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Department of English and American Studies English Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Václav Opatřil A Debate of Modern Dramatic Realism in the US in the Late 19th Century: The Case of Margaret Fleming by James A. Heme Bachelor's Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Tomáš Kačer, Ph.D. 2019 / declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. Author's signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor and everyone in the world with an open enough mind to keep me going through all of this. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. The Voices of Realism 5 3. A Singular Fictional Woman in Time 15 4. Critics and Supporters 23 5. Louder and Silenced 30 6. Followers in Footsteps 34 7. Conclusion 38 Works Cited 42 Resume 48 1. Introduction The panorama of American drama in the later part of the 19th century was not a very diverse one, as opposed to the various movements seen in the century following it. We now consider elements of realism as essential and matter-of-course tools of the modern dramatist which seem to have been there for centuries. The truth is that things have not always been this way, and that melodrama, a typically bombastic and sentimental genre, dominated the stage in the epoch discussed here (Richardson 153), and this status quo was only gradually altered both by outside influence coming from Europe (where Ibsen and others started to push for realism much earlier than in America), from other forms of art such as prose, or from various literary theorists, as well as by prominent figures from within, daring enough to shed the conventions of the time in favour of something before unseen. One such figure was James A. Heme, whose now-best-known 1890 play Margaret Fleming stands apart from its contemporaries and may have provided the necessary impulse for the flourishing of realism coming later. James A. Heme was born in 1839 in Cohoes, New York (Quinn, Representative 515), and after some years spent working in a factory, decided at the age of twenty to pursue a career in theatre, starting as an actor, mostly not in lead, but character roles, travelling around the continent and staying for periods of time in Washington and California, paying a visiting to Canada as well, and throughout this acting even opposite the then-famous Edwin Booth (Griffiths 8-11). He gained experience in managing a theatre at the Grand Opera House in New York or Maguire's Theatre in San Francisco (11). While there, he married his second wife, Katharine Corcoran, who would turn out to be an influence on his life as well as his work (Denison). Together they had five children, and three of his daughters - Dorothy, Julie and Chrystal, would go on to become actresses. 1 During this earlier period of his life, Heme would stage plays by other authors or rework popular literary works, especially those by Dickens for the stage (Heme, "Art" 365). The success of his first play, Hearts of Oak (1879) co-written with David Belasco, marked a shift for him (Watt 235), and he decided to turn to writing more from then on. His other notable plays include Drifting Apart (1888), the aforementioned controversial Margaret Fleming (1890), Shore Acres (1893), which, along with Hearts of Oak was his most financially successful (Quinn, A History 126), The Reverend Griffith Davenport (1899) and his last play, Sag Harbor (1900) (Gannon 105-106). He died in New York in 1901 (Quinn, Representative 517), leaving behind some popular and universally appreciated works, as well as an especially daring one. It would be unfair to state that Heme was the sole proponent of dramatic realism in his time - however, these attempts, such as those of Steele Mackaye or David Belasco (an associate of Heme for some time during his career) were mostly slighter deviations still well embedded within the niche of melodrama. Realist theory was developed by Henry James (who, although much more renowned as a novelist and short story writer, produced also a large number of plays) and William Dean Howells (Robinson 154), a central representative of the early stage of the American realist novel, both of whom, however, were primarily concerned with fiction. The first part of this thesis will be dedicated to precisely these voices either giving shape to an early, primitive form of realism, or giving the movement a theoretical background to lean on. In addition, it should also be noted that James A. Heme did not adhere to the (then- forming) realist principles for the whole of his career, and that he himself also underwent a journey that comprised of more adventurous forays as well as "safe bet" returns to the conventional (Fearnow 178). He did, nonetheless, do a significant deal to help dramatic realism both in terms of theory, in his essay "Art for Truth's Sake in the Drama", which is its 2 only American manifesto (Robinson 118), and in terms of actual dramatic works, among which Margaret Fleming, no doubt, is the finest example, but which can just as well be viewed as one continuum, an oeuvre in which a truthfulness to life frequently shows itself in one way or the other. The production history of Margaret Fleming and its various iterations is complicated and broken apart by gaps of seeming silence. It first appeared before the eyes of the audience in July 1890 in Lynn, Massachusetts, after which, as a result of a joint effort and in the face of significant setbacks, it received two runs in Boston during 1891 (Quinn, Representative 516). It was commercially unsuccessful, but garnered endorsement from several important intellectuals and literary figures of the era. It presented several things the audiences of the day weren't, and presumably couldn't have been prepared for - from its absence of soliloquy and breaking from melodramatic outbursts of emotion, to the notable, now almost notorious scene where the titular heroine prepares to breastfeed a child which is not her own. It also "turned [its] small audience's attention to sexual infidelity in middle-class marriage" (Paul 202), pointing subtly, but bitingly at a double standard of the time. Those were some of the aspects that place it in sharp contrast to the rest of the dramatic production of the time, and are likely also the very same which brought about its failure to amass sufficient revenue. The reaction of the public and the reasons behind it will be further divulged in the middle part of the thesis. Also left to be desired is an explanation as to how such a work came about in an epoch like this. If the play was indeed ahead of its time in the US context, and as shocking for its contemporaries as described, further questions arise: Was it ground-breaking enough to spearhead a new movement? Can a direct influence it had on later playwrights be traced? And what was it that prevented it from being staged some years later, once the ice had been broken and it could finally be appreciated by the masses? That is the focus of the third part of the 3 thesis, which follows the years immediately after its staging, and also goes later into the 20th century, when the play was rediscovered and enjoyed a critical reappraisal of the kind that few people in the 1890s could imagine. Margaret Fleming was described as "epoch-marking" (often misquoted as epoch- making) by William Dean Howells in his influential Editor's Study column (478), and is now rightfully hailed as a forerunner of dramatic realism, with its author being called the "American Ibsen" (Perry), and these facts should not be viewed lightly. Some of this renown may, however, be simply the result of later reactions with the benefit of hindsight. This thesis aims to address that as well: the apparent discrepancy between the play's lack of success in its time and its being praised and singled out by critics and literary scholars in later periods. This is because the latter may as well have been caused by the search for a missing link in the development of realism that was then somewhat artificially made to fit. The aim of the thesis is not, however, to dispute that Margaret Fleming had all the necessary qualities of a ground• breaking, status quo-altering work - merely to consider to what extent it actually achieved this breaking of new ground, and how much the stifling conditions of the time it was premiered affected the end result. 4 2. The Voices of Realism The beginnings of what we now call dramatic realism trace its first solid and discernible roots in America to the latter half of the 19th century. Some of the prominent playwrights of the period mentioned above (aside from James A. Heme) included Dion Boucicault (c. 1820- 1890), Steele Mackaye (1842-1894), David Belasco (1854-1931) and William Gillette (1855- 1937) (Griffiths 1), all of whose work was, understandably, aimed mostly at the average theatregoer of the time, whose taste was for sentimental and sensational melodrama. However incorrect it would be to state that this scene was entirely stale and repeated the same formula over and over, it must be stated that for some time, it appeared that nothing needed to be changed about this mode of expression as long as it drew audiences. Several key players tried to alter this status quo in their own ways, though not truly producing a brand of realism of their own as Heme later managed - the results being "every bit as varied as the melodramas with which they contended" (Richardson 154).
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