SOCIAL REALISM AND
DEPRESSION-ERA AMERICA
American theatre and society in the 1920s
• The post-World War I context
• The Freudian bent of American drama in the 1920s:
Arthur Richman’s Ambush (1921), Sidney Howard’s They Knew
What They Wanted (1924), George Kelly’s Craig’s Wife (1925)
and Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude (1928)
• The seeds of social unrest in the Jazz Age:
The formation of the American Communist Party (1919), the
“Red Scare” of 1920, the growth of unions and labor violence
Early examples of social realism
• The importance of the Theatre Guild (est.
1919)
• The influence of German expressionism on
American drama in the 1920s
• The example of Elmer Rice: The Adding
Machine (1923) and Street Scene (1929)
Eugene O’Neill (1)
• O’Neill’s early career – the sea plays and the
association with the Provincetown Players:
Bound East (1916); In the Zone (1917); and The Moon
of the Caribbees (1918)
• O’Neill in the early 1920s – Freudianism and social
critique:
Desire Under the Elms (1924); The Emperor Jones
(1920); and All God’s Chillun Got Wings (1924)
Eugene O’Neill (2)
• The Hairy Ape as a culmination of O’Neill’s early work:
“The Hairy Ape was propaganda in the sense that it was a symbol of a
man, who has lost his old harmony with nature, the harmony which he
used to have as an animal and has not yet acquired in a spiritual way.
Thus, not being able to find it on earth nor in heaven. he's in the middle,
trying to make peace, taking the ‘woist punches from bot' of 'em.’ ... The
subject here is the same ancient one that always was and always will be
the one subject for drama, and that is man and his struggle with his own
fate. The struggle used to be with the gods, but is now with himself, his
own past, his attempt ‘to belong.’” Eugene O'Neill, “Interview” (1924), in
Playwrights on Playwriting, ed. by Toby Cole (1961).
• O’Neill’s subsequent career – the quest for spiritual unity and its defeat by
modernity:
Marco Millions (1924); Days Without End (1933); and The Iceman Cometh
(1939)
The transformation of American theatre and society in the 1930s (1)
•
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and its effects
•
The radicalization of the American theatre:
“The current crisis has also been an artistic opportunity, bringing to light the
intellectual and financial bankruptcy that has long dogged Broadway theatre, and
exposing the cancers of triviality and social insensibility eating away at its heart.”
Ben Blake, The Awakening of the American Theatre (1935)
•
The example of European Agit-Prop and American worker-artist groups such as the
Theatre Union, the Labor Stage and the Prolet-Buehne:
“The agit-prop dramas so popular in the twenties and thirties are often specifically
Marxist in their attempts to create an objective correlative to political and social
problems. That is, they explicitly wed form to content, specificity to didacticism,
[and] character to situation. … They frequently use real-life events to create an
imaginatively rendered explication of the political truth as it was seen by left-wing
theorists.” Ira A. Levine, Left-Wing Dramatic Theory in American Theatre (1985)
•
The example of Michael Gold’s Strike!
The transformation of American theatre and society in
the 1930s (2)
• The limitations of the agit-prop model and the
triumph of social realism
• The legacy of agit-prop
• The politicization of Broadway – the example
of the 1931-32 season:
John Wexley’s Steel, Paul Sifton’s 1931, and
Albert Maltz’s Merry-Go-Round
Clifford Odets and Waiting for Lefty
• The importance of the Group Theatre (est. 1931) and the influence of its
founders – Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford
• The politics of the Group Theatre:
“The impression has arisen that the Group Theatre is primarily interested
in the production of so-called ‘propaganda’ plays. This is false. The Group
is essentially interested in plays that make for exciting and intelligent
theatre.” Harold Clurman, ‘Letter to the Press’ (1936).
• Clifford Odets’ early life and career – the example of Awake and Sing!
(1933)
• The significance of Waiting for Lefty: its influences and influence
• Odets’ subsequent work with the Group Theatre: Paradise Lost (1936) and
Golden Boy (1937)
The Federal Theatre Project (1)
• The origins and establishment of the Federal Theatre
Project:
“I am asked whether a theater subsidized by the
government can be kept free from censorship. What
we want is free, adult, uncensored theater.” Harry
Hopkins, Director of the Works Progress
Administration, ‘Speech to the National Theatre
Conference’ (1935).
• The example of the Living Newspaper:
Ethiopia; Triple-A Plowed Under; Injunction Granted;
and One-Third of a Nation (all 1936)
The Federal Theatre Project (2)
•
Early criticism of the Federal Theatre Project
•
The controversy over Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock (1937)
•
The Dies Committee on Un-American Activities and the strangling of the Federal Theatre
Project:
1. “It is apparent from the startling evidence received thus far that the Federal Theatre
Project not only is serving as a branch of the communistic organization but is also one more
link in the vast and unparalleled New Deal propaganda machine.” J. Parnell Thomas, New
Jersey Republican, the House Un-American Committee, July 26, 1938
2. “Miss Huffman says, “They couldn’t get any audiences for anything except Communistic
plays.” Now, gentlemen, I have here the proof that that is an absolutely false statement. We
have, as sponsoring bodies for the Federal Theater, two hundred and sixty-three social clubs
and organizations, two hundred and sixty-four welfare and civic organizations, two hundred
and seventy-one educational organizations, ninety-five religious organizations, ninety-one
organizations from business industries, sixteen mass organizations, sixty-six trade-unions,
sixty-two professional unions, seventeen consumers' unions, twenty-five fraternal unions,
and fifteen political organizations. Note, gentlemen, that every religious shade is covered and
every political affiliation and every type of educational and civic body in the support of our
theater. It is the widest and most American base that any theater has ever built upon.” Nellie
Flanagan, Director of the Federal Theatre Project, Evidence before the House Un-American
Committee, December 1938.
The decline of left-wing drama in the late 1930s
• The passing of the Depression
• The effects of the Soviet-Nazi Non-Aggression Pact (1939)
• The turn of social realism from national to international subjects: Paul
Green’s Johnny Johnson; Clifford Odets’ Till the Day I Die; Sinclair Lewis’ It
Can’t Happen Here (all 1936) and Elmer Rice’s Judgment Day (1934)
• The later careers of the social realists:
Eugene O’Neill and the turn to subjectivity – Mourning Becomes Electra
(1931) to Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956)
Clifford Odets and the turn to Hollywood – The Big Knife (1948) to The
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Elmer Rice and the turn to Broadway – Flight to the West (1940) to the
remake of Street Scene (1946)