American Modernism in Theatre

US theatre development stalled for centuries due to Puritan opposition and wars.
19th-century stage dominated by:
- Red-face, black-face, Wild-West spectacles.
- Formulaic melodramas with “train-track” peril, stock characters, spectacular effects.
Europe embraced Realism/Naturalism and radical experimentation $\approx$ 20–30 years earlier.
American Modernism therefore labelled “tardy,” finally blooming in the 1890s–1930s.

James A. Herne (actor → playwright) viewed melodrama as insufficiently lifelike and sought verisimilitude.
- Collaborated with Broadway master of spectacle David Belasco before pivoting.
- Wrote $(1890)$ play “Margaret Fleming” as a starring vehicle for his wife.
  • Plot beats: adulterous mill-owner Philip, his illegitimate child, mother’s death, attempted shooting, wife Margaret breast-feeds the baby, stress-induced blindness, Philip’s botched suicide, ambiguous reconciliation ⇒ hyper-eventful yet anti-melodramatic.
  • Formal departures: no soliloquies, no frozen tableaux, quotidian settings.
  • Critics called Herne “the American Ibsen”; William Dean Howells praised its pitiless honesty: “It was … ugly. But it was true, and it was irresistible.”
  • Commercially DOA; audiences preferred “train-tracks.”
- “Shore Acres” (gentler Realism, Yankee uncle Nat reunites family) met with greater success.
Other realists:
- Clyde Fitch, William Vaughn Moody (ex.: “The Great Divide”), even novelist Henry James; his play “Guy Domville” ( $1895$ ) elicited $\approx$ 15 minutes of booing—an historic flop.

Family background: father James O’Neill = star of romantic melodrama “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Touring life + parental addictions (father → alcohol, mother → morphine) shaped Eugene’s worldview.
Brief stint at Princeton, then as merchant sailor, vaudevillian, reporter.
Tuberculosis convalescence led him to Harvard’s George Pierce Baker’s Workshop 47—seminal playwriting incubator.
Joined Provincetown Players in $1916$ .
Writing phases:
1. Realistic sea plays (e.g., “Bound East for Cardiff”), followed by land-bound realism.
2. Expressionist/experimental phase: “The Emperor Jones” (first Broadway lead for Black actor Charles Gilpin), innovative use of interior monologue, masks, drums.
3. Late Realist masterpieces:
  • “The Iceman Cometh” ( $1939$ ; set 1912) – barroom pipe-dream shattering by salesman Hickey.
  • “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (written $1941$ , produced posthumously $1956$ ) – autobiographical Tyrone family; “written in tears and blood.”
Stylistic hallmarks:
- Lengthy, cathartic scripts; relentless thematic hammering.
- Working-class dialects; authenticity beyond “stage Yankee.”
- Cosmic pessimism: quote on studio wall: “Before the soul can fly, its wings must be washed in the blood of the heart.”
- Socio-philosophical scope: plays indict U.S. greed, alienation, material failure—“the greatest failure.”

Reaction against commercial syndicate that monopolized national touring circuits with safe fare.
Inspired by European avant-garde venues: Freie Bühne (Berlin), Théâtre Libre (Paris), Independent Theatre Society (London).
Ethos: non-profit, intimate spaces (< 300 seats), new writing, actor-director collectives; willing to lose money and risk form.
Notable U.S. groups (1910s–20s):
- Washington Square Players (later Neighborhood Playhouse),
- Harlem Lafayette Players,
- Regional little theaters in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, etc.

Founded in vacation cottages of Provincetown, MA by Susan Glaspell & husband George Cram Cook; relocated to Greenwich Village for visibility, not profit.
Mission: stage original American works ignored by Broadway.
Second season: premiere of O’Neill’s “Bound East for Cardiff.”
Alumni/associates:
- Poets: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Wallace Stevens.
- Female playwrights: Djuna Barnes, Neith Boyce, Susan Glaspell (Pulitzer winner 1931).
Success of O’Neill’s plays ironically drew crowds and tension ⇒ troupe dissolved $1923$ to guard principles.

Genre: hybrid Realism + proto-Expressionism + early Feminist theatre.
Inspired by Iowa axe-murder case Glaspell had reported on.
Synopsis:
- Farmhouse after John Wright’s strangulation.
- Characters: county attorney, sheriff, neighbor Hale + their wives.
- Men dismiss kitchen as irrelevant “trifles;” women uncover empty birdcage & strangled canary → motive.
- Recognize Minnie Wright’s isolation & abuse; hide evidence, withholding motive.
Feminist angles:
- Domestic space becomes epistemic authority; female perception > male officialdom.
- Sympathetic portrayal of battered wife; solidarity across class & marriage lines (“We all go through the same things … just a different kind of the same thing.”)

Gertrude Stein (living in France):
- Plays: “Ladies’ Voices,” “What Happened.”
- Characteristics: minimal plot, non-hierarchical syntax, looping repetition, continuous present tense → “cubist drama” paralleling Picasso.
- Focus on linguistic texture over narrative.
Thornton Wilder (Connecticut):
- Works: “The Long Christmas Dinner,” “Our Town.”
- Sparse staging, Stage Manager narrator, meta-theatrical commentary.
- Quiet metaphysics: examines transience, community, mortality; invites audience imagination to “fill in” scenery and emotional resonance.

Realism’s U.S. champions (Herne, O’Neill, Glaspell) bridge gap between melodramatic past and avant-garde future.
Little Theater movement provides infrastructure—mirrors European free theaters—allowing risk-taking without commercial pressure.
Feminist interventions (“Trifles”) presage later 20th-century identity-based performance.
O’Neill’s blend of personal trauma + national critique sets template for American family drama (influences: Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, August Wilson).
Experimental wordplay (Stein) and minimalism (Wilder) foreshadow post-WWII Absurdism and Off-Off-Broadway aesthetics.

First major realist U.S. play: $1890$ (“Margaret Fleming”).
Provincetown Players active $1915\text{–}1923$ .
“The Emperor Jones” Broadway production: $1920$ (first Black male lead).
“The Iceman Cometh” written $1939$ ; first produced $1946$ .
“Long Day’s Journey into Night” written $1941$ ; premiere $1956$ (post-humous per author’s instructions).

Theatre as social mirror: shifting from escapist spectacle to confrontation with domestic, economic, racial, and gender realities.
Little Theaters demonstrate sustainable alternative economies: collective governance, non-profit status, community audience engagement.
Feminist dramaturgy challenges legal & moral frameworks surrounding domestic abuse.
O’Neill’s worldview questions American exceptionalism, positing national “failure” beneath material success.

Recognize James A. Herne’s “Margaret Fleming” as first U.S. realist milestone.
Explain Eugene O’Neill’s three stylistic periods and cite two late masterpieces.
Describe Little Theater movement goals and European inspirations.
Summarize plot and feminist significance of “Trifles.”
Contrast Stein’s cubist language experiments with Wilder’s minimalist metaphysics.
Discuss how modernist experiments paved way for Harlem Renaissance (next topic).