THE JOURNAL OF

AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE

Volume 13, Number 3
Editor: Vera Mowry Roberts
Co-Editor: Jane Bowers
Managing Editor: Kimberly Pritchard
Editorial Assistant: Melissa Gaspar
Fall 2001
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James Patrick, Director
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
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Editorial Board
Ruby Cohn Bruce A. McConachie
Margaret Wilkerson Don B. Wilmeth
Robert Vorlicky
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THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE
Volume 13, Number 3 Fall 2001
Contents
DOROTHY (HANSKY, 1
"Thinking Makes It So": Views and Uses of
Shakespeare at the American Fins-de-Siecle, 1900/2000
JOHN fLEMING, 24
A Lesson Before Dying: A Modern Existential Tragedy
ROBERT M. PoST, 42
The Sexual World of Paula Vogel
DAVID V. MASON, 55
The Classical American Tradition:
Meta-Tragedy in 0/eanna
KARL KIPPOLA, 73
"The Battle-Shout of Freemen:" Edwin Forrest's
Passive Patriotism and Robert T. Conrad's Jack Cade
CONTRIBUTORS 87
Journal of American Drama and Theatre 13 (Fall 2001)
"THINKING MAKES IT So":
VIEWS AND USES OF SHAKESPEARE AT THE AMERICAN
F!NS-DE-SIECLE, 1900/2000
DOROTHY (HANSKY
In 1989, when Gary Taylor popularized the phrase
"reinventing Shakespeare," he was, arguably, just serving as the
weatherman we should not have needed to tell us which way the
wind had been blowing since 1616.
1
Shakespeare-the man, his
plays, his times
2
-has served English-speaking countries virtually
since the playwright's death as, in Susan Bennett's words, "one of
the central agencies through which culture generates meaning,"
3
functioning as a site of "universalism" and "greatness." But "the
search for universal values," Taylor reminds us, often "leads only to
a confirmation of current values. 'Eternity' is a euphemism for the
isolationist present, which retrospectively commandeers the past."
4
And greatness, as Marjorie Garber argues, is "an effect of
decontextualization," dependent on a stubborn adherence to
ahistoricism.
5
Shakespeare is deployed as a prescription lens to a
past and a present people see as true because "thinking makes it
so"; we think it is (or was) so because we find or assert our
"evidence" through Shakespeare. And on the strength of this
"evidence," we imagine and articulate a possible future. In short,
1
Gary Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the
Restoration to the Present (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989).
2
The phrase is Susan Bennett's in Performing Nostalgia: Shifting
Shakespeare and the Contemporary Past(London and New York: Routledge,
1996), 1.
3
Bennett, Performing Nostalgia, 21.
4
Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare, 294.
5
Marjorie Garber, "Greatness" in Symptoms of Culture (New York:
Routledge, 1998), 43.
2 CHANKSY
for the cultural historian, "Shakespeare doesn't mean: we mean by
Shakespeare.'
16
This essay is about two moments of cultural articulation(s)
through Shakespeare, the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth
centuries in the United States. The "uses" of Shakespeare that I
examine are mostly performances, and, although not all of these
performances are productions of plays, all are, to steal again from
Marjorie Garber, "symptoms of culture." I have three aims: First, I
will suggest that many of the assumptions and practices of
Shakespearean cultural production that characterized the years
leading up to and immediately following 1900 are the bedrock and
springboard for current assumptions and practices, even though the
trappings of the former era may look quaint to today's eye. Second,
I will argue that the idea that uses of Shakespeare a century ago
were largely about "Americanizing" immigrants and the poor on a
middle class, Anglophone model is not only fraught with anxiety and
contradictory impulses, but is also refutable with specific examples.
Concomitantly, if our own moment is touted as one of post-
humanism and multi-culturalism, I want to show that some uses to
which Shakespeare is put in the name of these "isms" shore up or
accommodate a certain status quo that is arguably only superficially
invested in these notions.
If, then, Shakespearean output is the symptom, one might
well inquire what the disease is. In 1900, when E. H. Sothern,
"foremost among the American Shakespeareans of that era"
7
staged
the production of Hamlet in which he was to tour on and off for
another nineteen years, America was in the throes of the
Progressive Era. The country-forty-five states with seventy-six
million people, sixty per cent of whom were classified as rural and
whose average life expectancy was just over forty-nine years
8
-was
both suffering from and reveling in the effects of Populism, large-
scale immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, the advent
of anti-trust and muckraking interventions in exploitative business
practices, a steady rise in mass-produced clothing and consumer
goods, new magazines aimed at a mass readership, and a growing
6
Terence Hawkes's Meaning by Shakespeare quoted in Bennett, Performing
Nostalgia, 21.
7
Michael A. Morrison, John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor(Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 19.
8
Edward Wagenknecht, American Profile, 1900-1909 (Amherst: University
of Massachusetts Press, 1982), 1-2.
SHAKESPEARE
3
concern for compulsory education.
9
Historians foreground the idea
of flux, progress, anxiety, and seachange in the very titles of their
books about the era. The period from 1890-1920 was The Age of
Reform, marked by The Tyranny of Change. The year 1900
inaugurated The Big Change and is boldly marked as "the turning
point."
10
It is tempting, from a present-day vantage point, to regard
the Sothern Hamlet as a "highbrow" endeavor-an elitist minority's
refined voice crying in a wilderness of immigrants, go-getters, and
arrivistes. Lawrence Levine locates Shakespeare's "transform[ation]
into high culture at the turn of the century."
11
But William Uricchio
and Roberta Pearson problematize Levine's seemingly clear-cut
division of Americans into the dominant and the dominated, with
the former seeking a perceived distance from the latter in part via
Shakespeare. Uricchio and Pearson note a "continuity of
Shakespeare's presence among all social formations"
12
and cite as
proof everything from inexpensive editions of the plays to such
"cultural ephemera" as cartoons, postcards, statuary, New York City
guides, calendars, card games, museum waxworks, and silent films
that featured elements of Shakespeare's plays.
13
Yet there was a cultural agenda afoot among Protestant
elites and their recruits and followers.
14
And Shakespeare was
considered a powerful tool in "Americanizing" both the foreign born
9
See Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New
York: Vintage Books, 1955).
10
Hofstadter's study covers the years through the New Deal. The other
books are John Whiteclay Chambers II, The Tyranny of Change: America in the
Progressive Era, 1900-1917(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980); Frederick
Lewis Allen, The Big Change: America Transforms Itself 1900-1950(New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1952); Judy Crichton, America 1900: The Turning Point
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998).
11
Lawrence Levine, Highbrow Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural
Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 30.
12
William Uricchio and Roberta E. Pearson, Reframing Culture: The Case
of the Vitagraph Quality Films (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993),
67.
13
Uricchio and Pearson, 77-78.
14
See T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the
Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994).
4 CHANKSY
and the underprivileged native born.
15
What I want to suggest is
that the "highbrow" project was actually, in the main, rather
middlebrow.
16
Unlike genuinely elitist undertakings and social
practices that are kept invisible to or removed from the general
public, "sacralized"
17
Shakespeare was relentlessly, inexpensively,
and unavoidably served up in commercial theatres, public schools,
and editions of the plays. (In fact, the quintessentially middlebrow
Book-of-the-Month Club was born of the success of marketing
miniature leather-bound editions of Shakespeare in boxes of
Whitman's chocolates.
18
)
The middlebrow recruitment project that I am anchoring
with the Sothern Hamlet was partly a plea for the Arnoldian
imperative of "combating moral infection through culture ... defined
as .. .'the best which has been thought and said in the world,"'
19
defined, in large part, by anxious WASPS as Anglo-Saxonism
crowned by Shakespeare. Brander Matthews of Columbia
University, the first American to be appointed Professor of Dramatic
Literature, declared in 1901 that English speakers had always been
the most self-willed, energetic, and perceptive of humans and that
their finest characteristics coalesced in Elizabethan literature and
character.
20
By 1932, when Joseph Quincy Adams invoked
Shakespeare as the nation's best weapon for preserving its Anglo-
Saxon heritage in a sea of "hostile savages," "deficient secular
culture," and "alien" immigrants of a "threatening" kind, he at least
15
For a valuable discussion of recruiting and socializing immigrants to a
WASP, hegemonic ideal in the early part of the twentieth century via
performance, see Shannon Jackson, "Civic Play-Housekeeping: Gender,
Theatre, and American Reform," in Theatre Journa" 48:3 (1996): 337-361.
16
For a sympathetic discussion of the rise and marketing of middlebrow
literature in the United States, see Joan Shelley Rubin, The Making of
Middlebrow Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992). For
a study of the dissemination of high-minded theatre ideals among ordinary,
middle-class Americans in the Progressive Era, see Dorothy Chansky,
Composing Ourselves: The American Little Theatre Movement and the
Construction of a New Audience, 1912-1925 (Ph.D. dissertation, New York
University, 1997).
17
See Levine, Highbrow Lowbrow, 85-168.
18
Rubin, The Making of Middlebrow Culture, 94.
19
Uricchio and Pearson, Reframing Culture, 21.
20
Brander Matthews, "The English Language: Its Debt to King Alfred, "
Harper's Monthly Magazine 103 (June 1901).
SHAKESPEARE 5
took comfort in the regularization of American schooling as a means
of eliminating non-English horrors. And, he noted that in this tide-
stemming process, "Shakespeare has played a major part."
21
Shakespeare, in other words, could be acquired. As Andrew
carnegie suggested in a 1903 speech, "language makes race. You
give me a man who speaks English and reads Shakespeare ... and I
don't care where he was born, or what country he comes from."
22
Edward Hugh Sothern did speak English and did read
Shakespeare, although perhaps not so well for the first forty-five
years of his life as he did after 1904, when he teamed up with Julia
Marlowe, the favorite American Shakespearean actress of the day,
for a three-year tour that turned into a lifetime partnership both
onstage and off. Sothern and Marlowe both had British parents,
and Sothern at age twenty-one abandoned his plans to become a
painter to follow in his father's footsteps and became an actor. For
thirteen years, from 1886-1898, he was the leading man in Daniel
Frohman's stock company in New York, specializing in "light comedy
and dashing cloak-and-sword drama like The Prisoner of Zenda, The
Song of the Sword, or The King's Musketeers."
23
The standards by which Sothern's Hamlet was judged show
a cultural reverence for Anglophilia on the part of mainstream critics
and audiences as well as an ongoing nostalgia.
24
Edward A.
Dithmar praised Sothern's Hamlet for resembling that of Edwin
Booth, the benchmark of nineteenth-century Hamlets, who had died
in 1893 after playing Hamlet for some forty years. Booth was
known for his break with the "heroic school" and for his emphasis
on "quietness, gentleness, and grace."
25
Dithmar found in Sothern
a specific evocation of the past, as his "clustering dark hair, his
handsome, mournful eyes, his broad, pale brow, his fine profile are
all reminders of the greatest of our Hamlets'
26
(emphasis mine).
21
Joseph Quincy Adams, "Shakespeare and American Culture," address
delivered at the dedication of the Folger Shakespeare Library, 23 April 1932,
(n.p.].
22
Carnegie quoted in Uricchio and Pearson, Reframing Culture, 70.
23
Charles H. Shattuck, Shakespeare on the American Stage: From Booth
and Barrett to Sothern and Marlowe, 2 (Washington: Folger Shakespeare
Library, 1987), 259.
24
This is the very quality that Susan Bennett locates in most present-day
productions of the plays.
25
Charles H. Shattuck, Shakespeare on the American Stage: From the
Hal/ams to Edwin Booth, 145.
26
Dithmar quoted in Shattuck (1987), 259.
6 CHANKSY
Alan Dale's nostalgia was for a nonspecified classicism and
he disliked Sothern's Hamlet for being "distinctly nineteenth
century" and seeming to "enjoy" the bad health of that most
nineteenth century malady, neurasthenia.
27
William Winter, a critic
whose cranky insistence on old-fashioned values finally cost him his
newspaper job, blasted Sothern's failure to capture "the essential
quality of the character," which, for Winter, inhered in a highly
Romantic and fixed set of qualities including "its soul of misery, its
grandeur of desolation."
28
Yet, despite the fact that Sothern did not
actually seem to fully satisfy any critic, he became a kind of index of
acceptability.
29
A letter to the Boston Transcript in 1900 predicted
"that (Sothern] will become to his own day and generation, in all
essentials ... the accepted Hamlet."
30
And, the criteria for "knowing"
Hamlet had as much to do with vague recognition, received opinion,
and sedimented sentiments as they did with intimate knowledge of
the text of the play. For example, Winter was piqued that Sothern
ended his production with the arrival of Fortinbras, which historian
Charles Shattuck suggests Sothern did presumably because
Shakespeare did.
31
The other turn-of-the-century Hamlet to garner widespread
attention was Sarah Bernhardt's 1900 production, which toured
parts of the United States the same year that her silent film of the
play was made. Bernhardt played the role in French, although
neither this nor the fact of her being a woman was especially
27
Alan Dale, unsourced clipping dated 18 September 1900 in the Robinson
Locke collection, vol. 435, New York Public Library, Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts.
28
William Winter, New York Tribune, 31 December 1902.
29
As Michael Morrison notes, "to a generation Southern [sic] and Marlowe
were Shakespeare; they became, in the words of the historian Lloyd Morris, a
' national institution."' Morrison, John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor
(Cambridge: cambridge University Press, 1997), 20.
30
"Mr. Sothern's Hamlet," letter to the editor of the (Boston)
Oct. 12, 1900. When Edmund Russell essayed the role in 1903, Theatre
Magazine dismissed "the entire enterprise" as "superfluous" "coming so soon
after Mr. Sothern's excellent production. (Review of Edmund Russell's
The Theatre Magazine, 3:28 [June 1903] : 136).
31
Shattuck (1987), 260.
SHAKESPEARE 7
troubling to most reviewers.
32
Instead, they criticized her for doing
what she had always done-being "an emotional Gaul, not a reticent
Teuton."
33
By faulting Bernhardt for "ignor[ing] the higher
attributes of the character," critics and audiences could congratulate
themselves for recognizing, rather than missing, "the infinite
subtlety and variety of the character-its ... abstraction and
vacillation, its ... tenderness ... refinement, poetic fancy," all "beyond
[Bernhardt's] range" and all, "due mainly to her ignorance of
English."
34
Here is Brander Matthews's, most self-willed, energetic,
and perceptive of humans, in a supremely self-assured mode. One
prescient writer actually did assert that "it is all rot to say that such
and such a Hamlet is or is not Shakespeare's. What we mean when
we say this is simply that it agrees or does not agree with what we
think Shakespeare intended."
35
It is also worth noting what a
newspaper reviewer could assume about his readership, as reading
is an idea to which I will return in examining our own era's views of
Shakespeare. One review of Bernhardt's production devoted 650
words-a standard or even longish length for many newspaper
reviews today-to a detailed critique of the translation alone. The
entire piece ran to three thousand words.
36
An acceptance of hefty chunks of reading was matched by
an acceptance of hefty bodies. An interviewer described Bernhardt
as "petite," "slight," and "delicate," reinforcing the adjectives with
the specific information that the actress was a mere five feet three
32
Edward P. Vining's book, The Mystery of Hamlet(Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1881), put forth the idea that Hamlet possessed an essentially
feminine nature. Although the text may not have been known to most
theatregoers, neither the pop-psychology idea of the possibility of a "feminine
nature," the gender stereotyping, nor the tradition of women playing men's
roles would have been unfamiliar. For interesting discussions of an evolution of
the idea of sexuality being central to Hamlet' s character, see James R.
Simmons, Jr., '"In the Rank Sweat of an Enseamed Bed': Sexual Aberration and
the Paradigmatic Screen Hamlets," Literature Film Quarterly, 25: 2, (1997): 111-
118. For a discussion of a second, major silent film featuring a woman as
Hamlet, see Ann Thompson, "Asta Nielsen and the Mystery of Hamlet," in Linda
E. Boose and Richard Burt, eds., Shakespeare the Movie: Popularizing the Plays
on Film, Tv, and Video (London and New York: Routledge, 1997): 215-224.
33
Review of Bernhardt's Hamlet, New York Herald, 26 December 1900.
34
Unsourced review dated 26 December 1900, Robinson Locke Collection
vol. 60, p. 37, New York Public Library, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
35
Unsourced clipping, Robinson Locke Collection, vol. 60, p. 35, New York
Public Library, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
36
See note 34.
8
CHANKSY
inches and weighed about 145 pounds.
37
The intersection of self-
image, consumer habits, and theatregoing was spelled out in the
pages of Theatre, a glossy monthly that began publication in 1901.
On a page in the magazine's advertising section in 1905, an
elegantly gowned actress in a photograph echoes the pose of the
model in a corset advertisement at the bottom left of the page.
38
[AGURE 1] Readers are invited to admire the actress, buy the
corset, and thereby merge their own sense of their bodies with
those of the elegantly-clad (and carefully constructed)
actress/models. Such an invitation is implicitly predicated not only
on ideas of glamour, but of health and well-being. Since at least
1874, when two American physicians named Warner had started a
line of corsets designed to protect rather than deform the bodies
they surrounded, healthfulness figured in selling foundation
garments.
39
The Theatre ad also states that the 1905 corset is
"particularly well adapted for theatrical costumes." But the
magazine's readership did not comprise primarily people in the
business. It was made up of fans. Therefore, the suitability of the
corset for showing off the body in a theatrical costume is really an
invitation to readers to identify with actresses and to see
themselves in the onstage world. Or vice versa. The text of Hamlet
is Shakespeare's (at least in large part); the pleasure of
theatregoing includes the materially, geographically situated body
as part of a particular social formation.
A good example of an American audience as social
formation realizing its aspirations through Shakespeare occurred at
the 1894 "Shakespearean Entertainment" given by the Shakespeare
Anniversary Association at the Grand Opera House in New Orleans.
The event, officially a celebration of the 330th anniversary of
Shakespeare's birth, could equally well be read as a celebration of
the cultural assumptions and popular entertainment preferences of
what the souvenir program called "the brilliant audience which
taxed the capacity of the Grand Opera House." The President of the
Association assured the assembled that they were gathered to
37
Annette Rierdon Reed, "A Visit to Sarah Bernhardt," unsourced clipping
dated 19 August 1899, Robinson Locke Collection, vol. 60, p.2, New York Public
Library, Lincoln Center Branch for the Performing Arts.
38
Theatre, February 1905, vi.
39
Michael Colmer, Whalebone to See-Through: A History of Body
Packaging (New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1980), unpaginated. Later
in the text, actress Jeanne de casalis is quoted as having appreciatively
described a Charnoux Patent corset in 1936 as " the most hygienic thing you can
possibly wear."
SHAKESPEARE
9
FIGURE 1
10
CHANKSY
"renew our fealty to intellectual superiority."
40
If Shakespeare as
excuse was meant to shore up that belief, the actual offerings
suggest something else. Of ten items on the bill, two were sets
played by the West End Military Band; one was a vocal solo of
"Heriodiade" greeted by bouquets thrown onstage and encores of
"Doris" and "Supposing"; and one was a concluding Scene and
Ballet, "Gretna Green." Only one portion of the evening actually
featured the performance of Shakesperean text, and this was a
recitation of selections from Julius Caesar. The variety format is
reminiscent of the sort of standard theatrical evening recalled in the
1870s by the then past-his-prime American actor E.L. Davenport,
who waxed nostalgic that "once upon a time he had played in one
evening 'an act from a m l e ~ one from Black-Eyed Susan, and sung
A Yankee Ship and a Yankee Crew, and danced a hornpipe, and
wound up with a nigger part.'
141
What the New Orleans audience got was not primarily
Shakespeare, but popular music and lectures about Shakespeare.
The Reverend Beverly Warner's talk on the history plays touted
Shakespeare as a valuable teacher of "the most fruitful periods of
our own race history.'
142
Warner invoked the ideas of
"destiny ... bound up with larger freedom" in which the "Anglo-Saxon
must fight out the battle with himself first, before he could become
a dominant force in the affairs of others" (14). Warner's speech was
more than 5000 words long, and, at today's average rate of
delivery, would have lasted forty minutes. That it was one of ten
items on a program meant to be part of a good time to be had by
all says much of the listening capacity of a middlebrow audience at
the approach of the turn of the 19th century. The final lecture of
the evening, on a m l e ~ might be seen as a sermon in scholarship's
clothing, as Charles F. Buck noted how the play's "innocent victim
was necessary to readjust the diverted current of natural order,
even as an innocent death atoned for the sins of the world" (21).
Hamlet is Christ and Shakespeare is God the father, ideas reinforced
in the lecture's conclusion, where the speaker lapsed into pseudo-
Bible-ese on the King James model and invoked the idea of trinity:
"0, Shakespeare, thrice gifted son of man, mighty and god-like
40
Proceedings of the Shakespearean Entertainment Given by the
Shakespeare Anniversary Association (Shakespeare Anniversary Association,
New Orleans, 23 April 1894): 4.
41
Shattuck, Shakespeare on the American Stage ( 1976 ), 117.
42
Beverly Warner, "Shakespeare," in Proceedings of the Shakespearean
Entertainment Given by the Shakespeare Anniversary Association: 6.
SHAKESPEARE 11
genius that could so combine the elements of harsh contention into
the sweet harmony of the soul's peace" (23).
The idea of Shakespeare as Anglophone savior was also
served up to the less elite and the non-Teutonic. In 1903, for
instance, Alice Minnie Herts organized the Children's Educational
Theatre as a project of the Educational Alliance, a New York City
social services program that "operated with the object of
Americanizing the Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants who
peopled the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
43
Not surprisingly, her
first production was a Shakespeare play, The Tempest Her
discussion of her second Shakespeare production, As You Like It, in
1904, reveals not only her do-good motives, but also her sense of
the inadequacies of the neighborhood cohort, especially where
Shakespeare is concerned. The play was selected because of "its
power to represent a suitable ideal to the neighborhood," and many
young people were interested in playing the roles, but "in the
majority of cases the people's English was so unintelligible, their
voices were so poor, their bearing so slovenly, that it was
impossible to meet the obligation to our audiences with this
material. Yet these were the very ones who deserved all the
comfort and strength which come from spiritual fellowship with a
higher type of human being' (24, emphases mine). Religiosity
again attaches to Shakespeare, who is a possible candidate for
"higher type of human being." Salvation and social construction
cohere in the site that is Shakespeare and non-Anglo-Saxons must
rebuild everything about their speech and bearing in order to
appear adequate in front of their own families and neighbors. That
Herts and the founders of the Educational Alliance were wealthy
German Jews attests to the belief in the importance of learning to
"pass" on the WASP model.
44
But immigrants were not merely passive vessels for
retooling via performance on hegemonic guidelines. The Yiddish
theatre embraced Shakespeare, too, and its practitioners devised
43
Alice Minnie Herts He niger, The Children's Educational Theatre (New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1911), 3. Herts capitalized on "two distinct popular
demands, the one for better entertainment than cheap vaudeville afforded, the
other for self-expression through plays" (8). Her goals, expressed in fairly
commonplace Progressive vocabulary, included character development (13),
"civic duty" (61), "true spiritual growth" (37), "moral and artistic uplift" (15),
and " kindness and humanity toward animals" (18).
44
Uricchio and Pearson point out that German Jews worried about the
influx of Eastern European Jews as did their Christian neighbors, although for
some additional reasons. They feared a "new outbreak of anti-Semitism from
which they would not be exempted" (Reframing Culture, 37).
12
CHANKSY
their own cultural artifacts in response to their new status as
Americans. Yiddish theatre served a population of Eastern European
Jewish immigrants, mostly from Russia and Poland, who shared a
language, folklore, and religious culture that crossed national
borders. On Manhattan's Lower East Side they shared cramped
quarters, ambitious dreams, and concerns about assimilation.
Yiddish theatre itself only began in 1876 in Rumania; it was
immediately popular when it arrived in New York and flourished
precisely during the years of the Progressive Era, offering
melodrama, burlesque, operetta, and sentimental plays about the
tribulations of Jewish life, often with a focus on rebellious children
coming to appreciate their parents' woes. So much did the Yiddish
masses love theatre, that one saying proclaimed they ate their
"broyt mit teater-bread smeared with theater.'"'
5
Shakespeare
figured in the Yiddish repertoire in two ways: in Judaic reworkings
of the plays that may or may not overtly acknowledge Shakespeare
at all, and in "attempts to assimilate Shakespeare qua
Shakespeare.'"'
6
The first Hamlet of the American Yiddish stage was offered
in 1893 by matinee idol Boris Thomashefsky, who, according to his
contemporary, critic Hutchins Hapgood, " .... picturesquely stands in
the middle of the stage[,] .. . declaims phlegmatically the role of the
hero, and satisfies the 'romantic' demand of the audience.'"'
7
Thomashefsky was enjoying a long run in the spectacle melodrama,
the Crown Prince of Jerusalem, when he announced,
supposedly on a week's notice, that he would open as Hamlet-a
response to his rival's opening Othello. Hamlet ran three weeks,
and audiences were so enthralled-as well as so naive-they are
reputed to have called for the author at curtain calls.
48
As historian
45
Nahma Sand row, Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater
(New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 91.
46
Leonard Prager, "Shakespeare in Yiddish," Shakespeare Quarterly
(Spring 1968): 155. Shakespeare also meant different things to different
generations of American Yiddish audiences, with the earliest immigrants of the
1880s and 1890s possibly not recognizing his name at all. Later, young adults
of the 1910s, already assimilating at a rapid rate and possibly attending
college, did indeed recognize his name while also becoming less interested in
(and less in need of) Yiddish translations. (Joel Berkowitz, Shakespeare on the
American Yiddish Stage, [Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York,
1995], 34) although even in translation Shakespeare offered cultural capital.
47
Hutchins Hapgood, The Spint of the Ghetto (Cambridge: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), 139-40.
48
Iska Alter, "When the Audience Called 'Author! Author!: Shakespeare on
New York's Yiddish Stage," Theatre History Studies(1990): 141- 161.
SHAKESPEARE 13
Joel Berkowitz points out, the necessity of putting Shakespeare in
the Yiddish repertoire coupled with the belief that the audience was
too naive to know what was what, represents "complexity rather
than contradiction. Shakespeare was becoming part of the cultural
discourse of the American Yiddish theatre by this time ... [making] it
quite possible to 'know' that Shakespeare was the 'world's greatest
playwright' without knowing that he could not make a curtain call."
49
Certainly Moyshe Zeifert, the playwright who adapted
Hamlet for Thomashefsky, was aware of the complexity and the
contradictions. He reworked the original to his audience's liking, but
he must have had doubts, as did many intellectuals with regard to
the basically melodramatic, popular Yiddish theatre.
50
Zeifert had
also adapted the Othello that inspired Thomashefsky to attempt
Hamlet Between the openings of the two plays, Zeifert claimed to
have had a dream in which he had died and gone to his final
judgment, where the prosecuting angel accuses him of being a
shund (trash) playwright who has "twisted the truth, crushed
aesthetics underfoot and corrupted the public taste." The Chairman
of the court sentences Zeifert to twenty years in hell, after which he
will go to Pittsburgh to work as a reform rabbi. Zeifert relates the
dream:
'Halt! He is innocent!' cried out my defending angel. 'He
did not do it out of corruption, God forbid; the poor man
was just terribly needy, with a large family: a wife and
children .... There are men of the theatre with us here in
Paradise who have sinned far more than he, but
nevertheless they now eat the nectar and drink the
sacred wine. For example, take William Shakespeare! ....
'Shakespeare?' asked the 'Chairman' with
astonishment. 'How has he sinned?'
'He wrote the play Shylock (The Merchant of Venice)
and with it made a mockery and a disgrace of the best
people on the face of the earth, the Jewish nation. In a
word, he is simply a major anti-Semite.'
'Bring Shakespeare to me,' the 'Chairman' demanded.
Shakespeare came in riding on two adders. 'Why did
you insult the Jews with your Shylock?' the 'Chairman'
asked him.
49
Berkowitz, 110.
50
For a spoof of Yiddish writer-intellectuals and the Yiddish theatre, see
Israel Zangwill's short story "The Yiddish ' Hamlet" in The Century Magazine,
71:3 (January 1906): 403-415.
14 CHANKSY
' Your honor,' Shakespeare answered proudly, 'I was a
poet, and we poets dream with our eyes open.'
'That is a lame excuse, my dear sir,' the Chairman
answered. 'You must be punished! ... Go right now to the
Windsor Theatre and see how the Yiddish actors mangle
your Othello .... '
Shakespeare disappeared, and returned half an hour
later. I hardly recognized him. He looked a hundred
years older, a cloud of sorrow shading his fine, high
forehead. 'I have sinned, I have lusted, I have rebelled,'
he cried, and threw himself on one knee before the
Chairman. 'Punish me as you see fit, but not with that!
Leave me be! I'll burn my plays up, I'll sell them as
wrapping paper!'
'Aha! exclaimed the Chairman. 'Now you see the
trouble it gets you when you trifle with the Chosen
People? Go straight to Gehenna!' And so Shakespeare
departed, sobbing and whimpering.
Now the Chairman turned to me: 'You, Moyshe Zeifert,
go back to the world below, take on Shakespeare's
Hamlet, but remember! You should butcher it so
thoroughly that not a scrap of him remains. And tell all
your dramatist friends to chop the classics into
sauerkraut. Go!'
51
Six years later Thomashefsky appeared in a version of
Hamlet called The Yeshiva Bokher (The Yeshiva Boy). In this
version, Hamlet is a rabbinical student whose uncle belongs to a
rival sect of religious fanatics and who conspires against Hamlet by
making him out to be a nihilist. The plot is discovered, the uncle
sent to Siberia, and Hamlet is married in the final scene to a dead
Ophelia before he expires of a broken heart.
52
In Berkowitz's
analysis, the play-a melodramatic musical-"affirms the non-
traditional Judaism of its audience, where theatre is acceptable, but
tyranny is not" because it shows that "hypocritical orthodoxy is
responsible for tyranny, adultery, and even death, if not exactly
murder ... making the inversion of the natural order of human
interaction a by-product of Hasidism."
53
51
Berkowitz, 112-113.
52
Hapgood, Spirit of the Ghetto, 126-7.
53
Berkowitz, 168.
SHAKESPEARE 15
Finally, the Yiddish theatre had its own female Hamlet,
Bertha Kalish. Her Hamlet attracted uptown notice and may have
been a key factor in enabling her to "cross over" to Broadway. By
all accounts Kalish was a star-quality actor, but the value of
cloaking oneself in the mantle of Shakespeare seems evident when
we read what passed for high praise in 1905, the year Kalish
opened on Broadway in Sardou's Fedora. "How was it possible,"
asked critic Henry Tyrrell, "for a Yiddish actress, fresh from the
Thalia and the Grand, to wear those Paris gowns like a veritable
princess and to the manner born?'
154
Kalish obliged the interviewer
with a visit to her well-stocked library, the observation that the
piano music (Wagner) coming from the next room was being played
by her daughter, a blonde, and that her own "devoutest wish [was]
to emerge as an artiste of full stature, and make my appeal to the
great Christian world."
55
Kalish's ethnicity, coloring, religion, and
the language in which she usually performed made it advisable for
her to pander to a lowest-common-denominator notion of culture
that reflected Anglo-American xenophobia more than it did actual
education or broad experience.
A century after the New Orleans gathering to "renew fealty
to intellectual superiority" Danny DeVito appeared in the movie
Renaissance Man.
56
The film features a crew of military losers
shaping up via strong doses of Shakespeare. On the surface the
film wants to suggest that Shakespeare is mu/t.tultural capital, no
longer the province of Anglos only, as the majority of the recruits
are African American and one is coded as white ethnic, a poor
Italian-American from New York. In fact, one of the few moments
of the film that portrays real appropriation and interpretation via
performance has the young recruits dancing and rapping their own
version of Hamlet But, as Richard Burt notes, this remains an
essentially conservative film, aimed at whites, and perpetuating the
American idea that there are no losers. Indeed, in Burt's words,
"Renaissance Man fantasizes a kind of multicultural fascism whereby
all antagonisms arising from ethnic and racial differences are
resolved through the militarization of the teaching profession and
the idealization of Shakespeare as student and soldier."
57
54
Henry Tyrrell, "Bertha Kalich [sic]-the Yiddish Duse," Theatre Magazine
(July 1905): 161.
55
Tyrrell, 162.
56
Penny Marshall, dir., Touchtone Films, 1994.
57
Richard Burt, Unspeakable Shaxxxpeares: Queer Theory and American
Kiddie Culture (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998): 217-218, 209-210.
16 CHANKSY
The idea of Shakespeare as multicultural medicine is not
restricted to the realm of commercial cinema. A 1999 article in The
Chronicle of Higher Education is headlined "Casting Shakespeare's
Lovers in a New Light, Students Confront Questions of Race." It
discusses a production of Romeo and Juliet at the University of
Virginia in which the Capulets are black, the Montagues are white,
and the idea is to "drive this 400-year-old play [to] take on
provocative new meanings for modern audiences."
58
In an article
peppered with words like "race relations," "social change,"
"struggle," and "modern conflicts," the writer notes with delight that
"on a recent Friday evening, the only tension in the air was the kind
that goes with pre-performance jitters." While one cannot argue
with a black cast member's observation that he would probably
never have met the white actor with whom he became friends had
they not been in the play, the fact that he is a mechanical
engineering major might have a lot to do with not encountering
theatre majors on a regular basis. Also, there is no evidence that
participation in a play of Shakespeare's forges greater camaraderie
and tolerance than does participation in any other kind of play
requiring cooperation and collaboration.
59
What links these two projects is not only their belief that
Shakespeare is a good tool for social construction-an idea at least
a century old-but also their focus on "issues," both personal and
societal, as the keys to unlocking the texts. Renaissance Man
moves quickly away from using any actual Shakespearean text-
which we are (re)assured early in the film is too hard to follow-in
its discussion of Hamlet Instead, students focus on interpreting the
characters, largely in terms of their willingness to take
responsibility, show loyalty, and take action. The single female
soldier, for instance, believes that Ophelia shows us that suicide is
not the way out. This recalls Martha Baker Dunn's 1906 memoir in
58
Zoe Ingalls, "Casting Shakespeare's Lovers in a New Light, Students
Confront Questions of Race," Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 February 1999,
B2. Ingalls, citing this as a "new interpretation," seems unaware of the
Cornerstone production that took exactly the same black/white approach a
decade earlier, and equally unaware of the Mabou Mines cross-gendered Lear
that also adopted a Southern 1950s setting (the Virginia Romeo is set "in the
South of the early 1960s") to force the idea d small-mindedness.
59
Moreover, one could argue that two students attending the same
university have less cultural difference to bridge than might, say, a pueblo-
dwelling Native American from New Mexico and a member of the Bobover
Chasidic sect from Brooklyn, for whom religion, dietary laws, cosmography, and
everyday dress differ so radically as to pose problems of any suitable grounds
on which to meet at all.
SHAKESPEARE 17
which she cited the "moral of individual responsibility" being what
drew her to his work. "Shakespeare's message is the message of a
robust manhood and womanhood: Brace up, pay for what you
have, do good if you wish to get good; ... shoulder the burden of
your moral responsibility, and never forget that cowardice is the
most fatal and most futile crime in the calendar of crimes."
60
So, am I suggesting that the turn of the twentieth century
is basically a rehash of the turn of the nineteenth, except with a
kind of decorative multiculturalism
61
replacing Anglo-Saxonism as
the American ideal and with filmed productions of Shakesepeare's
plays replacing theatrical productions as the highbrow end of
basically middlebrow entertainment? Yes and no. Judging
characters and defining them in terms of the readers' concerns is,
suggests Martha Tuck Rozett, typical of inexperienced late
twentieth-century readers of Shakespeare's plays, by which she
means college students, but which really includes most of the
population. Foremost, these readers "try to make the text 'mean'
something, using what they know best, which frequently consists of
received truths and rather prescriptive formulas about human
behavior."
62
Yet this is little different from the encouraged modes
of learning and reception at the turn of the nineteenth century
when, as Charles Frey notes in his historicization of teaching
Shakespeare in America, "the trend was to teach Shakespeare's 'art'
primarily in terms of how plot and scene construction contributed to
revelations of character and message.'
163
Both American
are characterized by the presence of Shakespeare cartoons,
dishtowels, t-shirts, cards, guides, games, and other assorted
chotchkes. Both turns of the century favor big productions
anchored by stars. And if the New Orleans celebrants of the 1890s
saw Shakespeare as God, Harold Bloom credits him a century later
with no less than "the invention of the human.'
164
Also, both cultural
60
Martha Baker Dunn quoted in Levine, Highbrow Lowbrow, 41.
61
Allison Jagger uses the term "multicultural democracy" to describe a
social system in which diversity is primarily expressed privately, with acceptable
public expressions limited to the realms of food and clothing. (Lecture,
University of New Mexico, 5 February 1999).
62
Martha Tuck Rozett, "Holding Mirrors Up to Nature: First Readers as
Moralists," in Shakespeare Quarterly41 (1990): 218, 212.
63
Charles Frey, "Teaching Shakespeare in America," Shakespeare Quarterly
35 (1984): 546.
64
Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (New York:
Penguin Putnam, 1998).
18
CHANKSY
landscapes are dotted with the widespread phenomenon of what
Michael Cohen calls a "spurious first knowledge," that allows people
to think they "know" the main characters or meanings of
Shakespeare's plays without actually having read them.
65
Some features of readership have changed. Philological
and grammatical concerns were greater a century ago;
66
ambiguity
and multiple possible interpretations are more readily included now
as part of study guide apparatus. The amount of reading an
average student might have been expected to do has also changed.
Charles Frey's brief history of teaching Shakespeare in America
underscores the painstaking, nit-picking, and glacial pace at which
George Lyman Kittredge taught Shakespeare at Harvard in the early
part of the century, "rarely complet[ing] six plays in a year."
67
In
1990 Professor Martha Tuck Rozett determined that if she wanted
her students to read the plays in her Shakespeare course more than
once she could only assign half as many (one being the number of
times an average university student could reasonably be expected
to read a play in a course), and cut the number of plays she
covered to five.
68
What was too slow in 1900 is almost too fast for
2000+.
Expectations of character interpretations in performance
have undergone a change as well. Virtually all American acting has
become psychologized over the course of the twentieth century,
and concerns for "motivation" have replaced a concern for elocution
and making "points." Since Olivier's 1948 film, it has been almost
axiomatic that Hamlet's sexuality was at the center of his problems.
As James R. Simmons notes, a Freudian/Jonesian conceit of Olivier's
65
Michael Cohen, "On Reading Hamlet for the First Time," in College
Literature 19 (February 1992): 48-59.
66
William Fleming's How to Study Shakespeare, a guide to eight of the
plays, appeared in 1899 and included many of the things that single-play series
such as the Signet, Penguin, and Folger editions do now. Fleming's books
offered guides to pronunciation of character names, extensive glossaries,
Shakespeare's sources for the plays, and further suggested reading. But one
need look no further than the very beginning of the glossary for Hamlet to see
differences in the idea of what might have troubled an average reader a century
ago. " Much thanks" and "bitter cold" are followed by notes indicating that
Shakespeare freely used adjectives in unusual ways, sometimes as adverbs, a
note that would probably be unnecessary (if not confusing) to the average
American student now reading this wicked awesome play.
67
Frey, "Teaching Shakespeare in America," 548.
68
Rozett, "First Readers as Moralists," 216-7. Kittredge's was a year-long
course, but even cut in half, the three plays a semester his students would have
read are not all that far from the five that Rozett's read.
SHAKESPEARE 19
has been misrecognized as fundamentally Shakespearean.
69
Zeffirelli's 1990 film of Hamlet thus almost had to feature Mel
Gibson's Hamlet in a highly eroticized relationship with Glenn Close's
Gertrude, reinforcing for another generation the notion that
Hamlet's sexuality is central to the play.
I want to conclude by re-opening a question I rather
foreclosed in my discussion of American cultural uses of
Shakespeare circa 1900, and that is the possibility of anything that
might today be genuinely called highbrow. Since the notion of the
highbrow has always had much to do with the audiences it is
intended to isolate, it is, for many people, rather easy to locate
highbrow Shakespeare in the academy where, to many both outside
and inside the halls of ivy, contemporary Shakespeare criticism is
cause for derision, despair, or dismissal. Whether losers, (Richard
Burt's termf
0
"resenters" and "gender-and-power freaks," (Harold
Bloom's wordsf
1
or bellwethers of the time, the scholars to whom
these and other writers refer are producing difficult texts for
specialized audiences, unquestionably highbrow, even when their
topic is Shakespeare in popular culture.
Susan Bennett, a key player in the contemporary critical
arena, takes in stride that the "academy might be obviously reeling
from the effects of the epistemological shift attributed to theory"
69
Certainly among stage Hamlets, John Barrymore started the tradition in
the United States in 1922. Regarding modern psychology in Barrymore's
production see Michael A. Morrison, John Barrymore Shakespearean Actor, 223-
224. James R. Simmons notes that for many viewers " Olivier's Hamlet became
Shakespeare's Hamlet, one and the same and inseparable," adding that, while
Olivier made a particular choice about the character owing to the influence of
Freud and Jones, later interpreters took Olivier's film as seminal. (Simmons,
'" In the Rank Sweat of an Enseamed Bed: ' Sexual Aberration and the
Paradigmatic Screen Hamlets," 111-117).
70
Richard Burt talks about the "loser," a " highly self-conscious, paradoxical
figure whose practices deconstruct oppositions between the creative and ( self)-
destructive .. . narcissistic and self-hating, elitist and democratic" (Unspeakable
17).
71
Harold Bloom rail s against what he calls "French Shakespeare," (9)
calling its practitioners " professional resenters" (10). Ironically, since Foucault
heads any list of French critical anti-Christs, it is amusing to consider the
attacks leveled by Robert Storey at "that ass Foucault." In what Storey
considers the quintessence of idiocy, Foucault claims that " man is only a recent
invention, a figure not yet two centuries old." The dates differ, but the claim
that man is a modern invention puts Foucault and Bloom in precisely the same
camp, albeit supporting different contenders. See Robert Storey, Mimesis and
the Human Animal: On the Biogenetic Foundations of Literary Representation
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 59.
20 CHANKSY
but goes on to decry the lack of an analogous paradigm shift in
theatrical practice.
72
Among the most widely-publicized reworkings
of Shakespearean texts in productions by avant-garde directors
have been those that draw on "a variety of theatrical and cultural
forms ... [that] range from Meyerhold's biomechanics to Japanese
cinema .. .Japanese iconography, and Chinese ritual forms."
73
While
for Bennett these productions do not go far enough beyond
gratuitous exoticism and are often hampered by actor training that
(re)produces realism and its discontents, they are, nonetheless,
productions generally intended for dedicated consumers of
highbrow culture. In New York, for example, such productions
would be seen in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the
Joseph Papp Public Theatre, or, if small enough, conceivably at a
venue like Ellen Stewart's Cafe LaMama. They need not ever
trouble the teacher using video clips of recent Shakespeare
productions on film to generate teenage interest. Their target
audience is, for better or for worse, unabashedly highbrow. And
this audience's link with its educated analogue a century ago may
be that the very multiculturalist approach is a form of neo-
colonialism, defined by Una Chaudhuri as a "collusion with cultural
imperialism in which the West helps itself to the forms and images
of others without taking the full measure of the cultural fabric from
which these are torn."
74
Examples of such productions, which often fragment the
texts in order to create new works, include Robert Lepage's 1997
Elsinore. Elsinore featured a single actor playing all the roles and
speaking all the lines, "subjugating them to his own radical selection
and rearrangement" and thereby "contain[ing] all the language and
all the roles, artistic as well as dramatic, within one (male) body,
one voice, one performance,"
75
aided by a body double and
72
Susan Bennett, Performing Nostalgia, 39.
73
Richard Paul Knowles, "From Dream to Machine: Peter Brook, Robert
Lepage, and the Contemporary Shakespearean Director as (Post)Modernist," in
Theater Journal, 50 (1998): 194.
74
Una Chaudhuri quoted in Knowles, 198. William Sonnega writes of
multicultural performance projects that are "marked by the appropriation of
exponents of cultural otherness as a means of evoking 'atmosphere,' or as
Mead Hunter puts it, 'overfamiliar suppositions about unfamiliar cultures." In
the context of MTV videos, the ' "culture is a borderless Disneyland of
simulations" functioning "not as a contestation of the normative patterns that
maintain cultural boundaries, but as an escape from them." (Sonnega,
"Morphing Borders: the Remanence of MTV" in The Drama Review, 39 (Spring
1995): 57, 55.)
75
Knowles, 202.
SHAKESPEARE 21
embedded in what Michael Feingold called "enough technology, if
proportionately applied, to repair the damage to Assissi and
Acapulco combined."
76
Richard Schechner's production of Hamlet,
which ran at New York's Performing Garage in June 1999, was
preceded by publicity announcing "new and dynamic dimensions
when Marilyn Monroe and other pop icons makes appearances with
ballroom dancing, old Norse acapella singing, farce and tragedy."
77
Schechner promised the soliloquies spoken both by and to Hamlet;
a Polonius who wears bathrobes all the time; a Claudius resembling
Guy Lombardo; a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who are literally
rats costumed with long tails and directed to sniff around and eat all
the time; a forty-something Ophelia "locked in an unconsummated
incestuous affair with her father" and agreeing to play pre-
pubescent to please him; and a Hamlet "as corrupt as the rest of
the gang, only he sees it" and played by an African American actor
whose blackness is intended to "mark" him, and who wears
costumes as he takes on different social roles.
78
While critics mostly
characterized the production as one of "diminished poetry and
interpretive silliness"
79
in which "Mr. Schechner falls in love with his
own conceits, which serve his obscure aims rather than the
play's,'tBO they failed to comment on the Horatio who was they. The
hero's scholar-companion spent the play referring to an unending
stack of annotated and critical texts of and about Hamlet, perhaps
best embodying an intellectual world in which citationality has
replaced "truth" as the desideratum in respectable interpretation.
76
Michael Feingold, "Textual Fantasies," Village Voice, 21 October 1997.
For Feingold the production was pretentious, lacking in either substance for the
unschooled or illumination for the already informed. For James Oseland it was
"hypnotic ... truly a Hamlet for the queer age," and his review was headlined
"21st Century Hamlet "(James Oseland, "21st Century Hamlet," in the
Advocate, 14 October 1997).
77
Diana Taylor, fund raising letter dated 2 November 1998. The letter is on
East Coast Artists letterhead, but the company's mailing address, email address,
and the return address on the envelope all belong to New York University,
further forcing the connection between the academy, the highbrow, elitism, and
funding.
78
Richard Schechner, personal correspondence with the author, 22 March
1999.
79
Charles McNulty, "Dane's Addiction," The Village Voice, 22 June 1999.
80
Peter Marks, "In This Play, to Be or Not to Be Is the Easy Question," New
York Times, 18 June 1999.
22 CHANKSY
(As scholars we like to forget that, while stealing from one source is
denounced as plagiarism, stealing from many is praised as
research.)
As the century turned, Andrei Serban's Hamlet was running
at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre in Manhattan. Rife with
citations, including at one point a parade of posters from past
productions of Hamlet, this version was dealt the unkindest
criticaljcitational cut of all: Ben Brantley embarrassed its highbrow
aspirations altogether in his quip that "the overall effect of the
production is of a postmodern Cliff Notes, with ideas and metaphors
given a cartoonish physicality that borrows randomly from assorted
cultures and time periods."
81
Richard Paul Knowles questions whether postmodernist
"multiplicities" in productions of Shakespeare's plays are actually
anything more than a "shift from complicity with the ideologies of
industrial capital and the nation state to complicity with the
ideologies and technologies of late-capitalist, multinational
globalization and its assaults on cultural diversity in a post-national
world," in other words, whether they are really very transgressive at
all, but not whether they are successfully highbrow. Baz Kershaw,
analyzing the "politics of performance" in theatre reminds us that
even "[p]erformances with a[n] ... overtly serious purpose" seek
obviously to alter but also often to "confirm their audiences' ideas
and attitudes, and through that to affect their future actions."
82
Such future actions cannot exclude continuing to patronize venues
that promise the "new and dynamic" or "important work by artists
trying new or extended approaches'
183
and that assure ticket buyers
the company of fellow highbrows via everything from the price of
admission to scheduled performance times, advertising venues, and
choice of foods served in the lobby as well as the amount of money
charged for the comestibles.
84
Such productions also offer a
81
Ben Brantley, "Odd Things in Heaven and Earth Are Dreamed of in the
Latest 'Hamlet," New York Times, 20 December 1999.
82
Baz Kershaw, The Politics of Performance (London: Routledge, 1992), 2.
83
Brooklyn Academy of Music press release, 1997 Next Wave Festival.
84
Iris Smith delineates a "largely white, established American avant-garde.
Economically dominated in relation to its (white) relatives in regional and
Broadway theatres, it has nevertheless gained symbolic dominance in the
postindustrial world." This dominance may make this avant-garde, as Smith
notes, "an oxymoron .. [since] the artist cannot be avant-garde when the public
refuses to be shocked by what s/he produces." I use these observations to
underscore my idea of the highbrow as a kind of separatist, since
postindustrialism, dominance, and even predictability characterize the privileged
world of a particular public ('The 'Intercultural' Work of Lee Breuer," Theatre
Topics, vol. 7 no. 1 [March 1997]: 39, 37).
SHAKESPEARE 23
highbrow audience the double status enhancement of knowing
about the latest interpretation of Shakespeare while also knowing
better than its conceits, thereby, as I suggested in my introduction,
shoring up a certain status quo while giving lip service to an idea of
radical interpretation.
Whether Shakespeare, Shakespeare's plays, Shakespeare's
language, or Shakespeare's proliferation in the form of spoofs,
knockoffs, and misquotings are symptoms of the outsized genius
Harold Bloom extols or the oversold phenomenon kept in circulation
and on life support by a kind of cultural welfare that Gary Taylor
has suggested, he/it is here to stay.
85
Whichever opinion one
adopts, a doppelganger and its proponents will raise their heads
and mobilize their productions and publications in protest. Probably
the only safe position to take is that every position is a good
position-so long as thinking makes it so.
85
Also on the boards in New York as 1999 became Y2K was Bomb-itty of
Errors, a hip hop "add-rap-tation" of The Comedy of Errors. Noting in his
review that "here the story matters almost not at all," Bruce Weber slyly
informs readers that "those without Shakespearean background enough to
know that the source material is "The Comedy of Errors" can still enjoy this;
indeed, they might be the ideal audience" (New York Times, 21 December
1999). The creators of the piece, students in New York University's prestigious
drama program, cleverly maintained just enough ties to conservative cultural
capital for initial credibility, while creating something sufficiently new that entry
requirements do not really include even a "spurious first knowledge" of
Shakespeare's play.
Journal of American Drama and Tlleatre 13 (Fall 2001)
A LESSON BEFORE DYING:
A MODERN EXISTENTIAL TRAGEDY
JOHN FLEMING
When Ernest J. Gaines's novel A Lesson Before Dying
(1993) was published, Romulus Linney read the work and was
struck by the way in which it "was built like a play by Sophocles."
1
With Gaines's permission Linney was commissioned by the Alabama
Shakespeare Festival to create a stage version of A Lesson Before
Dying (2000); the resulting play is a rarity, a modern tragedy, a
work which shows the human transcendence of an inevitable
calamity. While neither Gaines, Linney, nor any of the characters
expressly discuss the ideology of existentialism, one way of
understanding the play's tragic dimensions is through the
application of existential principles. Ultimately, the protagonist's
transcendence is achieved through his embrace of the tenets of
existential philosophy.
Gaines's novel won the National Book Critics Circle Award
for Fiction and was made into an Emmy award-winning film by HBO
Pictures (1999). The story is set in rural Louisiana i.n 1948, and it
revolves around a poor, uneducated black man wrongfully convicted
of murder. The novel also plumbs the inner thoughts and conflicts of
a local school teacher who longs to flee the South and who narrates
the action. In adapting the novel Linney telescoped the action,
combined characters, and emphasized character interaction. He
comments: "I tried to make the play as terse and as concentrated
as possible and cut out everything I possibly could. At the same
time I wanted to stick as close as possible to what Ernest wrote."
2
1
Romulus Linney, introduction, A Lesson Before Dying. In 9 Adaptations
for the American Stage (Hanover, NH: Smith and Kraus, 2000), 326. All
subsequent references to the play are taken from this edition, with page
numbers noted parenthetically in the text.
2
Romulus Linney, personal interview, 13 June 2001.
LESSON 25
The spine of the play is the transactional relationship
between Jefferson, the young man condemned to die, and Grant,
the disillusioned school teacher. At the urging of Jefferson's Nannan
(i.e., his godmother), Grant reluctantly accepts the task of teaching
the young man to die with dignity. On the sociological level, the
story serves as an indictment of the corrupt legal system of the
segregated South. However, beyond the racial injustice of an
innocent black man condemned to death, Gaines invests his story
with a much deeper philosophical, even metaphysical, dimension. In
many ways, the heart of the story is not the fact of the injustice, but
rather how one chooses to deal with it. Furthermore, in compressing
the novel's scope, Linney emphasizes Grant's interactions with
Jefferson. In the process Jefferson plays, proportionally, a much
larger role in the proceedings of the action which serves to heighten
his spiritual and emotional transformation.
3
By emphasizing
Jefferson's situation the play probes the existential issues of death,
freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness.
Existentialism and Transcendence
Existentialism is difficult to define. Few philosophers
formally identify themselves as existentialists, and even two
philosophers labeled "existential" may have fundamental
disagreements on major issues.
4
However, one idea that tends to
undergird existentialism is the statement that "existence precedes
essence." For an atheistic existentialist such as Sartre this
3
The novel's scope includes the effect of Jefferson's situation on the
community and thus probes many more events and characters. The play's more
compressed action is driven by Grant's seven jailhouse visits with Jefferson.
Bruce Weber notes: "Onstage, a crisis that Is solely internal inhibits drama- a
character in conflict needs resistance to be expressed-and both the playwright
and the director have pushed the secondary characters to higher levels of will
and articulation .... Jefferson, in particular, is nearly silent in the novel but
becomes, very quickly, an engaged persona onstage" ("Last-Minute Wisdom for
a Condemned Man," New York Times, 19 September 2000). Jefferson's
increased presence is seen by his being on stage almost half the time.
4
For example, Kierkegaard (the spiritual father of existentialism) and
Sartre (the man who defined it for a post-World War II generation) had
antithetical views on theism. Kierkegaard used his philosophy to expound and
defend what he took to be the true nature of Christianity. Sartre's atheism was
fundamental to his existential philosophy. For the record, Jaspers, Marcel and
Kierkegaard were theistic; Sartre and Camus (the latter did not like to be called
an existentialist) were atheistic. Heidegger's philosophical world view did not
include God, but he denied that he was therefore an atheist. Heidegger has also
attracted controversy for his involvement with the Nazis.
26 FLEMING
statement includes the argument that a person does not have a
fundamental spirit or soul that precedes birth or post-dates death,
but rather all one has is life itself. Even for theistic existentialists,
this statement carries the idea that one defines oneself and life's
meaning through one's choices and actions.
Some of the philosophers associated with existentialism
include S0ren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Jean-
Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Gabriel Marcel. Their work
influenced psychotherapists such as Ludwig Binswanger, Medard
Boss, Viktor Frankl, and Irvin Yalom. It is Yalom's book Existential
Psychotherapy that I shall use as the framework for elucidating
existentialism and how it informs the transformation and
transcendence of Jefferson in A Lesson Before Dying.
Yalom defines the field of existential psychotherapy by
highlighting four fundamental concerns, anxieties, or conflicts with
the nature of human existence; these conflicts are related to death,
freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness.
5
The first concern involves
anxiety surrounding death, and it derives from an awareness of the
inevitability of death countered by the desire to continue to exist. A
central fact of human life is the knowledge that one day it shall end,
and the longer you live, the closer you move towards death.
A second concern is freedom. Traditionally, freedom has a
positive connotation, but Jean-Paul Sartre's dictum, "Man is
condemned to be free," suggests that the existential perspective of
freedom carries a sense of dread. Existentialists argue that there is
no ultimate structure or grounding, that there are no transcendental
truths, that all one has is existence itself. Yalom writes: ''The
individual is entirely responsible for-that is, is the author of-his or
her own world, life design, choices, and actions" (9). The desire for
order and structure conflicts with the knowledge that one has
nothing to fall back upon but one's self. The dichotomy creates
anxiety.
A third concern is existential isolation. This is more than
loneliness, more than interpersonal and/or intrapersonal isolation. It
is a fundamental isolation. It is an argument that no matter how
close one comes to another person, one enters and exits the world
alone. Yalom writes: ''The existential conflict is thus the tension
between our awareness of our absolute isolation and our wish for
contact, for protection, our wish to be part of a larger whole" (9).
The fourth concern is meaninglessness. "If we must die, if
we constitute our own world, if each of us is ultimately alone in an
5
Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy(New York: Basic Books, 1980),
8-9.
LESSON 27
indifferent universe, then what meaning does life have?" (9). Albert
Camus argued that the feeling of meaninglessness stemmed from
the gap between the inborn desire for clarity and order and the
irrationality and chaos of the world. One seeks meaning, but life has
no meaning beyond what one gives it.
From an existential perspective these four issues-death,
freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness-form the central conflicts
of life, the central conflicts of being. While there is a tendency to
see existentialism as a negative world view, reading the work of an
existentialist such as Camus all the way through, one sees that he
moves from a position of nihilism to a belief that humans can give
life meaning through their choices and actions. Yalom effectively
argues that Camus ultimately adopted a system of personal
meaning that embraced the values of "courage, prideful rebellion,
fraternal solidarity, love, and secular saintliness" ( 428). Notably, an
arc from nihilism to humanitarian values mirrors the transformation
that the character Jefferson undergoes.
When Linney's compressed stage version of A Lesson Before
Dying begins, Jefferson is understandably in a state of despair. His
first words are "Don't matter .... Nothing don't matter" (335). The
only thing he wants to know is "when they go'n do it?" (335) . The
knowledge and anxiety of his own impending death stares him in
the face, and so Jefferson sees no logical reason to care about
anyone or anything.
Commenting on the novel, Gaines says: "We all know-at
least intellectually-that we're going to die. The difference is being
told, 'Okay, it's tomorrow at 10 a.m.' How do you react to that?
How do you face it? That, it seems to me, is the ultimate test of
life."
6
Being on death row, Jefferson is placed in this position. Unlike
most people, he knows when his death will be, and in many ways
his life will be defined by how he responds between now and the
date of his execution. Furthermore, the corrupt racial politics of the
era parallel the existential idea that there is no larger system of
justice on which to rely. Since Jefferson is innocent, his death is all
the more meaningless.
There is an added indignity with which Jefferson must cope.
In a misguided attempt to spare Jefferson's life, his white attorney
had equated the prisoner with a hog. Mired in meaninglessness,
Jefferson has embraced the imposed identity of a hog, and vows
that "Like a hog, they can drag me to that cher! I ain't walking!"
(343). It's his own form of rebellion, and it results in a deceptively
6
Random House. "About the Author."
www. randomhouse.com/vintage/ gaines/ bio.html
28 FLEMING
simple major dramatic question: When he's executed, will he walk
like a man or be dragged like an animal? From a pragmatic point of
view what does it matter whether he walks or is dragged; either
way he will die. Philosophically, however, it makes all the difference.
According to Yalom, Camus believed that "a human being can attain
full stature only by living with dignity in the face of absurdity" ( 427).
Nothing could be more absurd than Jefferson's death; nothing could
be more meaningful than walking to that chair with his head held
high, carrying out the true rebellion of refusing to let the dominant
white society define him as an animal.
Being on death row, Jefferson is in what Karl Jaspers calls a
"boundary-situation," an extreme situation where one confronts
despair, anxiety, and death. Notably, it is in these boundary
situations, "in these moments of awareness [that] we realize our
own responsibility for what we are, and the reality of freedom of
choice is thrust upon us."
7
Although on the surface Jefferson's
situation may suggest that death anxiety is his primary concern, in
actuality his more fundamental existential conflicts revolve around
freedom and meaninglessness.
Throughout the first act Jefferson chooses to see himself as
a hog, and he refuses to care about anyone or anything. Grant's
girlfriend, Vivian, aptly notes: "He takes refuge in hating us and
himself'' (349). In his nihilistic despair Jefferson wastes the life he
has left. One of his problems is that he is mired in himself,
consumed by his own bleak situation. However, one of
existentialism's paradoxes is that while one is the author of one's
own life, one overcomes meaninglessness through awareness of
others. The process of self-transcendence starts with self-
exploration but one ultimately transcends self-interest and strives
towards something or someone outside or "above" oneself.
8
This is
the process that Jefferson will go through in the second half of the
play.
The first crack in Jefferson's wall of cynicism occurs at the
very end of act one. Grant gives him a radio. In performance it is a
surprisingly poignant moment, as Jefferson cradles the radio
7
Alasdair Macintyre, "Existentialism," in Paul Edwards, ed., The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Volume III(New York: Macmillan, 1967, reprinted
1972), 152.
8
Yalom, 439.
LESSON
29
lovingly, his head tilted, his eyes transfixed.
9
Clearly he has never
owned a radio before. This gift, from the hard-earned money of
fellow African Americans who sympathize with his plight, touches
him. The music and the voices on the radio remind him of the world
at large and offer a semi-connection to humanity. In turn, Jefferson,
for the first time, seeks Grant's company, asking him to return.
In the second act the kindness and compassion of others
leads Jefferson to see beyond his own self. One of the key moments
is Vivian's visit. She is also a school teacher, and in many ways she
is the life force of the play. Vivian is the one who refuses to let
Grant quit. She is the one who stresses that they can not give in to
bitterness and contempt. She is the one who emphasizes their duty
to the African-American community. Her line "We have to be
responsible for what we do" (339) sums up the existential
imperative. Her life has meaning because of what she gives to
others.
In her brief visit with Jefferson she compliments him and
lets him know that people care about him. Before leaving, she
embraces him. In response to this first moment of genuine human
contact, his hand-cuffed hand gently cups the small of her back.
The touch transforms him, the expression of honest emotion gives
him a new degree of confidence.
The ensuing conversation between Grant and Jefferson
hinges on how existentialism can fill the gap for the non-religious.
Agnostic or atheistic, Grant admits to being spiritually lost, to having
no answers to Jefferson's theological questions. Grant cannot
provide the traditional comforts of religion, but in the absence of
religious signification, Grant urges Jefferson to do things for the
sake of his Nannan. Grant has promised not to discourage religion,
and he even asks Jefferson to pray, but only because Nannan would
like that. Likewise, Grant urges him to "walk like a man" (364) to
the chair because that is what Nannan wants. The significance is
that existentialists such as Yalom see altruism as one of the secular
activities that give life a sense of purpose. Meaning comes from
doing for others.
9
My references to performance are based on a viewing of the Alabama
Shakespeare Festival's premiere production (January-February 2000). The
subsequent New York production (September-October 2000) by the Signature
Theatre Company was done in association with ASF; it featured the same
director (Kent Thompson) and the same actors in the roles of Jefferson (Jamahl
Marsh), Grant (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), Paul (Aaron Harpold), and Sheriff Guidry
(Stephen Bradbury). Both productions used the same costume and sound
designers (Alvin B. Perry and Don Tindall).
30 FLEMING
The scene also involves Jefferson coming to the existential
realization that only he himself can ascertain his life's meaning; he
has the freedom to choose how he faces the situation. He says: "I'm
the one got to figure it out. ... I got to understand what I'm to do
here. I thought I did. Just be what the white man said. Let them
drag the hog to the cher, damned if I'll walk for them. And I still
don't know what I'm go'n do! Walk or get dragged! Because-either
way-" (364-66). Like the post-World War II existentialists,
Jefferson begins to question the dominant social institutions and the
received ideology. Jefferson realizes that he must instead turn
inward for the answers.
In his final meetings with Grant, Jefferson learns that he
must accept himself and that it is okay not to understand about
God. He also continues to be transformed by human contact, as a
steady stream of people from the community come to visit him.
10
Another important change occurs when Grant asks Jefferson to keep
a journal; he starts to record an account of his last days of life. He
becomes fully aware of all he sees and does, documenting even the
simple observation that outside his jail cell window there is "a tree.
Birds. Some sky" (368). The significance of what he records is
expressed by the philosopher Martin Heidegger.
In Being and Time (1926), Heidegger explored one of the
paradoxical claims of existentialism: "Although the physicality of
death destroys man, the idea of death saves him."
11
For Heidegger
there are two fundamental modes of existing in the world. The first
is a state of "forgetfulness of being." This is the typical everyday
mode where one is concerned about the way things are. However,
the second mode is the higher mode and is called a state of
"mindfulness of being." Here one marvels not about the way things
are but thatthey are. To exist in this mode means to be continually
aware of being, including the responsibility of one's own being. This
is the state Jefferson reaches during his last days.
While Jefferson is in this mindfulness of being, Grant asks
him to look deep inside himself and record what he feels. Notably
Jefferson's thoughts turn towards others. He says: "Well. Last time I
see Nannan, how old she look, how tired. Thought about her. Said I
loves her .. . . I let her hold me as long as she want" (369). He also
expresses his appreciation of Grant's efforts and says that for the
first time in his life he feels like "somebody." Notably, he comes to
his sense of self by focusing on others. In other words, Jefferson
10
The novel and the film deal with these events more directly; the play
version relies on the information being relayed retrospectively.
11
Yalom, 30.
LESSON
31
goes through the process of self-transcendence, focusing more on
others than himself. His finding of selfhood is a by-product of his
awareness of others.
The other half of the transactional relationship is Grant.
At the start of the play he is near the nadir of his life, with
seemingly everything and everyone against him. The school where
he teaches is severely underfunded and he believes the children
have no interest in learning. He is bitter and wants to leave, but he
is held to the area by his girlfriend who is getting out of a marriage
and who insists that their duty is to stay and teach. Now he has
been given this almost impossible task-to teach a wronged man
who has had a very difficult life to die with dignity. In the process
he is forced to deal with a sheriff who demeans him, who insults
him by insisting on adherence to the racial codes of the segregated
south. He must also face the wrath and jealousy of a minister who
wishes he had been chosen to counsel Jefferson and who thinks
that Grant is doing more harm than good for Jefferson. Most of all
there is Jefferson himself, the haunting specter of hopelessness and
despair, a man who has every right to be angry and bitter.
Throughout the play Grant's dilemma has been: If I can't
face my own life, how can I possibly provide knowledge or comfort
to an innocent man facing execution? In the final visit before the
execution, Grant sums up his situation while also appealing to
Jefferson:
Jefferson, do you know what a hero is? That is a
man who does something for other people.
Something other men can't do. I'm not a hero.
Never will be. I want to run away. That is not a
hero. A hero does for others. Like for your Nannan.
Like for the children in the school. A hero would do
anything for the people he loves, to make their lives
better. And a black hero has to face white people.
Not all of them hate us, but a lot of them do. They
think we are animals with no dignity, no heart, no
love for other people. The last thing they want to
see in a black man is the same good things that are
in all men and all women.
Jefferson, we need you, more than you need us. I
am a man who doesn't know what to do. I need a
hero to tell me what to do, and what kind of man to
be. I need you, to teach me that. You can do that,
for all of us, me, your Nannan, even Reverend
32
Ambrose. You can be bigger and better than any
man you or I have ever met. (372)
FLEMING
Grant puts a heavy burden on Jefferson, and since Grant does not
offer the traditional comfort of religion, Jefferson realizes: "I got to
do everything" (373). All he has left is existential self-reliance and
Grant's faith that he can do it. Over the course of their meetings,
student has been transformed into teacher, and in the absence of
religious faith Grant declares: "No [I don't believe in God like
Reverend Ambrose]. But you have made me think maybe something
makes people care about other people. I do believe that, now"
(373). Jefferson has also convinced Grant to stay and teach. Instead
of running from his destiny, Grant has faced himself and become a
man; he has accepted his duty and responsibility to stay and help
the members of his community.
Likewise, Jefferson accepts his fate, the fact that he is to be
executed. Once again signification lies in the response to the act. In
a poignant scene the white deputy goes to Grant's school to report
the news. He proudly states that Jefferson was the bravest person
in the room, and he repeats Jefferson's last words: ''Tell Nannan I
walked" (374). The seemingly simple statement carries surprising
emotional weight as it defines the courage and dignity of a man
embracing his worth as an individual and accepting his mortality as
a human.
While that is the scene which ends the novel, Linney
expertly adds a coda.
12
Grant has been given Jefferson's diary and
as he opens the journal, Jefferson enters the upper stage. In
separate spotlights, as if speaking from beyond the grave, Jefferson
reveals part of what he has written. The theatrical coup of
Jefferson's return suggests the transcendent power of the journey
he has made. His closing words, ''Tell them I'm strong. Tell them
I'm a man" (376) are his assertion of his freedom to choose to
triumph over his oppression. He has developed the inner strength,
sense of personal worth, and firm identity that are necessary to
overcome existential isolation.
13
12
Jefferson's journal is one of the most powerful aspects of the novel; it
appears in full (nine pages) as the third last chapter. Linney decided that he
could dramatize a couple of the events discussed, but that he "could not have
parts of the journal read" (Interview). The one exception is Jefferson's short
recitation (reprinted in full in note 20) in the coda. Its placement compensates
for its brevity, insuring that its force lingers with the audience.
13
Yalom, 373.
lESSON 33
Tragic Form and Vision
This sense of transcendence, of the human spirit rising
above physical disaster and affirming the value of human life and
struggle even as that life is taken, is what makes the play, in this
author's opinion, a modern tragedy. Many philosophers, theorists,
and scholars have written about tragedy, and as with existentialism,
there is no one unambiguous definition. Indeed, philosophers often
find in tragedy that which affirms their own philosophy, even
arriving at antithetical theories of tragedy's significance.
14
likewise,
any definitive theory of tragedy is likely to value plays differently
and to shortchange certain tragedians, each of whom had a distinct
view of life.
15
That said, applying some concepts generally seen as
exemplifying tragedy, both structurally as well as in terms of vision
or spirit, helps illuminate how A Lesson Before Dying succeeds in
achieving its powerful emotional impact.
In Tragedy: Vision and Form, Robert Corrigan warns against
the "formalistic fallacy in the study of dramatic genres."
16
While he
is right to be wary of limiting our understanding of tragedy to
certain formal or structural characteristics, most discussions of
tragedy include at least some engagement with Aristotle's
terminology. In particular, I want to examine the formal elements
which comprise the notion of what constitutes a tragic hero.
Aristotle's idea of peripeteia, or change of fortune (from
good to bad), is clearly in effect as Jefferson has gone from being a
free man to being executed.
17
The reason for Jefferson's situation is
14
For example, while Hegel sees tragedy as an expression of eternal
justice in a rational universe, Schopenhauer sees tragedy as exhibiting eternal
str ife in an evil, irrational universe.
15
The obvious examples are Aristotle's cathartic theory supporting Oedipus
Rex as the exemplar of tragedy and Hegel's conflict theory championing
Antigone as the epitome of tragedy. In both cases their theories are less
effective in elucidating other canonical tragedies.
16
Robert W. Corrigan, Tragedy: Vision and Form (New York: Harper &
Row, 1981), 8.
17
In Tragedy(London: Methuen & Co, 1969), Clifford Leech discusses
different interpretations of peripeteia. While there is general agreement that a
change of fortune is basic to tragedy, some argue that the change must occur
within the play itself. The play version of Lesson begins after the trial, with
Jefferson already in jaili nonetheless, he experiences the fundamental change
from life to death. On the other hand, scholars such Johannes Vahlen (1866)
and Walter Lock (1895) argue that peripeteia has a more specific meaning, that
it occurs when "a man's actions . .. are found to have consequences the direct
opposite of what the agent meant or expected" (quoted in Leech, 61). Similarly,
34
FLEMING
not simply a racist society but rather hamartia, a tragic
miscalculation or error in judgment. Jefferson was on his way to
meet a friend when two acquaintances offered him a ride. These
two men stopped at a store to buy some alcohol. When the owner
refused to give them credit, a gunfight ensued, killing the two black
men as well as the white owner. Jefferson was an innocent
bystander, but in the aftermath, not knowing how to use a
telephone and not knowing what to do, he panicked. He drank half
a bottle of alcohol, grabbed some money from the cash register,
and was discovered by a few white men who walked in on the crime
scene.
18
Compounding his error, Jefferson never testifies to the fact
that the white owner shot first. While Jefferson is not completely
innocent, his major crime was being in the wrong place at the
wrong time, and his ensuing punishment far exceeds his actual
deeds. Admittedly, a tragic hero's hamartia is often done while
trying to achieve something more significant than being diverted
from meeting a friend. On the other hand, it is important that he
contribute to the process of events that leads to his own disaster;
his downfall did not result from melodramatic chance or simply a
villainous society, but rather from his own actions. While he does
not deserve the fate he has been given, he is not completely
innocent. While his hamartia is not at the same level as that of
traditional tragic heroes, Clifford Leech aptly argues: "It does not
matter whether [the tragic hero has] been 'great' before" (65).
Instead, the measure of the man rises up in the cauldron of crisis.
Leech's book Tragedy offers an instructive look at how a
person from the bottom of society can rise to the status of a tragic
hero. Leech emphasizes anagnorisis, a change from ignorance to
knowledge, as the heart of tragedy and the tragic hero: "We may
go so far as to claim that [anagnorisis]-not catharsis as an ultimate
effect, not hamartia-comes as near as we can get to the essence
of tragedy" (64). Unlike Willy Loman, Jefferson experiences
anagnorisis as his self-knowledge has greatly increased from
beginning to end. By the time he courageously faces his execution
he possesses a "special virtue and dignity" ( 40) as well as a
"sharpness of revelation" that allows him to reach "a point we
Humphry House (1956) argues that it occurs when one is "hoist with his own
petard, falling into the pit that one has dug for someone else" (quoted in Leech,
62). Jefferson's actions do not fit this latter meaning, but neither do the actions
of figures such as Macbeth or Hamlet.
18
Since there is some evidence against Jefferson, the white members of
the society who convicted him fulfill the idea that often in tragedy the
opposition can, in some measure, claim right on their side.
LESSON 35
cannot imagine ourselves surpassing" (39). For Leech, awareness of
impending death is "the supreme anagnorisis. It is what tragedy is
ultimately about: the realization of the unthinkable" (65). He
proceeds to write:
Tragedy is about 'suffering' (pathos) leading to
anagnorisis. . . . The 'suffering' presented in
tragedy is an image of something we intellectually
know is in store for ourselves but cannot in
imagination properly anticipate .... When a writer
shows us a man saying 'This is the end, this is how
it feels, this is how life feels in relation to it', there
we have the basic material of tragedy. (67-68i
9
Jefferson's deathrow realization of truly seeing the bluebird and the
blue sky, his commitment to stand tall for his Nannan, and his
desire to inspire Grant's students are a testament to his self-
enlightenment in the face of death.
From the preceding, it should be clear that I think Arthur
Miller missed the mark when he focused on social class, as opposed
to anagnorisis, as the pivotal point of debate in arguing for the
common man's ability to fill the role of tragic hero. In Poetics,
Aristotle's use of "noble" is ambiguous; Books II and XIII use the
word in the sense of the moral make-up of the hero, while another
section of Book XIII uses noble in the sense of social rank. In my
opinion, the moral qualities of the hero seem more important.
Traditionally, one of the reasons given for having the hero
come from the ranks of nobility is that the person's actions affect a
large number of people. Notably, Jefferson's status in the
community is more complex than it appears. Though Jefferson is far
from "highly renowned and prosperous" (Book XIII),
20
the close-knit
nature of the African-American community in the rural Louisiana
parish results in his actions having a much larger impact than one
might think. It is not a death that will go unnoticed. The town he
19
Linney intended Jefferson's re-emergence at the end to be a "re-
enactment of what was on his mind just before he went into the electric
chair"(Interview). The coda's full text is: "I don't know if you'll be able to read
this, Mr. Wiggins. I can hear my heart beat and my hands shake. But I see the
sun coming up in the morning. There is a bird in the sycamore tree. A blubird.
I'm writing it down. Sky, tree, blubird. Mr. Wiggins. Tell them I'm strong. Tell
them I'm a man. Sincerely. Jefferson" (376).
20
Aristotle. Poetics. translated by S.H. Butcher. Reprinted in Bernard
Dukore, ed. Dramatic Theory and Criticism (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, 1967), 31-55.
36
FLEMING
lives in has 6,000 people, split almost evenly between whites and
blacks. During his last days countless people from the community,
including all of Grant's students, come to visit him, and on the day
of his execution, "no colored people are working in town" and "none
on the plantation, either" (370-71). They suspend their lives to
commemorate his death, and his courage will serve as a source of
inspiration. In some ways, Jefferson's social position actually adds to
his tragic stature. He not only transcends a death sentence, he also
triumphs over a "life sentence," the inferior identity imposed upon
him by the social environment of the segregated, rural South.
Jefferson's influence even ripples into the white community.
The deputy, Paul, tells Grant: "I will never forget this day, or him, or
you. Tell the children he was the bravest man in the room. I'm his
witness" (375). Paul also agrees to come back to talk to the
students about Jefferson's courage thereby suggesting that
Jefferson's actions have opened the possibility of interracial
friendships among this next generation of leaders. Likewise,
Jefferson's influence lingers through his convincing Grant to stay
and teach. In terms of tragedy, the significance lies in Corrigan's
words: ''The affirmation of tragedy is that it celebrates a kind of
victory of man's spirit over his fate. He has made his fate his own! .
. . Death in some form usually triumphs, but heroism is born out of
the struggle, and its spirit lives on long after the corpse has been
interred" (12).
While I have argued that Jefferson adequately fulfills
Aristotle's conception of the tragic hero, Linney himself questions
whether the play fits Aristotle's criteria. However, he adds an
important proviso: "I couldn't care less if it does because what's
important is that Jefferson's story gives me that feeling that I get
when I have a sense of a terrible, inevitable event that a human
being transcends. To me the feeling that is evoked, more so than
any technical terminology, is what makes for a tragedy."
21
Linney is
referring to the other major way of defining a tragedy, what is often
called the tragic spirit or the tragic vision.
In ''The Tragic Fallacy", an essay arguing that a diminished
view of human life, worth, and nobility prevents tragedy from being
written anymore, Joseph Wood Krutch helped define the tragic
vision: ''Tragedy is essentially an expression, not of despair, but of
the triumph over despair and of confidence in the value of human
life. . . . We accept gladly the outward defeats which it describes
21
Romulus Linney, personal interview, 13 June 2001.
LESSON 37
for the sake of the inward victories which it reveals."
22
Jefferson's
transformation epitomizes the triumph of the human spirit over
physical calamity. His final words and actions embody Krutch's claim
that tragedy expresses a belief in "the greatness and importance of
man."
23
As Linney suggests, tragedy's power lies in its emotional
impact on an audience. In The Death of Tragedy George Steiner
offers one articulation of this spirit of tragedy: "Hence there is in the
final moments of great tragedy, ... a fusion of grief and joy, of
lament over the fall of man and in rejoicing in the resurrection of his
spirit."
24
In The Spirit of Tragedy Herbert Muller offers a fuller
explanation of tragedy's power:
Readers of tragedy will testify that they enjoy the
whole experience, that the pleasure seems to come
from fully realizing the emotion rather than getting
rid of it, and that at the end they feel not relief but
a positive exaltation .... Tragedy enriches our
experience by deepening, widening, refining, and
intensifying our consciousness of the possibilities of
life. . . . [Tragedy's peculiar pleasure is] the
paradox that an imitation of the most painful kind
of experience is made not only tolerable, but
uplifting.
25
Steiner and Muller capture the emotional dynamics of A Lesson
Before Dyings ending. The sorrow evoked by Jefferson's execution
is countered by the inspiration offered by his dignity.
26
In the face of
22
Joseph Wood Krutch, ''The Tragic Fallacy" (1929), reprinted in Bernard
Dukore, ed., Dramatic Theory and Criticism (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, 1967), 872-873.
23
Krutch, 871.
24
George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1961), 10.
25
Herbert J. Muller, The Spirit of Tragedy. (New York: Washington Square
Press, 1965), 16-17.
26
While Gaines's story is powerful, part of the play's impact comes from
Linney's choices. For example, the execution is handled in a theatrical manner.
In dim lighting an empty electric chair-a formidable, old oak chair-occupies
center stage. The noise of a generator builds in intensity. The light on the chair
and the noise of the generator increase, and when the sound hits its peak, a
bright flash of light hits the chair. Then there is only darkness and silence. This
38 FLEMING
death he reminds us of the sanctity of life, and he offers an example
of what is good and honorable in humanity.
While labeling a play a tragedy is an academic exercise that
does not alter the realities of the play, labels can affect perceptions
of plays. While labels are meant to be descriptive of genre, they can
also carry connotations of value. This labeling process, in a negative
way, happened to A Lesson Before Dying. When the play opened at
the Alabama Shakespeare Festival the local rave reviews were
echoed nationally by Celia Wren in American Theatre. Wren called
Linney's play a "powerful stage adaptation" of a novel that told a
"powerful and harrowing story" that dealt with "excruciating life and
death questions." While Wren felt the play did "not plumb the
philosophical depths as much as the novel," it was nonetheless
"wrenching drama."
27
When the play moved to New York it received mostly good
reviews; however, the most influential critics gave it mixed reviews,
in part dismissing the play's artistry by calling it a melodramatic
tear-jerker.
28
While Michael Feingold's Village Votce review was the
theatrical manner of execution often evoked a gasp from the audience and
proved more emotionally powerful than the horrifically realistic execution seen
in the film The Green Mile. Likewise, Jefferson's post-death re-emergence
onstage helped convey the transcendent qualities of the play. Reviewing the
ASF premiere, Celia Wren refers to the execution as "a terrifying moment," and
the reading of the journal as "prompt[ing] audible emotion" in the audience
(Celia Wren, "Last Rights," American Theatre, May/June 2000, 49.
27
Wren 47,49.
28
I have seen twelve reviews of the New York production; nine were good
to great, two were mixed, and one was negative. These last three came from
the critics who are probably the most influential: Bruce Weber (New York
Times), John Simon (New York), and Michael Feingold (Village Voice). Of those
three, Simon was the most positive, summing it up as "melodrama and
tearjerker, perhaps, but rousing theatre for sure." Feingold was the most
damning: ''The play offers nothing except a surefire occasion to jerk tears, with
little moral lessons for sententious relief between the crying jags." Weber's
mixed review used the terms "melodrama" and "tearjerker" to describe the play.
Notably, neither of those terms appear in any of the nine positive reviews.
Instead these critics view the play's emotional dynamics as "devastating"
(Rothenberg), as an "engrossing and moving production" (Younce), and as a
story with "wrenching power" (Anonymous). Another critic concludes: "Even
though the outcome is never in doubt, the play's last moments are
unexpectedly brutal, not to mention heartbreaking" (Kuchwara). Overall, the
reviews suggest that the terms "melodrama" and "tear-jerker" are used not so
much as genre classifications but as value judgments (John Simon ''Theater/
New York, 2 October 2000, 88; Michael Feingold, "Conventional Behavior,"
Village Voice, 3 October 2000; David Rothenberg, "Review of A Lesson Before
Dying on WBAI," transcript of radio review, 19 September 2000; Webster
LESSON 39
only outright negative one, Bruce Weber's review in The New York
Times was the most damaging.
29
While Weber had good things to
say about the show, he also called it "rife with prosaic
sentimentality" and lacking in subtlety due its being an "old-
fashioned melodrama."
Among serious artists, melodrama is seen as a derogatory
term. Traditional melodrama is characterized by traits such as clear-
cut good and evil, cold-blooded villains, chance occurrences, sudden
reversals, poetic justice, lightning conversions, and undivided
protagonists who face outer conflicts.
30
Since all of these elements
are absent, indeed antithetical, to the construction of A Lesson
Before Dying, Weber's characterization of genre seems misguided.
31
The only aspect of melodrama that might apply is that the play does
elicit tears from the audience, but I would argue that it is a tear-
Younce, "A Lesson Before Dying," Time Out, September 21-28, 2000;
Anonymous, "A Lesson Before Dying," The New Yorker, 9 October 2000, 12;
Michael Kuchwara, ''Theater-A Lesson Before Dying," Faxed copy of AP
Entertainment Review, 19 September 2000).
29
Linney comments: "When I read the review in The Times I knew we
were sunk. It killed any attempt to transfer the play after the Signature run,
and it will likely hinder its life in the regional theatres" (Interview). Since The
Village Voice is not as influential, Feingold's review was not as damaging, but it
was surprising. Feingold has been an extremely fair critic of Linney's work, and
with the possible exception of Mel Gussow, Feingold has probably understood
Linney's work as well as any New York critic. Since Feingold admits to crying
numerous times during the production, Linney speculates that Feingold's
scathing review may have been born of embarrassment. I should note that both
the ASF and Signature productions were part of a repertory season and,
spurred by good word of mouth, both did well at the box office. The ASF
production was virtually sold out for its six week run, and the Signature
production had two weeks of previews, followed by a four-week run that was
extended one more week.
3
For a more detailed discussion see Robert Heilman's article ''Tragedy and
Melodrama: Speculations on Generic Form" (1960), reprinted in Robert W.
Corrigan, ed., Tragedy: Vision and Form (New York: Harper & Row, 1981).
31
Just as there can be tragic moments in plays that are not tragedies,
there can melodramatic moments in plays that are not melodramas (for
example, Desdemona' s melodramatic rise from the dead to exonerate Othello).
Certain moments-Jefferson eating like a hog in front of his Nannan, the Sheriff
discussing the logistics of bringing in the electric chair in the presence of
Jefferson and his visitors, or the Deputy delivering the news to Grant-have the
potential to be played melodramatically; however, the actors brought an
honesty and truthfulness to those moments. There was none of the artificiality
or arbitrary quality of melodrama, but rather each moment had a ring of
authenticity.
40 FLEMING
earner, not a tear-jerker. A melodrama, in its historical stage
incarnation and in its more contemporary expression in certain
sentimentalized Hollywood films, carries a sense of falseness or an
air of manipulation. But would an experienced New York theatre
critic such as Michael Feingold really cry "numerous times" at a
melodrama? Would many people in the New York audience, as
Weber attests, be crying at the end of the play if it were truly just
an old-fashioned melodrama? Or might the play's power, like
tragedy's, come from a "recognition of truthfulness- that life is like
this, not as Hollywood would have it"?
32
These genre classifications-whether it be Weber's "old-
fashioned melodrama", my "existential tragedy", or simply the term
"a drama"-should not detract from the salient features of A Lesson
Before Dying. Namely, it is an emotionally-engaging play that
"elevates, involves, and challenges the conscience of an audience"
33
as it uses a philosophically and sociologically complex situation to
explore fundamental questions of the human condition. The insights
it offers- both emotionally and intellectually-into what it means to
be human are such that the play deserves a wider audience than it
has thus far received. If justice is to be served, A Lesson Before
Dying should take its rightful place in the repertory of theatres
across the country.
Both philosophy and great works of art offer a form of
knowledge, a way of understanding life and the human experience.
As such, A Lesson Before Dyings intermingling of existential
philosophy and the traits of tragedy is not surprising. Indeed, in The
Vision of Tragedy, Richard Sewell repeatedly turns to existentialism
as tragedy's frame of reference:
The tragic vision ... calls up out of the depths the
first (and last) of all questions, the question of
existence: what does it mean to be? ... It sees
man as questioner, naked, unaccommodated,
alone, facing mysterious, demonic forces in his own
nature and outside, and the irreducible facts of
suffering and death .... The tragic vision impels
the man of action to fight against his destiny. It
impels the artist, in his fictions, towards what
Jaspers calls "boundary-situations," man at the
32
Herbert J. Muller, The Spirit of Tragedy(New York: Washington Square
Press, 1965), 16.
33
David Rothenberg, "Review of A Lesson Before Dying on WBAI,"
transcript of radio review, 19 September 2000.
LESSON
limits of his sovereignty .... The hero faces as if no
man had ever faced it before the existential
question-Job's question, "What is man? Or Lear's
"Is man no more than this?"
34
41
The use of a boundary-situation and the probing of some of the
fundamental questions of existence stand at the core of A Lesson
Before Dying. Jefferson's transformation fulfills both tragedy's
transcendence and existentialism's self-knowledge.
Concentration camp survivor and existential psychotherapist
Victor Frankl asserts that one way to give life meaning is by "one's
stand toward suffering, toward a fate that one cannot change."
35
Through his courage and strength Jefferson overcomes the dread of
meaninglessness, and he comes to embody Camus's values of
"courage, prideful rebellion, fraternal solidarity, love, and secular
saintliness." In showing how to die with dignity, Jefferson shows us
to how to live with dignity.
34
Richard B. Sewall, The Vision of Tragedy, (New York: Paragon House,
1990): 4- 5.
35
Yalom, 445.
Journal of American Drama and Theatre 13 (Fall 2001)
THE SEXUAL WORLD OF PAULA VOGEL
ROBERT M. POST
The sexual world of Paula Vogel's plays encompasses both
heterosexual and homosexual spheres and among its explorations
are prostitution, unfaithful spouses, promiscuity, pornography,
masturbation, incest, child molestation, and gay parenting. Jill
Dolan correctly concludes, "Vogel's work transgresses conventional
boundaries of form and content by focusing on sexual practice and
its infinite, inventive variety."
1
To those who would say that lesbian
or gay relationships are unnatural or abnormal, Vogel's plays
declare that heterosexual relationships are just as unnatural or
abnormal-at times, more so. Different-sex and same-sex
relationships appear relatively equal in the need for the participants
to cope with problems, including those related to power. They are
equal in normality or abnormality. This is not an unexpected
conclusion coming as it does from a playwright who is a self-
identified feminist and lesbian. Neither problems nor solutions are
simple in this world. Stephanie Coen has written, "Virtually every
playwright will profess to be more interested in questions than
answers, and Vogel is no exception,"
2
and, according to Current
Biography, her works demonstrate "that there are no easy
answers."
3
In Vogel's earliest plays prostitution figures prominently. In
Desdemona; A Play About a Handkerchiefthe title character gladly
substitutes for Bianca, her prostitute friend, one evening so the
latter may keep a date with Cassio. Transcending social classes, the
aristocratic Desdemona has sex that night with ten men, including
Iago and maybe even her own husband; the room is so dark that
1
Jill Dolan, "Lesbian Playwrights: Diverse Interests, Identities, and Styles"
in JaneT. Peterson and Suzanne Bennet, eds., Women Playwrights of Diversity:
A Bio-Biographical Sourcebook(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997), 28-9.
2
Stephanie Coen, "No Need for Gravity," American Theatre, April 1993: 26.
3
Current Biography, July 1998: 47.
PAUlA VOGEL 43
she could not be certain. Sex has a leveling effect on social classes,
explaining, at least in part, the friendship between Desdemona and
Bianca. For example, Desdemona enjoys being beaten by Bianca in
an erotic sadomasochistic scene, a scene doubtlessly contributing to
John Simon's belief that "Desdemona has a proto-lesbian affection
for the whore Bianca.""'
It is ironic that each woman is envious of the other's
position. Desdemona sees Bianca the prostitute as being "a free
woman": "a new woman-who can make her own living in the
world, who scorns marriage for the lie that it is."
5
Desdemona gets a
taste of freedom when she takes her friend's place. Yet Bianca, this
"totally free woman" (203), would like nothing better than to be
married, preferably to Cassio. She viciously attacks Desdemona
when she believes Desdemona has given her handkerchief to
Cassio. While the married Desdemona would have us believe she
too would like to be a free woman and unmarried again, she talks
incessantly of men and their genitals, and her idea of escape from
Othello is to leave with former lover Ludovico. David Savran's
conclusion that these women "appear to be . .. active makers-and
unmakers-of each others' destinies'
16
is true only to a degree.
They cannot escape the influence of men and the power they have
over women nor do they appear to wish to do so.
Only Emilia, who begrudgingly has sex once a week with
Iago and would leave him in an instant to follow Desdemona, is
aware of the oppression of men and the power they wield. She
swears that women must depend upon men: "I'd like to rise a bit in
the world, and women can only do that through their mates-no
matter what class buggers they all are" (187). Women are
subservient to men just as the servant Emilia is answerable to her
mistress Desdemona.
The women in The Oldest Profession who give new meaning
to "oldest" since the prostitutes range in age from seventy-two to
the madam's eighty-three, would consider themselves "free women"
although they depend upon men for their livelihood in one of the
professions open to women in a men's world. It is a mutual
dependency as the men depend upon the women for the sexual
service they provide. While prostitution is used to relate to female
4
John Simon, "Not Tonight, Joseph!," New York, 22 November 1993: 78.
5
Paula Vogel, Desdemona, in The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays (New
York: Theatre Communications Group, 1996), 194. All subsequent references
are cited paranthetically in the text.
6
David Savran, "Loose Screws," introduction to Baltimore Waltz, x.
44
POST
roles in society in Desdemona, it relates to our capitalistic society in
The Oldest Profession. We may, on the one hand, see the
characters in the latter play representing persons who "prostitute"
themselves in their search of the American dream; they are, on the
other hand, cheerful purveyors of sex, and it is difficult to see them
enjoying any other line of work as much. Although they complain of
being tired and overworked and strike for better working conditions,
they never seriously consider leaving the profession that has held
them together for forty-five years. It would, of course, be difficult
for them to retire since their profession has no retirement plan, and
they do not qualify for social security. Ursula, the seemingly
practical one, insists upon investing in securities, but her security,
perishable as life itself, consists of the pounds of sugar she hoards.
Vera has an opportunity to escape when she considers a marriage
proposal from a man who would give her financial security, but
loyalty to her customers and the bond with the prostitute sorority
prevents her acceptance; she would, perhaps, feel less free being
married than practicing prostitution. Some would, of course,
consider it sad that these aging women are unable to spend their
final days enjoying the traditional roles of grandmothers and great-
grandmothers, but these are not traditional women.
The Oldest Profession underscores its anti-capitalistic theme
by alluding to Willy Loman and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
One of Lillian's customers is a Mr. Loman who pays her with "long
silk stockings circa 1945" and has "Two good-for-nothing sons."
7
Miller's Willy Loman is preoccupied with money and so are the
women in Vogel's play. They, like Willy, must sell to survive, and
the senior citizens must update their business practices to compete
with the young streetwalkers of the New Age. The play begins after
the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and we are reminded of
Reaganomics when Mae tells her "girls" that "President Reagan has
called on all Americans to reduce the deficit, and to balance the
budget" (148). Ursula exhorts them to adopt "new management
ideas," to "make this business cost-effective," to "advertise," to
"specialize," perhaps by catering to young men in "a Harold and
Maude situation," "to increase the rate of turnover," and to become
"more time-efficient" as well as adding charges, such as an
"Entertainment Surcharge" and "Linen Tax" and taking credit cards
(141-42).
These women are in business, and, attempting to be
businesslike, they try to keep a strict division between management
and labor. This becomes difficult as their number decreases. After
7
Vogel, The Oldest Profession, in Baltimore Waltz, 145-6. All subsequent
references are cited paranthetically in the text.
PAULA VOGEL 45
Lillian dies, Mae eagerly agrees to go back to work to help out, but
after her death the lines become drawn again. Even when only two
remain, one works and one manages. They are not unionized, yet
Vera and Edna go on strike against Ursula's management in an
action typical of the business world in general; their demands
include "longer lunch hours," "shorter work weeks," and "merit
raises" (165) .
The aging married clients of the prostitutes in The Oldest
Profession, like Willy in Death of a Salesman, cheat on their wives.
Unfaithful spouses also populate Desdemona. We know that Iago
patronizes a prostitute and suspect that Othello does the same.
Desdemona deceives her husband by pretending to be a virgin on
their wedding night, the proof being the chicken blood Emilia
sprinkles on the nuptial sheets, and subsequently is often unfaithful
to Othello. She plans to run away with Ludovico with whom she
previously had sexual encounters. Unlike Shakespeare's Othello,
Vogel's Othello is justified in his jealousy over his young bride. In
The Mineola Twins Myrna and Jim appear to be an ideal couple until
Myrna's twin Myra lures Jim into bed. Myrna has no better luck
later when she marries. As she tells her son, "You and I both know
your father's shacked up at the Plaza with his secretary for the rest
of the weekend."
8
Sex, sex-related disease, and sex-related death are subjects
addressed by Vogel in her danse macabre, The Baltimore Waltz,
which is, perhaps, an attempt at expiation of guilt on Vogel's part.
When her brother Carl asked her to accompany him to Europe in
1986, the playwright, unaware that he was HIV positive and
pleading various obligations, declined. In a letter written to his
sister in 1987 Carl asks that if he is interred with his grandparents,
Paula should "stop by for a visit from year to year. And feel free to
chat. You'll find me a good listener.'
19
Carl Vogel died January 9,
1988, and two years later there was a workshop of The Baltimore
Waltz. The play, dedicated to carl's memory, is one way in which
the playwright chats with her brother. In fact she has been quoted
as saying "I know people see Baltimore Waltz as a play about AIDS.
I see it as a way of talking to my dead brother, being able to spend
8
Paula Vogel, The Mineola Twins, in The Mammary Plays: How I Learned
to Drive/The Mineola Twins(New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1998),
140. All subsequent references are cited paranthetically in the text.
9
Vogel, "Playwright's Note," in Mammary Plays, 5.
46 POST
some time with him."
10
Gerald Weales has paradoxically written that
the play is "about trying not to know what one knows."
11
We cannot help but see The Baltimore Waltz as a play
about AIDS. Even if we did not know about the death of Vogel's
brother, the references are unmistakable. As the character Carl lies
dying, his sister Anna, in a kind of dream/nightmare, envisions
herself travelling with her brother and imagines she is the one with
the incurable disease. Coen says "the play hurtles forward with the
inexorable logic of a dream and the pressing urgency of a
nightmare." Savran has called The Baltimore Waltz "a masterful
reworking of Ambrose Bierce's 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,'
in which all of the action takes place in the mind of a soldier during
the moment in which he is being hanged," and Vogel herself
suggests reading the story before approaching her play .
12
In her
dream Anna has ATD (Acquired Toilet Disease), contracted most
likely from a toilet seat used by her elementary school students.
Her reaction to the disease is to become promiscuous and have sex
as often as possible in the time she has left. Her sexual conquests
include The Garcon, The Little Dutch Boy at Age 50, The Munich
Virgin, and the Radical Student Activist.
The Baltimore Waltz darkly satirizes attitudes toward AIDS.
As with some reactions to AIDS, authorities do not like to talk about
ATD because they do not want to create a panic. Education on the
subject is not the province of the government, which fears there will
be a demand for mandatory testing of all toilet seats, a situation
that could lead to a political disaster. More attention needs to be
paid to the disease: "If Sandra Day O'Connor sat on just one
infected potty, the media would be clamoring to do articles on ATD.
If just one grandchild of George Bush caught this thing during toilet
training, that would be the last we'd hear about the space
program."
13
No cure for ATD is known, but experimental treatments
are proposed. We are told that "ATD is the fourth major cause of
death of single schoolteachers, ages twenty-four to forty-behind
school buses, lockjaw and playground accidents" and that the high-
risk category includes "single elementary schoolteachers, classroom
10
Quoted by Kathy Sova, "Time to Laugh: An Interview with the
Playwright," American Theatre, February 1997, 24.
11
Gerald Weales, "Final Acts," Commonweal, 24 April1992, 19.
12
Davi Napoleon, "Text Detective," In Theater, 20 February 1998, 25.
13
Vogel, The Baltimore Waltz, in Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays, 12. All
subsequent references are cited paranthetically in the text.
PAULA VOGEL 47
aides, custodians and playground drug pushers" (18). And as with
AIDS, Carl says that ATD is "not a crime. It's an illness" (17) .
The Baltimore Waltz is permeated with references to
Graham Greene's screenplay of The Third Man. In fact, The Third
Man, representing death, betrayal, or possibly the unknown, is a
major character, functioning as a kind of narrator and commentator,
and the actor playing his role also takes all of the other parts,
except for those of Carl and Anna. The Third Man or Harry Lime is
an instrument of death in both film and play. In The Third Man
Harry is occupied with "Stealing penicill in from the military hospitals,
diluting it to make it go further, selling it to patients,"
14
and in The
Baltimore Waltz Harry has drugs to offer Carl for his sister, but, as
with diluted penicillin, " . .. it won't help. It won't help at all" (50).
Another major symbol in Vogel's play is the stuffed rabbit,
which appears, at least part of the time, to represent lust, sexuality,
or promiscuity. Because he was male, Carl was not allowed to play
with dolls when he was growing up. Stuffed animals, however,
were acceptable, so he became attached to his stuffed rabbit. The
sexual connotations associated with the rabbit are reinforced when
The Third Man "flashes" his rabbit at Carl, who we know is gay since
in the opening scene of the play the library where he works gives
him a pink slip because he wears the pink triangle of a homosexual.
The flashing of the rabbit appears to be signal to Carl, who excuses
himself to go to the men's room, closely followed by The Third Man.
Later, they have what sounds like a symbolic brief encounter:
"Finally, they face each other and meet. Quickly, looking
surreptitiously around, Carl and The Third Man stroke each other's
stuffed rabbits. They quickly part and walk off in opposite
directions" (34) .
Like in The Baltimore Waltz, sexuality is prominent in Hot 'N'
Throbbing. The latter play dramatizes an extremely sensual world in
which the characters' reality overlaps and commingles with an
erotic, pornographic illusory world. It is not easy to tell when the
real world ends and the fantasy world begins. The Woman, mother
of the Girl and the Boy, writes scripts for pornographic films, or
what she euphemistically calls " adult entertainment."
15
It is ironic
that Vogel pictures a woman, in a kind of role reversal, writing
pornography when women are usually viewed as victims or sex
objects in this genre. The female pornographer tries "to appreciate
the male body as an object of desire" (262). This reversal is typical
14
Graham Greene, The Third Man (London: Lorrimer, 1984), 77.
15
Vogel, Hot 'N' Throbbing, in Baltimore Waltz, 238. All subsequent
references are cited paranthetically in the text.
48 POST
of the playwright's complex dramatic situations in which what one
might expect is inverted. Dolan has perceptively stated that
"There's always something askew in a Vogel play, something
deliciously not quite right, which requires a spectator or reader to
change her perspective, to give up any assumption of comfortable
viewing or reading ground."
16
Directors, hesitant to present Hot 'N'
Throbbing, have been contradictorily described as either "anti-
pornography" or "pro-pornography."
17
Coen says in this play "Vogel
blurred the line between representation and endorsement in a way
that proved both discomforting and challenging.'
118
Voyeurism and masturbation are also both present in Hot
'N' Throbbing. The Boy supposedly hides in the bushes and watches
the Girl undress, and, when his father tells him he needs to care for
his sister, he ironically responds that "I watch her all the time"
(269). The Man or his father joins the Boy in staring appreciatively
at her while she sensuously dances. The Girl accuses the Boy of
masturbating, and the Woman writes a scene for one of her films in
which the Boy masturbates. Brother and sister wonder if their
mother masturbates, and the father admits to indulging himself at
video peep-shows.
The Boy's interest in the Girl in Hot 'N' Throbbing carries a
suggestion of incest, which is more strongly intimated in the illusory
scene where we see "Exaggerated movements of Boy humping Girl
from behind with clothes on" (237). There is also a suggestion of
incest-or, perhaps, it is just innocence-in The Baltimore Waltz.
We are told that Carl and Anna shared a bed until they were seven
and five, respectively. This was discontinued when adults felt they
were too old to sleep together, but when afraid of the dark, Anna
would sneak into her brother's bed "And he would let you nustle
under his arm, under the covers, where you would fall to sleep,
breathing in the scent of your own breath and his seven-year-old
body" (17). Anna and Carl now think nothing of being in bed
together; Anna says the good thing about traveling and dying is that
"I get to sleep with you again" (18).
One relative's sexual interest in another is most vividly
dramatized in Vogel's How I Learned to Drive. The "drive" in the
title of the play is to be taken both literally and figuratively when
16
Jill Dolan, "Introduction to Desdemona by Paula Vogel," in Rosemary
Curb, ed., Amazon All Stars: Thirteen Lesbian Plays (New York and London:
Applause, 1996), 437.
17
Vogel, "Author's Note," in Baltimore Waltz, 231.
18
Coen, 26.
PAULA VOGEL 49
Uncle Peck teaches Li'l Bit to drive a car and engineers her loss of
innocence as he begins to initiate her into the adult world of sex at
the age of eleven. Robert Brustein believes it was e.e. cummings
"who first thought of stick-shift driving as a metaphor for sexual
performance."
19
" He taught me well," Li'l Bit says.
20
Peck tells his
niece why he refers to his car as "she": " ... when you close your
eyes and think of someone who responds to your touch- someone
who performs just for you and gives you what you ask for-I guess
I always see a 'she
111
(51).
Other characters, including her grandfather, make much of
Li'l Bit's breasts, one reason Vogel labels How I Learned to Drive,
and The Mineola Twins "The Mammary Plays." Peck begins his
molestation of his niece by touching her breasts and proceeds, as
the years pass, to kissing them. Vogel shows Li'l Bit interacting with
boys her own age, but the interaction is unsuccessful. She feels
they are obsessed with her large breasts, a feeling related no doubt
to family members' talk of this part of her anatomy and especially to
Uncle Peck's intimacy.
Driving must cause mixed feelings for Li'l Bit because it is in
the car that the molesting begins, and much of the subsequent
relationship with Peck takes place here, but she is safe from him
when she is driving because he promises he will "never touch you
when you are driving a car" ( 49). Driving may be a kind of escape
for her from a life haunted by Uncle Peck. When we last see Li'l Bit,
she is driving off at high speed, and we are left with the questions:
Where is she going? Does she get there? Or does she this time
turn "just one notch of the steering wheel" (21) and make a final
escape?
We the audience have mixed feelings about the events
taking place in this play, especially in regard to the character of
Peck. The good/bad and right/wrong tension in How I Learned to
Drive, a play strongly reminiscent of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, is
encapsulated in his character. We have ambivalent feelings about
him because he is at once a kind, gentle man and a pedophile.
Vogel herself underscores this ambivalence when she says that
"Despite a few problems, he should be played by an actor one
might cast in the role of Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird."
21
Few
19
Robert Brustein, " Homogenized Diversity," The New Republic, 7 July
1997, 28.
20
Vogel, How I Learned to Drive, in Mammary Plays, 21. All subsequent
references are cited paranthetically in the text.
21
Vogel, "Characters," in Mammary Plays, 4.
so POST
would doubt that Atticus, played in the film by Gregory Peck, who
lends his name both to Li'l Bit's uncle and the boy who wants to
dance with her, is the epitome of kindness and fairness. Atticus
could be described as having the mind of a boy scout, but Li'l Bit
describes her Uncle Peck's mind as that of a "horny boy scout" (9)
with the "horny" sullying the pure "boy scout."
If we can set aside the pedophilia, we may see a nice side
of Peck. We see him washing the Christmas dinner dishes, for
instance, and when Cousin Bobby feels sorry for the fish he catches
and cries, kind-hearted Peck lets the fish go and tells Bobby that the
tears will be their secret. Savran reminds us that he "is the only
member of her [Li'l Bit's] family who makes a real effort to
understand her, nurture her and help her grow up."
22
In one sense,
Li'l Bit is the son Peck never had; in another sense she most
definitely is not. Peck truly loves and cares for his niece-but this is,
of course, his curse. David Ansen, reviewing writer-director Todd
Solondz's film, Happiness, says Solondz refuses to "demonize" the
pedophile who is one of the main characters;
23
Vogel, likewise,
refuses to demonize Peck. She has said that she feels "very much a
part of Peck": "The 45-year-old, the epicure, the already jaded, the
one slightly at a distance who notices the freshness of younger
people and knows that it is something he can't ever get back
again."
24
Peck is a complex character with whom we can sympathize
one moment and who repulses us the next. Li'l Bit is also a complex
character, but one with whom we can sympathize without the
repulsion. Referring to Peck's feeling her breasts when she was
eleven, Li'l Bit says "That day was the last day I lived in my body. I
retreated above the neck" (90). Nevertheless, she loves and cares
for Peck, but certainly not in the same way he loves and cares for
her. It is her idea to meet him once a week to talk if he promises to
stop drinking, an escape she herself uses at times. In many ways
she is wiser than the older man: she tries to keep him from going
"over the line" (10), knows that what she allows him to do is
"wrong" and "not nice to Aunt Mary" (31), and that "Someone is
going to get hurt" (33). Li'l Bit finally ends the relationship after she
confronts Peck with his counting down to her eighteenth birthday
22
David Savran, "Things My Uncle Taught Me," American Theatre, October
1998: 18.
23
David Ansen, "A Comedy of Cruelty," Newsweek, 12 October 1998: 87.
24
Quoted by Rebecca Mead, "Drive-by Shooting," New York, 7 April1997:
46.
PAULA VOGEL 51
when he can finally have sex with her without its being statutory
rape. Evidence of his motive in the countdown is his gift to her of
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos, a novel of
depraved seduction. But the ambivalence running through the play
shows in her feelings as she leaves Peck; she is "half wanting to
run, half wanting to get it over with, half wanting to be held by him"
(81). Peck's influence persists as the older Li'l Bit goes to bed with
a high school boy.
Both Li'l Bit and Peck are obvious victims, and each holds an
almost hypnotic power over the other. Some family members knew
that Li'l Bit was her uncle's victim but did not stop it. This may not
be so surprising in this dysfunctional family which is so sensual and
sexually conscious that they give each other nicknames reflecting
their genitalia. Her mother knows that "Your uncle pays entirely too
much attention to you" (87), and Aunt Mary realizes what is going
on, but, calling Peck "a good man" (66), believes he fights hard
against his impure feelings and places much of the blame on her
niece. She ironically avows that "Peck's so good with them" when
they are children (19). Stefan Kanfer concludes that "Vogel shows
how friends and family members can be, in the jargon of the
moment, ' enablers,' people who either look the other way or
bewilder the young with ignorant counsel."
25
. Peck was a victim of feelings he was unable to control, and,
regardless of how we may feel about him, he did control himself to
a considerable degree. Li'l Bit suggests that he was a child molester
because he himself was molested: "Who did it to you, Uncle Peck?
How old were you? Were you eleven?" (86). Peck's reactions imply
that his mother may have molested him. He tells Li'l Bit that his
mother "wanted me to do-to be everything my father was not"
(28), and when Li'l Bit responds that she bets his mother loves him,
the stage directions tell us that "Peck freezes a bit' (29). This
probably explains why Peck left his home state of South Carolina.
Disfunctional families abound in Vogel's writing. Othello
physically abuses his wife in Desdemona and the life of the family in
Hot 'N' Throbbing is characterized by violence. The Woman,
Charlene, has a restraining order against the Man, Clyde, who has a
history of drinking and assaulting her. She lied to the Girl, Leslie
Ann, allowing her daughter to believe that the effects of her
husband's beatings were the result of being clumsy, but "I wasn't
'clumsy' until after we got married" (282). The Boy, calvin,
becomes violent when he finds his father with his mother. Charlene
shoots Clyde in the buttocks, and he viciously strikes her and
25
Stefan Kanfer, " Li 'l Bit o' Incest," The New Leader, 30 June 1997: 22.
52 POST
attempts to strangle her with his belt, finishing the deed with his
bare hands. Although she fantasizes being a stripper, the Girl,
wishes for a traditional family life like other families who say grace
before dinner and whose children belong to the 4-H club, but she
instead has "a pervo for a mother, a drunk for a father and a four-
eyed geek for a brother" (281).
The Mineola Twins, which Alexis Greene sees as "a satiric
history of America and American women during the second half of
the 20th century/'
26
also presents a dysfunctional family. Although
the playwright labels one of the title twins, Myrna, the "good" twin
and the other, Myra, the "evil" twin, these Jacob/Esau characters
are far from simply or clearly drawn. The differences between good
and evil become murky in the play just as they do in the real world
it mirrors. The conservative Myrna has a "wholesome" job of
waiting tables in a luncheonette, aims for the Homemakers of
America Senior Award, teaches a class for the catholic Youth
Organization, gives money to her sister when she flees from the
police, dreams of poisoning her twin, writes a book entitled Profiles
in Chastity, rejects multiculturalism, and bombs a Planned
Parenthood clinic. The radical or liberal Myra is a cocktail waitress
"in a roadside tavern of ill repute" ( 105)-her father calls her a
"Whore of Babylon" (106)-has sex with her sister's virgin boyfriend,
is pro-choice, and robs a bank to finance the causes she supports.
The twins may not have been congenial even in the womb; Myra
dreams of Myrna as "A little 0 trying to float away from me" (100).
The sibling conflict symbolizes a larger conflict in the world. Vogel
has said that "There's a political schizophrenia that's dividing us,
dividing us in communities, into warring factions, into enraged
siblings" and that "The Mineola Twins is working toward that
moment . . . that we'll talk to each other, that we won't be divided
anymore."
27
One way of looking at the contradictions in the personalities
and lives of the twins is to view them as two parts of one person
just as good and evil are realistically intermingled in the world. In
this way we see good and evil battling for control within the
individual. That one actor plays both Myra and Myrna while another
plays both sons would support the idea that the women are one
woman and the sons actually one son.
Many would consider it ironic that the closest we come to a
congenial family unit in The Mineola Twins is the nontraditional one
of Myra with her son and her lesbian lover. Another nontraditional
26
Alexis Greene, "The Mineola Twins," In Theater, 1 March 1999: 10.
27
Quoted in Sova, 24.
PAULA VOGEL 53
family peoples And Baby Makes Seven. This play is centered around
a menage a trois comprised of two lesbians and a gay man. But the
three of them do not feel complete, so the "family" is supplemented
with three imaginary sons and one real one-Anna's baby fathered
by Peter. The desire of Anna and Ruth to have a baby together
results in three rather unusual imaginary children-Cecil, a genius;
Henri from the French film The Red Balloon, and a wild boy reared
by dogs. It is surprising, perhaps, that Ruth and Anna create boys
rather than girls. By creating boys, however, they get to imagine
themselves as the traditionally privileged and more powerful sex
since Ruth and Anna themselves act out the roles of the children.
Sexual roles in And Baby Makes Seven become rather
convoluted. Eight-year-old Henri, for instance, seems excessively
attached to Peter. When Peter sits on Henri's bed, Henri hugs Peter
in a way that makes the man uncomfortable, and later Henri sits on
Peter,s lap ,wriggling suggestively," while Anna reminds him that
there is to be no groping "even if Uncle Peter wants you to."
28
The
situation is more complicated since Ruth plays the part of Henri, so,
instead of an eight-year-old boy, we have a homosexual woman
becoming physical with a homosexual man. When Henri says he
wants to have Peter's baby, it is really Ruth, possibly jealous of
Anna, who is saying she wants to have his baby. Henri-expressing
Ruth's impossible desire to be the co-creator of the baby-tells Anna
that he (she) is the father of the child. Peter's own sexual
confusions surface when, for example, he wants to feel Anna,s
breast. Vogel seems to be suggesting that sex roles are not
necessarily fixed and that we, perhaps, make too much of them.
Having an actor assume the roles of both male and female
characters de-emphasizes the boundaries of gender. In The
Mineola Twins, for instance, the playwright states that Sarah may
be played by the "actress who also plays Jim."
29
Peter, Anna, and Ruth in Vogel's play, even more so than
Martha with her imaginary son in Edward Albee,s h o ~ Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, are quite aware that the boys are figments of their
imaginations. Peter convinces them that they must overcome what
might be considered arrested emotions and give up the fiction, so
they subsequently " kill" the children in imaginative, exotic ways.
However, as it often is with fantasies in our real world, those in the
play are not easily discarded. The foreshadowing that their
imaginary children will be reinvented comes when Orphan, the first
28
Vogel, And Baby Makes Seven, in Baltimore Waltz, 69. All subsequent
references are cited paranthetically in the text.
29
Vogel, "The Characters," Mammary, 96.
54
POST
to "die," appears to Cecil and Henri like Hamlet's father appearing to
Hamlet. After the third of the imaginary children is gone, the real
baby is born, but reality does not exist without fantasy for long. As
Peter, ironically the one who said they must rid themselves of
illusion, recites the boring ingredients of his quotidian world, he
cannot resist escaping into the more interesting illusory world of
Orphan, Henri, and Cecil. The play ends with the fantasy children
coexisiting with the real baby Nathan. Cecil insists that "You can't
vote down the truth!," but Orphan and Henri show that you can
(64). Both illusion and reality, Vogel seems to be saying, are
necessary components of the game of life. As Savran has written,
in And Baby Makes Seven "the boundaries between illusion and
reality, power and subjection, friendship and love, female and male,
are ... porous."
30
While the nontraditional family in And Baby
Makes Seven is certainly not ideal nor perfect, it is a happier family
than the more traditional ones in Hot 'N' Throbbing and How I
Learned to Drive.
Coen perceptively categorizes Vogel's plays as "stubborn,
troubling, prickly things ... and, like their author, firmly resistant to
the predictable" (26). Her dramatic world is inhabited by
prostitutes, unfaithful lovers, promiscuous men and women, people
engaged in pornography, incestuous couples, child molesters, gay
parents, dysfunctional families, and both heterosexual and
homosexual liaisons. Regardless of sexual orientation characters
are good and characters are bad, but most are a complex
combination of both good and evil. They are coping with such
things as sexually transmitted diseases, alcoholism, and domestic
violence. Vogel turns our traditional ideas of family upside down
and inside out, causing us to reevaluate our own feelings and
relationships, leading, perhaps, to a greater understanding of what
it is to be human. She hopes that through her writing, reader (or
viewer) as well as the writer herself will "make sense out of a
world-and a society-gone terribly awry."
31
30
Savran, "Loose Screws," Mammary, xv.
31
Savran, "Loose Screws," xiii.
Journal of American Drama and Theatre 13 (Fall 2001)
THE CLASSICAL AMERICAN TRADffiON:
META-TRAGEDY IN 0LEANNA
DAVID V. MASON
In 1963 Lionel Abel declared tragedy as good as dead.
1
The dramatic form is no longer possible, said Abel, in a world in
which there are no ideals, no absolute truths, no certain ground
upon which to stand. We in the twentieth century are cursed by an
insistent self-consciousness, and with it an insistent doubt of the
surety of fate, of morality, of thought, and even of existence itself.
The subsequent curse is that we can have no more tragedy, a
dramatic form depending upon absolutes. Instead of tragedy,
argues Abel, we have metatheatre, the form tyrannizing twentieth-
century drama which draws attention to the dubiousness of life by
drawing attention to its own pretense. Where tragedy tells us that
certain things are unalterably true, and frightens us when equally
immutable truths contradict each other, metatheatre tells us not to
worry, it's all a joke anyway, and perhaps the joke indicated by
metatheatre is the more frightening.
Examples of the form abound and hardly require
enumerating. At least since the work of Pirandello we have been
beset by plays winking their eyes at us, giving us figures who are
both characters and actors at the same time. The devices of
metatheatre have wriggled from theatre into our most mundane
performance forms. In popular film we see the characters of
Wayne's World drolly commenting on their own daily activities and
producing alternative endings for their life stories. The recent craze
in television has been a scenario in which ' real' people live on
camera in blatantly artificial ' real' environments and pursue blatantly
artificial 'real' goals. One suspects that we have nearly reached the
point at which performance cannot be other than metatheatrical.
Even if there is no going back to the good old days when
the fourth wall was securely in place, there may yet be some
surviving alternative to dramatic form which considers the human
1
Lionel Abel, Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1963), 112.
56 MASON
condition only by questioning whether or not there is such a thing.
Tragedy may have been dead in 1963 because we could no longer
invest enough faith in any absolutes to be horrified by the paradox
of one absolute bowing to another, but there may be a sufficient
fragment of that shattered conviction with which to construct a new
kind of tragedy, one which is equally shocking because in it the
inescapable impositions of twentieth-century living collide
catastrophically.
The fierce controversies which David Mamet's play Oleanna
would engender were anticipated by the dual issues of Playbill
published for its 1992 New York premiere. The different Playbill
covers were printed for this production; Mamet's characters John
and Carol each appeared alone on separate covers, and each
beneath round, red targets. The polarization of audience responses
to the play anticipated by this publishing device began immediately.
Audience members reportedly cheered John's climactic assault on
Carol.
2
Critics lined up behind Elaine Showalter to denounce carol
as a character, and, accordingly, to denounce Mamet as a
playwright. Scholars ran to defend Carol, or, at least, to explain
her, and by explaining her to defend Mamet. The arguments that
have flared regarding Mamet's play have concerned the nature of
the play's two characters and have followed the pattern of those
first issues of Playbill in being markedly dualistic. If we should
sympathize with John, the argument seems to be, we must revile
Carol. And vice versa. If John's behavior shocks and disgusts us,
carol is the figure with whom we must sympathize. And the stark
energy of the arguments about the play indicate that though we feel
obligated to take sides, we are loathe to cast our lots with either
side. Elaine Showalter's comment on the play is representative of
the uneasy reactions of theatre-goers, critics, and scholars. "The
disturbing questions about power, gender, and paranoia raised in
Oleanna," she writes, "cannot be resolved with an irrational act of
violence."
3
Few individuals in any camp, however, have addressed the
structure and form of the play, as opposed to the relative attractive
and repugnant natures of the play's characters. As a play of the
twentieth century, and the late twentieth century at that, Oleanna is
decidedly metatheatrical, and this characteristic ought to give us
2
Stanton B. Garner, Jr., "Framing the Classroom: Pedagogy, Power,
Oleanna, " Theatre Topics (10:1): 39. " [W]hen I saw the New York
production ... audience members cheered John's violence toward Carol in the
play's closing sequence .. .. "
3
Elaine Showalter, "Acts of Violence: David Mamet and the Language of
Men," Times Literary Supplement, 6 November 1992, 17.
OLEANNA 57
pause before we allow the characters to determine our approach to
the play. These characters, like other metatheatrical characters, are
self-conscious, and they accordingly invite their audience to
appreciate the function they serve as deliberate fictions. If we are
frustrated that we cannot sympathize with Carol, it may be because
Carol does not exist but is a construction whose only meaning is to
tell us that nonentities need no sympathy. Likewise, if we cheer
John's eruption at the play's conclusion, we may be ignoring the fact
that this sudden violence is such a brashly manipulative theatrical
device it demands recognition as such and surrenders any claim it
might have to expressing some meaning.
But there is something else in 0/eanna besides. In the
same way that tragedy is the product of the collision of the
immovable stones of the State and the Individual in Sophocles, so
too is tragedy a product of 0/eanna. As Hegel supposed, what is
tragic in Antigone, what may have been the real force of the play
for its audiences, is the representation of the unacceptable-the
paradox of one preeminent truth subordinated to another. Insofar
as John and Carol represent ideals in which we believe and trust,
and which are nevertheless mutually exclusive, 0/eanna is a modern
tragedy. Given this, 0/eanna is itself the paradoxical combination of
opposites and is a rather unique play for its time. 0/eanna is both
metatheatre and tragedy, the play with no meaning and the play
with more meanings than it can bear.
I
Lionel Abel blames Hamlet-the character, not the play-for
the predicament of twentieth century characters. Hamlet, says
Abel, "is the first stage figure with an acute awareness of what it
means to be staged."
4
Hamlet's awareness of his dramatic
condition is responsible for his incessant reflecting and
philosophizing and marks a turning point for Western drama. As I
have already suggested, four hundred years after Hamlet we may
have reached the point at which characters cannot be other than
conscious of their dramatized conditions, and 0/eanna's characters
must first be considered as parts of this process.
John and carol are both painfully self-conscious. In a
statement which is itself a reflexive one, John admits that he is
"always looking for a paradigm."
5
John never gets to say explicitly
what that paradigm might be as Carol interrupts him for a definition
of "paradigm." But it is nevertheless clear in the play that John is
4
Abel, 58.
5
David Mamet, 0/eanna (New York: Vintage, 1992), 45. All subsequent
references are cited parenthetically in the text.
58 MASON
constantly seeking some measurement of the acceptability of his
life. He tries to convey this point to Carol with his disastrous
anecdote involving the sexual activity of the rich and poor:
JOHN
When I was young somebody told me, are you ready,
the rich copulate less often than the poor. But when
they do, they take more of their clothes off. Years.
Years, mind you, I would compare experiences of my
own with this dictum, saying, aha, this fits the norm, or,
ah, this is a variation from it...(32).
As John is unable to find an objective standard by which to measure
his normativity, however (the copulation of rich people
notwithstanding), his only means of interpretation is his own
experience itself. Thus, he is locked in a revolving cycle of
examination and evaluation, reexamination and reevaluation, which
is almost unbearable for those who have to sit and listen to him-
Carol chief among them. "I owe you an apology," John says to
Carol early in act one. But rather than responding to her question
when she asks why, he jumps from the apology to an examination
of his behavior and the reasons for it. "And I suppose I have had
some things on my mind," he says, "We're buying a house, and ... "
at which point Carol must remind him of the thread of their
conversation (17). If the tenure committee does not,
hypothetically, sign his contract, John reasons later in Act 1, trying
to reflect the light of circumstance to illuminate the essence of his
being, it must be because they have found out his "'dark secret' .. . an
index of [his] badness" (24). And when Carol, based upon her
misunderstanding of John's use of the word prejudice, expresses
her incredulity at John's attitude toward higher education, John's
response is not to clarify the misunderstanding, but to further
theorize about himself:
CAROL
But how can you say that? That College ...
JOHN
... that's my job, don't you know.
CAROL
What is?
JOHN
To provoke you. (32)
OLEANNA 59
After Carol's report makes an issue of his public self-analysis, John
still cannot resist. The first several minutes of the second act are a
long speech in which John regards his own motives and character,
including the moral implications of pursuing tenure. And when in
act three John's circumstances have become dire, he yet persists in
understanding his situation as a reflection of his identity. "I want to
tell you something," he responds to Carol's threat to ban his book,
"I'm a teacher. I am a teacher. Eh? It's my name on the door,
and !teach the class, and that's what I do" (76) . Never mind that
to this point in the play he has offered at least two other quite
different explanations of what is his job and will yet offer one more
before the play finishes (32, 54, 76). Even in the last moment,
John's response to Carol's rape charge, in addition to holding a
chair over her head, is essentially not a critique of her judgment,
but a self-assessment. "I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole"
(79).
carol is no less self-obsessed, though she tends to be more
literal in her self-characterizations than John. Following a tantrum
in which she complains that she's "stupid" and "pathetic," when
John clumsily tries to explain that people sometimes fail because
they fear trying, Carol asks, "Is that what I have ... ? (19). After
chastising John for exploiting the higher education system, Carol
blurts out, "I know what you think I am... You think I am a
frightened, repressed, confused, I don't know, abandoned young
thing of some doubtful sexuality, who wants power and revenge"
(68). carol's abrupt shift here from offense to defense is
inexplicable except as it reveals an irrational self-consciousness
which borders on paranoia. And although her final line answers no
questions regarding her motives, it nevertheless seems an
expression of self-appraisal as she addresses John's abuse with the
statement, " ... yes. That's right" (80).
What is more significant, however, than the plain fact that
both characters are obsessed with understanding and defining their
own identities, is the possibility that these characters'
preoccupations are caused by a consciousness of their roles in a
play which not only incorporates their conversations in John's office,
but transcends their day-to-day activity entirely.
In the first place, they find themselves hardly able to deliver
more than a few lines to each other, hardly able to "get into
character, " so to speak, before the phone interrupts them.
Certainly these relentless interruptions are too coincidental-too
consistently inopportune-to be accepted on the level of realistic
stage action. Such an intruder is it on John's and Carol's
exchanges, that Mamet's phone may as well be labeled "stage
60 MASON
device" in big, red letters. John and Carol both show signs that
they regard the phone in this way. After already four times
interrupting the action of Act 1, as John is on the very brink of what
he expects is a breakthrough, as Carol, after much resistance, is
just about to adjust her relationship with John by confiding her dark
secret, the phone rings again, and one can sense John's
exasperated, though suppressed, incredulity in the "Pause" which
follows (38). Surely, he must be thinking, the phone is not ringing
again... not now. William Macy's tired resignation at this point in
Mamet's film adaptation of the play captures the moment
remarkably well. There is an sense here that this cannot be
happening. Which is, of course, the case. John quickly redirects
the energy behind his disbelief that the phone has once again
imposed itself on the world of his office ("I can't talk now ... l. Can't.
Talk. Now.") into a disbelief in the events outside. "How, how is
the agreement void? That's Our House' (39) . And his incredulity
proves well-founded as it is finally made clear to John that the dire
circumstances of the "real world" (where John locates his house in
the second act), the "rather pressing" problem which has plagued
his and Carol's concourse, distracting him and frustrating her, the
disaster which may be ultimately responsible for his impending
doom, is just a joke (50, 13). Everything that was happening "out
there" all this time is only an illusion, and he has been nothing more
than an unwitting player in the drama.
Carol never touches the phone, but her interaction with it in
the third act reveals her own perception of the performance outside
John's office, and her role in it. The phone rings once again as John
decides he will make no further concessions to save his job and
reveals to Carol that he has not been home during the past two
days. "You'd better get that phone," she says, "I think that you
should pick up the phone" (77). John has already answered the
phone during this act without learning that Carol has filed rape and
battery charges against him, and yet at the moment he tells carol
he has not been home in two days, she knows, as though his line is
a cue, what the fortuitously ringing phone will offer the
development of the plot. Carol's ESP is a dramatic device, a trick of
the script to heighten the tension of the moment, and Carol seems
to recognize her precognition as such.
In addition, both characters reveal early in the play a
suspicion that life is something more than their identities. Carol and
John both confess a bewilderment which amounts to a disbelief that
each has been adequately informed as to what roles they are
expected to play in life. Carol finally catches John's attention by
describing her educational experience in which she sits in the back
of the classroom and wonders what everybody is talking about.
0LEANNA 61
Carol's lament sounds very much like the anxiety of an actor's
nightmare: "everybody's always talking about 'this' all the time.
And 'concepts,' and 'precepts' and, and, and, and WHAT IN THE
WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT" (14). John's response that he
has been similarly perplexed is couched in language which stakes
out a position for himself apart from reality. "I used to speak of
'real people,' and wonder what the real people did. The real
people," John tells Carol. "They were the people other than myself"
(16). John and carol are not only self-conscious, but, on the basis
of the confusion their self-consciousness generates, they are
prepared to consider whether they themselves are not simply
conceptual.
It is this sense of his history and his job which causes John
so often to slip into abstraction, as if there is no such thing as
particular people such as himself and Carol, but only particular roles
people play. "If you are told ... " John begins to say, addressing
Carol individually before switching to the diction of abstraction,
"Listen to this. If the young child is told he cannot understand.
Then he takes it as a description of himself.'
16
carol is willing to
speak in similar terms when later in Act 1 she challenges John's
suggestion that a college education may not be everyone's best
choice.
JOHN
Should all kids go to college? Why. ..
CAROL
(Pause) To learn.
JOHN
But if he does not learn?
CAROL
If the child does not learn?
JOHN
Then why is he in college? (34)
This exchange, of course, is not about kids, in general, but about
carol, a fact she shows she understands a minute or two later.
" ... you tell me I'm intelligent," she says to John, "and then you tell
me I should not be here ... " (36). Adopting John's abstract language
helps Carol to keep the conversation civil, but also suggests her
6
Mamet, 16, emphasis mine.
62
MASON
own inclination to de-individualize herself, an inclination which
overpowers her speech and thinking in the subsequent acts as she
identifies herself as a representative of a vaguely delimited group.
Their verbal de-personalization is a way of questioning the stability
of their own identities and the stability of the world around them.
Carol and John come to an agreement that there are no thing5-no
individual people, no specific institutions, no particular college
courses-only the trappings of things worn as cloaks over the Great
Incomprehensible. And although John defends himself by trying to
elicit Carol's sympathy for his individual humanity, his family, his
house in the "rea/world," his ultimate motivation in resisting Carol,
and thus putting in jeopardy all these elements of his individual
humanity, is that he has a role to play. "I have a responsibility. .. to
myself, to my son, to my profession ... it's my job ... to say no to you.
That's my job" (76).
Among the other possible meanings, the implication of
Carol's final, enigmatic " ... yes. That's right" may be her outright
acknowledgement of hers and John's fictionality. This theory makes
more sense of the way her lines responds not to John's final
declaration ("I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole"), but to
John's final actions. John has beaten her physically, has knocked
her to the floor, and is advancing on her, shouting, with a chair
raised over his head. And then:
She cowers on the floor below him. Pause. He
looks down at her. He lowers the chair. He moves
to his desk/ and arranges the papers on it. Pause.
He looks over at her.
JOHN
... well...
Pause. She looks at him.
CAROL
Yes. That's right. (80)
This is a strangely dispassionate conclusion. John's final actions
show no emotional investment, no indication of the frustration
building in him from the beginning of Act 2 and erupting violently a
moment before.
7
It is as if there were suddenly a new John on
7
In the film version's ending, Carol screams as John lifts the chair and
John, as though Carol's protest has snapped him out of dementia, sets down
the chair, sits on it, and gasps in horror, "Oh, my god." The film's ending
undermines the clearly metatheatrical nature of the play.
0LEANNA 63
stage, completely disconnected from the previous minute of the
play; and while we might argue that John's strange behavior
clumsily demonstrates that he has lost his job, his house, his family,
and his mind, his final exchange with Carol more strongly suggests
that they both here acknowledge that the play is over. He has
played his part, and she hers, and they can both straighten up now
and go home.
Considering the play in this way, a better subtitle for the
play than Daniel Mufson's suggested "The bitch set him up'
18
might
be "It's all a joke." The troubles with John's house, which the
phone calls of the first act indicate, escalate with each call as John
avoids, and then refuses, coming to check on them personally.
First, his wife tells him there's some problem with the easement(2).
Then, his lawyer calls. Then his wife calls again, and seems to think
the deal is in real jeopardy. After ignoring the third call altogether,
during the fourth call John learns from his wife and his lawyer that
the house has gone for good, to which John responds with
inordinate anger. So riled up does he get, so verbally contentious
and abusive, that he must finally be told that it was all a put-on.
This is, perhaps, a model for 0/eanna altogether. Just as John's
wife and lawyer goad him into a fit relieved only by the first act's
surprise, Mamet progressively rais-::s the stakes for which his
characters are wrestling and pokes his audience with sharper and
sharper sticks, until, in the face of everyone's boiling indignation, he
drops the pretense. Surprise. Just kidding. And if the audience is
still angry with the playwright, knowing that it was all in fun, so is
John still angry with his tormentors at the end of Act 1. "Well," he
says of the concept of surprise, "there are those who would say it's
a form of aggression" (41).
Richard Hornby offers the most concise definition of
metatheatre, or metadrama, the term Hornby prefers. "Briefly," he
writes in his 1986 book, "metadrama can be defined as drama
about drama; it occurs whenever the subject of a play turns out to
be, in some sense, drama itself.'
19
This definition seems
straightforward enough and useful in identifying a narrow range of
plays in which theatrical performance is itself the substance of the
plot (like, for instance, Genet's The Balcony, or Weiss's
MaratjSade). However, the argument of Hornby's book is built on a
poststructuralist theory of culture, which suggests that culture exists
as a conglomeration of an almost infinite number of systems of
8
Daniel Mufson, " Sexual Perversity in Viragos," Theater 24:1 (1993): 111-
12.
9
Richard Hornby, Drama, Metadrama and Perception(Lewisburg: Bucknell
University Press, 1986), 31.
64 MASON
meaning, nested in and overlapping each other, which determines
the meaning of any individual element-a word, a hat, an animal.
Dramas exist not within their own, self-determined system of
meaning, but within the greater system of certain human cultures,
which, Hornby argues, value drama in the way other cultures value
myth; and, like myth, dramas inevitably remark upon the values and
methods of the meaning systems of which they are a part, such
that drama is always "about culture as a whole."
10
Hornby dubs
this relationship the drama/culture complex and uses this
formulation to stretch an apparently limited definition of
metatheatre to cover a much broader body of dramatic work. "In
one sense ... " he suggests, "all drama is metadramatic, since its
subject is always, willy-nilly, the drama/culture complex."
11
If for no other reason than all drama is metatheatrical,
Oleanna is an example of metatheatre. However, the play is, at its
heart, about drama itself, the meaning systems in American culture
and the way they determine the significance of individual signs and
symbols. Whether or not one accepts Thomas Goggans's assertion
that Carol's perplexed reaction to John's interjection, "Look. I'm not
your father" is the expression of an abuse victim, it is clear that the
word father means something different to Carol than it does to
John.
12
It is the same with the words prejudice and ultimately rape,
as it is with John's actions-putting an arm around Carol's shoulder,
restraining her from leaving the office, "helping" her sit down (as
John does with some force in the film version)-each have different
meanings for these characters according to the respective meaning
systems most immediately relevant to them. Mamet's play is not
concerned with what happens at the level of Carol and John the
people, just as, according to Elaine Showalter, the Hill-Thomas
hearings were not about the "communication problems of
two ... lawyers."
13
The play, instead, starkly identifies the struggle
taking place between disparate, though overlapping, systems of
meaning in American culture to assign significance to isolated
incidents and elements. In this way, Oleanna is paradigmatically
metatheatrical . The play's subject is cultural vocabulary.
10
Hornby, 22.
11
Hornby, 31.
12
Thomas H. Goggans, "Laying Blame: Gender and Subtext in David
Mamet's Oleanna," Modern Drama49 (1997): 433-441.
13
Showalter, 17.
OLEANNA 65
II
What then of 0/eanna as a tragedy? Lionel Abel asserted
that in the modern world metatheatre exists in the place of tragedy,
suggesting the two are mutually exclusive. Abel seems to have
softened this distinction somewhat by the time he published "The
Hero of Metatheater" in 1989.
14
Here, as the paradigmatic
metatheatrical figure of western literature, he identifies Don
Quixote, a character with a variety of tragic traits. But Abel is
nevertheless distinguishing between the "metatheatrical hero" and
the "tragic hero," as though, whether or not the categories are
similar in some respects, a character must be one or the other. If,
as I have asserted, 0/eanna is inherently metatheatrical, can it not
be tragedy? If these characters are the self-consciously insecure
clowns of metatheatre, can they not be the doggedly single-minded
heroes of tragedy? I would suggest that the play and its characters
live in both worlds, and that the play's ability to be tragedy, even in
the modern world of equivocation, is possible-perhaps, even
because of its metatheatrical nature.
In an interview, Mamet indicated his intent to structure the
play as a tragedy, a feature of the play critics overlooked by
comparing it to the Thomas confirmation hearings.
15
With just a
cursory comparison, 0/eanna reads like an exercise in Aristotelian
tragedy, including a concentration on action, a change of situation
from bad to good, reversals which lead to recognition by those on
both sides of the issue, and a scene of suffering. The hero(es) falls
on account of frailty rather than vice, and the fall elicits pity and
fear. Even the rather alienating elements of the plot, such as the
phone calls which are so repeatedly inopportune as to draw
attention to themselves as contrivances, turn out to be specifically
Aristotelian devices. It is the phone, after all, which precipitates the
various reversals in the play, especially during the last minute as
Mamet works to shift his audience's sympathies from side to side,
and a final phone call conveniently gives Carol the motivation for
that last verbal jab which makes her unredeemably unsympathetic,
at least for a second or two until John strikes her. Aristotle's
comments on coincidence seem almost a description of the bizarre
conclusion of 0/eanna:
14
Lionel Abel, "The Hero of Metatheatre," Partisan Review56:2 (1989):
214-224.
15
Geoffrey Norman and John Rezek, "David Mamet: A candid Conversation
with America's Foremost Dramatist about Tough Talk, TV Violence, Women and
Why Government Shouldn't Fund the Arts," P/ayboy(April1995), 52.
66 MASON
But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete
action, but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an
effect is best produced when the events come on us by
surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same
time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder
will then be greater than if they happened of themselves
or by accident, for even coincidences are most striking
when they have an air of design.
16
Taken point-by-point, the structure of 0/eanna is a model of
Aristotelian tragedy, that kind of tragedy which Lionel Abel alleges
has gone the way of all the earth.
But Abel does not seem to think the form of tragedy is
impossible, rather that nowadays it is nearly impossible for
playwrights to impact their audiences with the same force as, say,
classical playwrights, whose characters act with indomitable
commitment to ideals, a commitment so strong that winning and
losing-even right and wrong-are irrelevant. And when two such
characters come into conflict, as in tragedy, the force of their
collision is great. A cultural context in which some things are true
and fixed would have provided cause for the legendary effects of
tragedy-dread, commiseration, outrage-in the face of paradox.
But the twentieth century is too willing to equivocate. We no longer
see truths colliding but constructed positions hopelessly spinning
around each other, and it is rather easy for us to dismiss the horror
of paradox as the inconvenience of a compromise-which-has-not-
yet-been-reached. Having undermined the footing of the Macbeth's
determined steps, our time leaves us with the Hamlets who are
carried about with every wind of doctrine. 0/eanna, however,
regains some of the ground we have given up. The play's
characters are unswervingly committed to the ideals they have
found in our own noncommittal society and which ideals we
ourselves appreciate to the degree that their discord chafes us
greatly.
John is unlikable and reprehensible in all sorts of ways. He
is boorish, pedantic, condescending, ingratiating, and chauvinistic,
not to mention violent. For all the reasons Richard Badenhausen
indicates, John is certainly not the man Showalter describes as a
16
S. H. Butcher, trans., Aristotle's Poetics(New York: Hill and Wang,
1986), 70.
OLEANNA 67
"devoted husband and father who defends freedom of thought."
17
And yet, in spite of all the reasons we hate him, John remains
sympathetic because he represents two philosophies near and dear
to the American heart: 1) the majority rules, and 2) experience
counts. After all, his original appointment was made by committee,
and his tenure status is subject to the same public process. His
work as a teacher and a scholar depends on public examination and
evaluation, and, as a faculty member, John no doubt has a seat on
several similar committees, scrutinizing and assessing the work of
colleagues, such that John's university world seems a very
democratic one. If it is so that the students at the university, who
no doubt outnumber the faculty, have less of a say in the
university's program than their numbers suggest they should have,
it is only because their voice is invested by the system with a weight
proportional to the amount of work they have themselves invested
in the system. Given they exercise patience and show effort, the
students will eventually work themselves into positions which afford
them a weightier voice in university affairs than those who enter the
system after them. It's the central American myth: anyone can
make good. John's democratic sensibilities are offended by Carol's
temerity, especially by the way she circumvents time and effort, the
granite blocks beneath the American edifice, and obtains power in
the context of the university on account of his clumsiness rather
than on account of her own accomplishments within the system as
evaluated by her own university committee. When Carol presents
John with her list of "questionable" books, which includes John's
own, John is outraged by the audacity that Carol and her group
show in assuming for themselves the right to determine the
university curriculum. "This ... this is a university. .. " he stammers, "I
have a responsibility. .. to myself, to my son, to my profession' (75-
6).
Even John's predilection for transgressing norms is an
expression of America's democratic work ethic. John's experience
as a teacher and his experience with students, gained over the
course of ten or fifteen years, tells him that Carol, like other
students, is more concerned with her transcript than with the
17
Richard Badenhausen, "The Modern Academy Raging in the Dark:
Misreading Mamet's Political Correctness in Oleanna," College Literature 25 (Fall
1998): 1-19. Badenhausen challenges Showalter's characterization in this way:
"Showalter's 'devoted husband and father' abandons his family to spend two
nights in a hotel '[t]hinking' [Mamet 76], oblivious to the fact that his wife and
child might need some reassurance at this difficult time and that they might
want to speak with him, since his decisions regarding his professional
circumstances will affect them as much as him," 12 . .
68 MASON
material of the course-a fact she makes clear when she interrupts
one of his theoretical elucidations to ask about her grade (24).
Because he perceives that his two roles in carol's life, the medium
through which she receives the material of the class and the
authority which measures her comprehension of the material, have
come into conflict, John chooses to subordinate one role to the
other by making the course grade irrelevant in one fell swoop. The
arrangement is intended to address an individual need in spite of
universal prescriptions but also to isolate the revolutionary act when
the auspices of a person with sufficient stature within the system to
ensure that the act of defiance does not dangerously undermine the
system which exists to address the needs of the majority. Only
John's experience makes the arrangement possible, and he
dismisses Carol's own hope that such a special arrangement might
be made between the two of them.
CAROL
No. You have to help me.
JOHN
Certain institutional...you tell me what you want me to
do .. . You tell me what you want me to ...
CAROL
How can I go back and tell them the grades that I...
JOHN
What can I do .. . ?
CAROL
Teach me. Teach me.
JOHN
.. .I'm trying to teach you. (11)
We find in John a resolute commitment to the majority which
rewards his time and effort with his status, authority, and middle-
class comforts. The commitment to what John calls the "norms"
(57)-so strong it leads to violence as its last validation-indicates
an idealism we appreciate in America. John has apparently worked
hard to be where he is, certainly he has invested a considerable
amount of time, and what we understand as the American Way tells
us there should be a payoff.
Carol is an equally despicable family member. She is
caustic, insensitive, prone to hysterics, and perhaps duplicitous.
OLEANNA 69
But, in spite of it all, we see in Carol something with which we
identify. Carol acts from the idea that basic rights are inalienable,
regardless of the majority opinion or existing structures of authority.
In Carol is the voice of the minority which justly demands the fair
consideration of the majority, and by the end of the play, her
struggle is for an equal voice in the determination of her present
and future. Carol presumes to speak for those marginalized by the
system. She tells John she is pursuing a responsibility of her own to
"this institution. To the students. To my group' (65) . Granted,
Mamet does not reveal the membership of this oft-mentioned
group; Carol herself seems unsure of its demographics. "The issue
here is not what I 'feel,"' she tells John, "It is not my 'feelings,' but
the feelings of women. And men" (63). But Carol is clearly certain
that she represents somebody, that her pursuit of accusations and
formal charges against John gives a voice to those who do not
typically speak loudly enough to be heard. In the third act she
speaks with real conviction.
You write of your "responsibility to the young." Treat us
with respect, and that will show you your responsibility.
You write that education is just hazing. (Pause) But we
worked to get to this school. (Pause) And some of us.
(Pause) Overcame prejudices. Economic, sexual, you
cannot begin to imagine. And endured humiliations I
pray that you and those you love never will encounter.
(Pause) To gain admission here. To pursue that same
dream of security you pursue. We, who, who are, at
any moment, in danger of being deprived of it (69).
Whatever her faults, Carol's dedication to her cause speaks to our
appreciation for the right of the minority to influence the policy of
the majority.
18
"Someone chooses the books," she tells John in Act
3. "If you can choose them, others can" (74).
Carol may be a distasteful messenger, "a dishonest,
androgynous zealot" according to Elaine Showalter,
19
but this does
not lessen the sympathy of the American psyche for Carol 's
message. Nor does John's personal ugliness inhibit our appreciation
for his philosophical motivation. Rather, Carol's and John's
18
As I write this sentence on the morning of November 8, 2000, the
population of the United States is blinking its eyes at the fact that after it
collectively cast more than ninety-six million votes, perhaps fewer than two
thousand people in obscure areas of Florida will choose the next Most Powerful
Man in the World (pop. 6 Billion).
19
Showalter, 17.
70
MASON
characters are so unpleasant as to be alienating, which
distinguishes them from their positions so as to eliminate the
element of the audience's personal empathy from what is ultimately
a philosophical paradox, just as in classical tragedy. The cause of
the widely divergent interpretations of the play, the inspiration for
the fiercely emotional responses to the play, the feature which
keeps us performing this play around the country (and subsequently
keeps us arguing about the implications of continuing to perform it,
as Stanton B. Garner, Jr. has recently shown is the case)/
0
is the
terrifying vision of equally dear ideals ripping great gashes in each
other. As in Euripides' Bacchae, where the frightfulness of a
mother's gruesome murder of her son is at least matched in
awfulness by the horrible but necessary admission that he brought
it on himself, the characters are only acting out the mind-splitting,
tooth grinding derangement of conflicting ideals. Not only are John
and Carol very, very wrong, they are both very, very right.
III
0/eanna, then, exists both as metatheatre and tragedy,
and, I would contend, the former makes the latter possible. It is
not only that the play takes as its subject the cultural language of
which it is itself a part and that the play wrestles with cultural
dilemmas without pronouncing its own judgment, but the play is
decidedly unreal, and manifestly conscious of its unreality, and this
self-consciousness marks the action of the play as a mask behind
which our own self-consciousness-the realization that our ideals
stand up but not next to each other-is truly tragic.
Consequently, Oleanna is not only evidence that tragedy
and metatheatre can co-exist, but is also something new in the
evolution of twentieth-century theatre in the West. The play
upholds our standing tradition of skepticism, of energetically
assailing even the most basic of assumptions regarding our
institutions, our relationships with each other, and even our
existence. At the same time there is an undeniable core of belief in
the play, which is something more than that Mamet simply manages
to sympathize with both his characters. The awfulness of Carol's
and John's conflict depends upon an almost willfully naive conviction
that they are both right. "If I didn't believe them," Mamet tells
Geoffrey Norman and John Rezek, "the play wouldn't work as well.
It is a play about two people, and each person's point of view is
correct."
21
Far from the kind of equivocation we have come to
expect in twentieth century living which is willing to suspend total
20
Garner, 39-52.
21
Norman and Rezek, 52-3.
OLEANNA 71
disbelief in anything in order to accommodate everything, Mamet's
trust in his characters' philosophical positions is sure, and ultimately
makes no accommodations, even when, paradoxically, it calls itself
into question.
In resisting the inclination to bury forever the possibility of
new tragedy, Lionel Abel mused back in 1963: "A dramatist may
appear to whom the Furies are real-and I do not mean just
symbolically real- and still uncompromising in their demands for
blood vengeance."
22
Abel apparently anticipated a playwright who
believed certain things are true and that disaster inevitably follows
after the conflict of ideals. If Mamet's body of work does not
suggest that he is such a playwright, perhaps this one play suggests
that the dramatist Abel imagined may yet follow in a tradition of
which 0/eanna is the harbinger.
EPILOGUE
The argument I have made about tragedy in modern drama
has relied partly on two claims: 1) ideals do still exist in the modern
world, and particularly in modern America, which is the site of
0/eanna, and 2) performance in the modern day cannot not be
metatheatrical. The circumstances of the most recent presidential
election in the United States were astonishing of themselves, and
rather fortuitous with regard to my argument. In the first place, a
presidential election night passed without the election of a
president, and the presidency was undetermined-and, in any case,
vigorously contested-for some five weeks. One candidate, on the
one hand, apparently won the number of electoral college votes
necessary to claim the presidency, as legitimized by the U. S.
Constitution. The other candidate, however, apparently won the
nation's popular vote, which lent him sufficient credibility to
question the legitimacy of a breathtakingly small number of regional
popular votes upon which the decisive electoral votes hung.
This seems to me the stuff of modern meta-tragedy.
23
In a
smashingly grand way, two quintessential American ideals found
that there wasn't room enough in this town for the two of them:
The Rule of Law and The Will of the People. And the characters
which claimed each respective ideal as their own held on to their
places with tragic ferocity.
Granted, the rage regarding the election among the
campaigns and the citizenry was inspired by political devotions
22
Abel, 112.
23
This was a play, incidentally, the plot of which any theatre, agent, or
publisher in the country would have rejected outright as preposterous. And yet,
this drama dominated the country's attention for more than a month.
72
MASON
which were almost determinedly unaware of the philosophical
implications of the conflict. However, the conflict itself was possible
only because the ideas behind each position are equal powers in the
American imagination, which, in the remembered history of the
living generations, had never seen these powers so in conflict.
Ultimately, one of the ideals necessarily bowed to the other,
and the character who bowed with it cut a rather tragic figure. It
may be a sad thing when every four years in this country one
candidate for president or another goes down in flames. But this
time around, neither candidate was going to go except a hallowed
American principle go blazing alongside. And, in some respects, the
candidate who survived was a tragic figure himself-like Creon who
had to rule under the taint of forcing the subordination of one
cultural ideal to another.
A real, classical-ish tragedy may have played out in front of
us, and not without the metadramatic element which now comes
hardwired in our culture. The candidates and their staffs were
spinning frenetically, in the best American fashion, to dramatize the
moment-both to be earnestly sincere and to draw our attention to
their earnest sincerity. Furthermore, the national drama included
an indigestible number of television hours spent not only in the
presentation of the conflict, but in analysis of the conflict as
representing the American image. In the end, perhaps the election
debacle and 0/eanna say something similar. America cannot resist
an intense self-examination, as it hopes to find that it is as
significant as tragedy requires.
Journal of American Drama and Theatre 13 (Fall 2001)
"THE BATTLE-SHOUT OF FREEMEN:"
EDWIN FORREST'S PASSIVE PATRIOTISM
AND ROBERT T. CONRAD'S JACK CADE
KARL KIPPOLA
In its new dress, this drama [Jack cade] has been one
of the most successful ever written by an American,
not only attracting crowded houses, but extorting the
good word of our best critics.
-Edgar Allan Poe, Grahams Magazine, 1841
Poe's praise is obviously not in reference to what is
undoubtedly the most well known dramatization of the Jack cade
Rebellion. For most contemporary theatre historians, mention of
the rebellion recalls only the famous line from Shakespeare's Henry
VI, Part 2, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
Shakespeare presents cade (in what is actually a combination of the
most sensational elements of the Jack Cade-led Peasant Rebellion of
1450 and Wat Tyler's Peasants' Rebellion of 1381) as a rustic
buffoon and ridiculous pretender to the throne-a pawn and thug
ruthlessly seeking to subvert and destroy the stability of the
monarchy. Comprising most of the fourth act, the cade subplot
initially serves as comic relief but eventually turns dark and serious,
illustrating the danger of ambition, disorder, and anarchy.
A lesser known dramatization of the Jack cade rebellion is
Robert T. Conrad's Jack Cade, which garnered what little attention it
has received through its connection to the first great American
actor, Edwin Forrest.
1
Forrest sponsored nine playwriting contests,
encouraging the dramatic efforts of native American writers, which
1
It is perhaps ironic that the play was originally written for the actor
considered to be the only legitimate rival to Forrest's claim as the greatest
American tragedian, Augustus A. Addams. Addams, too drunk to perform Jack
cade on its opening in 1835, briefly and unsuccessfully played the role in 1836.
[T. Allston Brown, A History of the New York Stage From the First Performance
in 1732 to 1901, vol. 1 (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1903), 105-06. Francis
Courtnay Wemyss, Twenty-Six Years of the Life of an Actor and Manager(New
York: Burgess, Stringer, and Co., 1847), 244).
74 KIP PO LA
produced three enormously successful vehicles: John Augustus
Stone's Metamora; ~ the Last of the Wampanoags (1829); Robert
Montgomery Bird's The Gladiator (1831); and Robert T. Conrad's
Jack Cade (1835).
2
All three plays feature a rebellious republican
hero fighting against the oppression of a callous aristocracy for the
good of the exploited commoners.
Jack Cade has been universally lumped together with the
other two plays. Montrose J. Moses, Gary A. Richardson, Richard
Moody, and many others comment on the similarities in the plays,
making few distinctions, beyond cosmetic, between them.
3
Two
unpublished dissertations study the three plays in a bit more detail
with widely varying degrees of success; but, ultimately, their
conclusions do not prove any more satisfying or illuminating.
4
Bruce
McConachie traces the repetitions in form within these romantic and
heroic melodramas and the influences of Forrest, both direct and
implied, on the adaptations of the dramatic texts. McConachie,
however, essentially sees each play as little more than a superficial
redressing of the ideals of Jacksonian democracy.
5
Most of these
2
It is intriguing to note that all three of these dramatists are from
Philadelphia. Edwin Forrest, although his life and career were by this time
based out of New York, was also a native of Philadelphia and was proudly
claimed a son by the citizens of that city. Forrest kept a home in Philadelphia
that, after his death, became the Edwin Booth Home for "decayed" actors,
which survived until the 1980s. [Richard Moody, Edwin Forrest: First Star of
the American Stage (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), 390-94. cambridge
Guide to American Theatre, s. v. "Forrest, Edwin'1.
3
Montrose J. Moses, ed., Representative Plays by American Dramatists
From 176S to the Present Day, vol. 2, 1815-1858(New York: Benjamin BJorn,
1925), 427-430. Gary A. Richardson, "Plays and Playwrights: 1800-1865," in
The cambridge History of American Theatre, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1870, ed.
Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 267-270. Moody, Edwin Forrest, 90-91.
4
Eric Ray Marshall's bewildering "Playwriting Contests and Jacksonian
Democracy, 1829-1841" (USC, 1983) saw these three plays, as well as others,
capitalizing on "political disorder by placing a Jacksonian-like character in the
middle of the dilemma" (224). Marshall's study, poorly written and researched,
contains a multitude of factual and logical errors. Sally Leilani Jones' "The
Original Characters of Edwin Forrest and His American Style" (University of
Toronto, 1992) is, in sharp contrast, an excellent study which ultimately only
disappoints in its conclusion. Essentially, the plays were a vehicle for Forrest's
rugged individuality, whose charismatic personality was indistinguishable from
and interchangeable with the roles he played, creating "the archetypal 'self-
made' American actor and man" (300).
5
Bruce A. McConachie, Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and
Society, 1820-1870(1owa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992), 97-110.
JACK CADE 75
comparisons have of necessity been rather perfunctory and, in some
cases, not entirely accurate, failing to take many social and political
factors into account.
Metamora and The Gladiator have both received
significantly more scholarly attention than Conrad's play, yet Jack
Cade was enormously popular in its day and is worthy of further
attention. Forrest's performances of Jack Cade exceeded one-fourth
of his total appearances on Philadelphia stages from 1841 to 1855
{69 of 263) and, in fact, it was his most performed role, surpassing
the combined performances of Metamora and The Gladiator during
that period {30 and 36, respectively).
6
Forrest's personification of
Jack Cade connected with the audience on a profound level:
The Jack Cade of Forrest stirred the great
passions in the bosom of the people, swept the
chords of their elementary sympathies with
tempestuous and irresistible power .. .Jack Cade
was his incarnate tribuneship of the people,
... inflamed by personal wrongs and inspired with
a ... desperate love of liberty. In it he was a sort
of dramatic Demosthenes, rousing the cowardly
and slumberous hosts of mankind to redeem
themselves with their own right hands.
7
Jack Cade is the only one of Forrest's contest-winning plays that had
received prior production, having won the award in 1841 after an at
least moderately successful initial run in Philadelphia, and was
adapted by Conrad under Forrest's guidance.
8
My study focuses on a close examination of the two
versions of Conrad's text (distinguished as Conrad's Aylmere and
the Forrest-dictated Jack Cade), placed within the context of the
significant political, economic, and social changes from 1835, when
the play was written, to 1841, when Forrest made it so enormously
6
Arthur Herman Wilson, A HistoryofthePhJ!ade/phia Theatre, 1835-1855
(New York: Greenwood Press, 1968).
7
William Rounseville Alger, Life of Edwin Forrest: The American
Tragedian, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1877), 361.
8
Jack Cade opened 9 December 1835 for a three show run, averaging a
fully respectable $290 per night (Wemyss, 249), and was revived the following
year for three consecutive performances. The initial production had a rough
and interesting journey to the stage, which is far too involved to detail here.
This journey is thoroughly covered in Wemyss' Twenty-Six Years of the Life of
an Actor and Manager, 245- 50.
76
KIP PO LA
popular. I will examine the strength of Edwin Forrest's onstage
persona and his influence on working class audiences and look at
the career of Robert T. Conrad, focusing on his political views and
affiliations and their influences on his literary efforts. I seek to
illuminate the ways in which history was theatrically manipulated to
forward specific political or social agendas during this complex
period in antebellum America.
The 1830s had shown a strong surge of American
nationalism. The Greek fight for freedom renewed Americans' faith
in their own liberty. Andrew Jackson had become the political
symbol around which the masses could rally. This rugged hero
showed the world that a common man could rise to the highest
position in the land. The year 1835 was the end of Jackson's third
term as president and the termination of his reign as "King Andrew
the First." The presidency of Martin Van Buren (Jackson's vice
president and successor) saw the Panic of 1837, the most severe
economic depression that had yet occurred in the country. The
election of 1840 found the Whig party, desperate to drop the sheen
of aristocracy, pandering to popular tastes and successfully
borrowing a page from the Democratic party in presenting their
candidate, the Indian fighting William Henry Harrison, as the
embodiment of all rustic and rural virtues. The Whigs, who had
formerly been almost exclusively associated with the wealthy and
elite, were now the champions of democracy, vowing to save the
people from the evils of the privileged aristocracy.
Jack Cade appears to have entered the American
consciousness (at least of those who were neither historians nor
Shakespeare enthusiasts) on 18 December 1834. An article in
Courier and Enquirer, a conservative New York morning paper,
condemned newspaper editor William Leggett ( 1801-1839), whose
strong anti-bank and anti-monopoly views showed him a proud,
staunch, and outspoken Jacksonian, as "the Jack Cade of the
Evening Post" Leggett provided a spirited counter-attack in his own
paper, turning the insult into a compliment:
It then ill becomes republicans, enJOYing the
freedom which they [those who fought for the
liberty of the United States] achieved, admiring
... their conduct, and revering their memory, to
use the name of one who sacrificed his life in an
ill-starred effort in defence of the same glorious
JACK CADE
and universal principles of equal liberty, as a by-
word and term of mockery and reproach.
9
77
Leggett severely criticized Shakespeare's representation of Cade,
inspired by the "prejudice, bigotry and servility" of the chroniclers,
and praised the leader of the rebellion as an inspiring and noble
champion of liberty fighting against a "rapacious monarch ... and
licentious and factious nobles."
10
Leggett presented Cade as the
quintessential republican American hero. Robert T. Conrad's
adaptation of the rebellion clearly follows Leggett's outline, even
though Conrad claims not to have read Leggett's defense of Cade
until after his play was already in production.
11
Robert T. Conrad (1810-1858), popularly known as Judge
Conrad, trained for a legal career but had a profound interest in
both journalism and literature.
12
He co-edited the Philadelphia
highly respected and influential Whig periodical.
13
Following the success of his first play, King of Naples
(1832), and the overwhelming response to Jack Cade (1835/41),
Conrad became an editor of the North American, "an increasingly
popular Philadelphia daily newspaper which was to become one of
the nation's leading Whig journals," in 1845.
14
In 1848, he became
co-editor of Graham's Magazine, an important literary magazine that
gave opportunities for the development of American literature and
that "sought to find a mean between the uninteresting and severe
9
Evening Post, 18 December 1834. Reprinted in Theodore Sedgwick, Jr.,
ed., A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett, vol. 1 (New York:
Taylor and Dodd, 1840): 132-33.
10
Ibid., 126.
11
Robert T. Conrad, Aylmere, or The Bondman of Kent; and Other Poems
(Philadelphia: E. H. Butler, 1852), 282.
12
Biographical information on the life of Conrad is taken primarily from
the following sources: Montrose J. Moses, introduction to Jack cade, by Robert
T. Conrad, in Representative Plays by American Dramatists From 1765 to the
Present Day, vol. 2, 1815-1858(New York: Benjamin Blom, 1929), 427-438;
Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 4 (1930), s.v. "Conrad, Robert Taylor,"
355-56; Joseph Jackson, Literary Landmarks of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: David
McKay, 1939), 70-73; Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, The Literary History of
Philadelphia (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1906), 246-49.
13
Joseph Jackson, 62-64.
14
J. Albert Robbins, "George R. Graham, Philadelphia Publisher," The
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography75 (July 1951): 287.
78 KIP PO LA
literature that only Tories read and the namby-pambyism which was
the ruling note of the age."
15
He edited an abridged version of John
Sanderson's seven-volume Biography of the Signers of the
Declaration of Independence (originally published 1820-27) and
collected materials for Joseph Reese Fry's Life of General Zachary
Taylor, both in 1847.
16
His most popular play and various poems
were published in 1852 as Aylmere/ or The Bondman of Kent/ and
Other Poems.
Judge Conrad became the first elected mayor of the newly
consolidated Philadelphia in 1854, running as a candidate for the
combined Whig and American parties, and strongly supporting the
nationalistic policies of the Know-Nothing Party, requiring the
policemen of the city to be native-born Americans. Although he
encountered bitter resistance to his strict administration of law,
Conrad was roundly praised for his skill in guiding Philadelphia
through the difficulties associated with consolidation.
17
Conrad was
called "something of a genius as a poet and dramatist" and was said
to occupy "the first place among our Philadelphia literati' with a
strong connection with a primarily elite audience.
18
Edwin Forrest was America's first native-born star, who rose
to popularity through the adoration and support of working class
audiences. Expressive and powerful in voice and body, he seemed
to personify "the virility, the strength, the indomitable will of the
young and growing country."
19
"Strenuous realism" might best
characterize his performance style.
2
Forrest's acting was very
detailed and expressive, electrifying with bursts of passion and
leaving little to the spectator's imagination; he deplored the
repressed and restrained style of acting in "society" plays. The
passion of his acting elicited passionate responses, both positive and
negative: "To criticise it as acting is ... useless ... That human beings,
under any conceivable circumstances, should ever talk or act as
15
Oberholtzer, 264.
16
After Taylor's election to the presidency in 1848, this work was reprinted
and retitled (Our Battles in Mexico) in 1850.
17
Dictionary of American Biography, 356.
18
Joseph Jackson, 70. Edgar Allan Poe, 281.
19
Barnard Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A., 1665 to 1957(New York: McGraw-Hill,
1959), 108.
20
Garff B. Wilson, A History of American Acting (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1966), 23.
JACK CADE 79
they are represented in the Forrest drama ... is beyond belief."
21
Throughout his career, Forrest became progressively more
connected to lower class audiences, effectively alienating many of
the more educated and wealthy elite. Forrest's emotional
connection to working class Americans earned their vociferous
adulation.
[H]e stands forth as the very embodiment.. .of
the masses of American character ... Witness the
furor of audiences subjected to his control, the
simultaneous shouts of applause which follow
his great efforts, see the almost wild enthusiasm
that he kindles in the breasts of his auditors, and
who will deny that Mr. Forrest has got the heart,
nay, the "very heart of hearts," of the masses,
however he may have failed to conciliate the full
approbation of the strictly critical and the
fastidious?
22
Forrest sought and demanded roles that enabled him to
showcase his strengths and define himself as a symbol of American
nationalism-a true Jacksonian hero of the people. (Forrest was a
staunch Democrat and an enormous fan of Andrew Jackson, actively
supporting and campaigning for him. Forrest even spoke at the
National Convention for Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren.) In
what Forrest likely perceived as a failure of the nation to support
and cultivate American "native geniuses" in the theatre, his
playwriting competitions sought a truly American drama: "To the
author of the best Tragedy, in five acts, of which the hero or
principal character shall be an aboriginal of this country, the sum of
five hundred dollars, and half of the proceeds of the third
representation, with my own gratuitous services on that occasion."
23
The first contest winner was, of course, Metamora. Forrest held
nine such contests, eventually raising the prize to a thousand dollars
and lifting the restriction in subject matter. Jack Cade was the
penultimate winner.
Forrest had initially asked his friend, William Leggett, to
adapt the story of Jack Cade for the stage in 1837, but Leggett
21
"Easy Chair," Harpers Magazine, December 1863.
22
Albion (New York), 2 September 1848.
23
The Critic(New York), 22 November 1828. This weekly review was
edited by William Leggett.
80 KIP PO LA
refused for fear of an unfavorable comparison to Shakespeare.
Three months after Leggett's death in 1838, Forrest requested a
copy of Conrad's adaptation and after correspondence, negotiations,
and preparations, Forrest presented Conrad's Jack cade (initially
under the title of Aylmere) at New York's Park Theatre on 24 May
1841.
24
Conrad's play was originally produced as Aylmere/ ~ The
Bondman of Kent Forrest also initially performed the play under
that title (to a mediocre reception) but, at the encouragement of
theatre manager Francis Courtney Wemyss, quickly changed it to
Jack Cade/ ~ The Noble Yeoman, and it was under that title that
the play achieved its significant national popularity.
The plot of both versions of the play is roughly similar.
Before the action of the play, Cade's father (a bondman) is tortured
and killed after striking the evil Lord Say. Young cade strikes Lord
Say in retaliation and flees to Italy. The plot of Conrad's 1835
version begins ten years later with Cade's return to Kent (disguised
as Dr. Aylmere), vowing to free the cruelly oppressed bondmen.
Cade's mother is killed by Say; Cade's son starves to death when
the family is forced to hide in the forest; and Cade's wife goes mad
and is imprisoned after killing an aristocratic would-be rapist. Cade
leads the rebel forces into London, demanding the delivery of Lord
Say and a signed charter, freeing the bondmen. cade kills Say, but
not before being struck by Say's poisoned dagger. Cade's mad wife
dies in his arms and, as the sealed charter is delivered, he dies.
The most significant challenge in comparing the two
versions of the text lies in attempting to differentiate between
changes made purely to streamline the play for production and
parts removed, added, or altered because they either may have
been at odds with the Jacksonian message or did not fit ideally
within the parameters of Forrest's narrowly defined self-image.
25
In
24
Wemyss, 245-50.
25
This study will not address many of the changes that appear irrelevant
to the stated intentions of this essay. Direct references to "God" are changed
to "Heaven" or "Religion," which is fairly common in drama of the period. Most
overt religious references, both the worshipful and the profane, are eliminated.
Jack cade also tones down some of Aylmeres more gruesome descriptions of
famine, whipping, immolation, death, and spearing babies- most likely out of
sensitivity to the women in the audience. Many of the changes appear to be
random and without any artistic justification. One glaring example-as Aylmere
is rhapsodizing on the beauty and joy of Italy in his exile, he goes into a brief
exultation of the four seasons. Jack cade cuts off the speech in the middle of
Summer, completely eliminating Autumn and Winter [Robert T. Conrad,
Aylmere; or, The Kentish Rebellion, "Property of Edwin Forrest," Marked for Mr.
Forrest by D. A. Sarzedas, Prompter, Park Theatre May 2-fl' 1841 New York
(University of Pennsylvania, Forrest Collection), 25].
JACK CADE 81
the introduction to his published version of the original play, Conrad
humbly thanked Forrest for his guidance in preparing the work for
performance:
The tragedy, as originally written and now
presented to the reader, comprises much that
was not designed for, and is not adapted to, the
stage ... To the judgment and taste of Mr. Forrest
he is indebted for the suggestions which
prepared "Aylmere" for the stage; and to the
eminent genius of that unrivalled tragedian and
liberal patron of dramatic literature, its flattering
success at home and abroad may be justly
ascribed.
26
There is no evidence to suggest that Aylmere was written for any
reason other than to be presented on stage; Conrad graciously
thanked Forrest for assistance in adapting the play for performance,
even though it had already enjoyed moderate success. Even more
telling, Conrad did not choose to adopt any of Forrest's suggestions
into published form, presumably feeling that the complete, unedited
version had the strength to stand on its own. By the time of this
publication {1852), the play was an enormous success; and the
popular title, Jack Cade, would have been far more marketable.
The ultimate result of Conrad's choice is to separate his work as a
dramatist from Forrest and his stage production. Conrad's
published play and poems catered to a more educated and elite
reader than "the masses" which predominantly composed Forrest's
audience.
Many of the cuts and changes suggested by Forrest and
incorporated into Jack Cade significantly mar the meter of the verse.
The frequent breaks in the scansion disrupt the flow of the poetic
line, giving the language a stop-and-start feel, almost as if someone
was awkwardly winding up a music box. An educated audience
would likely find these disruptions to the poetic flow jarring. These
changes, often dropping a word or short phrase from a line, can
clearly be attributed to ForrestY Even though it is odd that Conrad
as a successful poet would have been so willing to allow this ham-
26
Conrad, Aylmere, vii-viii.
27
The script in which Forrest marked cuts and asked for changes
(including a few brief notes to Conrad) is in the Forrest Collection at the
University of Pennsylvania Library.
82 KIP PO LA
handed treatment of his text, this study will only focus on significant
changes in meaning and tone rather than purely aesthetic choices.
28
The second scene of the play begins comically with a young
soon-to-be-married couple in a mock argument. The scene quickly
turns serious as the bondmen discuss Say's attempt to stop the
wedding, and Friar Lacy (a friend of Cade and sympathetic to the
bondmen's cause) forces the village men to acknowledge the
hopelessness of their submissive situation:
The curse is on us all. What though you be
A yeoman born? Go to, you are not free.
You may nor toil nor rest, nor love nor hate,
Nor joy nor grieve, without your baron's leave.
Free quotha! Ay, free as the falcon is
That flies on high, but may be caged again.
29
This impotent call to action needs a rallying point to unite the hearts
and wills of the common men, and the disguised Cade is soon to
appear. The entire scene is cut in Jack Cade. There are at least
three possible explanations for its removal. First, from a practical
standpoint, the scene delays the entrance of the title character.
Second, the lighter elements of the scene, and there are very few in
the play, may not have been in keeping with the purely tragic tone
that Forrest may have hoped to achieve. Finally, the poetic and
impassioned call for freedom, even though it was not fully heeded,
did not come from the title character. Friar Lacy plays a stronger
and more forceful role in Ay/mere-in many ways reminiscent of
Romeo and Ju/iets Friar Laurence. The size and importance of the
role are decidedly diminished in Jack Cade. Also, the common
bondmen in this scene show a more obvious discontent and a
stronger willingness to take action than in the first scene of the
play, in which they appear truly helpless. The men in the cut scene
28
There are remarkably few additions to Jack Cade of any real substance
or significance. Only one addition is over one line long. Act three of Aylmere
ends with Cade's capture and he learns of his son's death as the curtain comes
down. Jack Cade adds a short exchange between cade and Say, in which cade
begs to once more ki ss his lifeless child: " A poor, a sinless child, whom thou
hast driven{fo famine and to death. " Say refuses, and Cade is dragged off
stage vowing revenge for the death of his father, mother, and child. This
addition, requested by Forrest, is a relatively minor concession to Forrest's
desire to show paternal strength and passion.
29
Conrad, Ay/mere, 22. The shifts in tone within the scene from comic to
serious and back to comic (the scene ends with Lacy giving the prospective
bridegroom marriage advice) seem very Shakespearean; the scene could easily
have come almost directly out of one of his romances, like The Winter's Tale.
JACK CADE 83
are more in need of a catalyst than a leader. A later scene, also cut
from Forrest's version, shows the bondmen, led by a weapon-
wielding Friar Lacy, bonding together and planning to rescue Cade
after he has been captured by Say. Again, it seems to be the
commoners' willingness and ability to act on their own, without
being led by the hero, that prompted its omission.
Forrest was understandably wary of passages that attacked,
condemned, mocked, or questioned the intelligence of the common
people too harshly. Lord Say, presented in the play as a villain
without any redeeming qualities, attacks the fickle character of the
bondmen:
They but ask fair words-fair words.
Hail them as gods, and you as worms may crush them,
Knead them with the spurning heel into the dunghill:
But when they bow before some fungous idol.
Or rush, like worried herds o'er some dread cliff,
Into a certain ruin-seek to save them-
Speak, strive, strike, struggle, die for them-and
they-
While your spent heart gasps out its latest drops,
For them-for them-will trample on it!
30
This mockery of, and frustration over, the stupidity of the commons
was cut from Jack Cade. Forrest was obviously afraid of offending
his audience. Because of the blind and passionate adoration that he
engendered and enjoyed in working class audiences, it is also
possible that he did not wish the masses to think too clearly or
critically about the idol before which they bowed.
The hero of Jack Cade never presents the plight of the
masses as completely hopeless. The entire story speaks of their
oppression but always in a manner in which there is a tangible devil
with which to do battle. In Conrad's Aylmere, the feeble outrage of
the poor against an invisible and all-powerful foe is hopeless:
Knows the poor wretch a joy? they find it out!
A pride? they crush it! Doth he sweat to win
Some comfort for his cot? their curse falls on it!
Yearneth he o'er some holy sympathy
For wife or child? they tear the golden thread
From out the rugged texture of his fate,
And leave his desolate.
31
3
Conrad, Aylmere, 44
31
Ibid., 62.
84 KIP PO LA
For Forrest, this sentiment is too bleak. The poor, weary, and
oppressed must always have some refuge. As Conrad's hero
starves in the forest, helplessly watching the meaningless death of
his son, he questions what he has done to merit his harsh desserts:
I am not thwart in form, nor is my soul
Distempered; shame sits not upon my brow,
Nor has wrong soiled my hand; why, Heaven, am I
Spurned from the general feast thou has
provided?
32
There can be no answer to this question. The only possible
responses: hopeless despair or immediate and violent action. The
hard-working, decent people in Forrest's audience, who likely felt
they had committed no great sin to justify their situation, cannot be
left without an answer, so the question cannot be asked.
33
This fear of bitter questions and discontent among the
commons who compose Forrest's audience may well explain his
desire to temper the complaints of his bondmen. Jack Cade
moderates their outrage. cade's decision to steal, if necessary, in
order to save his son from starvation is downplayed in Forrest's
version, rather than the bitter rage underlying his justification in
Conrad's original:
I'll buy it with blood!
Why should the perfumed lordling roll in gold,
And thou, wan child of sorrow, die for that
Which he throws careless to his cringing lacquey?
Each laced and lisping fool is rich; whilst I -
Oh, shame on justice!-watch my infant
starving!-
No, 'tis no crime-no crime!
34
32
Ibid., 104.
33
Conrad's use of such stark imagery, remini scent of King Lear, imitated
Shakespeare's tragic form in an age in which Shakespeare's tragedies were no
longer palatable to audiences and were frequently revised, giving happy endings
to plays such as King Lear and Romeo and Juliet Forrest's modification of
Conrad's original text made the play more in keeping with the general trend.
34
Conrad, Aylmere, 106-07.
JACK CADE 85
Forrest's elimination of this passage indicates a fear of popular
uprisings; if had chosen to play this scene as written, there might
well have been a danger in his being too convincing.
35
Forrest was reluctant to have characters other than the
noble, selfless cade instigating action; a hero articulating lofty ideals
was to lead the way. Conrad's hero demanded nothing less than
armed rebellion against the tyranny of their aristocratic oppressors:
Think not she's [Liberty's] won
With gentle smiles, and yielding blandishments:
She spurns your dainty wooer;
And turns to sinewy arms and hearts of steel.
The war-cloud is her couch; her matin hymn
The battle-shout of freemen.
36
The hero of Jack Cade encouraged a softer, less desperate defiance.
Once the cade-led rebellion has taken London, the bondmen in
Aylmere call for Cade's coronation, the march of their army onto
France, and further glories. This section was also eliminated in Jack
Cade, perhaps because it shows the tremendous potential for
danger and excess should the masses ever realize their power,
essentially echoing the same warning as Shakespeare:
'Tis a flame,
That like the glorious torch of the volcano,
Lights the pale land, and leaves it desolate!
37
Jack cade was a historical figure co-opted by both parties
from 1834 to 1841-claimed as a Jacksonian hero by newspaper
editor William Leggett, transformed into a champion of the Whigs
through Conrad's theatrical manipulation, and restored as a
Jacksonian at Forrest's insistence. Forrest's interpretation of Jack
Cade, perfectly tailored to suit the tastes of the masses, appealed to
the republican interests of his working class male audience and
preached a safe, controlled rebellion-a passive patriotism. If the
oppressed masses were a simmering pot, Forrest acted as the lid,
agitating them to a boil but always releasing the pressure before
the seething rage could boil over. Conrad kept the lid down tight,
35
It is ironic that only eight years after Forrest's successful opening of Jack
Cade, that his goading of the New York audiences, capitalizing on a growing
class rivalry and desperate nationalistic fears, would lead to the Astor Place riot.
36
Conrad, Aylmere, 83.
37
Ibid., 149.
86
KIPPOLA
daring it to explode. His drama, created in a fully-dimensional
Shakespearean mold, called the public to action without waiting for
a charismatic hero to lead the way, echoing a fear of the dominating
influence of Jackson. Conrad's play, reacting against the domination
of Jacksonian Democracy in the mid-1830s, encouraged the masses
to unite and fight the powers that be and also helped to re-invent
the Whigs as champions of the common man. Conrad anticipated
the Whig agenda in the 1840 election: show the people that you
stand with them, not against them- beside them, not above them.
CONTRIBUTORS
DOROTHY CHANSKY is Assistant Professor of Theatre at the
College of William and Mary. Her essays have appeared in Text
and Performance Quarterly, Theatre Topics, Theatre History
Studies, and The Journal of American Drama and Theatre. Her
criticism has appeared in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey,
In Theater, TheaterWeek, and online at New York Theatre Wire
and TheatreMania. She is completing a book on the American
Little Theatre Movement.
JOHN FLEMING is Director of Graduate Studies in the Theatre
Department at Southwest Texas State University. He is the
author of the new book Stoppard's Theatre: Rnding Order Amid
Chaos. He is currently working on a book on Romulus Linney.
ROBERT M. PoST teaches the performance of literature and
directs Readers Theatre in the Department of Speech
Communication at the University of Washington. Recent
publications focus on Dostoevsky and Wallace Shawn.
DAVID MASON is completing a Ph.D. in theatre research at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, he is pursuing
research in Vrindavan, India, on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship. He
has been a writer for Wisconsin Public Radio, and artistic director
for Madison's Homemade Theatre Group.
KARL KIPPOLA is a Ph.D. student in Theatre and Performance
Studies at the University of Maryland. His study focuses on
theatrical manipulation on the ante-bellum American stage. His
article, "Suppressing the Female Voice: Edwin Forrest's Silencing
of Women in Robert T. Conrad's Jack Cade," will appear in the
Fall 2001 edition of Theatre Symposium.
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