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University Micrdcilms International RUUN /f-FRPOAD AMN ARBOR Bf OF OR D HOW LONDON W'C 1 R 4 F .J F NP.L A N D 8100144 E h re t, D o n a l d M ic h a e l A CRITICAL STUDY OF SELECTED PLAYS BY EUGENE WALTER (1874- 1941) The Ohio State University Ph.D . 1980 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Copyright 1980 by Ehret, Donald Michael All Rights Reserved A CRITICAL STUDY OF SELECTED PLAYS BY EUGENE WALTER (1874-1941) DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Donald M. Ehret, B.A,, M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1980 Reading Committee: Approved by Donald R. Glancy David Ayers £ Adviser John Walker Department of Theatre To my parents, Dorothy and Joseph Ehret: My accomplishments are but reflections of their love, their sacrifices, and their positive influence. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe much gratitude to Professor Donald Glancy, whose patience, perceptive advice, and thoughtful encouragement have been invaluable in the formulation of this study. His untiring pursuit of excellence has provided me with both an example and a challenge. I also wish to thank Mrs. Eugene Walter for her gracious permission to photocopy manuscripts of her husband's plays. I owe an unrepayable debt of gratitude to my mother, Mrs. Dorothy Ehret; to my brother, Paul Ehret; and to John F. Crawford. Their friendship, unselfish support, and confidence in me helped me through the long and sometimes frustrating process of earning my doctorate. Without them, I might have given up before achieving my educational goals. i i i VITA November 8, 1948 Born - Canton, Ohio 1970 B.A., Mount Union College, Alliance, Ohio 1975 M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1974-1979 Teaching Associate, Department of Theatre, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre Studies in Criticism and Literature. Professor Donald Glancy Studies in History. Professors Alfred Golding and Charles Ritter Studies in Production. Professors David Ayers, Roy Bowen, and Donald Glancy i v CONTENTS Page DEDICATION..................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................................... iii VITA................................................................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE TRAGEDY, MELODRAMA, AND DRAME .......................................................... 18 TWO STAGE ADAPTATIONS OF NOVELS: MAREVA AND THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME........................................... 31 THREE THE EASIEST WAY.............................................................................................. 62 FOUR OTHER SOCIAL DRAMES: FINE FEATHERS, JUST A WIFE, AND THE CHALLENGE...................................................................................... 106 FIVE COMMERCIAL MELODRAMAS: PAID IN FULL, THE WOLF, JUST A WOMAN, THE KNIFE, AND THE HERITAGE............................. 153 CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................... 202 APPENDIX A PLOT SYNOPSES................................................................................................. 216 M a r e v a..............................................* ......................................................................... 215 The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come ...................................... 221 The Easiest Way...................................................................................... 226 Fine Feathers .......................................................................................... 233 Just A Wife............................................................................................... 237 .ne Challenge .......................................................................................... 246 v CONTENTS (c o n tin u e d ) Page APPENDIX A (continued) Paid In Full ............................................................................................... 255 The Wolf. T~ ............................................................................................... 261 Just A Woman............................................................................................. 269 The K n ife .................................................................................................... 275 The Heritage .................................................................. 282 B PLAYS BY WALTER NOT PRODUCED ON BROADWAY ................................... 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................... 293 vi INTRODUCTION In the history of American drama, Eugene Walter is remembered primarily as the author of The Easiest Way, which, after a short preview run in Hartford, Connecticut, opened in New York on January 19, 1909, at the Selasco-Stuyvesant Theatre^ to a torrent of both critical acclaim and moral condemnation. The intensity of the critical reaction--whether praising the play's truthfulness to life and its innovativeness or condemning its pessimistically degrading view of humanity—evidenced that the debut of The Easiest Way was of no small significance. Had Walter written no other play than The Easiest Way, his fame among his contemporaries s till would have been assured. In his history of the American drama, Montrose Moses, while admitting his "full awareness of the literary value of many of Clyde Fitch's plays and recognizing the easy grace with which Augustus Thomas writes dialogue," nonetheless lauded The Easiest Way as being the "best work Burns Mantle and Garrison Sherwood, The Best Plays of 1909-1919 (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1933), p. 1. The Easiest Way "ran for 157 performances during its initial New York run and toured during the following season. 1 2 2 an American dramatist has done in recent times." Augustus Thomas, perhaps the most highly regarded playwright of the time and at the time president of the American Dramatist's Club, voiced the opinion 3 that "no man writing in English has a keener dramatic sense" than Walter. Other critics favorably compared the play to George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession and Arthur Wing Pinero's I r i s . Twelve years after the debut of The Easiest Way, the play retained enough of its original impact to prompt Alexander Woolcott to lis t the play among what he considered to be the ten best plays ever written by an 4 American. While most critics heaped praise on The Easiest Way, others added a nearly equal measure of intense moral condemnation, the most vehement of which came from that staunch defender of idealism in dramatic art, William Winter—at the time in his waning years as a drama critic. In his The Life of David Belasco, Winter suspends his usual praise of that producer to discuss what he considered to be a "grievous blot on the fair record" of Belasco's career, "the vulgar and repulsive drama called 'The Easiest Way'. a long-drawn por­ trayal expositive of the immoral character, unchaste conduct, and 2 Montrose Moses, The American Dramatist (Boston: L ittle, Brown, and Company, 1917), p. 294. ^New York Times, January 23, 1909, p. 5. 4 New York Times, September 11, 1921, sec. 6, p. 1.