Part 1 (1/2)

Representative Plays by American Dramatists.

by Various.

_INTRODUCTION_

The present collection of ”Representative Plays by American Dramatists” is the first of its kind to be offered to the general reader. In its scope, it covers a period from 1765-1911, and in its plan of selection, it strives to show the advance in playwriting during successive periods of American history.

Because of this scheme, the choice of plays for the Colonial and Revolutionary sections necessarily includes several which, while written for the stage, are not authentically located as far as production is concerned. There is no indication that Robert Rogers's ”Ponteach” was ever accepted by any of the theatrical companies of the time, and there is no positive proof that Mrs. Mercy Warren's ”The Group” was ever done, although there are casual references to the fact that performances were given at Amboyne. Nor have we any right to believe that Samuel Low's ”The Politician Out-witted”

received other than scant treatment from the managers to whom it was submitted; it was published rather to please the readers of the closet drama. Nevertheless, it has been thought essential to include these plays because they are representative of the spirit of the times, and help to give a more comprehensive view of the subjects which were treated in dramatic form by the early American playwrights.

From the moment the American writer ceased to be an Englishman, and became fully aware of his national consciousness, American drama, following the trend of the development of American literature, began to feel its way for the proper expression of national characteristics.

And so, in the second and third volumes of this series, the reader will find plays which, while not wonderful in their literary value, are, nevertheless, very distinctive, as reflecting the theatrical tastes of the time, and the very crude, but none the less sincere, technical effort of the playwrights. All the dramas included in the second and third volumes have had their stage productions, and are thus representative of characteristics which mark the abilities of certain actors, whose claims to originality are found in the special types they created.

It has been the present editor's object so to arrange the successive order of these plays that the reader may not only be able to judge the change in stagecraft and technique, but, likewise, may note the change in social idea and in historical att.i.tude toward certain subjects. For example, ”The Contrast” contains the first American Stage Yankee--a model for a succession of Stage Yankees to follow.

But, whereas Royall Tyler's _Jonathan_ was not especially written to exploit the peculiar abilities of Mr. Wignell, the comedian, most of the Yankee plays of a later date were written to exploit the peculiar excellences of such actors as G. H. Hill and James H.

Hackett.

In no way can the reader better sense the change in social customs and ideals than by reading a series of plays written in successive generations and reflecting the varying customs of the time. In some respects ”The Contrast” may be considered our very earliest drama of social manners, even though Royall Tyler was not over-successful in stamping the small talk of his women as being distinctively American. Rather is it the direct imitation--without the brilliancy--of the small talk in ”The School for Scandal.” But, nevertheless, ”The Contrast” does attempt to deal with society in New York before the nineteenth century, and in Mrs. Mowatt's ”Fas.h.i.+on,” in Mrs. Bateman's ”Self,” in Bronson Howard's ”Saratoga”

(which has been published), in Clyde Fitch's ”The Moth and the Flame,” and in Langdon Mitch.e.l.l's ”The New York Idea,” we are given a very significant and sharply defined panoramic view of the variations in moral and social att.i.tudes.

The plays included in this series have very largely been selected because of their distinct American flavour. The majority of the dramas deal directly with American subjects. But it seemed unwise and unrepresentative to frame one's policy of selection too rigidly on that score. Had such a method been adhered to, many of the plays written for Edwin Forrest would have to be omitted from consideration. It would have been difficult, because of this stricture, to include representative examples of dramas by the Philadelphia and Knickerbocker schools of playwrights. Robert T.

Conrad's ”Jack Cade,” John Howard Payne's ”Brutus,” George Henry Boker's ”Francesca da Rimini,” and Nathaniel P. Willis's ”Tortesa, the Usurer,” would thus have been ruled from the collection.

Nevertheless are they representative plays by American dramatists.

Another departure from the American atmosphere is in the case of Steele Mackaye; here in preference to ”Hazel Kirke,” I have selected ”Paul Kauvar,” farthest away from American life, inasmuch as it deals with Nihilism, but written at a time when there was a Nihilistic fever in New York City.

No editor, attempting such a comprehensive collection as this, can be entirely successful in including everything which will enrich his original plan. There are always limitations placed upon him by the owners of copyrights, and by gaps in the development, due to loss of ma.n.u.scripts. It was naturally my desire to have all the distinctive American playwrights represented in the present collection.

Therefore, in justice, the omissions have to be indicated here, because they leave gaps in a development which it would have been well to offer unbroken and complete.

When the collection was first conceived, there was every indication that permission would be granted me to reproduce at least one of the Robert Montgomery Bird ma.n.u.scripts, now owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Naturally, a collection of representative plays should include either Bird's ”The Gladiator,” or one of his other more or less oratorical and poetical pieces, written under the inspiration of Edwin Forrest. The intention to include John Augustus Stone's ”Metamora” brought to light, after correspondence with the Forrest Home in Philadelphia, that either the ma.n.u.script of that play has irrevocably been destroyed, or else has been preserved so carefully that no one remotely connected with the actor Forrest has thus far been able to locate it. Only a few well remembered speeches and isolated scenes are seemingly left of a play which increased so largely the fame of Mr. Forrest.

In the selection of _types_ my attention naturally became centered on the characters of _Colonel Mulberry Sellars_, and _Judge Bardwell Slote_, the former in a dramatization of ”The Gilded Age,” by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, and the latter, in a play by Benjamin E. Woolf, called ”The Mighty Dollar.” Extended investigation revealed the fact that, even if the plays are not lost, they are still unlocated, by the literary executors of Mark Twain on the one hand, and by the family of Mr. Woolf on the other.

It is well to mention these instances, because, until the recent interest in the origins of American drama, manifest on all sides, there has been a danger that many most valuable ma.n.u.script plays would be lost to the student forever.

At a revival of individual scenes from distinctive American Plays, given in New York, on January 22, 1917, considerable difficulty was experienced before the stock-company ma.n.u.script of Frank E.

Murdoch's ”Davy Crockett” was procured. This play, old-fas.h.i.+oned in its general development, is none the less representative of old-time melodramatic situation and romantic manipulation, and there is every reason to believe that, with the tremendous changes in theatrical taste, unless this play is published in available printed form, it will be lost to the student of ten years from now. The play would have been included in the present edition if s.p.a.ce had allowed.

When I came to a consideration of the modern section, there were many omissions which had to be made, due very largely to the fact that authors and owners of copyright were loath to forego their rights. A collection of this kind should undoubtedly have the name of James A. Herne represented in its contents, inasmuch as none of Mr. Herne's plays have heretofore been published, and two of his most distinctive dramas in original ma.n.u.script, ”Margaret Fleming”

and ”Griffith Davenport,” have been totally destroyed by fire. But representatives of Mr. Herne's family have declined, at the present time, to allow his plays to be published. This is to be regretted, inasmuch as nearly all of the most prominent American playwrights are represented, either in the publication of isolated plays or in definitive editions. I should have liked to end this collection with the inclusion of Mr. Eugene Walter's ”The Easiest Way;” at the present time, that play, which was once issued in an edition privately printed, is to be found in the _Drama League Series_ of plays.

From the standpoint of non-copyright material, two interesting conditions have been revealed through investigation. The first published play, in America, was ”Androboros,” by Governor Robert Hunter, written in collaboration with Chief Justice Lewis Morris.[1]

Only one copy of that play is in existence, owned by Mr. H. E.

Huntington, of New York, having formerly been a valued possession in the library of the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re; and having descended from the private owners.h.i.+p of David Garrick and John Kemble, the English actors. Naturally, the private collector is loath, in view of the rarity of his edition, to allow it, at present, to be reprinted.