Bang the Drum Slowly

Audience Guide Written and compiled by Jack Marshall Theater you can afford to seesee———— ppplaysplays you cancan’’’’tt afford to miss! About The American Century Theater The American Century Theater was founded in 1994. We are a professional company dedicated to presenting great, important, but overlooked American plays of the twentieth century . what Henry Luce called “the American Century.” The company’s mission is one of rediscovery, enlightenment, and perspective, not nostalgia or preservation. Americans must not lose the extraordinary vision and wisdom of past playwrights, nor can we afford to surrender our moorings to our shared cultural heritage. Our mission is also driven by a conviction that communities need theater, and theater needs audiences. To those ends, this company is committed to producing plays that challenge and move all Americans, of all ages, origins and points of view. In particular, we strive to create theatrical experiences that entire families can watch, enjoy, and discuss long afterward. These audience guides are part of our effort to enhance the appreciation of these works, so rich in history, content, and grist for debate. The American Century Theater is a 501(c)(3) professional nonprofit theater company dedicated to producing significant 20th Century American plays and musicals at risk of being forgotten. This program is supported in part by Arlington County through the Arlington Commission for the Arts and Arlington Cultural Affairs, a division of Arlington Economic Development; the Virginia Commission for the Arts; the National Endowment for the Arts; and many generous donors. Contents Poetry Corner: A Song and Poem for Bang the Drum Slowly . 1 The Real “Author”: Mark Harris . 4 Baseball in the Era of Bang the Drum Slowly . 7 Life Imitates Art: After Henry Wiggen, the Real Pitcher-Diarists . 13 Baseball Players, Dying Young . 16 Bruce’s Pearson’s Disease—Hodgkin Lymphoma. 25 The Great Baseball Books . 26 i ii Poetry Corner: A Song and Poem for Bang the Drum Slowly The Song: The Streets of Laredo The title of the play is taken from this old American folksong of dubious origins, about a cowboy who dies before his time. Laredo is a town, rich in Western lore, located in Southern Texas, but there are over a hundred different versions of this ballad set in almost as many different Western towns in the United States. The song evolved from a seventeenth century British ballad about a soldier who died of syphilis. It has been known by many titles, including The Bard of Armagh , The Sailor Cut Down in His Prime , The Dying Cowboy , and The Cowboy’s Lament , and the main character’s occupations are many and varied. The old-time cowboy Frank H. Maynard (1853–1926) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, claimed authorship of the revised Cowboy’s Lament . Larry McMurtry, who used the song’s title as the title of his sequel to Lonesome Dove , gives the song a date of “circa 1860,” which would mean Maynard wrote it at the age of seven. Whoever deserves the credit, this is one of those haunting and unforgettable tunes like Greensleeves that never gets old, and it is emotionally wrenching whenever it is sung well. Few sing the whole song, of course. Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins, among others, had successful recordings of the song. The Streets of Laredo As I walked out in the streets of Laredo As I walked out in Laredo one day I spied a dear cowboy wrapped up in white linen Wrapped up in white linen and cold as the clay “I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy” 1 These words he did say as I boldly stepped by “Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story I am shot in the breast and I know I must die “It was once in the saddle I used to go dashing It was once in the saddle I used to go gay But I first took to drinkin’ and then to card playin’ Got shot in the breast and I am dying today “Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly Play the dead march as you carry me along Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o’er me For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong “Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin Get six pretty maidens to bear up my pall Put bunches of roses all over my coffin Put roses to deaden the sods as they fall “Then swing your rope slowly and rattle your spurs lowly And give a wild whoop as you carry me along And in the grave throw me and roll the sod o’er me For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong “Go bring me a cup, a cup of cold water To cool my parched lips,” the cowboy then said Before I returned his soul had departed And gone to the round-up, the cowboy was dead We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly And bitterly wept as we bore him along For we all loved our comrade, so brave, young, and handsome We all loved our comrade although he’d done wrong 2 The Poem: To an Athlete Dying Young To an Athlete Dying Young is probably the best known work of British poet A.E. Housman (1859–1936). It first appeared in A Shropshire Lad , the compilation of his poems first published in 1896. Following the ancient Greeks, who also were struck by the irony and tragedy of the youngest and strongest sent to Hades at the peak of their powers, the poet reflects upon a young athlete brought home to be buried and concludes that he was fortunate to die near the moment of his greatest glory, since he will now never experience the inevitable fading of that glory. His death is of the body only: Because he did not experience the diminishment of age and decline, he is immortal in a way other athletes are not. Housman captured the underlying themes of most stories and dramatizations about dying athletes, from Brian’s Song to Million Dollar Baby . It should remind us how original Mark Harris’s story was, avoiding all of the classic clichés of the dying athlete genre. To an Athlete Dying Young by A.E. Housman The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose. 3 Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears: Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man. So set, before its echoes fade, The fleet foot on the sill of shade, And hold to the low lintel up The still-defended challenge-cup. And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl’s. The Real “Author”: Mark Harris (1922–2007) Mark Harris, whose observations of life through the perspective of a fictional major league baseball pitcher created an under-appreciated legacy that was a gift to baseball fans and non-fans alike, was born Mark Harris Finkelstein on November 19, 1922, in Mount Vernon, New York. He was always drawn to literature and writing and, after serving in World War II, took the well-worn path from writing for small town newspapers (in Port Chester, New York) to contributing to big city dailies (in New York City) to bylined essays 4 in magazines. Harris’s early work focused on racial inequality in the United States, including his first published novel, Trumpet to the World (1946), which tells of a black writer who rises from poverty to become a best-selling novelist. Harris received a late bachelor’s degree in 1950, his master’s in English in 1951 from the University of Denver, and a Ph.D. in American Studies in 1956 from the University of Minnesota. While writing, he usually was teaching as well: He taught English at five universities, becoming tenured at Arizona State University from 1980 to his retirement in 2002. Harris was a passionate baseball fan—like many U.S. authors, including John Steinbeck, Bernard Malamud, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, and Ring Lardner—and like many of them, saw more than sports illuminated in the on- and off-the-field travails of baseball teams and their members. Bang the Drum Slowly (1956) was the second of Harris’s four-novel series chronicling the adventures of Henry Wiggen, a talented pitcher for the fictional New York Mammoths and an oddball athlete with a literary bent. All the books, narrated in the first person by Wiggen, himself a published writer (hence his team nickname, “Author”), focus on moral and social issues with the humor of the locker room and the excitement of the playing field used for accent and intensity. Beginning with The Southpaw (1953), the series continued through Bang the Drum Slowly to A Ticket for a Seamstitch (1957) and, two decades after Henry’s saga seemed over, It Looked Like For Ever (1979).

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