Our American Theatre,Used

Our American Theatre By OLIVER M. SAYLER Author of Fbt Russian Tbeatrt tic WITH TWENTYFIVE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY LUCIE R. SAYLER NEW YORK PUBLISHERS THE WHAEP THEATEE, PROVINCETOWN, MASSACHUSETTS Here on an Old Fishing Dock, Recently Destroyed by Fire, the Provinceton Players Were Formally Born in the Summer of COPYRIGHT, 1023, Y BRENTANOS All rights IH THS UKITKD ITATFS OF AWIEICA To MY WIFE PREFACE PREFACES that is, the kind that deserve to show their faces at all are probably written by careless folk who use them as carpetsweepers in the trail of their labors to collect neglected ideas. Or else they are composed in advance of the work itself, in which case the author probably wishes again and again that he hadnt used up that particular phrase. This preface, to be frank, is written after the manu script is complete, thus brazenly belying its title. And if there are any serious omissions of significant men and movements within the fifteenyear period of this survey, I do not propose to bestow the faint praise of rescuing them here. My motive, as I have indicated more than once in the succeeding chapters, has been to sketch in the highlights of this period and, in so far as possible, as I aimed to do In The Russian Theatre, to make our American Theatre live through intimate studies of the men and women who have been responsible for its record. Samples, representatives, whippingboys My thanks are due to a greater number of the theatres workers than I can mention for assistance in collecting data concerning the period under scrutiny. I am indebted particularly to Kenneth Macgowan, author of The Theatre of Tomorrow Continental Stagecraft and M asks and i enions, who has k x PREFACE read my manuscript for errors of fact on condition that I absolve him from responsibility for my opin ions. For the right to reprint expressions of many of the ensuing opinions in the same or other words, my thanks are due to The Century Magazine, The New Republic, The Freeman, The North American Review, the Boston Evening Transcript, Shadowtand, Theatre Arts Magazine and Drawing and Design London, OLXVEJR M. SAYLE NEW YORK Cnv, October, 1933. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE L THE PERIOD AND PROCESS ox AWAKENING . i II. OUR PLAYWRIGHTS n III. EUGENE ONEILL, THE AMERICAN PLAY WRIGHT 27 IV. OUR PRODUCERS 44 V. OUR INSTITUTIONAL THEATRES 67 VI. THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PLATORS AND THEIR INHERITORS, THE THEATRE GtnxD 75 VII. THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYERS 89 VIII. THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE 102 DC. THE LITTLE THEATRES 113 X. THE THEATRE IN THE COLLEGE 123 XI. OUR ACTORS 136 XII. OUR DESIGNERS TOR THE STAGE 149 XIII. OUR AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE 169 XIV. OUR CRITICS OF THE THEATRE 177 XV. OUR THEATRE AUDIENCE 187 XVI. REALISM ON OUR STAGB 194 XVII THE REVOLT AGAINST REALISM ...... 205 XVHL THE THEATRE OF LETS PRETEND ... 220 XIX. OUR Civic THEATRE 233 XX. REVTTK, VARIETY AND THE DANCE .... 246 XXI. AMERICA AS HOST TO FOREIGN DRAMA . . 259 XXIL THE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF OUR THEATRE 275 APPENDICES I, IMPORTANT PRODUCTIONS ON THE AMERICAN STAGE, 19081923 287 Xi xii CONTENTS APPENDICES JPAGE II, THE PULITZER DRAMA PRIZE AWARDS ... 316 III. THE HARVARD PRIZE PLAY AWARDS . , . 318 IV, A COMPLETE LIST OF THE PLAYS OF EUGENE ONEILL 320 V, THE RECORD OF TUB WASHINGTON SQUARK PLAYERS 323 VI. THE RECORD OF THE THEATRE GUILD , . 329 VII THE RECORD OF THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYEKS 333 VIIL THE RECORD OF THE NEiGirnotuiooD PLAY HOUSE ..... 340 IX. LIST OF LITTLE, EXPERIMENTAL AND COM MUNITY THEATRES IN THE UNITED STATKS 344 X...