves in for a limited time) the
audience never sees anyone leave the Ritz Men Only alive. The most
dispiriting factor, however, is that the hotel manager rents only single
rooms. Thus, the Ritz Men Only lacks even the consolation of physical
love and togetherness. Accordingly, instead of a smiling pair of
dummies, the window displays a bum, the embodiment of absolute
loneliness.
Camino Real 105
Skid Row is the very bottom of the real world, which is indicated
by placing the entrance to the Ritz Men Only on street level. All the
bright lights (mainly neon), cheap places of amusement, and seemingly
happy festivities only cover up a deeply grounded despair of people
who have been treated badly by reality and who, unlike the inhabitants
of the other side of the town, can not afford I uxury and love to protect
them from further painful effects of reality. They are on their own to
face real life at its harshest.
Also on street level are the two arches leading to streets outside the
area of the stage. In the production notes, Williams marks them as
"entrance[s] to dead-end streets" (Prologue, 2). This is meant literally:
When the survivor dies, two people in the outfits of street cleaners,
with bloodstains among the dirt spots, enter the plaza through one of
the arches, put the corpse into their barrel, and roll it out into the dead-
end street. Their work is accompanied by piping, which has started as
soon as the survivor died of his shot-wound. This is repeated whenever
anyone in the town dies or is about to die. Thus, Williams again
makes us of an acoustic device: The piping always connotes the
approaching of death and therefore creates a great amount of tension.
The street cleaners point their fingers at certain people and laugh
while carrying out the recently deceased, which makes it clear who is
going to be next on their list. In spite of that knowledge, death can
never be prevented. The street cleaners are uncompromising and only
tease their future victims by pointing at them. Death, then, is unavoid-
able for the inhabitants of the town, and everyone knows that it will
come to him or her sooner or later. Gutman remarks to someone who
complains about the street cleaners: "They can't be discharged,
disciplined nor bribed! All you can do is pretend to ignore them"
(Block 7, 58). Death is an undeniable part of life and, on the realist
side of the wall, it is the only way out.
A form of escape that (at least momentarily) does not involve death
is hinted at by a staircase that leads to the "ancient wall" encircling the
town. At the top of the stairs there is an archway marking the passage
over the wall to the other side. According to Casanova, this is "the
Way Out"' (Block 5, 44), the only true form of escape from stark
realism. Interestingly, the way out is not hidden or barred. The
staircase and the archway provide a visible, and seemingly easy, access
to the top of the wall. In theory, every character in the play could use
them to cross the wall and leave the domain of realism behind. As
soon as Kilroy learns about the stairway, he "plunges right up to almost
the top step" (Block 5, 44). Nobody obstructs his way or tries to make
him return to the plaza. Nevertheless, shortly before reaching the
archway, he stops, unable to proceed. The second time he gathers the
106 NEUMANN
spirit to ascend the steps, he is even encouraged to do so by Gutman,
the least likely character to want anyone to escape from the city. Even
so, Kilroy returns and once more makes himself the laughing stock for
Gutman, who has known all along that Kilroy would not be able to go
through with his intention.
Thus, it becomes evident that the wall does not really present the
inhabitants with a physical barrier but rather with a psychological one.
What keeps Kilroy and the others from taking the final step through the
archway is the prospect of what lies on the other side of the wall : the
desert, sometimes referred to as the "Terra Incognita" (Prologue, 1).
Technically, this desert presents somewhat of a problem since it lies
immediately behind the wall and can therefore not be made visible for
the audience. Of course it is discussed in the dialogue but it would go
counter to Williams's conception of the "plastic theatre" if such a
significant idea as the Terra Incognita were not expressed by some
other means than a mere verbal reference. Williams circumvents the
problem by invoking the desert (or some other kind of wasteland)
acoustically: Whenever Kilroy approaches the archway and looks
behind the wall, the sounds of a wind arise. This wind attests to the
effectiveness of the "plastic theatre," for through the use of the wind
at different places in the play, a whole web of poetic connotations is
created that reflects on the idea of the desert and how it affects the
characters of the play.
When the wind sounds for the first time at the beginning of the
play, before the first actors appear, it is heard in connection with
"reverberations like pounding surf or distant shellfire" (Prologue, 1).
This introduces the wind as some kind of natural force that can have
devastating effects on human beings. The ideas of power and of
violence are suggested. And indeed the wind later proves to be
powerful enough to influence people's acts. It induces Marguerite to
cruelly crush Casanova's hopes of forming a love relationship with her
and then "sweeps her toward the terrace away from him" (Block 10,
99) .
At another place, in the survivor's tale of his pony, Peeto, the wind
is associated with unrestrainable, animalistic spirit. The pony's name,
Peeto, which sounds I ike "pito," the Spanish word for "penis,"
indicates physical urges and sexual drives.
Finally, the wind conveys a sense of desolation when it rises in
response to Sancho's desertion, to which Quixote responds "Lonely"
(Prologue, 6), a word reverberating through the plaza as if carried by
the wind. This melancholy impression is repeated when Madrecita
addresses the wind in her funeral speech for Kilroy, which is accompa-
nied by mourning voices that express regret for what is irretrievably lost
Camino Real 107
in the past. The wind is Kilroy's "passing bell and lamentation" (Block
15, 150).
All these elements represented by the wind-spirit, compulsions,
sexual drives, and melancholy-are aspects of the human psyche.
Thus, the Terra Incognita becomes the landscape of the human soul on
the other side of the wall from the city or dreary rationality, of analytic
reason that dissects the human body after death and separates its
chemical components, where humans are turned into their physical
parts and used by the state according to their usefulness, the "size or
structure" of their "vital organs" (Block 5, 43). The Terra Incognita is
the place where the spirit is set free from the restraints of clinical reality
and has enough space to roam uninhibitedly, but it is also potentially
dangerous, as is proven by the fact that, of a whole group of young
explorers that attempted to cross the desert, only one survives {and only
to return behind the safe walls of the city of rationality).
There is something terrifying but at the same time fascinating about
Terra Incognita that makes both Casanova and Kilroy approach the end
of the stairway again and again only to stop and stare at the desert, too
frightened to go on but too transfixed to simply turn around and never
confront it again. While the town represents everything that can be
grasped by human understanding, the desert behind the wall defies
rational comprehension. It is frightening because it is as unknown to
humans as "the craters and plains of the moon" (Block 5, 44). Since
the Terra Incognita, the unknown land, is the landscape of the human
soul, what happens there can be as unpredictable as human moods,
which is indicated in the Gypsy's remark on the "changeable weather"
(Block 12, 118) when she hears the wind howling. The outcome of
any undertaking within that realm can not be known because of the
mere fact that all those undertakings are initiated by dreams and ideals.
Every new dream, every new ideal has to be explored before anything
can be said with certainty.
Obstacles, such as too much regret about what one has lost or too
much concern about how realistic one's dreams and hopes are, or, for
that matter, a too-complete surrender to the demands of one's psyche,
can thwart all efforts to successfully traverse the desert, to act on the
dreamer's side of life. Marguerite, for example, feels the wind from the
desert but her will power is so weak the wind takes control of her,
signifying the immoderate influence her drives have on her behavior.
She is swept toward the Siete Mares, refuge from reality as well as from
spiritual freedom, and numbs her fears with noncommittal sex. Only
strong will and determination, as it is displayed by both Don Quixote
and Lord Byron, can guarantee a safe passage through that alien land
of dreams, ideals and the soul.
108
NEUMANN
From the beginning Don Quixote shows enough spirit not to let
himself be drawn in by the encumbering and restraining effects of
rationality. He rests comfortably against the wall , which for him.alone
does not really represent a barrier. He is always close to the level of
romantic spirit necessary to surmount the wall and to keep on pursuing
his path of chivalrous grandeur, holding high his ideals of "truth ...
valor ... and devoir" (Prologue, 3f) in spite of the sobering effects of
reality he has had to confront. Unlike Marguerite, Don Quixote is not
swept by the wind but stays in control because of his tremendous will
power, which enables him to assert his voice above the roaring of the
wind, to which he is congenial or at least of almost equal rank since
his voice "is nearly as old" as the wind (Prologue, 2).
Lord Byron, too, enters the stage in close association with the wind,
which accompanies his first appearance. Byron shows enough
determination and, after some deliberation, a clear enough goal to be
able to face the Terra Incognita after his sojourn within the walls of
realism. Although he has temporarily forgotten "the object of [his]
onetime devotion" (Block 8, 74), the spirit seems never to have left
him, since he carries the wind with him, escorted by it both at his
appearance and his departure.
When Kilroy seems finally to be ready to attempt an excursion into
the desert on his own, he is held back by the seductive Esmeralda.
Like Marguerite, Kilroy does not have enough wi ll power to control his
sexual drives nor his vanity; he cannot resist Esmeralda's display of
adorati on, calling back memories of his past vigor. Significantly, during
the whole episode the wind, always audible when Quixote or Byron
are present, never rises, not even when Kilroy ascends the stairway.
The effort seems to be hopeless from the outset because Kilroy's spirit
has not yet reached the necessary degree of determination.
Byron and Quixote are the ones who are most likely to realize the
dream of crossing the desert and reaching whatever goal there might be
at the other side because they never lost their ability to dream, to set
their goals high instead of giving up in the face of untoward circum-
stances. Apart from Kilroy, who is taken along by Quixote, they are the
only ones to ever go to the end of the stairway and pass the archway
to the other side of the wall .
Furthermore, it is significant that there is desert land beyond the
wall, which puts that area out of the control of Gutman, the ideological
master of the seven seas. Ideology and repression are presented as an
undeniable part of reality. The refusal to give in to realism, to adhere
to one's dreams and ideals in spite of reality, eventually enabling one
to cross the wall, appear as highly subversive acts. As Gutman himself
warns his superior, "revolution only needs good dreamers who
Camino Real 109
remember their dreams" (Block 2, 30) in order to be successful.
Therefore, transgressing the wall and venturing out to pursue high and
romanic ideals becomes a possibility for undermining authority, for a
true escape from the world ruled by realism.
But even the world of dreams and ideals has its limits, as evidenced
by the range of mountains, far beyond the wall. Since they set the
boundary for the Terra Incognita, the realm where dreams and
aspirations have free reign, those mountains can be interpreted as the
place of highest human achievement, the pedestal to which the human
spirit aspires while traversing the desert. In the set, the mountains are
placed towering above the wall and the city and, therefore, symbolize
the peaks of the world of the play. People like Don Quixote and Lord
Byron may finally reach this peak and thereby gain a nobler status in
life than all other human beings.
On the other hand, the mountains, being immensely higher than
the wall, also represent another barrier, larger, more challenging and
more majestic-apparently unsurmountable. Their tops are covered
with snow, marking an area where life can no longer be sustained.
Marguerite remembers a resort in the mountains, in which she once
stayed, called. "Bide-a-While." The resort is "surrounded by snowy
pine woods" (Block 7, 67), a zone where life is still present but the
snow has already intruded. The beds in the resort are compared to
tombstones and the audience learns that Marguerite is talking about a
time when she was close to death. According to her, the last impres-
sion one has of the world when dying is "the smell of an empty
icebox" (Block 7, 68), signifying essential coldness. -In the same block,
Gutman serves Casanova "very cold and dry wine from only ten meters
below the snowline in the mountains" (Block 7, 64) . The wine carries
the label "Quando," Spanish for "when," which Gutman paraphrases
as the question "When are accounts to be settled?" (Block 7, 64).
Given Casanova's peculiar situation-he is faced with being thrown out
of the Siete Mares because of his inability to pay his bills-this can be
interpreted as a hint that Gutman's patience with Casanova's debts is
coming to an end. But in conjunction with Marguerite's story about
the Bide-a-While, the last temporary station before death, the question
has another connotation. The accounts that need to be settled may also
refer to Casanova's deeds, which are soon to be evaluated when he
dies. The wine Gutman serves comes from just below the snow line
and the Bide-a-While is situated immediately behind that border. The
110
NEUMANN
snow line therefore becomes the frontier between living and dying.
Once one crosses it, it is only a matter of days until one dies.
18
Snow, cold, and ice are symbols of death. The mountains are
covered with snow; thus, death waits at the end of the trail even for the
one who travels through the Terra Incognita. Death is a fact that no
one can circumvent. The people in Williams's symbolic description of
the world, however, can choose between approaching death at the end
of a life full of spirit, dreams, and romanticism and die at the top of the
world, or they can passively wait, either giving in to reality or hiding
from it in a sheltered, conventional lifestyle, until death seizes them,
and they are done away with and forgotten. The first is the nobler
way, the one that Williams favors. Unfortunately, according to
Williams's world view as presented in Camino Real, most people
choose the second.
The preceding analysis shows that Williams's philosophical world
view is manifested in the different sections of the set, before which the
characters play out an illustration of Williams's ideas. Other nonverbal
devices, such as the lighting of the plaza, the wind, the street cleaners'
piping, the Gypsy's loudspeaker, are employed to enrich the overall
meaning of the play with additional connotations. Seen in this light,
Camino Real contains some of the most artistic features of Williams's
"plastic theatre."
Unfortunately, the play also displays one of the major weaknesses
of this conception: excessiveness. In addition to the set, props, and
sound effects analyzed in this essay, Williams uses a multitude of other
potentially symbolic, or at least evocative, devices: the pit, the
parasols, Kilroy's belt, the three brass balls, the divan, the veil, flowers,
a revolver, the sound of brakes, flamenco shouts, humming, timpani,
percussion, a roar, a gong, shots, crashes, bells, sirens, and more. This
play represents an extreme example of Williams's "tendency towards
strewing [the] stage with any number of highly significant objects."
19
Instead of enlightening the viewer and achieving an organic representa-
tion of reality, this immense accumulation of nonverbal devices may
have a numbing or confusing effect. The highly evocative means
18
George Nathan somehow seems to miss this point in his polemic condemna-
tion of the play when he reads the remark about taking snowshoes to the desert
behind the wall as an instance of trying to "pass off nonsense for sense." George
Jean Nathan, Theatre in the Fifties (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), 111.
19
C.W.E. Bigsby, Confrontations and Commitment: A Study of Contemporary
Drama 1959-1966 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1968), 89.
Camino Real 111
discussed in this essay are threatened to be drowned by the excessive
presence of symbols and effects.
It is therefore understandable why this play, in spite of its very
poetic nature, became a "financial and critical failure."
20
Audiences
had a hard time making sense of it and many critics reproached it for
the lack of restraint in its symbolism.
21
For a final, objective evalua-
tion, one should, however, take both negative and positive aspects into
consideration. Because of its all too sensationalist and accumulative
use of nonverbal devices, the work is flawed. But, because it incorpo-
rates a world view in stage set, props, lighting and sound, Camino Real
remains Williams's most wholehearted attempt at "a new plastic
theatre," and that is its undeniable artistic achievement.
20
Bigsby 1984, 81.
21
See Falk, 99, for a short account of the crit ics' reacti ons.
Journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
Index to
The journal of American Drama and Theatre
The following is an index of all articles that have appeared in The
journal of American Drama and Theatre from Volume One, Number
One, Fall 1989 through Volume Six, Number One, Winter 1994. The
articles are grouped according to the century with which they deal
most prominently and are arranged both by author and title. The
numbers at the end of each entry represent: volume: number,
beginning page.
TWENTIETH CENTURY
Author Index
Anderlini, Serena
" 'colored girls'; A Reaction to Black Machismo, or Hues of Erotic
Tension in New Femi nist Solidarity?" 2:2,33
Antush, John V.
"Roberto Rodriguez Suarez: Transcultural Catalyst of Puerto Rican
Drama" 4:2,42
Avery, Laurence G.
"Paul Green, The Lost Colony, and Native Son" 3:2,5
Baker-White, Robert
"Rock/Poetry: Popular Theatricality in The Tooth of Crime"
2:1 ,66
Barranger, Milly S.
"Battle of Angels: Margaret Webster Directs Tennessee Williams"
4:1,63
Blansfield, Karen C.
"Artistic and Social Dimensions of Black Culture in the 'Voodoo'
Macbeth" 4:1,78
Blood, Melanie N.
"Ideology and Theatre at Hull-House Under Jane Addams" 5:2,71
Brustein, Robert
"Harold Clurman and the Group Theatre" 6:1,1
Cohn, Ruby
"Explosive Cocktails: Albee, Eliot, Wooster" 1:2,5
Index 113
Candee, William F.
"Madame Pace's Hats: Architecture and the Creation of Drama"
5:3,55
Edwards, Geoffrey
"Violets in the Mountains: Tennessee Williams' Women and the
Search for Love" 2:3,35
Fearnow, Mark
"Chaos and Cruelty in the Theatrical Space: Horse Eats Hat,
Hellzapoppin', and the Pleasure of Farce in Depression America"
4:2,5
"The Meaning of Pictures: Myth and American History Plays of the
Great Depression, or, Lincoln Died (So You and I Might Live)"
5:3,1
Gainor, j. Ellen
"A Stage of Her Own: Susan Glaspell's The Verge and Women's
Dramaturgy" 1 : 1 , 79
Harris, Andrew B.
"Albee's Lost Decade" 2:1,55
Harvey, Sally
"O'Neill's Hughie and Albee's The Zoo Story: Two Tributes to the
Teller and His Tale" 3:2,14
Kauffmann, Stanley
"Miss Anglin: A Memoir" 1:1,19
King, W.O.
"Beyond 'A Certain Chain of Reasoning': Wallace Shawn's Aunt
Dan and Lemon" 6:1,61
Knapp, Margaret M.
" 'Presented with Appreciation': Minnie Maddern Fiske as
Producer and Director" 1 :2,55
Krasner, David
"Charles S. Gilpin: The Actor Before the Emperor" 4:3,62
Leiter, Samuel L.
"Theatre on the Home Front: World War II on New York's Stages,
1941-1945" 5:2,47
Maddock, Mary
"Social Darwinism in the Powder Room: Clare Boothe's The
Women" 2:2,81
Mclaughlin, Robert L.
" 'No One is Alone' : Society and Love in the Musicals of Stephen
Sondheim" 3:2,27
Moody, Richard
"A Little More Virginity, Please! A Scrapbook of Theatre Stories"
2:3, 5
114 }ADT
Newlin, Keith
"Expressionism Takes the Stage: Dreiser's 'Laughing Gas' " 4:1,5
Quinn, Michael j.
"Alan Schneider's Entrances: Autobiography, Theatre, and Style in
an American Frame" 5:3,28
Robinson, james A.
"All My Sons and Paternal Authority" 2:1,38
Ruff, Loren K.
"The Nigger" 2:3,48
Scharine, Richard G.
" 'The War that is to Begin Tomorrow Night': American Anti-War
Drama in the 1930s" 2:1,27
Scott, Curtis R.
"The Dramatization of Native Son: How 'Bigger' Was Reborn"
4:3,5
Shelton, Lewis E.
"Alan Schneider's Direction of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
3:3,39
Shout, John D.
"Staging the Unstageable: Theatrical Depictions of the Spanish
Civil War" 3:3,27
Smith, Harry W.
"An Air of the Dream: Jo Mielziner, Innovation, and Influence,
1935-1955" 5:3,42
Stavney, Anne
"Reverence and Repugnance: Willy Lohman's Sentiments Toward
His Son Biff" 4:2,54
Stephens, Judith L.
"The Anti-Lynch Play: Toward an Interracial Feminist Dialogue in
Theatre" 2:3,59
Wagenknecht, Edward
"Random Recollections and Reflections of an Old Playgoer"
2:2,98
Wattenberg, Richard
"Challenging the Frontier Myth: Contemporary Women's Plays
About Women Pioneers" 4:3,42
" 'Old West'/New 'West': The New Frontier in Sherwood's The
Petrified Forest (1934) and Saroyan's The Time of Your Life (1939)"
1 :2,17
Weales, Gerald
"High Comedy Over a Cavern" 1:1,25
"Mike Gold's Theatre" 4:1,23
Index 115
Witham, Barry B.
"Pandemic and Popular Opinion: Spirochete in Seattle" 5:2,86
Wynn, Nancy
"Sophie Treadwell: Author of Machinal" 3:1,29
Title Index
"An Air of the Dream: Jo Mielziner, Innovation, and Influence, 1935-
1955" by Harry W. Smith 5:3,42
"Alan Schneider's Direction of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" by
Lewis E. Shelton 3:3,39
"Alan Schneider's Entrances: Autobiography, Theatre, and Style in an
American Frame" by Michael j. Quinn 5:3,28
"Albee's Lost Decade" by Andrew B. Harris 2:1,55
"All My Sons and Paternal Authority" by James A. Robinson 2:1,38
"The Anti-Lynch Play: Toward an Interracial Feminist Dialogue in
Theatre" by judith L. Stephens 2:3,59
"Artistic and Social Dimensions of Black Culture in the 'Voodoo'
Macbeth" by Karen C. Blansfield 4:1,78
"Battle of Angels: Margaret Webster Directs Tennessee Williams" by
Milly S. Barranger 4:1,63
"Beyond 'A Certain Chain of Reasoning': Wallace Shawn's Aunt Dan
and Lemon" by W.O. King 6:1,61
"Book Notes" 6:1,79
"Challenging the Frontier Myth: Contemporary Women's Plays About
Women Pioneers" by Richard Wattenberg 4:3,42
"Chaos and Cruelty in the Theatrical Space: Horse Eats Hat, Hellza
poppin', and the Pleasure of Farce in Depression America" by
Mark Fearnow 4:2,5
"Charles S. Gilpin: The Actor Before the Emperor" by David Krasner
4:3,62
'' 'colored girls'; A Reaction to Black Machismo, or Hues of Erotic
Tension in New Feminist Solidarity?" by Serena Anderlini 2:2,33
"The Dramatization of Native Son: How 'Bigger' Was Reborn" by
Curtis R. Scott 4:3,5
"Explosive Cocktails: Albee, Eliot, Wooster" by Ruby Cohn 1:2,5
"Expressionism Takes the Stage: Dreiser's 'Laughing Gas' " by Keith
Newlin 4:1,5
"Harold Clurman and the Group Theatre" by Robert Brustein 6:1,1
"High Comedy Over a Cavern" by Gerald Weales 1:1,25
"Ideology and Theatre at Hull-House Under Jane Addams" by Melanie
N. Blood 5:2,71
"A Little More Virginity, Please! A Scrapbook of Theatre Stories" by
Richard Moody 2:3,5
116 }ADT
"Madame Pace's Hats: Architecture and the Creation of Drama" by
William F. Condee 5:3,55
"The Meaning of Pictures: Myth and American History Plays of the
Great Depression, or, Lincoln Died (So You and I Might Live)" by
Mark Fearnow 5:3,1
"Mike Gold's Theatre" by Gerald Weales 4:1,23
"Miss Anglin: A Memoir" by Stanley Kauffmann 1:1,19
"The Nigger" by Loren K. Ruff 2:3,48
" 'No One is Alone': Society and Love in the Musicals of Stephen
Sondheim" by Robert L. Mclaughlin 3:2,27
" 'Old West'/New 'West' : The New Frontier in Sherwood's The
Petrified Forest (1934) and Saroyan's The Time of Your Life (1939)"
by Richard Wattenberg 1 :2,1 7
"O'Neill's Hughie and Albee's The Zoo Story: Two Tributes to the
Teller and His Tale" by Sally Harvey 3:2,14
"Pandemic and Popular Opinion: Spirochete in Seattle" by Barry B.
Witham 5:2,86
"Paul Green, The Lost Colony, and Native Son" by Laurence G. Avery
3:2,5
" 'Presented with Appreciation': Minnie Maddern Fiske as Producer
and Director" by Margaret M. Knapp 1:2,55
"Random and Reflections of an Old Playgoer" by
Edward Wagenknecht 2:2,98
"Reverence and Repugnance: Willy Lohman's Sentiments Toward His
Son Biff" by Anne Stavney 4:2,54
"Roberto Rodriguez Suarez: Transcultural Catalyst of Puerto Rican
Drama" by john V. Antush 4:2,42
"Rock/Poetry: Popular Theatricality in The Tooth of Crime" by Robert
Baker-White 2:1,66
"Social Darwinism in the Powder Room: Clare Boothe's The Women"
by Mary Maddock 2:2,81
"Sophie Treadwell: Author of Machinal" by Nancy Wynn 3:1,29
"A Stage of Her Own: Susan Glaspell's The Verge and Women's
Dramaturgy" by j. Ellen Gainor 1:1,79
"Staging the Unstageable: Theatrical Depictions of the Spanish Civi I
War" by john D. Shout 3:3,27
"Theatre on the Home Front: World War II on New York's Stages,
1941-1945" by Samuel L. Leiter 5:2,47
"Violets in the Mountains: Tennessee Williams' Women and the
Search for Love" by Geoffrey Edwards 2:3,35
" 'The War that is to Begin Tomorrow Night': American Anti-War
Drama in the 1930s" by Richard G. Scharine 2:1,27
Index 117
NINTEENTH CENTURY
Author Index
Bank, Rosemarie K.
"Mrs. Trollope Visits the Theatre: Cultural Diplomacy and
Historical Appropriation" 5:3,16
Curry, j.K.
"Petticoat Governments: Early Women Theatre Managers in the
United States" 6:1,13
Fort, Tim
"Three Voyages of Discovery: The Columbus Productions of lmre
Kiralfy, E.E. Rice, and Steele MacKaye" 5:2,5
Frick, john W.
" 'He Drank From the Poisoned Cup' : Theatre, Culture, and
Temperance in Antebellum America" 4:2,21
Greenwald, Michael L.
"New York's Theatre War of 1854: The Burton and Broadway
Productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream" 3:3,5
Hall, Roger
"'Reminiscences' by Nate Salsbury" 5:1,5
Houchin, john H.
11
Depraved Women and Wicked Plays: Olga Nethersole's
Production of Sapho" 6:1,40
Hrkach, Jack
"Drama Along the Turnpikes: The Earliest Theatrical Activity In the
Villages of Central and Western New York" 4:3,76
"S.D. johnson; or, the Struggles of an Antebellum Actor/
Playwright" 3:3,18
Kliewer, Warren
11
Schools of One" 2:2,5
Koger, Alicia Kae
"Under Cover: Edward Harrigan's Final Act" 2:3,70
Mallett, Mark E.
11
'The Game of Politics': Edwin Forrest and the jackson Demo-
crats" 5:2,31
McConach ie, Bruce A.
11
0ut of the Kitchen and Into the Marketplace: Normalizing Uncle
Tom's Cabin for the Antebellum Stage" 3:1,5
11
Role-Piaying and Authenticity in Midcentury Melodrama" 4:1,45
Meserve, Walter J.
11
The American West of the 1870s and 1880s as Viewed from the
Stage" 3:1 ,48
118
"Occupational Hazards of the Playwright during the Age of
jackson" 6:1 , 5
}ADT
"Our Eng I ish-American Playwrights of theM id-N i neteenth Century"
1:1,5
Mullenix, Elizabeth Reitz
"Katharine Corcoran and Margaret Fleming: Explori ng the Feminist
Dynamic" 4:2,63
Roberts, Vera Mowry
"Olive Logan and 'The Leg Business'" 2:1,5
Ryan, Pat G.
"The Horse Drama, with Supernumeraries: Bronson Howard's
Semi-historical Shenandoah" 3:2,42
Shafer, Yvonne
"Count joannes and.the Nineteenth-Century American Audience"
3:3,51
Shelton, Lewis E.
"Mr. Ben Teal : America's Abusive Director" 2:2,55
Watson, Charles S.
"Early Drama in New Orleans: The French Tradition" 2:1,11
Wemyss, F .C.
"Theatrical Biographies of Eminent Actors and Authors" 3:1,64
Wilmeth, Don B.
"Noble or Ruthless Savage?: The American Indian on Stage and in
the Drama" 1:1,39
"Tentative Checklist of Indian Plays (1606-1987)" 1:2,34
Title Index
"The American West of the 1870s and 1880s as Viewed from the
Stage" by Walter j. Meserve 3:1,48
"Count joannes and the Nineteenth-Century American Audience" by
Yvonne Shafer 3:3,51
"Depraved Women and Wicked Plays: Olga Nethersole's Production
of Sapho" by john H. Houchin 6:1 ,40
"Drama Along the Turnpikes: The Earliest Theatrical Activity In the
Villages of Central and Western New York" by jack Hrkach
4:3,76
"Early Drama i n New Orleans: The French Tradition" by Charles S.
Watson 2:1,1 1
" 'The Game of Politics' : Edwin Forrest and the jackson Democrats"
by Mark E. Mallett 5:2,31
Index 119
" 'He Drank From the Poisoned Cup': Theatre, Culture, and Temper-
ance in Antebellum America" by John W. Frick 4:2,21
"The Horse Drama, with Supernumeraries: Bronson Howard's Semi-
historical Shenandoah" by Pat G. Ryan 3:2,42
"Katharine Corcoran and Margaret Fleming: Exploring the Feminist
Dynamic" by Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix 4:2,63
"Mrs. Trollope Visits the Theatre: Cultural Diplomacy and Historical
Appropriation" by Rosemarie K. Bank 5:3,16
"Mr. Ben Teal: America's Abusive Director" by Lewis E. Shelton
2:2,55
"New York's Theatre War of 1854: The Burton and Broadway Pro-
ductions of A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Michael L. Green-
wald 3:3,5
"Noble or Ruthless Savage?: The American Indian on Stage and in the
Drama" by Don B. Wilmeth 1:1,39
"Occupational Hazards of the Playwright during the Age of Jackson"
by Walter J. Meserve 6:1,5
"Olive Logan and 'The Leg Business' " by Vera Mowry Roberts 2:1,5
"Our English-American Playwrights of the Mid-Nineteenth Century" by
Walter J. Meserve 1:1,5
"Out of the Kitchen and Into the Marketplace: Normalizing Uncle
Tom's Cabin for the Antebellum Stage" by Bruce A. McConachie
3:1 , 5
"Petticoat Governments: Early Women Theatre Managers in the United
States" by j.K. Curry 6:1,13
" ' Reminiscences' by Nate Salsbury" by Roger Hall 5:1,5
"Role-Playing and Authenticity in Midcentury Melodrama" by Bruce
A. McConachie 4:1,45
"S.D. johnson; or, the Struggles of an Antebellum Actor/Playwright"
by jack Hrkach 3:3,18
"Schools of One" by Warren Kliewer 2:2,5
"Tentative Checklist of Indian Plays (1606-1987)" by Don B. Wilmeth
1 :2,34
"Theatrical Biographies o_f Eminent Actors and Authors" by F .C.
Wemyss 3:1,64
"Three Voyages of Discovery: The Columbus Productions of lmre
Kiralfy, E.E. Rice, and Steele MacKaye" by Tim Fort 5:2,5
" Under Cover: Edward Harrigan's Final Act" by Al icia Kae Koger
2:3,70
120
]ADT
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Author Index
Davis, Peter A.
" 'Copy Play Wrote at Boston 1732' and the Extension of Theatri-
cal Sat i re in Colonial America" 1:2,73
Kritzer, Amelia Howe
"Feminism and Theatre i n Eighteenth-Century Boston" 2:3,22
Title Index
" 'Copy Play Wrote at Boston 1732' and the Extension of Theatrical
Satire in Colonial America" by Peter A. Davis 1:2,73
"Feminism and Theatre in Eighteenth-Century Boston" by Amelia
Howe Kritzer 2:3,22
journal of American Drama and Theatre 6 (Spring/Fall 1994)
BOOK NOTES
From time to time, as space permits, we will be publishing notes about
books in the field that have been brought to our attention and that
should be of interest to our readers. There is no intention to present
a critical review of these works. The notes are informative only.
The Eugene O'Neill Songbook. Collected and annotated by Travis
Bogard, (Berkeley, CA: East Bay Books, 1993).
A spiral -bound, large-format presentation of music scores for all
traceable music in the plays of Eugene O'Neill. Bogard has provided
a prefatory essay on O'Neill's interest in and involvement with music.
Thirty-one plays are covered, each with a prefatory explanation, and
each score has a headnote from the play which leads to the song. The
collection ends with another Bogard essay on "The Play as Symphony."
The volume also includes nine photographs and an Index to the Music.
It is an interesting and informative volume.
EPSTEIN, MILTON. "The New York Hippodrome: A Complete Chro-
nology of Performances, from 1905 to 1939," in Performing Arts
Resources/Volume 17-18, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, ed., (New York:
The Theatre Library Association, 1993).
Another of the valuable series from the Theatre Library Association.
This volume is the first of the series to focus on a single theatre. Its
contents are largely derived from non-book materials (programs,
newspaper listings, clippings) from a variety of research collections.
Epstein has provided an Introduction giving a brief history of the Hippo-
drome and the scheme for arrangement of the contents. The first listing
is a Master Chronology by date, with a brief notation of the event
presented. Full information is supplied in entries included in eight
divisions: all-star variety, concert, film, miscellaneous (celebrations,
exhibitions, mass meetings, etc.), opera, spectacle, sports, and vaude-
ville. Typefaces are well-chosen; the volume seems a complete and
valuable record of a unique and an interesting performance space.
122 Book Notes
BANFIELD, STEPHEN. Sondheim's Broadway Musicals (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1993).
This volume is the sixth in the Michigan American Music Series, of
which Richard Crawford is General Editor. After an Introduction and
two chapters devoted to 1: Sondheim's Career and Output and, 2: The
Compositional Process, there follows a series of ten chapters, each
devoted to one musical, from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to
the Forum to Into the Woods. These vary somewhat in form and
structure but each presents an analysis not only of plot and character,
but also of musical structures and lyrics. There is an index of songs
and musical numbers, and a general index.
ADLER, THOMAS P. American Drama, 1940-1960: A Critical His tory
(New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994).
This volume is the third in Twayne's Critical History of American
Drama (see ]ADT 6:1 ). After an initial chapter on background material,
major treatments are offered for the late O'Neill and Hellman, for
Arthur Miller, William lnge, Lorraine Hansberry, and Edward Albee.
A "catch-all" chapter of "Other Voices" treats briefly of Robert
Anderson, Arthur Laurents, Lawrence and Lee, William Gibson and
Paddy Chayefsky. As in the preceding volumes, the emphasis is upon
the playwrights, not upon productions. A chronology is also included.
MoY, jAMES S. Marginal Sights: Staging the Chinese in America (Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press, 1993).
This volume is one of a series of Studies in Theatre History and
Culture, edited by Thomas Postlewait. The author presents ten
"readings" of Chinese-ness in America, examining diverse sites of
representation from museum displays, cartoons, and plays to early
photographs, films, circus acts, performance art, and pornography. This
reading of the Chinese stereotypes across several media serves to
dismantle them and to attack Anglo-American styles of racial represen-
tation. Generously illustrated, the book should be useful not only to
theatre historians but also to cultural studies in general. It is issued in
both hard and soft cover.
Book Notes 123
May All Your Fences Have Cates: Essays on the Drama of August
Wilson, Alan Nadel, ed., (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,
1994).
This volume is a collection of essays from thirteen contributors,
including Nadel and Wilson himself, plus an annotated bibliography of
works by and about Wilson, compiled by yet another contributor. The
editor, in addition to his formal essay on Fences and joe Turner's Come
and Cone, supplies a Preface and an Introduction. Wilson's own essay,
I Want a Black Director, is reprinted from Spin magazine. As a whole,
this collection of essays covers the full range of Wilson's work and
addresses issues crucial to it: the relationship of African ritual to
African-American drama, the role of history, gender relations, music
and cultural identity, the politics of drama, and the influence of Romare
Bearden. It is issued in both hard and soft cover.
CONTRIBUTORS
GERALD WEALES is Professor Emeritus at the Department of
English at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
DEBORAH NOVAK is a playwright and an actress whose articles
have appeared in Women & Performance, The Minetta Review
and the Huntington Quarterly.
ALAN KREIZENBECK is Assistant Professor in the Theatre Depart-
ment at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
WILLIAM FARICY CON DEE is Associate Professor in the School of
Theater at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
CHERYL BLACK is a doctoral candidate in Theatre History,
Theory, and Criticism at the University of Maryland in College
Park.
M. SUSAN ANTHONY is a doctoral candidate in Theatre History
at the University of Maryland in College Park.
CLAUS-PETER NEUMANN is in Graduate School in the English
and Russian programs at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
124