M. Shulman, the American Pipe Dream, Dissertation
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The American Pipe Dream: Drug Addiction on Stage, 1890-1940 A dissertation submitted by MAX SHULMAN In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama Tufts University May 2016 Copyright © 2016, Max Shulman Adviser: Dr. Laurence Senelick ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the representation of drug addiction and drug use in U.S. theatre from the 1890s to the start of the Second World War. In this, it engages with the decades in which the nation first formulated its conceptions of addiction. It is in the 1890s that addicts first appear on stage and assume a significant place in the national imaginary. Over the next fifty years, the theatre becomes an integral part of a cultural process that shapes the characterization, treatment, and legislative paradigms regarding addiction. In many cases, these paradigms that appear during the Progressive Era, Jazz Age, and Depression persist today. This study examines this history by looking at a variety of performance formats, including melodrama, vaudeville, and Jazz club acts. Ranging from the “elite” theatres of Broadway to the “lowbrow” variety stages, this research establishes connections between representational practice and an array of sources. These include the medical, legal, and literary histories related to drug use in the period. Up till now, these are the histories that scholars have recorded, but they have yet to take into account the importance of performance as it both formed and reflected other elements of culture related to drug use. It was the stage that helped push through reforms on part of the Prohibition Era activists; it was also the stage that disseminated the rapidly changing medical etiologies of addiction to the general populace. Extending beyond these regulatory and diagnostic concerns, this dissertation moves to examine addiction as a defining condition of modernity, a concept that stems from a literary legacy connected to Thomas De Quincey, Charles Baudelaire, and the Decadent writers of the fin de siècle. Throughout this history, the stage-addict served to test the limits of U.S. imagination while formulating the parameters of normal and abnormal, natural and artificial. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I must thank Laurence Senelick who has guided this project from inception to completion. He served as an exemplary advisor and mentor during this long stretch. I must also thank Barbara Grossman, Monica White Ndounou, and Derek Miller for their time and careful consideration as members of my defense panel. I am deeply indebted to Matt McMahan and Amy Meyer who defined friendship in their suggestions, encouragement, and inspiration. I must also thank the staff of Leli’s Bakery in Astoria who kept the lights on for me many nights as I tapped away. To my family: Ken and Susie, who always made learning the highest of aspirations and reopened their home to allow me pursue that aspiration; and to Jackson, the brother who always tries to understand. In the end, this project would never have come to fruition without Prentiss Benjamin who was with me for every word. Prentiss, you are my heart. I dedicate this work to Tennessee, in whom my soul delights. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS III LIST OF FIGURES V INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: OPIUM DEN PLAYS 34 CHAPTER 2: PROHIBITION PLAYS 100 CHAPTER 3: DRUG SLANG AND THE COMIC DOPE FIEND 165 CHAPTER 4: ADDICTION AS METONYM 222 CONCLUSION 285 BIBLIOGRAPHY 295 iv LIST OF FIGURES (Images/Figures not included in ProQuest version of Documents) Fig. 1, Opium smoking paraphernalia. Harpers Weekly (September 24, 1881), 645. Fig. 2, Advertisement poster for The Queen of Chinatown (1899). Fig. 3, Mary Duncan in costume from Shanghai Gesture, 1926. Billy Rose Division, New York Public Library. Fig. 4, Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Harold Wynn with Mrs. Patrick Campbell in John-a-Dreams, c. 1894. Billy Rose Division, New York Public Library. Fig. 5, Henry Miller as Harold Wynn in the U.S. production of John-a-Dreams, 1895. Billy Rose Division, New York Public Library. Fig. 6, Tully Marshall (right) as George Hannock in Clyde Fitch’s The City, 1909. Billy Rose Division, New York Public Library. Fig. 7, Dorothy Donnelly as Jacqueline “reading the cards” in Madame X (1909). Note the bottle of ether on the table. Billy Rose Division, New York Public Library. Fig. 8, Donnelly strikes poses to demonstrate the stages of ether’s effect. Chicago Daily Tribune (October 31, 1909). Fig. 9, Newspaper cartoon of the “International Dope Ring,” 1930s. From Gary Silver, The Dope Chronicles, 1850-1950 (New York: Harper & Row, 1979). Fig. 10, McCree in character (1907-1908). Robinson Locke Collection, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library. Fig. 11, Lew Kelly in costume from Variety, December 23, 1911. Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library. Fig. 12 & 13, Thomas Worth renderings: “The Opium Smoker” and “Going for ‘Em.” (Late Nineteenth Century) Museum of the City of New York. Fig. 14, Elmer Simms Campbell’s “Night-Club Map of Harlem,” 1932. Fig. 15, Cab Calloway from “St. James Infirmary” cartoon by the Fleischer Brothers (1933). Fig. 16, Calloway in his signature white tuxedo (early 1930s). Author’s collection. Fig. 17, William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes using his syringe. Press Booklet, William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes (New York: R.H. Russell, 1900). Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library. v INTRODUCTION The Gateway “. a theatre seemed suddenly opened and lighted within my brain, which presented, nightly, spectacle of more than earthly splendor.” - Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, 1822. Tully Marshall had a knack for playing drug addicts. He did so to acclaim twice in his long career as a stage and screen actor. Bony, long-limbed, and hatchet-faced, he seemed to fit the part. Marshall first portrayed an addict in Clyde Fitch’s 1909 melodrama The City, about the pitfalls of urban life. His character was a blackmailing villain with incestuous tendencies. In 1916, Marshall again played a dope fiend in the silent film The Devil’s Needle, directed by Chester Withey. The film follows the downward spiral of a mild-mannered artist who transforms into a raving degenerate once he acquires the morphine habit. Both of Marshall’s performances received positive responses. Reviews of The City praise Marshall for stealing the show through his “embodiment of the physical wreck of a man.”1 His acting in The Devil’s Needle (which survives) is all gnashing teeth, roving eyes, twitches, and shakes. We can imagine he enacted similar paroxysms in Fitch’s drama. Audiences believed Marshall’s portrayal of the addict was so true-to-life that reporters questioned his process, wondering how he was able to so capture the frenzied mien of the drug user so effectively. They hinted that it seemed too good to be an impersonation. Marshall was quick to assert that he had no experience with narcotics himself, loath to be connected to the creeps he personified so convincingly.2 What is striking is that Marshall’s 1 “The City Visits Harford Again,” The Hartford Courant (Feb. 14, 1911). 1 interpretations of the addict not only bear close resemblance to modern representations, but the responses he received mirror those generated by actors who play addicts today. Present-day films and plays feature drug use as typical dramatic fare. The performance of addiction follows a set of conventions so ingrained as to almost too easily result in caricature. Sunken eyes, pallid skin, and incessant scratching (all of which Marshall exhibited) are part of a repertoire that actors readily adopt when playing addicts. Actors eagerly seek these roles as diving into the depth of human degradation is an attractive challenge. Playing an addict presents the opportunity to infuse a portrayal with desperate tics and legitimizes extreme behaviors in performance. Engendering sympathy in an audience for such a character comes with it a certain prestige and proof of skill. For clean-cut movie stars these roles provide the opportunity for transformation. Leonardo DiCaprio played a delinquent junkie in Basketball Diaries (1995) and an extravagant profligate in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013); Christian Bale won an Oscar for his impersonation of former crack addict and prize fighter Dicky Eklund in The Fighter (2010); and Jennifer Hudson recently appeared as a heroin-addicted prostitute in The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (2013).3 Just as the performances by Tully Marshall in 1909 and 1916, modern day portrayals receive special attention and each of the performers listed faced questions regarding their process and their personal experiences with narcotics. There are a number of reasons that writers pursue these questions. On the one hand, audiences simply want to demystify the acting process. On the other, by admitting to 2 “Actor Tells Story: Praises Fitch Play. Tully Marshall of ‘The City,’ Talks of Career,” New York Tribune (Dec. 25, 1909). 3 Peter Galvin, “Diary of a Thoughtful Junkie,” San Francisco Chronicle (Apr. 16, 1995); Nicole Eggenberger, “Leonardo Dicaprio: I’ve ‘Never Done’ Drugs,” US Weekly (Feb. 7, 2014); Soraya Roberts, “Christian Bale: ‘Fighter’ weight loss required me to do a ‘lot of coke,’” New York Daily News (Dec. 7, 2010); Katie Van Syckle, “Jennifer Hudson on Drugs, Drake and Twerking with Miley,” Rolling Stone Magazine (Oct. 29, 2013). 2 personal drug use, the actor somehow cheapens his or her performance; their convincing act of representation becomes merely a re-enactment. And, finally, there is a latent desire to discredit these celebrated individuals and drug use is excellent grist for the mill. Regardless of the motivation, the interest in the ingenuity of modern actors ignores the fact that the markers of addiction in today’s media are little altered from those that Tully Marshall exploited in his performances; markers that, even in 1909, were not new.