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Copyright by Maria Christine Beach 2004 The Dissertation Committee for Maria Christine Beach certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Women Staging War: Female Dramatists and the Discourses of War and Peace in the United States of America, 1913-1947 Committee: _______________________________ Charlotte Canning, Supervisor ________________________________ Oscar G. Brockett ________________________________ Jill S. Dolan ________________________________ Lynn C. Miller ________________________________ Lisa L. Moore Women Staging War: Female Dramatists and the Discourses of War and Peace in the United States of America, 1913 -1947 by Maria Christine Beach, B.S., M.Ed., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2004 UMI Number: 3150542 Copyright 2004 by Beach, Maria Christine All rights reserved. UMI Microform 3150542 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 This dissertation is dedicated to: My parents, Sharon Mary Bailey Beach and Robert Thomas Beach, Sr. and To the memory of my best friend and soul mate, Amy Vaughan Weems (1966-1998) Acknowledgments My first debt of gratitude goes to my advisor, Charlotte Canning, and the rest of my dissertation committee: Oscar G. Brockett, Jill Dolan, Lynn Miller, and Lisa Moore. For those of you who were on my original committee, thank you for your support over the years I worked on this project. To those who agreed to serve on my committee recently, thank you for generously helping me finish. I also want to thank John Brokaw, a member of my original committee, for his encouragement when I wrote a paper in his research and methodology class that eventually led to part of Chapter Three. Since a dissertation marks the end of many years of education, I would like to thank and acknowledge the teachers who have inspired and encouraged me. In addition to my current and former dissertation committee members, I would like to recognize Earl Bader, Clara Bennett, David M. Cohen, Peter M. Donohue, Robert Fanslow, Tony Galloway, Jon and Terryl Hallquist, Gary Harris, Joni Jones, Ljubica Popovich, Harriet Power, Bobbi Range, Roxane Rix, Joanna Rotté, and Janus Stefanowicz. Special thanks to Cecil D. Jones, my undergraduate theatre advisor; Geoff Proehl, my v dramaturgy mentor; and Nancy Pridemore, my first theatre teacher. Thank you to the librarians, curators, and other staff who helped me at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Library of Congress. I am particularly grateful to Melissa Miller and Marcia Parsons for their assistance and interest in my project, and to the staff of the Will Hampton at Oak Hill branch of the Austin Public Library for helping me find a quiet place to work during an intense phase of my writing. I am also indebted to Kathleen Juhl for providing me with the opportunity to dramaturg Watch on the Rhine and other plays at Southwestern University. I have been fortunate to have met many scholars and artists at professional conferences such as the Women in Theatre Program, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and American Literature Association who have offered helpful suggestions for this project and provided moral support; I especially want to acknowledge Terry Galloway, Vivian Patraka, Norma Bowles, Barbara Ozieblo, and Susan Croft. Thanks to all of my colleagues in Kutztown University’s Department of Speech Communications and Theatre and Department of Electronic Media, particularly vi my chair Roberta Crisson and our phenomenal secretary Stacey Gambler. I am especially fortunate and grateful to have the unflagging encouragement of my comrades in the Theatre Subgroup: James N. Brown, Johanna Forte, Roxane Rix, and Robert Smith. Thanks to Claire Van Ens, Jill Hildebrandt, and Andrea Mitnick for helping me weather a difficult time, and to my officemates Ken Danielson, Kym Kleinsmith, Gerald Lazarro, and Tom Yannuzzi for your indulgence as my project took up far too much room in our shared space. Special thanks to Arlene Badura for being my most ardent supporter and devoted friend. I would also like to recognize Lynn Haslam-Maxwell, Michelle Johnson, Mayumi Sakaoka and all of my housemates and neighbors at Whitebriar Farm for your kindness and companionship. Friends and family have been crucial to me throughout this process. Sherry Engle shared her home with me on many occasions so I could perform my New York-based research, and she and Elizabeth Stroppel continued to cheer me on throughout my long candidacy. Thanks to other graduate school buddies, particularly Carolyn Roark, Nina LeNoir, Annie Wright, and Leslie Pasternack. Other friends who have patiently supported me include Melissa Miller and Steve Kern, Alma Lozano, Sarah Holling, Marlene Sider, Ila Falvey, Elaine Dill, and Mary and George Klock. vii To my friend Michelle LaSeur, thanks and know that you will finish your project soon, too. I have been lucky to have the love of my large family to sustain me; thank you to my parents, Sharon Mary Bailey Beach and Robert Thomas Beach, Sr., to whom I dedicate this dissertation; my siblings Robert Beach, Brian Beach, and Nicole DuPriest; my dad-in-law Edward Yates and my many brothers- and sisters-in-law and their families; my nieces Mikaela and Rowan DuPriest; and all of the Beaches, Baileys, Petrillas, Yateses, Gallens, and McCanns. People who never saw me finish my doctorate but whose memories still inspire me include my grandmother Violetta “Johnnie” Bailey, my mom-in-law Teresa Yates, and my best friend Amy Weems. Finally, thank you Philip Yates for sharing everything with me. viii Women Staging War: Female Dramatists and the Discourses of War and Peace in the United States of America, 1913 -1947 Publication No. _________ Maria Christine Beach, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2004 Supervisor: Charlotte Canning During the World Wars, few women held political offices or fought in combat, so they were largely excluded from the decision-making and fighting associated with waging war. Some women, however, chose staging war as a way to present their opinions in a public forum, engage critics and audiences in debates about political issues, and inspire spectators to action. This dissertation examines women’s war plays in the United States from 1913- 1947 and how they may be considered part of a national ix discourse on war and peace and/or illustrative of women’s concerns. These plays were performances of patriotism, dissent, grief, and the desire for social change. To study these plays, their production histories, their engagement with contemporary causes, and their critical receptions is to understand how some women used playwriting as a public practice and a political platform during tumultuous times. The first half of the dissertation examines World War I plays and the second is concerned with World War II. Each chapter is anchored by in-depth case studies of plays, consisting of discussions of selected scripts, their production histories, and their critical receptions. One principal argument is that these plays are important as public expressions of women’s political opinions about a topic usually regarded as a male concern, not that these plays necessarily should be included in a mainstream literary canon or revived onstage today. Particular attention is paid to the ways women’s war plays generated discourse—about political and social issues, about gender, about national identity, and about theatre’s relationship to society. x TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction . 1 Prologue . 1 On Canons and Cannons: The Exclusion of Women’s Voices on War . 8 Project Overview and Review of Literature . 16 Chapter Two: Pacifist Plays of the Isolationist Era . .41 Beulah Marie Dix’s Anti-War Plays . 54 Suffrage and Pacifism on the Vaudeville Stage: Marion Craig Wentwoth’s War Brides . 77 Chapter Three: “What ‘twas all for”: Plays for Postwar Social Change . 94 The African American Soldier and World War I . 102 Enlistment of African Americans and Mine Eyes Have Seen . 105 Plays About African American Veterans: Aftermath and Stragglers in the Dust . .120 “The New World Shaped”: Two Thought-Provoking Plays From the Provincetown Players . 131 Aria da Capo . .135 Inheritors . .141 “The Most Beloved American Folk Play:” Lula Vollmer’s Sun-Up . .149 xi Chapter Four: “Shaken Out of the Magnolias”: Plays to Mobilize America . .161 “The Villains and the Bumblers”: Lillian Hellman’s Anti-Fascist Dramas . 167 “Into the Breach . and Mama’ll Handle the Home Front!”: Enlistment of American Families in Yankee Point and Over Twenty-One . .196 Chapter Five: “A Period of Retrogression”: Plays to Reconvert and Reconstruct Postwar Society . .220 “What do you need me for?”: Plays About Returning Veterans and the Women Who Love Them . .223 Racism and the Returning African American Soldier: On Whitman Avenue . 241 Pedagogy and Prophecy: E=mc2: A Living Newspaper About the Atomic Age . .249 Conclusion . 264 Bibliography . 271 Vita . .293 xii Chapter One: Introduction Prologue JOAN: Was I outside of it? I don’t want to be— not so far. This is my city, too. I can’t just watch it on TV. I want to do something. But this is all I know how to do. Words. I can’t think of anything else. NICK: (Wonderingly) That’s okay. They’re your tools.1 On December 4, 2001, exactly twelve weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the first play about the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers opened in New York.