The History of Southern Drama

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Dramatic Literature, Criticism, and Theory Theatre and Performance Studies 1997 The History of Southern Drama Charles S. Watson University of Alabama Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Watson, Charles S., "The History of Southern Drama" (1997). Dramatic Literature, Criticism, and Theory. 2. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_dramatic_literature/2 THE HISTORY OF SOUTHERN DRAMA This page intentionally left blank THE HISTORY OF SOUTHERN D CHARLES S. WATSON THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 1997 by The University Press of Kentucky Paperback edition 2009 The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-8131-9307-6 (pbk: acid-free paper) This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses To my dear son and daughter, WHITIEN SULLNAN WATSON and ELLEN CURRIE WATSON This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Prologue: Definitions and Preliminaries 1 1 Nationalism and Native Culture in Virginia 10 2 Prolific Playwriting in Charleston 25 3 The Dramatist as Humorist in New Orleans 48 4 Drama Goes to War 64 5 The Modern Drama of Espy Williams 85 6 The Leadership of Paul Green 99 7 DuBose Heyward's Transmutation of Black Culture 122 8 The Southern Marxism of Lillian Hellman 133 9 Black Drama: Politics or Culture 144 10 Randolph Edmonds and Civil Rights 160 11 The Cultural Imagination of Tennessee Williams 17 4 12 Past and Present Cultures in Recent Drama 192 Epilogue: Politics, Culture, and the Rise of Southern Drama 212 Notes 218 Bibliography 243 Index 255 Illustrations follow page 148 This page intentionally left blank Preface When the Carolina Playmakers sponsored the Southern Regional The atre Festival in April 1940 at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, George R. Coffman, chair of the University of North Caroiina's English Department, called for "a comprehensive history of drama in the South" from the beginning to the present. At that time the plays of Tennessee Williams had not yet added luster to the subject, nor had much scholarship on pre-1900 drama been published. Since 1940, southern drama has reached new heights, and valuable studies have appeared-but still no overall account. Undeniably the time is ripe for the first history of southern drama. When I completed my chapter on southern drama to 1900 for A Bibliographical Guide to the Study ofSouthern Literature ( 1969) , I too recom mended a comprehensive history of the subject. Yet drama was badly neglected in the latest survey of southern literature as a whole, The His tory of Southern Literature (1985): in a volume of 605 pages, a chapter entitled "The Old South, 1815-1840" devotes just one paragraph to pre- 1900 drama, and the chapter on "Modern Southern Drama" discusses only Paul Green, Lillian Hellman, and Tennessee Williams-in seven pages. With this book I hope to rectify that neglect of southern drama, for the history of southern literature is incomplete without attention to it. Certainly Tennessee Williams and Lillian Hellman have become famous for their widely performed works. But the numerous dramatic composi tions that preceded and followed those have not been enumerated and discussed in one published study. I present a sequential development, from the plays of Robert Munford in the 1770s to those of current dra matists such as Horton Foote and Beth Henley. The early plays have much to tell us about SOl'thern life by highlighting the political, social, and moral concerns of the day. Playwrights of the modern period have re flected the durability of some of those concerns and the alteration of others. Many-particularly Mrican American dramatists such as Randolph Edmonds-have lent their support to such causes as the civil rights movement. For any category of American literature to exist as a subject for study and enlightenment, histories must first furnish an overview. This book ix X PREFACE proposes to make known the subject of southern drama and to establish it as a valuable body of knowledge. Mter this material has been tasted, digested, and assimilated, scholars can speak understandably of south ern drama as a significant subject which has been surveyed in its en tirety. Recent surveys of American drama as a whole have provided me with the foundation for a history of southern drama. I am particularly indebted to Walter Meserve's first two volumes of a new chronicle-An Emerging Entertainment: The Drama of the American People to 1828 (1977), and Heralds of Promise: The Drama of the American People during the Age of Jackson, 1828-1849 (1986)-plus his invaluable bibliography, American Drama to 1900: A Guide to Information Sources (1980). More recently, Gary Richardson has added to our knowledge of pre-twentieth-century drama by his American Drama from the Colonial Period Through World War I: A Criti cal History (1993). For my own history I take the approach of a literary historian, which means that I am concerned with stages of development. Southern drama has undergone a sure, if erratic, progress marked by phases of greater and lesser activity. I take note of the historical context and recognize both political and cultural issues especially before 1900. To furnish in formation as well as to analyze the subject matter, I observe theatrical conditions (including the difficulty of developing drama outside New York), and examine not only the work of the dramatists but pertinent facts in their lives and careers. I have included ample summaries of rare or unpublished plays whose contents would not be known otherwise. To do all this, I make use of plays, histories, biographies, criticism, and bibliographies. I have sought to locate enough plays to represent the full achievement of each dramatist, though this was a difficult task for the early writers and even for some in the twentieth century. Using all relevant materials available, I include data on the dramas and the dramatists for the reader seeking such knowledge in one volume-a task valuable in itself, since it may lead to future discoveries in the field. From the outset my intention has been to lay the groundwork for more inten sive studies by providing an overall view and by including dramatists and plays ripe for further investigation. If my readers learn new names, I will be gratified. For the early plays, my evaluative standard is historical significance what the play tells us about the politics, culture, and society of the times rather than literary merit. For this reason, I examine a substantial number of unperformed plays, many of which publicize important ideas for the first time and contain more interesting material than some staged but trivial works. For the twentieth-century plays, evaluation and analysis must PREFACE xi expand to embrace artistic merit-vitality of character portrayal, thematic excellence, quality of ideas, dramaturgical skill-as well as historical sig nificance. In a volume covering such a quantity of disparate material, composed over two centuries by a long line of men and women, with varied per spectives and talents, generalizations are difficult and even risky. All the same, a clear trend emerges in the nature of southern drama, that is, what really identifies a play as "southern." I argue that southern drama has changed radically in its political orientation while remaining consis tent in its cultural distinctiveness. That is to say, the southern play through the Civil War years is distinguished by sectional politics, especially re garding slavery, while concurrently reflecting the region's traditions, ac tivities, and interests; from World War I to the present, the southern play rejects the sectional or predominantly southern stand in politics, espe cially with regard to the racial issue, while exploring with increasing suc cess the rich cultural resources of the South. Ironically, the normative southern play of the twentieth century has repudiated the predominant political ideology of the South but has welcomed its distinctive cultural elements with open arms. When dramatists like Paul Green, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, and Horton Foote have composed such plays with artistry, they have lifted southern drama to new heights. Aware ness of political and cultural features will furnish an illuminating frame work within which to analyze the most noteworthy and interesting changes in southern drama. Looking back on the making of this book, I am deeply conscious of sup port from many people. This project has been a collective undertaking in the fullest sense. I wish to acknowledge with gratitude the real contri bution of Jackson Bryer, University of Maryland; Walter Meserve, for merly of the City University of New York; Horton Foote ofWharton, Texas; Lawrence G.

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