JADT 261 Final

THE JOURNAL OF
AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE

Volume 26, Number 1 Winter 2014
Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve
Advisory Editor: David Savran
Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson
Managing Editor: Ugoran Prasad
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Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
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Bill Demastes Kim Marra
Amy E. Hughes Beth Osborne
Jorge Huerta Robert Vorlicky
Esther Kim Lee Maurya Wickstrom
Stacy Wolf
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THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE
Volume 26, Number 1 Winter 2014
CONTENTS
MARY MCAVOY 7
Between Blackface and Bondage: The Incompletely Forgotten Failure
of Te Underground Railroads 1879 Midwestern Tour
KEVIN BYRNE 33
One Live as Two, Two Live as One: Bert Williams and the Uprooted
Bamboo Tree
JEFFREY ULLOM 51
Playwright as Publicity: Reexamining Jane Martin and the Legacy of
the Humana Festival
AHMED S. M. MOHAMMED 73
Feminist Periodization as a Structural Component of Wendy
Wassersteins Te Heidi Chronicles
NATKA BIANCHINI 97
Waiting for Triumph: Alan Schneider and the American Response to
Waiting for Godot
CONTRIBU TORS 121

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Editor. We are also delighted to announce our new Editorial Board:
Bill Demastes (Louisiana State University), Amy E. Hughes (Brooklyn
College, CUNY), Jorge Huerta (University of California, San Diego),
Esther Kim Lee (University of Maryland), Kim Marra (University of
Iowa), Beth Osborne (Florida State University), Robert Vorlicky (New
York University), Mauyra Wickstrom (College of Staten Island, CUNY),
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Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson
Co-Editors, JADT
JOURNAL OF AMERICAN DRAMA AND THEATRE 26, NO. 1 (WINTER 2014)
BETWEEN BLACKFACE AND BONDAGE:
THE INCOMPLETELY FORGOTTEN FAILURE
OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROADS 1879 MIDWESTERN TOUR
Mary McAvoy
In 1879, nineteen-year-old Pauline Hopkinss musical slave drama,
The Underground Railroad, fopped.
1
Reviews panned the production,
suggesting the plagiaristic knock-off of Joseph Bradfords Out of Bondage
lacked interest and was devoid of plot.
2
Audiences noted the lackluster
performances, asserting the company cant sing like the Hyers sisters
3

(the pioneering African American sister act who had performed in Out
of Bondage only a few months earlier).
4
Even the plays leading man, Sam
Lucas, accepted the productions failure, diplomatically suggesting, the
piece failed as the time was not propitious for producing such a play.
5

Given the disparaging attitudes toward the drama during its own time,
theatre historians often relegate The Underground Railroad to the margins
and systematically omit it from larger discussions of African American
theatre history in the postbellum period (roughly 1865-1890).
6
However,
1
Hopkins titled the play many different ways in her various revisions. It was
initially copyrighted as The Slaves Escape; or, The Underground Railroad and later changed to
Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad; Escape from Slavery; or, The Underground Railroad;
and Flight to Freedom; or, The Underground Railroad. I opt to use The Underground Railroad
throughout this project for clarity and consistency.
2
Dramatic, New York Clipper, 3 May 1879.
3
The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison, KS), 19 May 1879.
4
Jocelyn L. Buckner, Spectacular Opacities: The Hyers Sisters Performances
of Respectability and Resistance, African American Review 45, no. 3 (2012): 309-323.
5
Lucas makes this assertion in a posthumously published autobiographical essay
published in the New York Age. He mentioned his involvement in this production, the
frst colored drama, between two anecdotes: one describing a letter of praise he received
from Harriet Beecher Stowe after his frst performance as Uncle Tom and another about
how he met his wife and performance partner, Carrie Melville. This statement about The
Underground Railroad (the only negative reference amidst an otherwise celebratory review
of his lifes work), indicates this production, and its timely failure, left a lasting infuence
on Lucas. Sam Lucas Theatrical Career Written By Himself in 1909, New York Age, 13
Jan. 1916, 11.
6
Errol Hill, From the Civil War to The Creole Show, in A History of African
American Theatre, edited by Errol Hill and James Vernon Hatch (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), 61-92; Eileen Southern, Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and
African Musicians (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), 53-4; Harry Justin Elam and
David Krasner, African-American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 267.
8 MCAVOY
even though records clearly indicate The Underground Railroad failed in
terms of critical and artistic reception, the play also serves as the frst
extant dramatic text by an African American woman,
7
the frst widely
circulated play by an African American, and the frst musical drama to
address slaverys impact from an African American perspective.
8
Given
these milestones, Hopkinss play might also be considered a transitional
work bridging minstrelsy performance and later African American
musicals like The Creole Show (1890), A Trip to Coontown (1898), and In
Dahomey (1902). Even though African American artists presented a
plethora of musical plantation dramas, Tom shows, and other new
dramas inspired by narratives about slavery between 1865 and 1890 (both
in and out of blackface), most discussions credit The Creole Show as the
frst meaningful departure from minstrelsy performance given its female
Interlocutor and other modifcations of the minstrelsy form.
9
However,
despite suggestions that The Creole Shows revisions of minstrel forms
provided the frst successful challenge of minstrelsys dominance in
popular theatre, African American musical dramas like The Underground
Railroad reinvented and hybridized minstrelsy forms in the two decades
prior to The Creole Shows debut. The Underground Railroads frst tour shapes
performance histories of these African American musicals, revealing more
complexity in the process whereby African American artists negotiated
their roles within performance institutions and cultural politics shaping
the theatrical landscape in the latter half of the nineteenth century. By
reexamining Hopkinss play, its frst tour through the Midwestern United
States during the spring of 1879, and its fnal performance in Boston in
7
Even the most comprehensive works of African American theatre history offer
only brief mentions of Hopkins or The Underground Railroad. In her 2006 book Bodies in
Dissent, Daphne Brooks suggests that Hopkins is grossly underacknowledged as the frst
female playwright (284). See also Hills From the Civil War to The Creole Show (73) and
Southerns chapter, After the War (253-4) for examples of Hopkinss marginalized status.
Similarly, Elam and Krasners African-American Performance and Theater History only references
Hopkins in a footnote discussing her novel, Contending Forces (267). Daphne Brooks, Divas
and Diasporic Consciousness: Song, Dance, and New Negro Womanhood in the Veil,
in Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2006), 281-342; Errol Hill, From the Civil War; Eileen Southern. After
the War, in The Music of Black Americans: A History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1997), 253-4; Elam and Krasner, African American Performance and Theater History.
8
White abolitionist playwrights authored Uncle Toms Cabin and Out of Bondage
two plays that share common characteristics with The Underground Railroad. Although
William Wells Browns The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom preceded The Underground Railroad,
it was not widely performed. See Edward W. Farrison, Phylon Profle, XVI: William Wells
Brown, Phylon 9 no. 1 (1948): 13-23.
9
Hill, From the Civil War, 91-2.
BETWEEN BLACKFACE ANd BONDAGE 9
1880, I suggest The Underground Railroad was an important experimental
work that hybridized minstrelsy forms and popular entertainments during
the post-bellum period in an attempt to reshape performance paradigms
for African American artists.
The simultaneity of The Underground Railroads marginalized
position within histories of African American theatre and its historical
signifcance as a path-breaking production, illustrates how attending to
theatrical failure produces a historiographical quandary. In many ways,
theatrical failures represent the pleasures and torments of incomplete
forgetting found in performances associated with resistance, particularly
in regards to African American performance after the Civil War.
10
As
scholars attempt to reconcile the complicated function of minstrelsy within
theatrical and cultural landscapes between 1865 and 1900, other genres
of African American performance including non-minstrelsy burlesques,
jubilee concerts, cakewalking competitions, amateur productions by
performance clubs, and, central to this analysis, musical slave dramas
like Hopkinss The Underground Railroad, often fall by the wayside.
11
This
omission is expected since many artists like Hopkins often avoided direct
and overt critique of minstrelsy forms, and instead, made performances
that hybridized popular components of minstrelsy with other popular
performance forms of the time including melodrama, operetta, proto-
vaudevillian variety shows, and choral performance.
While innovative, these productions did not reinvent minstrelsy in
ways that were immediately or explicitly evident. For example, Hopkinss
play included a full cast of stock characters and comedic bits pulled directly
from minstrelsy and plantation narratives, including Mammy and Jim
Crow characters and soft-shoe dance numbers performed to gospel song
spoofs. However, Hopkins employed these stock characters and minstrel
bits to make subtle but important commentary about the lives of freed
slaves from an African American perspectivea point to which I will
return later in the article. These small revisions likewise led to small spaces
for resistance in which artists and performers found agency while keeping
10
Roachs discussion regarding the vast scale of the project of whiteness that
also fostered complex and ingenious schemes to displace, refashion, and transfer those
persistent memories into representations more amenable to those who most frequently
wielded the pencil and eraser is particularly apropos for discussions of The Underground
Railroad and other experimental works like it. See the Introduction: History, Memory, and
Performance in Joseph R. Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1996), 1-25.
11
Hill, From the Civil War, 68, 74, 85, 91; Eileen Southern, The Origin of
Black Musical Theatre: A Preliminary Report, Black Music Research Journal 2 (19811982):
1-14.
10 MCAVOY
their works palatable for audiences conditioned to expect a specifc and
narrow construction of African American identity on stage. Thus, these
experimental genres all contribute to a performance lineage, defned by
a desire to reinvent minstrelsys rigid structures and racist ideologies that
reshaped narratives and aesthetics in African American performance.
Examining these experimental and hybrid performance genres reveals the
turbulent processes whereby African American artists in the postbellum
period struggled for artistic and political agency during a moment when
the US as a nation similarly struggled to reconcile issues of race and power
bound up in the post-Civil War fallout. Pauline Hopkinss play and its 1879
Midwestern tour serves as a case study of one group of artists of color
who set out to challenge minstrelsys dominance by reinventing popular
theatre from within a rigid set performance expectations. Examining this
work helps reshape understandings of African American artists who
navigated cultural politics, audience expectations, and theatrical trends
after the Civil War.
Between Blackface and Bondage: The Historical Milieu
Hopkins crafted her play early in her literary career and just after
the Reconstruction period, an anxious time when the United States
attemptedand, in many ways, failedto heal wounds dividing the
nation geographically, politically, and ideologically as a result of the long
and bloody Civil War. Within this period of redefnition, US popular
performance struggled to address the shifting relationship between race,
power, and the new postbellum US identity. Blackface minstrelsyone of
the most infuential and undeniably racist forms of US entertainment
emerged from this cultural turmoil. In the period between the end of
the Civil War and 1879 (when Pauline Hopkins wrote The Underground
Railroad) minstrelsy performance grew staggeringly popular, securing its
place as the USs frst original contribution to world theatre.
12

By the late 1860s, minstrelsy performancetraditionally white
performers in blackface portraying African American stereotypes
attracted African American performers as well. African American
performers entered into minstrelsy for both pragmatic and ideological
reasons. Minstrelsy provided African American entertainers secure work
in an otherwise white theatre industry. African American artists willing
to blacken their faces and portray Jim Crow, Zip Coon, or other minstrel
stereotypes earned reasonable wages and developed a strong following
12
Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 3.
among both African American and white audiences.
13
Artists like
Wallace King, Sam Lucas, Bert Williams, Billy Kersands, and others all
garnered fame at least in part because of their work in African American
minstrelsy performance. Opportunities presented for artists willing to
perform in African American minstrelsy juxtaposed with otherwise harsh
cultural conditions endured by many African Americans after the Civil
War. At a time when many African Americans faced abject poverty and
racial discrimination due to failed Reconstruction efforts resultant from
post-Civil War political fallout (a fate sealed by the election of the pro-
South presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877), minstrelsy
performance generated a small, albeit problematic, venue for black artists
to fnd legitimacy as artists and performers.
14

Within this complicated cultural milieu, Pauline Hopkins, a
nineteen-year-old African American woman living in Boston, developed
The Underground Railroad. Hopkins is best known for her essays, short
stories, and novels that engage with themes related to suffrage, racial
equality, and black identity in the post-Civil War United States. Her most
well known work, Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life
North and South (1900) has received attention from a variety of scholars as
activist literature that includes unapologetic representations of violence
against African Americans in the late 1800s.
15
Hopkinss activist leanings
echo throughout her other writings as well. She served as an editor for
Colored American Magazine, one of the frst widely circulated periodicals for
African American audiences, between 1900 and 1904. During her tenure
at Colored American Magazine, she published a several serialized novels
including Hagars Daughter: A Story of Southern Prejudice; Of One Blood: Or,
the Hidden Self; and Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest. All
of these narratives dealt with issues of racial and gender discrimination.
Additionally, Hopkins also wrote essays, opinion pieces, and other non-
fction works that primarily dealt with issues specifc to African American
13
Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara, Editors Preface
in Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy (Hanover, NH:
University Press of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1996), xi-xiv.
14
See Eileen Southerns article on The Georgia Minstrels for additional discussions
of the development, funding, and management of minstrelsy performance. Inside the
Minstrel Mask, 165-71.
15
Thomas Cassidy, Contending Contexts: Pauline Hopkinss Contending
Forces, African American Review 32, no. 4 (1998): 661-72; Jill Bergman, Everything we
hoped shed be: Contending Forces in Hopkins Scholarship, African American Review 38,
no. 2 (2004): 181-199.

12 MCAVOY
readers.
16
In practically all of her writings, Hopkins stridently challenged
prevailing representations of African Americansparticularly African
American womenin the late 1800s. Given these themes, many literary
scholars rightly herald Pauline Hopkins as woman ahead of her time in
regards to her later literary career. However, seeds of these ideas appear in
her early dramatic works, including The Underground Railroad.
A ballad opera with numerous songs, dances, and comedic bits,
The Underground Railroad dramatizes the romance between two slaves
Sam, a comic peculiar fellow, and Jinny, the plantation nightingale
as they and their family secure freedom via the Underground Railroad.
The play opens on a Mississippi plantation on the eve of the Civil War,
and the opening exposition reveals that the benevolent Marser has
died, leaving behind a poorly run plantation under the supervision of
youn Marse and fellow slave, evil overseer Jim.
17
Soon after, Mammy
announces that the big house has married off Jinny, Sams love interest,
to Jim. Sam, unable to stomach this affront by Jim and the new master,
announces, Dars been suthin a growin an a growin inter me, an it keep
sayin, Run way, run away, Sam. Be a man, be a free man (8). The couple
makes plans to fee to Canidy via the Underground Railroad, and the
rest of the family decides to join them. The fnal scene jumps forward
to Christmas Eve six years after the group has made it to freedom. The
characters now live in Canada, and the Civil War is over. Mammy and
her long lost love, Caesar, have married; Jinny has become a singer; Juno,
Sams Topsy-esque sister, is a schoolteacher; and Sam has returned to the
US to become an Ohio Congressman (31). Everyone, save Mammy and
Caesar, now speak in elevated English without the slave dialect used in
previous scenes, linguistically demonstrating how the move from slavery
to freedom has fundamentally changed their identities. They are happy
and fnancially stable. The only lingering issue rests with Sams inability to
marry Jinny; Jinny refuses to marry Sam until they fnd Jim and annul their
forced marriage. Just after Sam arrives home to announce that he has won
the Ohio election, overseer Jim knocks at the door. Although the group
fears he has come to reclaim Jinny as his wife, Jim instead announces
that he has become a lawyer in Massachusetts, legally married another
woman, and fathered a set of twinsappropriately named Sam and Jinny.
16
Hopkins journalistic writings include A Primer of Facts Pertaining to the Early
Greatness of the African Race and the Possibility of Its Restoration by Its DescendantsWith Epilogue
(Cambridge: P. E. Hopkins and Company, 1905); Latest Phases of the Race Problem in
America, Colored American, February 1903; and Furnace Blasts I: The Growth of the
Social Evil Among All Classes and Races in America, Colored American, February 1903.
17
Hopkins, The Underground Railroad, 2-3. Subsequent references to this play will
be made parenthetically.
He has oly called hyar to stantiate myself an be friens long wif you
(30). Using his new legal expertise, Jim asserts the invalidity of his and
Jinnys marriage, and thus Sam and Jinny are now free to marry. In the
fnal moment of the play, Sam, in a furry of excitement, steps out of the
narrative for one fnal bit. He turns to the audience and says, excuse me
for laying aside the dignity of an elected M. C., and allow me to appear
before you once more as peculiar Sam of the old underground railroad,
and he follows with a song-and-dance performance of James A. Blands
parodic tune, Oh, Dem Golden Slippers.
The entire drama is interspersed with comedic bits, dance
numbers, and songs. Although seemingly superfuous to the larger
narrative, these variety components highlight leading man Sam Lucass
talent and reputation.
18
Lucas worked in variety of performance forms
from the mid-1800s until his death in 1916, and over duration of his long
career, he was deeply invested in reinventing roles for African American
artists. His participation in The Underground Railroad, especially in his
portrayal of a comedic slavehand caricature who becomes an elected
state representative, was another moment whereby the artist challenged
the status quo regarding African American performance. Lucas was free
born in Ohio and started his career as an African American blackface
minstrel in New Orleans. During his career, he performed a myriad of
African American roles, from a minstrel line endman to the frst African
American Uncle Tom on stage and screen.
19
Even though he capitulated
to expectations for African American artists via his work in minstrelsy,
plantation performances, and other stereotypical and caricatured African
American roles, he also challenged these expectations by playing roles
outside of these paradigms as well. Lucas performed in melodramas with
otherwise white casts, played aristocratic rolesabsent of stereotypical
slave dialectin productions like The Princess of Orelia, and pioneered
the creole show format in collaboration with manager Sam T. Jack.
20

As each of these examples demonstrates, Lucas, self-titled the dean
of the colored theatrical profession, was deeply invested in negotiating
legitimacy for African American performers during the volatile latter half
18
By 1879, Lucas had toured extensively with the Original Georgia Minstrels
troupe and with the Hyers sisters in Out of Bondage. He was also the African American
artist to appear with an otherwise white cast in a melodrama when he starred in The Black
Diamonds of Molly MacGuires. Lucas, Sam Lucas, 11; Southern, Introduction, xvii.
19
Gerlyn E. Austin, The Advent of the Negro Actor on the Legitimate Stage in
America, The Journal of Negro Education 35, no. 3 (July 1966): 239-40; Lucas, Sam Lucas,
11; Thomas L. Riis, The Music and Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Productions of
Uncle Toms Cabin, American Music 4, no. 3 (October 1986): 274.
20
Ibid.
14 MCAVOY
of the nineteenth century.
Hopkins wrote her musical drama specifcally for Lucas, who, by
1879, was a famous minstrel and variety performer. The title selected for
this iteration of the play, Peculiar Sam; Or, The Underground Railroad, draws
attention to his involvement, and he was the undeniable star of the show.
Production advertisements from the Milwaukee Sentinel further reinforce
suggestions that Hopkins created her play specifcally for Lucas when
they describe the play as being written expressly for him by Miss Pauline
E. Hopkins.
21
Several positive reviews of the production specifcally
reference Lucas, and in many ways, Lucas was the glue that kept the
production together.
Even though Lucas likely set out to push boundaries with his
participation in The Underground Railroad, his involvement was also a smart
business decision. Only months prior to the The Underground Railroads
premiere, Lucas had toured a similar play, Out of Bondage, through the
Midwest. Following the same touring route as Out of Bondage helped
The Underground Railroad capitalize on Lucass celebrity status. Since few
stars traveled through the Midwest, audiences extended a great deal
of loyalty to performers who made repeat stops through the region.
Sam Lucas, who, by this point, had stared in Uncle Toms Cabin and Out
of Bondage, certainly ft this category. In addition to his multiple tours
with plays like Out of Bondage, Lucas also frequented the Midwest with
African American Georgia minstrel troupes, and Midwestern audiences
loved him. His involvement with The Underground Railroad provided the
productions star appeal, and practically every advertisement and review
of the show mentioned his irresistible performance and lauded his
national reputation second to none.
22
This picture of Lucas offers an
alternate view of African American artists as empowered participants in
their business affairs, marketing of shows, artistic license, and roles as
celebrities during this period, indicating a more complex conception of
African American artists agency within Midwestern performance spheres
during 1865-1900.
Hopkins left open her script so that Lucas might improvise in
his starring role, singing crowd favorites and adapting his performance
to please audiences each night. For example, in the play, the group makes
several stops, with each new destination allowing Lucas a moment in the
spotlight to sing or perform a bit. In one moment, Sam and Jim have an
exaggeratedly comedic fght after Jim sneaks up on the group dressed as a
ghost. In another moment, Sam fnds an old mans clothes, dresses up, and
21
Grand Opera House, Advertisement, Milwaukee Daily Sentinel.
22
Underground Railroad, review, The Wichita Eagle, 29 May 1879, 1.
sings Old Man Jake, his hit song (16-17, 27-27). Some of these bits move
forward the narrative and others are seemingly illogical in regards to the
overall plot, highlighting the plays fexible format that Hopkins designed
to accommodate new songs, different comedic bits, and other impromptu
changes over the plays life. The Underground Railroads formulaic plot and
fexible structure refects trends in post-bellum performance. During
this time, some African American minstrelsy performers also garnered
attention for roles they played out of blackface as part of new works
that capitalized on the successful dramatic adaptations by white actors in
blackface of Harriet Beecher Stowes abolitionist novel Uncle Toms Cabin and
other similar plantation narratives. The experimental nature of these new
works, including performance of these roles by African American artists
without blackface make-up, more complex and nuanced characterizations
of African American characters, and narratives that synthesized tropes
found in both minstrelsy and other popular entertainments, demonstrated
how artists made attempts to reframe popular entertainment in order
to reinvent African American performance paradigms. These theatrical
experiments paved a way for other dramas, like The Creole Show, to be taken
seriously decades later.
As alluded to in discussion of Sam Lucass contribution to the
play, considering The Underground Railroads role as a transitional drama
requires a discussion of its relationship to one of the most signifcant
African American musical dramas that challenged minstrelsys stronghold:
Out of Bondage. Out of Bondage, a musical slave narrative billed as a moral
and musical drama, provided the frst notable challenge to minstrelsy
entertainment. White playwright and abolitionist Joseph Bradford wrote
the play, a ballad opera about a family of slaves as they secured freedom
in the North, specifcally for the sister act Anna Madah and Emma Louise
Hyers, and Sam Lucas performed alongside the Hyers sisters in the role of
Mischevious Henry. When Out of Bondage premiered in 1876, it impressed
audiences with the best colored artists in the world portraying slave
characters without burnt cork visages commonly associated with African
Americans on stage.
23
Reviewers of the original production noted this
rejection of minstrelsy forms and suggested that Out of Bondage typifed
the emergence of the race from slavery to freedom.
24
The play toured
extensively throughout the US from 1876 to 1878, paving the way for
23
Eileen Southern, Introduction, African American Theater: Out of Bondage
(1876) and Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad (1879), ed. Eileen Southern, vol. 9
(New York: Garland, 1994), xxiii-xxvi.
24
Ibid., xi.
16 MCAVOY
other traveling non-minstrel musical dramas like Urlina, African Princess in
1877, Colored Aristocracy in 1877, and The Underground Railroad in 1879.
25

Although Out of Bondage marked an important transition
from blackface entertainment to African American performance out
of blackface, the production was not a critical success. One review in
Chicago noted that Bradfords drama was a loosely-strung play . . . not
particularly bright in dialogue, despite the plays inclusion of several
notable performances by the Hyers sisters, Sam Lucas, Wallace King, and
other African American artists.
26
The critical response to Out of Bondage, a
simple story about a slave familys experiences before and after the Civil
War, refects perceived insuffciencies in Bradfords skeletal playtext, which
was designed to accommodate improvisation and vocal performance from
crossover variety artists who otherwise worked as minstrelsy performers
and professional singers. In creating a new proto-vaudeville performance
paradigm that synthesized plantation narratives, minstrelsy, and the
increasingly popular variety acts, Bradford focused more attention on
en vogue styles of performance, while neglecting dramatic structure and
character developmentat least in the minds of some reviewers. This
critical dismissal of Bradfords play as a poorly formed dramatic work
overshadows the productions revisions of minstrelsy performance that
dominated theatrical landscapes after the Civil War.
Out of Bondages success and failure relates directly to The
Underground Railroad. It is no overstatement to suggest that Hopkins
plagiarized Out of Bondage when creating The Underground Railroad:
27
both
dramas are skeletal, employing a four-act structure to give room for the
shows stars to improvise; both dramas incorporate numerous slave
spirituals, jubilee songs, and plantation melodies woven throughout
the dramatic narrative, with as many as eleven tunes shared between the
two plays;
28
both plays include a comic peculiar male slave as the main
character, portrayed by Sam Lucas (Mischievous Henry in Out of Bondage;
Peculiar Sam in The Underground Railroad); both chronicle a slave couples
travels via the Underground Railroad, ending with a family celebration
of freedom in the North after the younger family members have secured
25
Many sources credit Pauline Hopkins with writing Colored Aristocracy, but its
text and most of its production history is lost.
26
The New Chicago, Inter Ocean, 7 February 1878, 8. See also Hills discussion
of the lackluster critical reception Out of Bondage received in The Civil War to The Creole
Show, 70-2.
27
See Bradford and Hopkinss texts side by side in Southerns African American
Theater: Out of Bondage (1876) and Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad (1879).
28
Ibid., x.
jobs and fnancial security; both dramas toured throughout the Midwest
following very similar routes to one another; and both chronicle the
experience of slavery from the slaves perspective.
29
In fact, the texts so
closely emulate one another that reviews of The Underground Railroad in a
variety of sources make note of the striking similarities between Hopkinss
play and Out of Bondage. One reviewer stated that The Underground Railroad
was fashioned after the 1876 work, while another suggested, the drama
is similar to the famous Hyers Sisters Out of Bondage.
30
These reviews not
only draw attention to Out of Bondages infuence upon Hopkinss work,
but also highlight the perceived inferiorities of The Underground Railroad
when comparing the two plays. By taking inspiration from Out of Bondages
skeletal narrative designed to highlight performers talents, Hopkins
positioned her play to be judged quite harshly at the time of its publication
if the talent hired for her version failed to deliver on the comedic bits,
dance routines, and vocal performances esteemed in Out of Bondage.
Although The Underground Railroads imitative nature is undeniable,
a closer reading of the drama reveals meaningful distinctions between
Hopkins and Bradfords dramas. The frst and most obvious distinction
becomes apparent when comparing the two authors. Like so many
narratives about slavery from this period, Bradford wrote his drama from
the perspective of a white abolitionist, and the narrative, while sympathetic
to abolitionist causes, does not explore nuances associated with African
Americans transition from slavery to freedom. While Hopkins took
inspiration from Bradfords drama, her unique perspective as an African
American woman living in a community that supported freed slaves
before, during, and after the Civil War, distinguishes her play from Out
of Bondage.
31
The most important difference between the texts appears at
the end of Hopkinss play. Instead of ending on an unreservedly happy
note as in Out of Bondage, The Underground Railroad depicts nuance and
complexity regarding Sam and his familys struggle to carve out a life
as freed slaves, particularly in regards to Jims arrival at the end of The
Underground Railroad, a plot element absent from Bradfords drama. As
Lois Brown points out in her examination of Hopkinss work, although
Jim presents his calling card to Sam and family, indicating his status a freed
29
The New Chicago, 8.
30
The Underground Railroad, review of The Underground Railroad at the Grand
Operahouse, Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, 1 April 1879, 4; The Flight for Freedom, review of
The Underground Railroad, Rockford Daily Register, 3 March 1879.
31
See James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and
Community Struggle in the Antebellum North, revised edition (New York: Holmes & Meier,
1979).
18 MCAVOY
and educated African AmericanMr. James Peters, Esq., D. D., attorney
at law, at the Massachusetts barthe card also reads declined overseer
of the Magnolia plantation.
32
This reference to his former status, a role
supposedly rendered obsolete by the Civil War, exemplifes, as Brown
notes, the groups ongoing struggle to free [themselves] from slavery and
to enjoy the full benefts of liberty.
33
Despite becoming a Congressman,
Sam still relies on Jim to guarantee his rights to a full life that includes
marriage and a family of his own. In effect, Jim, and the past he signifes,
haunts Sam. The fnal moment of the play reinforces this ambivalence.
When Sam turns toward the audience, sloughs off his elevated diction,
excuses himself for laying aside his dignity, and performs in the style
of his former slave self, he embodies the conficting double consciousness
of which W. E. B. Dubois writes when he asserts, The history of the
American Negro is the history of strife. . . . He simply wishes to make
it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American.
34
Despite
Sams freedom, he can never completely detach himself from his past.
35

This ending alludes to a complicated cultural reality with which white
playwrights and authors like Stowe and Bradford often avoidedor
to which they were ignorantin their narratives. Hopkinss subtle
commentary about the inner struggles of her characters distinguishes her
play from her contemporaries and demonstrates one way in which she
employed acceptable theatrical forms to make important observations
and critiques about the Reconstruction period from an African American
perspective.
36
Despite this compelling commentary, the challenges associated
with the transitional nature of Hopkinss play overshadow her revisions
to the musical slave drama genre. I have uncovered no critical response
at the time of the plays production that acknowledged Hopkinss revised
ending. Unsurprisingly, critics and audiences seemed to look at the play
32
Hopkins, Peculiar Sam, 34; Brown, Pauline. 136-7.
33
Brown, Pauline, 136-7.
34
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (London: A.
Constable, 1905).
35
See Lois Browns extended analysis of this section of the play in her biography
of Hopkins. Brown, Pauline, 136-8.
36
See work by Ann Shockley, Hanna Wallinger, John Gruesser, Lois Brown, and
Daphne Brooks for additional literary analysis of Hopkinss play. Hanna Wallinger, Pauline
E. Hopkins: A Literary Biography (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005); John Cullen
Gruesser, The Unruly Voice: Rediscovering Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1996). Lois Brown, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins: Black Daughter of the Revolution
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Brooks Divas and Diasporic
Performance, 281-302.
with a more superfcial eye and felt that The Underground Railroad was
predictable and poorly formed replica that failed to improve on the variety
format presented in Bradfords play. The New York Clipper offers one of
the only reviews in publications out of Chicago, New York, Boston, or
Philadelphia and sums up the play in mordant terms:
While the play lacks interest and is devoid of plot, it
yet serves as a peg on which to hang several excellently
rendered plantation melodies. This company might
properly be called a variety one as, in addition to the play,
they give a closing variety performance, musical in the
extreme and possessing merit.
37

While this critique highlights The Underground Railroads
shortcomings as a piece of theatre, it also alludes to critical bias
surrounding the nascent musical slave drama genre. By suggesting that
Hopkinss drama functioned as a poorly formed narrative redeemed only
by the artists performance of nostalgic plantation songs, the New York
Clipper review reveals expectations established by performances of well-
funded and expertly managed minstrelsy troupes and a complete lack of
critical consciousness regarding any commentary the play might present.
Reviewers and audiences likely could not see through to the political
commentary Hopkins infused into her drama since the plays structure
diverged from minstrel shows profoundly racist, but regimented and
highly polished format. Even more, the reviewers redemption of the
production as a vehicle for excellently rendered plantation melodies, one
of the few performance genres in which African American performers
had garnered increasing legitimacy in dominant performance spheres via
groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers and minstrel performers who wrote
popular songs, further demonstrates narrow understandings of acceptable
African American performance forms during this period.
38
These reviews
all reinforce leading man Sam Lucass suggestion that, indeed, the time
was not propitious for producing such a play. Given the limited and sharp
critique of Hopkinss drama in publications like the New York Clipper, it is
not surprising that the plays managers bypassed performance hubs like
New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and instead, toured the production
throughout the Midwest.
37
Dramatic, New York Clipper, 3 May 1879, 46.
38
See J. B. T. Marsh and Gustavus D. Pikes 1883 book The Story of the Jubilee
Singers (Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1880) for relevant discussion of African American
musical performance after the Civil War.
20 MCAVOY

Between Milwaukee and Maquoketa: The Midwestern Tour
In addition to the importance of the play as a stepping-stone between
blackface performance and more critically acclaimed African American
musicals around the turn of the century, The Underground Railroad
also functions as a case study of performance within the marginalized
geographies of the Midwestern United States after the Civil War. While
scholarly opinions regarding The Underground Railroads status as a critical
and artistic failure limit larger discussions about the play, a more troubling
consequence of this disregard becomes apparent when noting the plays
strikingly incomplete production history. Until recently, the few studies
of The Underground Railroad asserted that the play held its frst and only
performance at Bostons Oakland Garden as part of a July Fourth
celebration in 1880.
39
However, as Lois Brown, Hopkinss biographer,
astutely notes, despite longtime scholarly assertion that the play was
performed just once in Boston . . . the record clearly shows this was not
the case.
40
The archive associated with The Underground Railroads frst tour
reveals a grueling schedule throughout Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan,
Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin during the spring of 1879, more
than a year before the Boston production.
41
On this tour, thousands of
Midwestern audience members witnessed The Underground Railroad, and
the play received extensive reviews in a host of Midwestern newspapers.
The profuse historical record surrounding The Underground Railroads frst
tour provides a clear counterpoint to dominant views that Hopkinss play
achieved only one inconsequential performance in Boston.
Between 23 March and 20 June 1879, The Underground Railroads
company, a cast of nearly a dozen colored persons managed by minstrel
manager Z. W. Sprague, endured an exhausting tour that originated and
closed in Chicago and circulated through more than thirty cities and fve
states.
42
The performance wove together Hopkinss text, deliberately left
open to accommodate changing choral and instrumental performance,
39
Bernard L Peterson, The African American Theatre Directory, 1816-1960: A
Comprehensive Guide to Early Black Theatre Organizations, Companies, Theatres, and Performing
Groups (Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 1997), 97; Bernard L. Peterson, Profles of African
American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
2001), 125; Hill From the Civil War, 73. Eileen Southern is one of the few scholars who
has looked extensively at The Underground Railroad and asserted that its production history
extended beyond the Boston performance in 1880. Southern, Introduction, xvii.
40
Brown, Pauline, 11.
41
See appendix A.
42
Ibid.
with popular slave spirituals and minstrel show hits that changed over the
course of the tour. Hopkinss drama included a cast of African American
and Cuban performers, recruited by Sprague in Chicago earlier in the year.
43

In addition to the beloved comedic antics by Sam Lucas in his portrayal
of Peculiar Sam, the tour also featured a host of less famous performers
of color. Most notable among the cast was Cuban string performer Jose
Brindes de Salis, son of Claudio Brindes de Salas Garrido. He and Lucas
were supported by a select party of colored artists including E. Johnson,
The Fernandez couple, Robert Crawford, and B. G. Berger.
44
In addition
to their performance of the play, the company often performed a drawing
room concert of sacred music and gospel songs after the performance.
This concert aligned with similar post-show choral performances included
in the Out of Bondage tour and gave audiences two shows for the price of
one.
45
Tickets ranged in price from theatre to theatre, but were typically
inexpensive, with general admission ranging from ffteen to thirty-fve
cents and reserved seating running around ffty to seventy-fve cents.
46

Reports indicate that houses were modest to full, with one performance
in Galesburg, IL drawing $195, and the company played multiple
nights in multiple cities.
47
Overall, Sprague designed the production to
accommodate changes while on tour and to meet the entertainment needs
of Midwestern audiences.
On 23 March, the day Hopkins secured a copyright for her play,
The Underground Railroad held a soft opening in several Illinois cities, then
premiered to Wisconsin audiences at Milwaukees Grand Operahouse on
Monday, 31 March.
48
The short lapse in time between copyright and the
43
As a reaction to the Guerra de los Diez Aos between 1868 and 1878, many
Cuban musicians fed Cuba and settled into cultural centers like New Orleans. There,
they collaborated with other artists of color. For additional discussion, see Christopher
Washburnes The Clave of Jazz: A Caribbean Contribution to the Rhythmic Foundation
of an African-American Music, Black Music Research Journal 17 no. 1 (1997): 59-80.
44
Brown, Pauline Hopkins, 111-5; The Flight for Freedom, review of The
Underground Railroad, Rockford Daily Register, 3 March 1879.
45
The Underground, review of The Underground Railroad, Oshkosh Daily
Northwestern, 5 April 1879.
46
In New York City, tickets for shows typically averaged between one and two
dollars. See High or Low Prices; The Ruinous Free-Pass System and the Great Extent to
Which it is Carried How Much a Manager May Spend On His Plays, The New York Times,
14 January 1878.
47
Galesburg, IL Review (23 June, 1879) and Quincy, IL Review (16 June,
1879), Folder 6, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN.
48
Brown, Pauline, 111; The Underground Railroad in Milwaukee Daily Sentinel;
Grand Opera House, advertisement, Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, 28 Mar. 1879.
22 MCAVOY
frst production of the play implies that Hopkins created The Underground
Railroad under signifcant time constraints, likely in the hopes of getting
the show on the touring circuit before interest in Out of Bondage waned.
A small note in one of Hopkinss handwritten librettos strengthens this
suggestion: The words found in the 1
st
act are only placed there as a
guide. Any songs may be used that are as appropriate as these. I have not
quite fnished the parts but send Mr. Lucas [sic], as the hardest and most
important. Please inform me where the parts can meet you this week.
49

The note references Sam Lucas, who had just fnished his tour with Out of
Bondage in the winter of 1878, indicating that he had already accepted the
lead role of Sam.
Though The Underground Railroads frst tour capitalized on Out of
Bondages success and Lucass celebrity, the decision to send out Hopkinss
play on the Midwestern circuit also suggests receptiveness toward this
experimental genre amongst Midwestern audiences. Although rarely
discussed in larger works about theatre history, Midwestern territories
provided sites for theatrical experimentation between 1865 and 1900. This
open-minded atmosphere arose from a variety of both ideological and
pragmatic reasons associated with the Midwests rapid development after
the Civil War. A post-Civil War industrialization boom, which included
unprecedented development of the railroad system and an infux of new
immigrants via the increasingly effcient steamship industries, resulted in
booms in population in a region once considered the dangerous frontier.
Between 1865 and 1880, once-rugged western territories were accessible
via the railways, and settlement areas developed throughout the region.
For example, Milwaukees population grew from 9,500 to over 200,000
between 1840 and 1890 alone, and similar growth occurred throughout
the region in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and
others.
50
Many of these settlements included immigrant groups new to the
US, including the Swedish, German, and Norwegian, who, on the whole,
held more tolerant views about race and more progressive ideologies about
the politics of Reconstruction than groups in the Northeast or South.
51
The
decision to premiere The Underground Railroad in Milwaukeea booming
49
Pauline Hopkins, Peculiar Sam, handwritten draft, folder 5, Pauline Hopkins
Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN, 2.
50
See essays in Andrew R. L. Cayton and Susan E. Grays The American Midwest:
Essays on Regional History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001) as well as Andrew
R. L. Cayton and Peter S. Onuf s The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an
American Region (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).
51
See Leslie Schwalms thorough investigation of Reconstruction in the Upper
Midwest in Empancipations Diaspora: Race and Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
Midwestern city with progressive, if not radical, social policies about race,
labor, and government that was also experiencing a cultural renaissance by
way of the convergence of German, Scandinavian, and Polish immigrant
groupswas a bold statement about the Midwests value to new touring
groups with experimental works.
Although collective ideologies of Midwestern communities
likely provided a more accepting atmosphere in which The Underground
Railroad might succeed, the decision to tour through this region was
also pragmatic. Touring shows, particularly new works without a strong
word-of-mouth following or big-name reputation, lived and died by the
money raised through ticket sales each night. In order to stay fnancially
afoat, The Underground Railroad Company needed to play to full houses
in inexpensive venues, and the Midwestern touring circuit provided the
best opportunity for large audiences and more agreeable on share
agreements with managers.
52
These desirable conditions arose from the
economic realities of overexpansion in the Midwest. During the post-
Civil War population booms, a glut of enterprising theatre managers
overspeculated and produced too many performance spaces for fedgling
communities to support, a concern only complicated by the economic
downturn after the Panic of 1873. The builders and managers of these
opulent performance venues, often called grand opera houses, spared
little expense in their construction, and the spaces featured some of
the most recent theatrical innovations, including gas lighting, ample
dressing rooms, and frescoes and drop scenery painted by famous scenic
artists.
53
The opulence integrated into these new theatres signifed, at least
to Midwestern communities, the emergence of Midwestern audiences
civility from the once rough-and-tumble frontier.
54
However, these opulent
new spaces often found themselves in fnancial crisis when managers
failed to recruit quality talent. One example of these diffculties appears
in an anonymous review of the renovation of Indianapoliss Grand
Opera House in 1879. In a discussion of two theatre managers decision
to simultaneously renovate the Grand Opera House and neighboring
52
See Actors On the Road; Something about the Stars and Combinations of
this Season for a frst-hand account of an actors experiences in touring companies during
this period. The New York Times, 4 March 1883.
53
Park Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper 19 April 1879, 32; Apollo,
advertisement, New York Clipper, 19 April 1879, 32; John Hanners, It was Play Or Starve:
Acting in the Nineteenth Century American Popular Theatre (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling
Green State University Popular Press, 1993), 113-5.
54
There exist few studies about Midwestern Opera Houses. See Janet Zivanovics
1988 publication, Opera Houses of the Midwest (Kansas: Mid-America Theatre Conference,
1988) for a more thorough discussion.
24 MCAVOY
Metropolitan Theatre, the reviewer notes, It is extremely doubtful that
two frst-class theatres can live in this city. Another concern arose from
the conditions of railway travel. Although the new railway system provided
unprecedented effciency in transporting goods to Midwestern territories,
passenger travel via train was still a dangerous and ineffcient affair. Many
big stars, accustomed to the conveniences and cosmopolitanism found in
the Northeast, reluctantly and infrequently ventured out to the Midwest.
55

Due to these complications, many Midwestern theatres struggled to stay
alive.
These Midwestern theatre crises play out in the New York
Clipper around the same time of The Underground Railroads frst tour. In
their desperation to attract at least marginally talented artists at bargain-
basement rates, theatre managers issued guarantees for performers
if the talents price was right. The Coliseum Theatre of Kansas City,
Missouri announced in a large advertisement, salaries must be low, as
they are sure.
56
Similarly, the Milwaukee Theatre insisted that artists of
ability can always secure a date, but they must also state their lowest
possible terms for compensation requirements.
57
The Olympic Theatre
of Sioux City, Iowa, in an almost desperate plea, announced, artists of
acknowledged ability can fnd dates at this place. All letters answered.
58

These urgent pleas for talent highlight the dire conditions of Midwestern
theatres around the time Hopkins created her drama.
This desperation for performers proved advantageous for the
cast of The Underground Railroad. With few big stars willing to visit the
Midwest, experimental works fourished. In his study of this period,
John Hanners notes, despite the increasing interconnectedness of the
Midwest after the Civil War, audiences still had to make do . . . with
second-rate dramas, crude farces, and a variety of amusements.
59
This
reference second-rate and crude performances refers to the variety
nature of performances found on the Midwestern touring circuit, alluding
to the experimental works generated by artists, free of strictures placed on
them in larger cities, who took risks, hybridized performance genres, and
developed new forms of variety entertainment. Audiences had a chance
to see it all: all-female minstrelsy-ballet hybrids; pedestal dancers and Irish
55
See John Hannerss case study about Edwin Booths 1873 tour to Terre Haute,
Indiana (It was Play, 113-28).
56
Coliseum Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper, 26 April 1879, 32.
57
Milwaukee Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper, 19 April 1879, 32.
58
Olympic Theatre, advertisement, ibid.
59
Hanners, It was Play, 98.
minstrel troupes; pantomimes like Humpty Dumpty; variety acts like trick
show dogs and magicians; original and pirated operettas, from Evangeline
to Fantinitza; new versions of popular productions like Uncle Toms Cabin;
and many other experimental performances.
60
The most popular tour
featured on the Midwestern circuit in early 1879 was H.M.S. Pinafore, a
hit that had premiered the year prior at the Opra-Comique in London
and grown wildly popular in the US due, in large part, to unsanctioned
productions based on pirated copies of the libretto. By 1879, a plethora of
bootlegged Pinafore productions circulated on Midwestern circuit, many
of which incorporated other proto-vaudeville and popular entertainments
to distinguish productions from others. There were H.M.S. Pinafore
burlesques, all-child Pinafore troupes, and minstrel versions of Pinafore,
among many other Pinafore spoofs and knock-offs.
61
The myriad of
Pinafore-inspired performances was endemic of the Midwestern theatrical
zeitgeist during this period. In fact, the Midwestern touring circuit was
a true mishmash of hybridity and innovation, with managers and artists
trying just about any combination of popular entertainment in the hopes
of bringing in crowds and making money. The talents offered by The
Underground Railroad company ft in well with other touring groups in the
region.
Midwestern reviews of The Underground Railroad echo suggestions
that audiences were open to different types of performance, but they also
highlight audiences discernment regarding the different entertainments
that stopped in their towns. In fact, Midwestern reviews of the play are quite
mixed.
62
Some were quite laudatory. For instance, one review from Racine,
Wisconsin states, All went there expecting to see a good entertainment
but they were not prepared for the rare treat that was in store for them. The
entertainment was frst class in every respect.
63
Another from St. Paul,
60
Quincy Review, review of The Underground Railroad, 16 June 1879. Located
in scrapbook, folder 11, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN;
Dramatic, New York Clipper, 26 April 1879, 38-9; Richard Traubner, American Operetta,
in Operetta: A Theatrical History (Routledge, 2003), 338-56; Amusements, The Daily Cairo
Bulletin (Cairo, Ill.), 20 December 1879, 4; Amusement Notes, Daily Globe (St. Paul, MN),
6 June 1880, 4.
61
His Mud Scow Pinafore, advertisement, New York Clipper, 12 April 1879, 23;
Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammet Jones, Preface to H.M.S. Pinafore, by W. S. Gilbert and
Sir Arthur Sullivan (Mineola, NY: Courier Dover Publications, 2002), vi-vii; Dramatic
Notes, Ottawa Free Trader (Ottawa, IL), 15 November 1879, 5.
62
Waterloo Courier, Waterloo Courier, 7 May 1879, 1; Great Musical
Extravaganza, Waterloo Courier, 30 April 1879; Mere Mentions, The Weekly Times (Cedar
Rapids, IA), 8 May 1879.
63
Racine Review, Wisconsin Daily Herald, 29 March 1879.
26 MCAVOY
Minnesota offered, everyone went away more than pleased with the rich
musical treat, and the Milwaukee Sentinel celebrated the unusually good
vocal stylings of the performers, suggesting, the audience was liberal in
its expression of approval.
64
Many of these positive reviews highlight
Sam Lucass contribution to the plays tour and celebrity status among
audiences. If discussions found in the Little Globe (the goings-on and
gossip section of the Atchisons main newspaper, The Globe) refect Lucass
behavior in other cities, it seems the performer embraced his celebrity
amongst Midwestern audiences and worked tirelessly to endear himself
and his new productions to these communities. In the days leading up to
The Underground Railroad performance in Atchison, the sixth time we have
been treated to the struggle for freedom, the Little Globe mentioned
Lucas at least ten times over the course of two weeks surrounding the
production.
65
The paper documents his visit to the newspaper offce,
Lucass serenade of the papers offce staff, his promise to sing his 1878
hit, My Grandfathers Clock during the performance of The Underground
Railroad, and his purchases of a trunk full of Red Signal cigars at the
towns dry goods store. These anecdotes reveal Lucass beloved status
amongst the residents of Atchison and allude to the likelihood that Lucas
played a similar celebrity role in other small Midwestern towns on the tour.
The Atchison newspaper reports also suggest a fairly autonomous role for
Lucas, implying that he handled some of the management duties for white
manager Z. W. Sprague by interviewing with newspapers and supporting
publicity efforts.
Although audiences clearly loved Lucas, less celebratory reviews
from the frst tour also suggest that The Underground Railroad company
was likely a bit out of their league in supporting Lucas. For example the
Waterloo Courier cited a review that stated, Sam Lucas was immense . . .
while the other members of the company exhibited an amount of training
and culture that would be a credit to any organization before the public.
66

By suggesting that Lucass performance was immense while the company
64
St. Paul Review, review of The Underground Railroad, St. Paul Dispatch, 19
April 1879; Milwaukee Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper, 19 April 1879, 32.
65
Although records indicate The Underground Railroad stopped in Atchinson
more than once, the reference to six performances likely refers to his performances of
Out of Bondage as well (By Request). Those Who Are Under in The Little Globe,
The Globe (Atchison), 15 May 1879; To Our Knowledge in The Little Globe, The
Globe (Atchison), 15 May 1879; The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison), 19 May 1879;
The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison), 20 May 1879; The Little Globe. The Globe
(Atchison). 27 May 1879; Sam Lucas Whose Grandfather in The Little Globe, The
Globe (Atchison), 12 May 1879.
66
Great Musical Extravaganza.
exhibited a noncommittal amount of training, this review, while
superfcially laudatory, subtly alludes to a disparity between Lucas and
his supporting companys talent. Reviews also indicate that performance
expectations established by the Out of Bondage company challenged the cast
of The Underground Railroad. In contrast to the aforementioned laudatory
reviews from Racine, Saint Paul, and Milwaukee, many other reviews
suggested that the company paled in comparison to both Lucas and the
talents of the Hyers sisters, who participated in Out of Bondages tour less
than a year earlier. For example, a review from Maquoketa, Iowa stated,
the troupe are [sic] all colored and did well in their respective parts, but
cant be put down for good support for Lucas.
67
Another review asserted,
Sam Lucas is as funny as ever, but his company cant sing like the Hyers
sisters.
68
Still another review offered, The troupe hardly averages with
the Hyers sisters.
69
These reviews refect tension between Lucas, his less
accomplished cast, and the expectations resultant from The Underground
Railroads imitation of Out of Bondage.
These disparate reviews reveal a more sophisticated critical
reception of The Underground Railroad than previously understood. Unlike
the limited and often disparaging reviews found in publications in the
Northeast, the varied Midwestern reviews, from claims that the whole
performance [was] frst class and the company is deserving of the
patronage it receives, to it is quite evident that Lucas has not got the best
support, reveal an open-mindedness toward the production.
70
Instead of
systematically dismissing the production, or ignoring the work all together,
Midwestern audiences receptiveness to experimental dramatic forms
allowed for a variety of critical responses that acknowledged strengths
of The Underground Railroad while fairly criticizing the productions
shortcomings. These diverse reviews contribute to a more nuanced view
of the productions value as a nascent genre navigating audience and critics
expectations as it attempted to pave a way for new forms of performance.
Conclusion
Despite Lucass celebrity status, the play ran out of steam only a few
months into its tour and abruptly closed after a performance in Aurora,
67
Underground Railroad, review, Jackson Sentinel (Maquoketa), 8 May 1879, 1.
68
Little Globe, 20 May 1879.
69
Local Brevities, Iowa State Reporter (Waterloo, IA), 7 May 1879.
70
Underground Railroad, review, The Wichita Eagle, 29 May 1879, 1;
AmusementsThe Underground Railroad, review, Milwaukee Sentinel, 2 April 1879, 8;
Waterloo Courier, Waterloo Corner, 7 May 1879, 1.
28 MCAVOY
Illinois on 20 June 1879. Reviews indicate that the performers scattered
to Boston, Toronto, Chicago, and elsewhere.
71
Before returning to work
with Spragues Georgia Minstrels, Lucas returned to Boston and likely met
with Hopkins to refect on the tour. Hopkins responded by signifcantly
revising the play, reducing the structure from four to three acts, removing
the fnal scene in which the characters hint at struggles in regards to living
as freedmen and women in the North and replacing it with a tableau of the
characters escaping across a river on a raft and singing My Old Kentucky
Homean ending undeniably evocative of Uncle Toms Cabin that
avoided commentary regarding life after liberation.
72
She also developed
musical scores for the songs and changed the title from Peculiar Sam; Or,
The Underground Railroad to Escape from Slavery.
73
By taking the focus off
Sams experiences, the new title further distanced Hopkinss narrative
from the controversial issues subtly infused in the frst version. This new
revision made for an appropriate addition to the July Fourth festivities
at Bostons Oakland Garden in 1880. Oakland Gardens management
featured Hopkinss drama as part of a Grand Plantation Festival, a
problematically nostalgic performance event that commemorated
slavery through recreations of plantation life.
74
In addition to Hopkinss
authentic slave drama, the festival also featured interactive scenes in
which African American performers simulated work in the cotton felds
for white spectators, steamboat races between working simulations
of the Robert E. Lee and Natchez, and a grand freworks display.
75

The 1880 production reunited Lucas, the only performer to participate
in both the 1879 Midwestern tour and the Oakland Garden performance
in Boston, with the famous Hyers sisters from Out of Bondage. Pauline
Hopkins and her family also participated in the production, debuting their
performance ensemble, The Hopkins Colored Troubadours.
While Hopkinss participation in a plantation festival does not
automatically imply resignation and conformity to white expectations of
slave dramas, her revisions to the text and the decision to include the three-
act version at the large-scale performance in 1880 suggest a certain level
71
Aurora Review, 25 June 1879. Scrapbook, inside back cover, folder 11,
Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN.
72
Hopkins, Slaves Escape.
73
AmusementsOakland Garden, newspaper clipping. Scrapbook, page 8,
Folder 11, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN.
74
Ibid.
75
Ibid.
of compromise.
76
By changing the ending of her play, Hopkins imposed
self-censorship of the political commentary about the struggles of slaves
in the North after they secured freedom via the Underground Railroad.
This revision of the play conformed to dominant slave narratives like
Out of Bondage and Uncle Toms Cabin and likely helped support the 1880
production of the play for Boston audiences. Since the new version offered
no challenge to Northern audiences attitudes about the larger political
implication of failed Reconstruction efforts or racial discrimination
outside the South, the production appealed to Fourth of July audiences
as a nostalgic dramatization of the past and as a reinforcement of the
supposed political progressivism of the present. Perhaps this compromise
contributed to Hopkinss move away from dramatic forms. Although
Hopkins and her family toured various versions of The Underground
Railroad throughout Boston and the Northeast during the frst half of
the 1880s, no evidence suggests that she copyrighted any additional plays
after the 1880 performance in Boston. The only other dramatic writing
in her archive, a skeletal outline of a play called Winona, lived on as a
serialized novel Hopkins published in Colored American Magazine in 1902.
77

Unfortunately, Hopkins never commented on her development of The
Underground Railroad, but her move away from playwriting suggests that
Hopkins herself viewed her work on this production as a kind of failure
as well.
Attending to The Underground Railroads frst tour not only alters
understandings of Hopkinss dramatic career, but it also reveals an
evolution of marginalized theatre forms during the postbellum period.
More prominent productions that followed The Underground Railroad, like
The Creole Show, relied upon a synthesis of experimentation from countless
and mostly nameless productions like Hopkinss play that made a go at
something new in regards to performance. Tracing those productions and
the ways in which they experimented with and hybridized popular theatre
forms supports new understandings of the complicated and arduous
tasks associated with carving out a space for new performance genres that
challenged minstrelsys rigid and racist structures. Placing Pauline Hopkinss
play in conversation with contemporaneous productions suggests that her
brief dramatic career may have been more than an experimental phase that
she ultimately left behind. Instead, it was an important period in Hopkinss
76
For a thorough and nuanced reading of Plantation Performances, see Barbara
Webbs Authentic Possibilities: Plantation Performance of the 1890s, Theatre Journal 56
(2004): 63-82.
77
Pauline Hopkins, Winona, folder 5, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University
Library, Nashville, TN; Pauline Hopkins, The Magazine Novels of Pauline Hopkins: (Including
Hagars Daughter, Winona, and Of One Blood) (Oxford University Press, 1990).
30 MCAVOY
life in which explored ideas that would later become the signifcant social
commentary articulated in her later works like Contending Forces and Of
One Blood. As this discussion of Hopkins demonstrates, more studies
of theatrical experimentation in African American theatre history adds
complexity and nuance to genealogies of US performance, particularly in
regards to those who worked diligently from below to generate incremental
change through trial and error. Carefully examining these marginalized
theatre forms respects and illuminates the experiences of artists who
worked both within and outside dominance while acknowledging the forces
of oppression that pushed against artistic, ideological, or political change.
In looking at productions like The Underground Railroad, the opportunity
not only exists to rehabilitate histories of marginalized performers who
attempted to act from below, but it also becomes possible to engage
in the important task of weaving together histories of marginalization
with histories of dominance. By carefully considering the incompletely
forgotten remnants of theatre and performance rejected by those who
dictated taste and value, we can more fully acknowledge that histories
surface from complex, painful, extraordinary, and even mundane struggles
amongst a variety of individuals for a myriad of reasons. Weaving together
these struggles creates more complete and complex histories that represent
the multiplicities of infuence involved in the retelling and reimagining of
the past.
Appendix A
Chronology of Te Underground Railroad Performances
This appendix provides the most up-to-date chronology of The Underground
Railroad. Dates have been gleaned from reviews found in Hopkinss
scrapbook, advertisements in the New York Clipper, other newspapers, and
other scholars investigations of Hopkinss life.
March 1879
14 - Ottawa, Illinois
15 - Ottawa, Illinois
23 - Rockford, Illinois
26 - Freeport, Illinois
27 - Racine, Wisconsin
31 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Grand Opening)
April 1879
1 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
5 - Oshkosh, Wisconsin
17 - Farihaut, Minnesota
18 - St. Paul, Minnesota
21 - Stillwater, Minnesota
22 - Minneapolis, Minnesota
23 - Mankato, Minnesota
24 - Rochester, Minnesota
25 - Faribault, Minnesota
26 - Minneapolis, Minnesota
28 - Owatonna, Minnesota
29 - Austin, Minnesota
30 - Waverly, Minnesota
May 1879
1 -Dubuque, Iowa
2 - Dubuque, Iowa
3 - Waterloo, Iowa
5 - Clinton, Iowa
6 - Maquoketa, Iowa
8 - Cedar Rapids, Iowa
10 - Des Moines, Iowa
18 - Lawrence, Kansas
19 - Atchison, Kansas
21 - Lawrence, Kansas
27 - Atchison, Kansas
31 - Wichita, Kansas
June 1879
1 - Wichita, Kansas
12 - Quincy, Illinois
17 - Galesburg, Illinois
20 - Aurora, Illinois (end of tour)
ONE LIVE AS TWO, TWO LIVE AS ONE:
BERT WILLIAMS AND THE UPROOTED BAMBOO TREE
Kevin Byrne
As a black blackface entertainer and infuential international star, Bert
Williams has held a continuous fascination for theatre historians, in large
part because Williams signifes the contradictions of blackface as much as
he lived the history of African American minstrelsy. His work with George
Walker starting in the 1890s, groundbreaking musicals of the 1900s, and
career with Ziegfelds Follies in the 1910s have been detailed in numerous
biographies and biographical sketches.
1
These histories deem his 1922
starring vehicle Under the Bamboo Tree unrepresentative, as he was the only
African American in the cast and the only actor in blackface. Were it not
for the fact that Williams died during its pre-Broadway run, the musical
would not have fgured in discussions of the lengthy and storied career
of this seminal black artist at all. For many historians, the play is little
more than an unfortunate and even embarrassing coda to an otherwise
complicated life on the stage.
2

But the tensions surrounding the show are more nuanced than at
frst glance, and it deserves more space in analyses of African American
theatre and Bert Williams. This article traces the history of Under the
Bamboo Tree and Williamss part in it: from the script that existed before
the star championed it, to the alterations created specifcally for (and
most likely by) him, to the various iterations and changes that occurred
after his passing. Major revisions accompanied the show at every turn,
and it fnally struggled its way onto Broadway a far cry from the original
conception. One small indication of the tortured and lengthy rewrites of
1
Ralph Allen, Bert Williams: The Two Faces of a Forgotten Star, American
Legacy 10, no. 4 (Winter 2005); Ann Charters, Nobody: The Story of Bert Williams (New
York: Macmillan, 1970); Louis Chude-Sokei, The Last Darky: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black
Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006); Camille F.
Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of Americas First Black
Star (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2008); Sandra L. Richards, Bert Williams: The Man
and The Mask, Mime, Mask, and Marionette 1, no. 1 (Spring 1978); E. L. Smith, Bert Wil-
liams: A Biography of the Pioneer Black Comedian (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992).
2

In many ways, this whole article is a rebuke to Yuval Taylor and Jake Austens
statements about Williams in their recent book Darkest America. The volume as a whole
is lazy and slapdash, but they claim that Williamss involvement in this show meant he
evidently felt more comfortable working with white performers and in front of white
audiences than with blacks. They ignore or had no knowledge of the infuence he exerted
over the production. Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen, Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from
Slavery to Hip-Hop (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), 130.
34 BYRNE
the production is the fact that it changed title four times between 1920
and 1923. It began as The Pink Slip, became Under the Bamboo Tree, and then
in rapid succession was called Violet, In the Moonlight, and Dew Drop Inn.
What I highlight is how the producers built the show around Williams and
how it involved his whole career and place within the cultural landscape.
Instead of being an anomaly, the production encompasses his conficted
legacy. His continued infuence over the show, even after death, solidifes
Williamss place as a true giant of the US stage, a unique talent hampered by
the realities of performing in the US. It also partially explains the peculiar
racist logic guiding the theatrical portrayals of African Americans in the
1920s: a complicated calculus of assumption, expectation, performativity,
and burnt cork.
Both the shaping of the show around Williams and the use of
blackface in the production offer a variant on Joseph Roachs concept of
surrogation and the later, related idea of Marvin Carlsons ghosting.
3

These two powerful terms detailing aspects of performativity can
help explain the reasons for and reception of this particular musical.
Surrogation is a method for how culture reproduces and re-creates itself
and involves the three-sided relationship of memory, performance, and
substitution.
4
Roachs examplesold actors performing roles they made
famous decades earlier, gestures as heirloomsillustrate how, through
mimicry, actorly effects can be transferred to different bodies in the minds
of an expectant and knowing audience. Similarly, Carlson, in a chapter on
The Haunted Body, discusses the recycled body and persona of the
actor and adds the element of celebrity to surrogation.
5
Celebrity means
both the public persona of the actor and the methods by which the public
feels it knows and relates to that personality.
6

The implications of surrogation and ghosting are far-ranging; in
analyzing Under the Bamboo Tree, the resonances are especially profound.
This is because, for the Broadway run, Bert Williams was replaced by the
white actor James Bland. The story of a black blackface artist replaced,
after death, by a white blackface surrogate acts as a case study for explaining
how burnt cork racially signifed and what those stereotypes entailed. It
also helps explain why certain elements of the musical were considered
3
Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 1996); Marvin Carlson, The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory
Machine (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001).
4
Roach, Cities of the Dead, 2.
5

Carlson, The Haunted Stage, 53.
6

Ibid., 59.
ONE LIVE AS TWO, TWO LIVE AS ONE 35
unique and others were transferable. How do you replace the irreplaceable
Bert Williams? What of him remains?
We Lak-a-Both the Same: Te Pink Slip
First written by Walter de Leon and titled The Pink Slip, the show was a
conventional comedy with little to distinguish itself in either plotting or
characterization from other white musicals of the era. It is set around a
hotel on an island off the coast of California. An eccentric millionaire
guest has recently died, but before departing he scattered clues to a treasure
chests whereabouts written on slips of pink paper around the hotel. The
attention brought to the hotel complicates the romance between a layabout
playboy and the daughter of a wealthy businessman, who are united at the
end as the treasure is revealed to be cases of champagne and whiskey. (The
show was written at the start of Prohibition.) Assisting in the creation and
eventual resolution of the chaos is the black porter, Ananias Washington.
In the original script, the porter is very much in line with the
portrayal of black servants and the black working class in white-authored
plays from the early twentieth century. Ananias, as written, is a lazy, broke
gambler, and a bit of a con man. Underneath it all, though, hes loyal and
always willing to help the white characters reach their goals in romance
and advancement, as he has none of his own. (One of the holes to the
plot involves Ananias selling information about the locations of the
hidden clues to the hidden treasure; the play assumes hed take a twenty-
dollar handout over collecting the spoils himself.) In addition to his
lack of motivation, the writing is steeped in minstrel showstyle dialect.
For example, here is a quick exchange from shortly after Ananiass frst
entrance:
Joe: That paper [wont] do you no good. What you got to have is
a pink paper.
Porter: Yes, sir. But where is them pink papers at?
7
The characters lines are flled with such malapropisms.
How the script frst found its way to Williams and his producer
Al Woods is unclear, but there were some obvious attractions for the
entertainer. The Pink Slip porter shares similarities with characters Williams
played in earlier black musicals and Follies shows. His roles were motivated
by the lure of easy money and evinced an earnest yet bumbling nature. But
his gift for pantomime and penchant for situational humor meant that the
7
Under the Bamboo Tree fle, Shubert Archives.
36 BYRNE
characters, though still subservient, had a depth and humanity. They did
not require the evocation of stereotype for laughs.
Williams, it should be noted, never spoke in heavy dialect like
that of Ananias in the initial script. His diction, in the many recordings
of his songs and skits, is clipped and sometimes ungrammatical but
never minstrelized in a demeaning where is them, way. His process of
developing character is described in an essay he wrote in 1918, The Comic
Side of Trouble. Considering himself an expert mimic and observer of
the human condition, he writes:
Many of the best lines I have used came to me by
eavesdropping. For, as I have pointed out, eavesdropping
on human nature is one of the most important parts of a
comedians work. . . . I took to studying the dialect of the
American negro, which to me was just as much a foreign
dialect as that of the Italian.
8
Throughout this sophisticated piece, Williams is cagey in the way he
distances himself from the racist legacy of minstrelsy. Williams dismisses
racist caricature because it is bad art: the joke of the negro with a razor
is stale and old minstrel routines arent funny.
9
Despite the limitations to his character as written, Williams seized
The Pink Slip and made it his own. On 23 December 1920 he signed a
contract with De Leon. In exchange for $500, he was granted the sole
and exclusive rights, license and privilege to produce and present, or cause
to be produced and presented, the aforementioned dramatic composition
as a comedy or musical comedy or farce through out [sic] the world.
10
In
addition to this, the contract gave him complete control over the script
he was allowed to make changes and bring in other playwrights to alter the
plot and dialogue. Although this was not nearly the level of involvement
he had with his early musicals, it was signifcant, and he had more control
than at the Follies over the decade previous. One of the frst things he
did was hire black composer Will Vodery to improve the score and write
numbers specifcally for him.
After the playwright De Leon, composer Vodery, star Williams,
and producer Woods were on board, the impresarios Lee and J. J. Shubert
8
Bert Williams, The Comic Side of Trouble, American Magazine, January 1918,
33, 60.
9

Ibid., 34.
10

Agreement between Bert Williams and Walter de Leon, 23 December 1920,
took a vested fnancial interest in the project in 1922. In addition to
producing the show, they added their nationwide chain of theatre houses
to the production. In the 1920s, the Shubert organization was one of the
most powerful entertainment conglomerates in the country.
11
In backing
The Pink Slip, they understood Williamss central role in the success of the
production, and that the show would be built around him. Not only did
Williams receive above-the-title billing, but he earned $1250 a week (more
than double the next highest salary in the cast), as well as ten percent of
the gross.
12
This detail speaks volumes not only of Williamss importance
to the show but also, from a business standpoint, to his importance for
flling houses in various theatres in major metropolitan areas around the
country.
This same contract also belies the stars concerns about the
continued pervasiveness of racism and segregation in the country. One line
of the contract stands out: You further agree that under no circumstance
11
At their height, Lee and J. J. Shubert owned and operated a thousand play-
houses around the country. Shubert Archives, Introduction, www.shubertarchive.org,
(accessed 14 July 2013).
12
Fig. 1. A photo of a blackfaced Bert Williams from the time that he began working on
Under the Bamboo Tree. Library of Congress archive. Call number LC-US 262-64924.
38 BYRNE
is the show to be booked in the South.
13
Despite the availability of
Shubert houses in the region, Williams wants guarantees that he will not
have to perform there. This clause, buried in a contract, is a more explicit
acknowledgement of Williamss awareness of oppression against blacks
than is to be found in his public writings and performances.
With the backing of the Shuberts, a national chain of playhouses,
and a bankable black star (especially for white audiences), the show itself
underwent a series of sometimes radical changes which further pushed
Williams to the forefront. Some of the alterations were at the behest of
Williams; as was his method during his long career, he humanized his
two-dimensional character through subtle shifts in tone and presentation.
Other changes advertised the marquee performer in generalizing and
essentializing ways. By building on his decades of stage engagements
and years as a recording star, the show conformed itself to his known,
understood celebrity.
14
All of this signaled his particular place in US
culture: what he meant, what he signifed, and in what way he represented
blackness to the country.
I Lak-a-Change Your Name: Under the Bamboo Tree
The Shuberts shifted the focus of the show squarely to Williams and the
persona he had cultivated for decades. The frst major change was the
title: The Pink Slip became Under the Bamboo Tree. The alteration is, in some
ways, inexplicable, but makes sense when considering how representations
of black Americans circulated through cultural products during this time.
The new title alluded to a 1902 song of the same name, written
by three black men: music by Bob Cole and lyrics by brothers J Rosamond
and James Johnson. It was popular in white vaudeville and was sold as
sheet music. The lyrics describe a Zulu princess of royal blood but dusky
shade wooed by her suitor though the romantic words of the refrain:
If you lak-a-me, lak I lak-a-you
And we lak-a-both the same,
I lak-a-say, this very day,
I lak-a-change your name;
13
Al Woods to J. J. Shubert, 24 October 1921, Under the Bamboo Tree fle, Shubert
Archives.
14

In 1920 one million copies of fourteen Williams recordings were shipped to
US stores. Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 18901919
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 144.
Cause I love-a-you and love-a-you true
And if you-a love-a-me,
One live as two, two live as one
Under the bamboo tree.
15
The dialect is mild by the standards of the day: its in the chorus but not
the verses and suggests a regional accent rather than an inability to master
the English language. These artists were subtly undermining and altering
minstrelized black dialect, which gives the tune a political edge not readily
apparent to consumers. The song, like the vague African primitivism
sweetly evoked, circulated for decades.
16
But the number had no relation at all to the musical or its star,
and its connection to the play was so tenuous and rushed that, in the
earliest draft in the Shubert Archives, the name of the hotel is scratched
out and Bamboo Tree Hotel is penciled in at the margin. Bert Williams
wasnt known for singing the tune, as he was for so many others. And,
according to Mable Rowlands, Pink Slip was the title he preferred.
17
The
creators didnt even bother to add the song to the show, an easy enough
step considering the stitched-together relationship between the book and
the musical numbers.
So why was this done? The Shubert brothers were undoubtedly
behind the alteration: they had recently joined the production and were
aware of how to market a show in a way that would sell tickets to their
theatres. The use of Under the Bamboo Tree is indicative of the
countrys continued awareness of the song in the decades after it was
frst penned, which the Shuberts hoped would signal something about
the production. Also, the fact that they chose it over Williamss objections
speaks to the tension about marketing and selling the show. A vague sense
of exoticism and blackness had a hold over what Williams meant to the
producers and what the producers hoped he meant to the consumer. The
songs Zulu maiden love plot, African setting, foreign fauna, and mild
dialect contributed to the overall belief in the meanings of blackness.
15

Bob Cole, James W. Johnson, and J. Rosamond Johnson, Under the Bamboo Tree
(New York: Jos. W. Stern and Co., 1902).
16

It was even referenced in T. S. Eliots 1932 poem Sweeney Agonistes: Fragments
of an Aristophanic Melodrama, quoted in Susan Gubar, Racechanges: White Skin, Black Face in
American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 146. Judy Garland sings it in
the 1944 movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis.
17

Mabel Rowland, Bert Williams: Son of Laughter (New York: The English Craft-
ers, 1923), 166.
40 BYRNE
The star lost control over the marketing but still had a strong
infuence over the production itself. Ananias Washington underwent
major changes after Williams took over, mainly in ways that humanized the
character through his speech patterns and contributions to the plot. He
became more like Williamss onstage persona that he had been portraying
for decades, the Jonah Man fgure, defned by Williams in The Comic
Side of Trouble:
I am the Jonah Man, the man who, even if it rained
soup, would be found with a fork in his hand and no
spoon in sight, the man whose fghting relatives come
to visit him and whose head is always dented by the fur-
niture they throw at each other. There are endless varia-
tions of this idea, fortunately; but if you sift them, you
will fnd the principle of human nature at the bottom of
it all.
18
In his musicals, song recordings, and Follies scenes, Williams perfected
this trod-upon sad clown who always gets the worst of it but struggles
onward.
Ananias is still the porter in the hotel, but he is less greedy and
lazy, and more overworked and misunderstood, than in the original script.
The newly dubbed Under the Bamboo Tree shifted emphasis from the love
conquers all or hidden treasure narratives to the plotless porter, who
became more involved in its comedic schemes and machinations without
himself gaining anything other than a few bottles of booze.
The dialect of the character was also toned down. The short
quote above from The Pink Slip was slightly altered:
Joe: That paper wont do you no good. What you got to have is
a pink paper.
Porter: Yes sir. Thats what the notice says. You got to have pink
papers.
19
Such small shifts in wording and emphasis could have a huge impact on
a show when amplifed over two acts. The play was doctored up by white
playwright Edward Delany Dunn, who thereafter shared credit for the
script. (In a later note to the Shuberts, Dunn wrote, I am going to stick
18

Williams, The Comic Side of Trouble, 33.
19

right on the job till this play is on and over.
20
) As this softening of dialect
came in response to Williamss involvement with the show, a plausible in-
ference is that the star was the driving force behind the changes.
In Under the Bamboo Tree, Ananias gets the last word in both act
one and act twoconcluding the musical with the characters tagline,
Use your brain man. Use your brain.
21
The alterations and shifts in tone
regarding plot, character, and dialect were minor compared to the changes
to the music. Whole numbers were written for Williams and inserted into
the show on the fimsiest of presences. The song Puppy Dog was com-
posed by Vodery as an act two number that put Williamss trademark per-
sona on display. Onstage with only an abandoned canine, he sang:
When folks look at you,
The frst thing they do
Is to laugh.
You aint comical but
You is such a mutt,
They just laugh.
Your earses and your pawses, too,
Dont look like they was meant for you
The reason I like yous because
You remind me of me; Im telling true.
22
A second song, Judge Grimes (sometimes called Old Judge
Grimes) was also written specifcally for Williams and also bears no con-
nection to the show. The lyrics describe a man who slips on a banana peel
and falls down a coal chute but, due to further bad luck, is brought up in
front of the titular judge and convicted of various crimes:
[U]nlawful entry when in the [coal] hole you went
Removing the lid without the [owners] consent
Breaking your leg to cheat and defraud
Then going to the hospital just to keep from paying board . . .
20
Edward Dunn to J. J. Shubert, 23 February 1923, Dew Drop Inn fle, Shubert
Archives.
21
22

Quoted in Rowland, Bert Williams, 171.
42 BYRNE
And on and on.
23
With the mood of oppressed alienation, Puppy
Dog and Judge Grimes echo tunes from Williamss repertoire stretch-
ing back to his signature song Nobody: a great paean to self-negation
written for Williams in 1905 and continually demanded from him.
24
Under the Bamboo Tree traveled during the winter of 1922-1923 to
polish it up for Broadway: frst several cities in New Jersey, then Cincin-
nati, Chicago, and Detroit. The reviews were generally kind to the produc-
tion and devoted a large portion of their space in praising the star for his
antics. Several of them utilized worn but durable racist assumptions about
the entertainer, demonstrating that, even at this late stage in his career,
Williams could not escape such patronizing comments. One reviewer of
the Chicago run noted, It is in such bits of eternal primitive comedy that
Bert Williams genius for acting betrays itself. He is the arch comedian of
suffering, of hard luck, of gloom. Nobody comes within reach of him in
this feld, not even Chaplin. The same article ends with a curious rhetori-
cal fourish, upending Rudyard Kiplings most famous poem in order to
praise Williams: Nature was good to Williams when she gave him the
voice of a great tragedian and the body of the knight of la Mancha, but
when you consider how little the playsmiths even have done for this bril-
liant artist you must admit that he has made a brave job of the black mans
burden.
25
It is true that his talents were hampered by weak or limiting
material. But if the white mans burden in Kiplings conceptualization
is conquering and dominating the earth, this reviewer believes that the
burden for African Americans is to entertain.
A later review is even more baldly demeaning, writing that Wil-
liams is the sole living exponent of the rare old coon essence of another
era of black joy in shuffe and wing. . . . There is a little pathos in his long
simian arms and splay feet as he swings lazily into a shuffe or idles along
his thieving way as the porter.
26
In addition to its nauseating references
to coons and primates, the mindset of the reviewer is similar to the one
above. Both view Williams, the actor, as a haunted body: representative
of his own personal successes and also of all African American entertain-
ers. They both patronizingly essentialize the performer by discussing his
talent as something effortless and natural: hes not performing, hes just
23
Old Judge Grimes in Under the Bamboo Tree fle, Shubert Archives. In the
margin of this typed sheet someone has added Williams Lyric in pencil.
24

Chude-Sokei, The Last Darky, 35.
25
Aston Stevens, Bert Williams as a Lying Porter, Under the Bamboo Tree fle,
Shubert Archives.
26

Amy Leslie, Bert Williams in Under the Bamboo Tree, Under the Bamboo
Tree fle, Shubert Archives.
being himself. The quotes pulled from the two reviews are extreme in their
articulation of racismmany were pleasant and congratulatory to Wil-
liamsbut such sentiments complicate the message of his performance
and how he was being read by his audience.
27

Changes were made at each step of the tour; the production drew
poor houses and rarely recouped its weekly expenditures. Williams suf-
fered immensely from various ailments at the time.
28
One Chicago re-
viewer noticed that, during the performance, he forgot the lyrics to Judge
Grimes.
29
The weak material that Williams had to work with, along with
his awareness that he was carrying the show, certainly contributed to his
worsening condition. In Detroit, Williams collapsed mid-performance,
something initially assumed by the audience to be a part of the fun.
30
He
was rushed home to New York, and died on 4 March 1923.
After the stars death, most historical accounts of the show end,
and Williams biographers decline to discuss it further, yet the show did
continue. On the one hand, the rest of this story illustrates the effciency
of the Shuberts, who became sole producers of the show and were un-
willing to abandon a product in which they had already invested time and
money. More importantly, some of the ways the show had been adjusted
to ft Williamss persona also remained; residues of his Jonah Man char-
acter that persisted through all subsequent versions.
I Love-a-You and Love-a-You True: Violet and In the Moonlight
With the star gone, the producing duties fell squarely on the Shuberts,
who became involved because of Williams in the frst place. The show
briefy halted, but continued its run by the end of March 1923. The over-
haul was extensive. The most cosmetic change to the show was the title,
which indicates the changes to plot and music. Without the great black
vaudevillian leading the cast, the Shuberts abandoned the title Under the
Bamboo Treewhat would be the point, given that the title signifed Wil-
liams himself ? With Williams gone, the porter character no longer com-
27
Also, not one review mentions that Williams performed in blackface; it
wasnt news for him to do so.
28
He had to be dressed and undressed at each performance. Forbes, Introducing
Bert Williams, 318.
29
Stevens, Bert Williams as a Lying Porter.
30
Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams, 319. There are any number of sad, poetic
notions to be extracted from this scene. Caryl Phillipss fctional life of Williams fnds
an uncomfortable poignancy in the fact that he collapsed in the same city where he frst
blacked up more than a quarter-century earlier. Caryl Phillips, Dancing in the Dark (New
York: Vintage, 2005), 205.
44 BYRNE
manded attention and the emphasis returned to the romantic plot which
always drove the narrative forward.
In the original show, the neer-do-well male lead successfully
courted the daughter of a businessman. But in the new iteration, Violet,
the hotels poor but honest hairdresser, falls in love with a profigate mil-
lionaires son. The hidden treasure plot remained, but the central tension
is around the emotional obstacles keeping the two lovers apart.
31
Whereas
the continued racial divide between black and white was the reason for
enjoying Under the Bamboo Tree, Violet hoped to please its audiences by sur-
mounting class differences. Bamboo Tree ends with the wisecracking porter
having the last word; Violet concludes with a lovers embrace.
After tinkering with the show, and some false starts, the Shuberts
were able to turn the show into a modest Broadway success by reversing
course and emphasizing again the character of the black porter. At some
point in March of 1923, the name of the show was changed to In the
Moonlight and James Barton was brought on to play Ananias. By the time it
reached New York that summer, the show was called Dew Drop Inn.
You Lak-a-Me, Lak I Lak-a-You: Dew Drop Inn
Dew Drop Inn arrived on Broadway in May of 1923, two and a half years
after the contract between Williams and De Leon was signed and two
months after the stars demise. The book and plotnever a strong point,
as reviewers over the years could attestwas now a patchwork of com-
peting infuences and emphases by playwrights, lyricists, composers, and
performers. The plot still included the hidden treasure, the love conquers
class romance, and the eccentric antics of hotel guests. With such thin
soup to serve, the Shuberts made it a success by returning the shows fo-
cus to the porter. The man chosen for the role was James Barton, a white
vaudevillian novelty dancer. (Dance was one element of musical theatre
that had not been hopelessly fligreed by the many changes.) Though he
had never performed in blackface before, it was essential for the show that
he don the burnt cork.
32

A particular racist logic allows for the replacement of a black
blackface performer with a white performer in blackface, a particular
anonymity that the mask allows, a particular surrogation which occurs.
Considering the circumstances under which Barton joined the produc-
tion, through a vacancy created by the absence of an original, the actor
31
Violet fle, Shubert Archives.
32
James Carey, Dew Drop Inn: James Barton Appears in Blackface in Musical
Comedy at the Astor, Dew Drop Inn fle, Shubert Archives.
himself becomes a performative effgy, in Roachs terminology.
33
He in-
corporates and echoes Williams, a comparison which extends not only to
Williamss role in the show but his whole performative repertoire and life.
The Shuberts could have chosen a black blackface performer
as the replacement. Not only were there a number of African American
men, like Johnny Hudgins, who also wore blackface onstage, but there
were several who directly billed themselves as Williamss successor. Be-
cause Williamss performance style and mannerisms were so recognizable,
several entertainers tried to steal his oversized shoes. One was Hamtree
Harrington, who called himself as the vest pocket Bert Williams even
before the performer passed. In the 1922 Strut Miss Lizzie, Harrington
performed a skit called Darktown Poker Club in which he played an
entire poker game by himself and loses, a pantomime which was one of
Williamss most famous skits from his solo days with Ziegfelds Follies.
34

Also after Williamss demise, both Harrington and Eddie Hunter (in the
black-cast musical How Come) publicized themselves as heir to his position
as the preeminent black blackface star in the country.
Despite these candidates, Barton was given the role. His perfor-
mance was a real return to racist caricature, despite the changes to the
dialogue at Williamss insistence which remained in the fnal version of
the play. The most radical change was to the choice and placement of the
songs. Both of the Williams specialty numbers were cut. An actual dog, in-
cluded in Bamboo Tree to justify the song Puppy Dog, remained, though
the number disappeared. Judge Grimes was removed as well. And the
only remaining song for Ananias in the show was the act one number
Porter! Porter! that was used at his entrance. In the refrain, he sings:
Ladies always calling Porter! Porter!
Make me wish my working hours were shorter;
Porter, take my trunk out!
Porter, throw this drunk out!
Nearly all the time.
35
Ananias is still the overworked underling and the song is, for
once, related to the plot and characterizations of the book. But whereas
33

Roach, Cities of the Dead, 36.
34

Strut Miss Lizzie clippings fle, New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts.
35
Dew Drop Inn fle, Shubert Archives.
46 BYRNE
Puppy Dog and Judge Grimes were equated with Williams himself,
Porter! Porter! circumscribes the place of the character as limited to
his job. The combination of removing the Williams songs, which had hu-
manized the porter, and the performance of a white man in blackface in
the role changed the audiences expectations. It signaled that the charac-
ter Ananias Washington was no longer a variation on the Jonah Man
but rather a minstrel buffoon. The signifcantly less vocal porter, with his
parody dances, signifed this. Reviewers were primed to read the character
this way by the Shuberts. In the press release for Dew Drop Inn, Ananias
is labeled a lazy, lying conniving Senegambian, wording that was not, in
any way, used when promoting Under the Bamboo Tree.
36
(I doubt Williams
would have stood for it.)
The reviews of Dew Drop Inn discussed Bartons role in the suc-
cess of the production. In contrast to the reviews of Under the Bamboo
Tree quoted above, these pieces illustrate the complex negotiations about
defning blackness that were happening on the stage. From a twenty-frst-
century perspective the terminology can be brutal, more so because of the
essays playful tone, yet they demonstrate how memory and performance,
in Roach and Carlsons conceptions of the terms, allow for a substitution.
They illustrate how, for US audiences in the 1920s, race and culture are
36
Ibid.
Fig. 2. A promotional photo of James Barton in blackface with his canine
friend. The Shubert Archive.
hopelessly intertwined.
The reviews of Dew Drop Inn were mixed, but all praised Barton
for elevating weak material through his comedic antics. Several of the
shows clippings in the Shubert Archives make no mention of blackface
at all, though most do, and most draw comparisons between Barton and
Williams. Mr. Barton is to be seen in this sentimental extravaganza as a
forlorn negro porter of the Bert Williams type, wrote one.
37
Another
takes the comparison to a notable extreme: James Barton made his frst
appearance in black face in Dew Drop Inn at the Astor Theatre last night
and suddenly transformed himself into a complete Ethopian [sic] Art The-
atre in his own person. . . . He is as negroid as Bert Williams used to be.
38

This fnal sentence is quite shocking. Is the reviewer saying that negroid
is a stage convention, a type of black clown? Or that Barton becomes
racially, not just perceptively, black through his performance? The ambi-
guityI honestly dont know what the reviewer meantis as evocative
as any defnitive answer, and certainly explains how the blackface mask
continued to both obscure and delineate race into the 1920s.
Several other reviews explain what it meant to be a blackface
performer in the 1920s, particularly by addressing the fact that this was
Bartons frst time wearing the minstrel mask. The always droll Alexander
Walcott, in lauding the performance, wrote, It is a temptation to begin
by reporting that he is a far more crafty and amusing blackface comedian
than [Al] Jolson or [Frank] Tinney or Eddie Cantor. In this, the reviewer
is comparing Barton to a host of famous white blackface vaudevillians.
Walcott continues by explaining his reasoning: Certainly he is far more
successful than any of them in suggesting the engaging and lackadaisical
quality of the darkey, for, fortifed by several years in a river boat show,
Barton rubs a little burnt cork on his face and drifts on to the Astor stage
as a true levee darkey from New Orleans.
39
As had often been the case
with white minstrels, stretching all the way back to T. D. Rice, Walcott ties
authenticity to an entertainers biography.
40
What is elided in his approv-
37
Percy Hammond, James Barton and a Comic Dog Make Fun in Dew Drop
Inn. Dew Drop Inn fle, Shubert Archives.
38
James Barton in Dew Drop Inn, Dew Drop Inn fle, Shubert Archives. I as-
sumed the reference to Ethiopian Art Theatre was a crass dismissal of the Little Theatre
movement of the Jazz Age, but the actual Ethiopian Art Theatre was created in Harlem in
1924. Errol Hill and James Hatch, A History of African American Theatre (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2003), 514, n12.
39
Alexander Walcott, The Incomparable Barton, Dew Drop Inn fle, Shubert
Archives.
40
See Dale Cockrell, Demons of Disorder: Blackface Minstrels and Their World (New
48 BYRNE
ing statements is that Barton never before performed in blackface; thats
not what contributes to his expertise. Just by being an actor on a riverboat,
in proximity to stevedores and other working-class African Americans,
Barton learns his engaging and lackadaisical quality. This is what makes
Bartons performance more true than the others.
Another review of Dew Drop Inn is critical of the use of minstrel
makeup, and seems to put the reason for Barton having to black up on the
legacy of Williams, which in itself is quite astounding: Incidentallyit
really does seem quite incidentallyBarton has taken to blackface. For
Dew Drop Inn is the last piece made for the late Bert Williams. The re-
sult of charcoaling Barton is about ffty-ffty. He loses some of his comic
expression in the burnt cork, but his Negro dialect is very nearly as good
as Bert Williamss own. Maybe the novelty of this Afro-American alli-
ance turns the scale.
41
The reviewer indicates that Bartons individuality
is obscured by the generalized, generic blackness of the minstrel mask
and praises his vocal stylings. This much is clear; it is the fnal sentence
which confounds. The novelty is not white racial impersonationis it
that Barton assumes a role originally played by a black actor? If so, then
there is a particular American twist on Roachs conceit of the performed
effgy in this reviewers racial calculus. An alliance is a pact or union
between opposing factions which, in this instance, is a racial suturing
without commingling or mixingthrough Bartons performance.
Such underlying assumptions continue though many of the re-
views in the white dailies. One noted, [B]urnt cork changed James Bar-
tons classic features quite beyond recognition in Dew Drop Inn at the
Astor Theatre last night. . . . If some of us think that Bartons face is
funnier in its natural state than when it is wearing the mask of Ethiopian
art, others may contend that what is good for Al Jolson and Frank Tinney
cant be bad for Jim Barton. . . . His make-up was matched by a dialect of
the minstrel show variety that served its purpose.
42
Similar to the previ-
ous review, Bartons individuality is obscured, a contention never levied
against Williams, who instead was universally praised for his subtlety of
expression. Echoing the press release about Bartons character, another ar-
ticle described Ananias as a lazy and lying, cunning and conniving, shift-
York: Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy
and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
41
Kenneth MacGowan, James Barton Says It in Blackface, Dew Drop Inn fle,
Shubert Archives.
42
Charles Darnton, James Barton in Dew Drop Inn Funniest of Dancing
Comedians, Dew Drop Inn fle, Shubert Archives.
less and slipperybut well-meaningNegro porter.
43
The emphasis on
typeanother reviewer praised him as the very best of the performers
of that type
44
relies on easy racist categorizing that could be evoked
through the minstrel show tropes such as blackface.
Under the Bamboo Tree: Bert Williamss Legacy
What Bert Williams meant during his lifetimeto African Americans and
to the entertainment worldhad been discussed and debated since his
rise to international prominence at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The dominant feeling fuctuated widely in different racial contexts and
decades. The frst posthumous assessment of Williams was published the
same year as both his death and Dew Drop Inns Broadway debut. Bear-
ing the slightly patronizing title of Bert Williams: Son of Laughter, it is a
collection of essays written by friends in the entertainment world, like
Eddie Cantor, as well as political fgures such as W. E. B. Du Bois. Editor
Mabel Rowlands method of creating a positive legacy is to separate the
performer from the blackface mask. As she states in the preface, The
searching light of truth, it is intended, shall penetrate the burnt cork and
show the mans nobility of character in its right relation to his mobility
of characterization.
45
The sentence is remarkable not only for prizing
Williams from his onstage persona but also separating truth from burnt
cork. The falsity of blackface is mentioned only in relation to Williamss
genius as a mimic, not as a racist stereotype. But, in light of this examina-
tion, we can see that Rowlands attempt at proving Williams was not really
his onstage persona largely failed. His name, blackface image, and onstage
antics were marketable qualities. Rowland could not deracinate Williams
from the minstrel tradition that by the 1920s he emblematized; there was
no possibility of uprooting the bamboo tree.
The performance of race onstage and the performativity of race
in society are linked together through visual, embodied, and vocal signs
and symbols. The blackface mask has always been a powerful denoter of
racial difference and denigration, and Bert Williams has always been one
of the most complex fgures in the history of African American blackface
entertainers. The Pink Slip to Dew Drop Inn transmogrifcation stands as an
43
Dew Drop Inn, Broadway Success, Attraction at Wieting Two Nights, Dew
Drop Inn fle, Shubert Archives.
44
Dew Drop Inn Scores Heavily, New York Evening Post, 18 May 1923, Dew
Drop Inn fle, Shubert Archives.
45
Rowland, Bert Williams, vi.
50 BYRNE
uneasy testament to the place of blackface in mainstream US theatre in the
1920s and its use as a tool for stereotyping. With the substitution of Wil-
liams with Barton, the show and the character fell back into easy minstrel
show caricature. This supports the commonly held belief of Williams as a
reformer and humanizer of minstrel stereotypes, while also reminding us
of the persistent pull of the blackface mask to reinscribe racist hierarchies.
PLAYWRIGHT AS PUBLICITY: REEXAMINING JANE MARTIN AND
THE LEGACY OF THE HUMANA FESTIVAL
Jefrey Ullom
In May 2011, Marc Masterson departed Actors Theatre of Louisville for a
similar position as the artistic director of South Coast Repertory Theater
in San Diego. Reportedly, he initially offered to remain and assist with
the search for a replacement, but his proposal was not accepted as the
leadership of the theatre wished to proceed quickly without Mastersons
involvement. Six months later, the board of directors announced its new
artistic director, welcoming acclaimed Broadway director Les Waters to
Louisville. The hiring of Waters signaled both a shift and a correction
for the theatre, hoping to return to the ideals of and the success enjoyed
under its most acclaimed leader Jon Jory, who resigned in 2000 to become
a theatre professor at the University of Washington.
1
It is no accident
that Actors Theatre of Louisville hired a high-profle director to helm its
internationally-renowned new play festival as a means of recovering the
events popularity and relevance from its steady decline during Mastersons
decade in Louisville. Throughout Mastersons tenure, the Humana Festival
witnessed a drop in attendance, especially by the press who considered
the event less signifcant than under Jorys leadership. To maintain the
continued popularity of the Humana Festival, Actors Theatre relied
upon the attendance of the international press as proof of the festivals
relevance. Unfortunately, Masterson favored supporting new playwrights
as opposed to Jorys philosophy of proving a mix of both established
writers (with new works) and newly-discovered playwrights, meaning that
fewer and fewer theatre critics could justify travel expenses to their editors
in order to view a collection of unproven writers.
The arrival of Waters also provides an opportunity to refect
upon the changing legacy of the festival. With Mastersons departure, it is
possible to gauge the success of his leadership of the Humana Festival of
New American Plays by comparing his success of his play selections with
those of Jory. Given Mastersons struggles to select plays that secured a
place in the canon of American theatre, Jorys lengthy and accomplished
tenure at Actors Theatre of Louisville becomes even more impressive.
However, a thorough examination and analysis of one of Jorys greatest
playwriting discoveries throws his legacy into question.
The most produced playwright at the annual Humana Festival
1
Felicia R. Lee, Les Waters Named New Artistic Director at Actors Theatre
of Louisville, New York Times, accessed 12 February 2012, http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.
com/2011/11/29/les-waters-named-new-artistic-director-at-actors-theater-of-louisville.
52 52 ULLOM
is a writer who has never been seen. The work of the pseudonymous
Jane Martin premiered on the Actors Theatre of Louisville stage fourteen
times in the festivals thirty-four years, more than other Louisville favorites
Marsha Norman and Naomi Wallace. One commonality unites these three
women: they are all Louisvillians (offcially), but Martins identity has
become suspect over the past twelve years after former producing director
Jon Jory resigned his post at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2000. The
previously reported factthat Jane Martin is a Louisvillianis the only
biographical information provided about the playwright, causing most
theatre critics to engage in rampant speculation about the true identity of
the playwright.
A problem has arisen in recent years as the location for the debuts
of Martins work have followed Jory around the country, meaning that
she rarely premieres her work in Louisville and giving credence to the
long-held assumption that Jory is, in fact, the author of the plays. Jory has
never admitted authorship of the plays, even though Chris Jones remarked
in a New York Times article that Jory has winked more broadly at his
identifcation with the pseudonymous playwright.
2
If Jory is Jane Martin,
then this revelation has an astonishing impact on both Martins legacy at the
festival and the Humana Festivals legacy of supporting female playwrights.
Unfortunately, little scholarship exists that explores the potential Jory/
Martin relationship, leaving such speculation to rumors and hearsay. In
an effort to establish Jory as Martin, this article will not only detail Jane
Martins discovery and her contribution to the reputation of the Humana
Festival, but this work serves to collect and analyze the many theories
pertaining to Martins true identity. After cataloguing Jorys involvement
with Martins work and analyzing one of Martins plays to demonstrate
the numerous ties to the former producing director, it becomes necessary
to examine how such an exposure would affect negatively the theatre and
festival which Jory worked so hard to establish.
In spite of its recent decline in popularity and national relevance,
the Humana Festival enjoys a cherished place in American theatre history
for its remarkable track record in two arenas. First, the Humana Festival
remained a signifcant annual event in American theatre by premiering
new work by respected playwrights, most notably Tony Kushner, Lee
Blessing, David Henry Hwang, John Patrick Shanley, Craig Lucas, Theresa
Rebeck, Naomi Iizuka, Romulus Linney, and Donald Marguiles, among
others. Jorys justifcation for commissioning experienced playwrights
instead of featuring new writers (which Masterson favored) was that
2
Chris Jones, Will a New Broom at Humana Sweep the Old Era Away? New
York Times, 11 March 2001, AR-6.
53 PLAYWRIGHT AS PUBLICITY 53
the Humana Festival needed to attract people to the festival if it were
to remain relevant. Obviously, many playwrights who never enjoyed the
spotlight in Louisville lambasted Jorys selection of these playwrights as
examples of favoritism and appealing to the masses.
More important than presenting the latest work by established
writers, the Humana Festivals legacy relies upon its ability to discover
and launch the careers of new playwrights. According to Actors Theatres
own promotional materials, over two-thousand scripts are submitted to
the literary department each year, and the complicated selection process
eventually results in a yearly offering of six to ten productions.
3
The
history of the festival is replete with stories detailing the length to which
Jory went to locate new writers, and he deserves to be praised for his
uncanny ability to spy future talents in unlikely places. Perhaps the most
famous example of this unique eye for talent concerns his discovery of
Marsha Norman. Originally a columnist for the local Louisville newspaper,
Normans writings appealed to Jory, prompting him to approach her about
writing a play about the busing system in Louisville. Norman balked at this
idea and, instead, wrote an entirely different play: Getting Out.
4
Normans
debut work proved to be a stunning success for both Norman and Jory;
after opening off-Broadway at the Theatre de Lys in May 1979, garnering
both rave reviews and the American Theatre Critics Associations award
for best new play of 1977, Getting Out received multiple productions at
regional theatres around the country.
5
Jorys trust in his own instincts
and his willingness to take a chance on novice playwrights beneftted
many writers, most notably Beth Henley and Naomi Wallace, and Jorys
dogged determination to establish his festival resulted in the fortunate
combination of discovering quality talent while also enjoying phenomenal
success and attracting national attention.
Created as a means to include new plays into the subscription
season, Jorys celebration of new plays began in 1976 with only two
offerings, but one of themD. L. Colburns The Gin Gamewon the
Pulitzer Prize in 1978 after its debut on Broadway.
6
This extraordinary
3
Humana Festival Fun Facts, Actors Theatre of Louisville, accessed 2 March
2010, http://actorstheatre.org/humana_facts.htm.
4

Jon Jory, quoted in Jory Pleased Louisvillians Play is Chosen by William
Mootz, Courier-Journal (Louisville), 4 September 1977, H-7; Matthew C. Roudan, American
Drama since 1960: A Critical History (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), 124-5.
5
Richard Eder, Stage: Getting Out by Marsha Norman, New York Times, 16 May
1979, C19; Judy Klemesrud, She Had Her Own Getting Out to Do, New York Times, 27
May 1979, D4.
6
Humana Festival Fun Facts. Ironically, the rest of Actors Theatre of Lou-
54 54 ULLOM
luck began a series of successes highlighted by another Pulitzer Prize-
winning play two years later (Beth Henleys Crimes of the Heart in 1979) and
several award-winning plays and transfers to New York, including Getting
Out (1978), John Pielmeiers Agnes of God (1980), William Mastrosimones
Extremeties (1981), and James McLures Lone Star (1979)all within the
frst fve years.
7
Half of these works listed are by Southern playwrights, allowing
Jory to carve out his theatres niche as a supporter of Southern drama, a
trend which continued until the tenth festival. It should also be noted that
Norman and Henley were only a few of the female playwrights discovered
by the festival in its early years, furthering Actors Theatres reputation
as a home for Southern female playwrightsa source of pride for the
theatre and one upon which it capitalized quickly.
8
The Humana Festival
heavily promoted its support for female playwrights both in its publicity
materials and in its endeavors to receive additional funding, resulting in the
Ford Foundations $20,000 grant to commission ten female playwrights.
9

Throughout the history of the festival, Actors Theatre celebrated its
dedication to developing and discovering female writers, most notably in
1990 when six of the seven plays for the Fourteenth Annual Humana
Festival of New American Plays were penned by women.
Actors Theatres legacy involving the discovery of female
playwrights has taken on new meaning given the controversy surrounding
the Theatre Development Funds initial decision in fall 2010 not to award the
Wendy Wasserstein Prize to an up-and-coming female playwright because,
according to one rejection letter, no play was deemed suffciently realized
by the selection panel to receive the Prize.
10
Playwright Michael Lew
penned a letter to the TDF (which was later posted on a blog that garnered
isvilles subscription season proved rather traditional, if not mundane and catholic. The
remainder of the seasons offerings needed to provide funding for the Humana Festival,
and Jory also realized that featuring Southern writers in the festival also attracted local
audiences to the theatre.
7
Ibid.
8
Elizabeth S. Bell, Role-ing on the River: Actors Theatre and the Southern
Woman Playwright, Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in Literary History and Criticism,
edited by Robert L. McDonald and Linda Rohrer Paige (Tuscaloosa: University of Ala-
bama Press, 2002), 93.
9
Actors Theatre of Louisville History: Production History, Actors Theatre of
Louisville, accessed 28 August 2005, http://www.actorstheatre.org/ about_production_2.
htm.
10
Lauri Apple, No Wasserstein Prizes for You This Year, Lady Playwrights,
Jezebel.com, accessed 17 November 2010, http://jezebel.com/5688991/no-wasserstein-
prizes-for-you-this-year-lady-playwrights.
national attention), labeling the decision a blanket indictment on the
quality of female emerging writers and their work and that the message
it sends to the theatre community generally is that there arent any young
female playwrights worth investigating.
11
In light of the TDF controversy
and with numerous female playwrights struggling to fnd success, Actors
Theatres endeavor to support women writers certainly deserves praise;
however, TDFs willingness to redefne its criteria for awarding prizes also
encourages the reexamination of the celebrated history of the Humana
Festival. Actors Theatres consistent support of one controversial female
writer suggests the need to explore the playwrights true identity and, in
turn, reconsider Actors Theatres legacy of supporting female playwrights.
Aside from theatre critics posing questions in their reviews of
the annual festival, little has been written about Louisvilles mysterious
playwrightperhaps because so little information about her exists. J.
Ellen Gainors fascinating article, Pseudonymy and Identity Politics:
Exploring Jane Martin, discusses the impact of Martin as a pseudonym
within the context of literary theory, gender studies, and theater history,
frst by examining Jane Martin within the history of pseudonymy and
later by analyzing Martins dramaturgy within the context of positional
criticism.
12
At the beginning of the article, however, Gainor declares her
intentions in her work: I am frankly uninterested in who Martin really
is.
13
This article serves as a complimentary work to Gainors theory-based
arguments by utilizing text analysis including gender theory combined with
compiled history in order to answer the authorship question surrounding
the pseudonymous playwright. Furthermore, whereas Gainor explores the
impact of Martins work within literary theory and its impact upon the
presss treatment of Jory and the playwrights work, this article reevaluates
the legacy of the Humana Festival (and Jorys individual legacy) and how
the revelation of the playwrights identity would drastically damage the
play festival past, present, and future.
Answering the Jane Martin Authorship Question
11
Patrick Healy, A Do-Over for the Wasserstein Prize, The New York Times, 15
November 2010, http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/a-do-over-for-the-was-
serstein-playwriting-prize/?scp=2&sq=wendy%20wasserstein&st=cse; Michael Lew, No
Wasserstein Prize in 2010, YoungbloodNYC.org, accessed 17 November 2010, http://
youngbloodnyc.blogspot.com/ 2010/11/no-wasserstein-prize-in-2010-selection.html.
12
J. Ellen Gainor, Pseudonymy and Identity Politics: Exploring Jane Martin,
Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in Literary History and Criticism, 139, 149.
13
Ibid., 139.
56 56 ULLOM
Martin, of course, is a controversial fgure as much for her work as for her
mysterious identity. In addition to tackling hot-button issues, some of the
content in her plays raised suspicions about the true identity of the author.
Former Actors Theatre employees who wished to remain anonymous
suggested that the events in Martins Cementville (1991) proved that Martin
was written by a man.
14
Theres no way that a woman could have written
those plays, one employee argued. The wrestling one in particular where
all the girls were out on stage in their skimpy little outfts. I mean, that
was just one big masturbatory exercise was all I could fgure. You would
never ask a woman to be on a stage in her underwear. No fucking way. You
would never do it. . . . [No woman] would.
15
The identity of Jane Martin has always been shrouded in mystery.
She arrived at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1980 in the form of a ten-
minute play submitted in a plain brown envelope and slipped under the
literary managers door. The fact that the author had access to the literary
managers door suggests that the writer is someone within the Actors
Theatre company. Jory opted to produce the play but, surprisingly, decided
to not uncover/reveal the playwrights true identity. Actors Theatre
continued to be coy with reporters and patrons about the mysterious
playwrights origins when Twirler (1981) frst premiered, but an identity
fnally was provided to the press and public when her ten-minute play was
included in the following years Talking With (1982), Martins frst full-
length work.
Jorys decision to frequently support the work of the
pseudonymous playwright resulted in a routine: Jory would announce
a new Martin play for the festival; Jory would serve as director on the
project; and then critics would devote half of their reviews to the subject
of Martins potential identity. Actors Theatre beneftted greatly from this
dance with the press, knowing that newspaper critics loved the mystery
and the challenge of trying to unmask the author. Reporters continually
requested interviews with Martin, but all were denied; a few went so far as
to question non-artistic staff in hopes of discovering a clue, but all attempts
were unsuccessful.
16
One certainty derived from the simplistic biography:
Martins supposed origins allowed Actors Theatre to promote her work
14
The staff members wished to remain anonymous. Notes from interviews, Ac-
tors Theatre of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 1999; even though several of these people work
at Actors Theatre where Jory no longer works, these people wished to remain anonymous.
15
Julie Crutcher, interview by the author, Louisville, KY, 2 July 1999.
16
Former Director of Communications James Seacat informed a persistent re-
porter, I can honestly say I could pass a polygraph test in regards to her identity. Ive
never met her. James Seacat, quoted in Overture, Curtain, Lights by Archie Borders,
Ace Magazine (Lexington), 16 February 2000, 3.
on a local level as Louisville patrons took pride in her accomplishments.
Given the presss fascination with the controversy, it is appropriate
then that the closest that Martin ever came to revealing her/his true identity
occurred in front of a throng of critics gathered at the Twenty-Fourth
Annual Humana of New American Plays in 2000. Local critic Judith
Egerton teased the numerous critics who attended the festival as part
of their annual meetings for the American Theatre Critics Association,
claiming, Youre going to meet Jane Martin tonight. The press in
attendance quickly became excited until Egerton provided her punch line:
Of course, you still wont know who she is.
17
Critics, however, would
not be disappointed for too long as Martins offering for the twenty-fourth
festival was tailor-made for the event, given the gathering of theatre critics
as well as Jorys recent announcement that he would step down from his
post as producing director of Actors Theatre of Louisville. In spite of the
nearly twenty years of debate and hypotheses concerning the true identity
of Jane Martin, a close analysis of Anton in Show Business performed within
the context of the 2000 Humana Festival reveals that the play resolves the
authorship debate.
Throughout the years, Jory has not been the only suggestion for
possible authorship; in fact, some critics have suggested that Jane Martin
is an entire committee of writers with Jory as the leader. While this idea
seems a bit far-fetched, several people close to Actors Theatre believe
that if Jory is Jane Martin, then he often is writing with a partner. Many
famous writers have been suggested as members of the committee or as
Jorys partner, including Marsha Norman (a Louisvillian), Actors Theatre
actors Ken Jenkins and/or Adale OBrien, or even a former Actors
Theatre employee and Louisville librarian Susan Rowland, now often
considered to be a red herring in the quest for Martins true identity.
18

Certainly, the most frequently suggested name and most valid assertion
is a previously published playwright and co-author with Jory on several
adaptations: his wife, Marcia Dixcy Jory, whom he recently designated
my crucial collaborator.
19
Some of those who know and work with
Jory claim that recently he has become less secretive about his wifes
contributions (or even outright admitting her involvement), confrming
an assumption that many people have had about the authorship.
20
A
17
Judith Egerton, quoted in Meeting Martin by Michael Grossberg, Columbus
Dispatch, 9 April 2000, H1.
18
Judith Egerton, Mystery Playwright, Courier-Journal (Louisville), 4 March
2001, I-6.
19
Jon Jory, Tips: Ideas for Actors (Lyme, NH: Smith and Kraus, 2000), ii.
20
Chris Jones, Will a New Broom at Humana Sweep the Old Era Away? New
58 58 ULLOM
question that arises concerning his wifes collaboration is the fact that
Jory and Dixcy were not married when Martins frst play, Talking With
was produced. In response, theorists suggests that Jory easily could have
written the monologues himself, only later to have collaborated with his
wife. Regardless, Jorys wife is commonly assumed to be a contributor to
Martins legacy, giving credence to the few critics who believe that only a
woman could have written Martins plays.
While conspiracy theorists love to propose potential contributors
to the Martin legacy, there are two names that also deserve closer scrutiny
for their possible connection to the authorship of Jane Martin: Beth Henley
and Michael Bigelow Dixon. In an article describing an Actors Theatre
party for the social pages of Louisvilles The Voice Tribune, columnist Lucie
Blodgett presented a compelling argument that her cousin, playwright
Beth Henley, serves as the mysterious playwright.
21
Citing examples from
Martins Anton in Show Business, Blodgett linked many of the playwrights
character choices to people in Henleys life. For example, one of the
characters in the play is named Casey, which also happens to be the name
of Beth Henleys sister, and Henleys best friend and occasional producing
partner, actress Holly Hunter, could be the inspiration for Antons Holly,
the assertive Hollywood actress in Martins play. Furthermore, Blodgett
argued a link between another characters name, Lisabette Cartwright,
and the name of Henleys mother, Lydy B. Caldwell. More substantially,
Blodgett presented an argument that ideas within the play are derivative of
Henley, namely the fascination with The Three Sisters (a theme in Henleys
Crimes of the Heart) and that the heroine of Martins play graduated from
Southern Methodist University as did Henley. Finally, Blodgett pointed to
the dialogue for proof of Henleys involvement, claiming that the words
are pure Beth, but, of course, this assertion is diffcult to verify. One
interesting claim concerning the dialogue is that Lisabette describes her
yearning to become an actress, and Blodgett claimed that Henley wrote her
award-winning play Crimes in hopes of playing one of the sisters herself.
22

In the end, Blodgetts theory might simply remain that, but certainly the
high numbers of coincidences are worth further exploration and scrutiny.
However, the fact that Henley is a successful playwright raises questions as
to why she would write under a pen name. Already having been produced
at Actors Theatre and classifed as a Southern female playwright, Henley
would have nothing to gain by hiding behind a pseudonym, reducing the
York Times, 11 March 2001; Notes from interviews.
21
Lucie Blodgett, Actors Theatre Gives Parties for Humana Play Fest Guests,
Voice Tribune (Louisville), 5 April 2000, B-1.
22
Ibid., B-5.
likelihood of her involvement.
The argument for Michael Bigelow Dixons involvement is more
theoretical that Blodgetts personal assertions, but recent developments
have added legitimacy to the suspicion of former Actors Theatre Literary
Managers collaboration in the creation of Martins plays. Jory and
Dixon shared a special friendship that lasted throughout their fourteen
years of working together in Louisville. In addition to their professional
relationship, staff members remarked how the two men enjoyed debating
political and social issues during the workday; as a result, several Actors
Theatre employees suggest that Dixon has a hand in some of Martins
works. Trish Pugh Jones, current Manager of Patron Services of Actors
Theatre, agreed that Jory and Dixon made a good team, stating, I think
Jon admired Michael very much and his taste; yes, I think that there a lot
of Michael there [in Martins plays] many years, very defnitely.
23

In looking at the playwrights canon, two distinctly different
styles of plays can be seen: comedies featuring eccentric characters (e.g.
Cementville [1991], Middle-Aged White Guys [1995], Flaming Guns of the Purple
Sage [2001], and Talking With) and dramas of social commentary (Keely
and Du [1993], Good Boys [2002], and Mr. Bundy [1998]); those familiar with
Dixon argue that he would have been involved in the latter category. The
fact that Dixon is a socially-conscious individual is not enough to suggest
that he may be, in part, the mysterious playwright, but two coincidences
point to Dixons potential contribution. First, it is noteworthy that Jane
Martin fourished under Dixons tenure. While former Literary Manager
Julie Crutcher disagreed with supporting the works of Jane Martin, it
is not surprising to fnd that Jory would have been hesitant to continue
to pen plays under Crutchers tenure. Four years after Dixons arrival
enough time for Jory to befriend his new literary managerJane Martin
reappeared. Dixon, a playwright himself, perhaps encouraged Martin to
write again, but the sudden shift in tone between her early works to the
abortion drama of Keely and Du suggests a shift in Jane Martin as well.
Furthermore, after Dixon departed Actors Theatre in 2001 and became
Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, it is crucial to note that Jane
Martins play Good Boys did not premiere in Louisville, but at the Guthrie
Theatre on 28 August 2002. As always, the production was directed by Jon
Jory. Why else would Jory have brought the new play to Minneapolis when
his new home of Seattle presented many options for premiering Martins
new work? The answer is Michael Bigelow Dixon. The only unanswered
question is if Dixon is in fact part of the Jane Martin legacy or simply
23
Trish Pugh Jones, interview by the author, tape recording, Louisville, KY, 12
May 2004.
60 60 ULLOM
Martins favorite dramaturg. Dixons intellect and talents are wide-ranging,
and many at Actors Theatre and beyond fnd the circumstance of Martins
Good Boysa socially-relevant play about two fathers meeting after their
children have been involved in a school shootingpremiering at the
Dixons new workplace more than mere coincidence.
Of course, regardless of whether Dixon is simply a supporter
of Martins works, whether Henleys connections are mere circumstance,
or whether Marcia Dixcy Jory is the most likely of possibilities, one
name consistently remains the central suspect: Jon Jory. While there is
no defnitive evidence that exposes Jory as the mysterious writer (e.g.,
Jory admitting the fact), what evidence does exist points to Jory as the
source for Martins plays. For example, Jory has a history of writing under
a pseudonym. hen he was a student at the University of Utah in the late
1950s, the student paper needed a theatre critic, but Jory was ineligible as
he was a frequent performer. Jory reportedly supplied criticisms under
the name Brooks Kerr in honor of the two famous theatre critics, and
frequently criticized his own performances: Mr. Jory, who we know is
a wonderfully talented actor, just isnt very good in this part.
24
Further
establishing his talents as a playwright, Jory enrolled in Yale School
of Dramas playwriting program, and he has published several plays
(including Quadrangle [1981] which focuses upon the topic of abortion).
Furthermore, Jory stopped writing plays (at least under his own name)
about the time that she [Martin] arrived on the scene.
25
A preponderance of circumstantial evidence pointing to Jory
was published in an article by Judith Egerton, the theatre critic for The
Courier-Journal. In this leading story, she and her staff compiled a slew of
interesting facts about the mysterious playwright and Jory, including some
information that made Jory irate. In the article titled Mystery Playwright,
Egerton pointed to several coincidences that gave credence to the
assumption that Jory is Martin: Jory grew up, went to school, and taught
in the West where many of Martins plays are set (even though Martin is
a native Louisvillian); Martins representative is Alexander Sandy Speer,
Jorys close friend and former co-worker at Actors Theatre; and, Jory has
never stated for a fact that he is not Jane Martin (although he did once
claim that it wasnt possible). While some of Egertons claims are far-
reachingespecially the odd assertion that the fact that Jane Martin and
Jon Jory share the same number of syllables deserves recognitionshe
24
Celia R. Baker, Jorys Love of Theater Took Root at U, Salt Lake Tribune, 7
May 2000, D-3.
25
Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, UW-Bound Jory, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 April 2000,
E-8.
did discover one fact that made Jory quite mad when asked for a response.
Egerton researched Jorys tax records and discovered a large jump in free-
lance income after the success of Talking With. . . . For his 1985 divorce
from actress Lee Anne Fahey, Jory had to supply tax records, and he listed
his free-lance income for writing and directing in 1981 as approximately
$1,100. For 1982, the year that Talking With. . . debuted, his free-lance
income jumped to $7,800, and the amount nearly tripled the following
year ($21,450). While Jory did very little outside directing work during this
time period, it is logical to assume that this increase in income derived
from the success of Martins play. When Egerton asked Jory about these
fnancial numbers in a phone interview, she reported that Jory became
very angry and hung up.
26

Although Egertons article certainly brought new facts to bear
on the case that Jory is the mysterious playwright, perhaps the greatest
proof of Jorys potential authorship came during the Twenty-Fourth
Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays when Jane Martin
premiered Anton in Show Business. Widely considered one of Martins best
comedies, this ensemble piece is flled with allusions and metatheatrical
insinuations about life in professional theatre, and it no coincidence that
this play premiered at the festival in 2000 (as explained later). In spite
of the popularity of her work and the enigma surrounding her identity,
no scholarship exists that analyzes her plays to expose the many links
and references to Jory, yet Anton provides the most obvious clues. For
example, one only has to look as far as the title of the play for a link to
Jory. It is no mistake that Martins play centered on the work of Anton
Chekhov; many colleagues and co-workers of Jory have long known his
affection for the Russian playwrights work, especially The Three Sisters.
Following a decade of research into Actors Theatre and its Humana
Festival, it is possible to pinpoint three different types of references are
made in Anton: suggestions through metatheatricality that hint that Jane
Martin is a pseudonym; utilizations of the text as a mouthpiece for Jorys
recorded opinions; and parallels between Jorys production experience and
Martins commentary. These references suggest that not only is Jory the
mysterious playwright, but that he used the play as a valedictory to his
audiences in Louisville and the national press.
The frst category concerns Martin allusions moments in the
text that hint at the authors name is a pseudonym. Throughout Anton,
Martin employs a theatre critic named Joby who is seated in the audience
as a mechanism to embody the critics hypothesizing and arrogance. Using
this metatheatrical convention, Martins Anton is replete with moments
26
Judith Egerton, Mystery Playwright.
62 62 ULLOM
where Jobys appearance not only provides laughs at the critics expense,
but they also suggest a connection between the playwright and Jory (aside
from the similarities in the spelling of the two names). For example, when
Joby stands up in the audience and makes herself known to the actresses
onstage for the frst time, she questions one member of the all-female cast
about playing the role of Ralph, asking, Is that supposed to be a man
played by a woman? It is interesting that Martin requires gender-specifc
casting for this play, blurring the lines between gender and confusing Joby
the critic just as the Jane Martin question perplexed the national press
for years. Another hint occurs when Joby complains, Isnt this all just a
little self-referential?, a metatheatrical joke similar in tone to Jorys self-
criticizing comments he made under the pseudonym Brooks Kerr. Finally,
Martin provides another clue to the critics when Joby accuses the actresses
of playing stereotyped behavior. Throughout the entire controversy
over Jane Martins plays, several critics have complained that only a man
could write Martins works because the actresses were playing roles that
either stereotyped women or fulflled a stereotypical male fantasy (most
notably the aforementioned women in their lingerie rolling on top of a
car).
The second category of references involves comments made in
Anton that also parallel opinions made by Jory in numerous interviews.
For example, the opening moments of the play recall Jorys point-of-view
on contemporary professional theatre when T-Anne, a stage manager,
addresses the audience: The American theatres in a shitload of trouble.
Thats why the stage is bare, and its a cast of six, one non-union. Like
lots of plays youve seen at the end of the twentieth century, we all have
to play a lot if parts to make the whole thing economically viable.
27

These opening lines detail a frequent challenge of the Humana Festival
as repeatedly stressed by Jory, especially T-Annes remark concerning the
one non-union actor which could refer to the many Acting Apprentices
that still perform (free of charge) in Humana Festival productions.
Furthermore, Anton in Show Business, like Martins previous two plays,
was premiered on a bare stage with quick-changing scenery. Jory himself
confessed that he preferred such staging methods, stating, As I get older,
the less stuff there is onstage, the better I like it. So it makes me happy
to see things basically done on a bare stage and a foor.
28
Martins later
27
Jane Martin, Anton in Show Business from Humana Festival 2000: The Complete
Plays, edited by Michael Bigelow Dixon and Amy Wegener (Hanover, New Hampshire:
Smith and Kraus Publishers, 2000), 173.
28
Jon Jory, interview by Gerald M. Berkowitz, telephone interview, 19 December
1995.
playsfeaturing numerous scenes and individual set pieces to suggest
different localesare constructed to dictate the minimalist staging.
Another example of an Anton serving as a mouthpiece for Jorys
opinions occurs when Martin provides many jokes at the expense of
directors, exemplifying a producers frustration with the hiring and fring
of inexperienced or inept directors. Holly expresses her displeasure for
directors, humorously stating, It has been my experience that they actually
like to be fred because they suffer from severe performance anxiety. They
have these pushy little egos but hardly any usable information, which makes
them very sad and time-consuming.
29
Over the course of producing
twenty-fve Humana Festivals, Jory fred directors on several occasions
and complained about the training of directors in graduate school, most
notably in an October 1996 article in American Theatre bluntly titled Why
Directors Cant Direct.
30
In his supervisory role as producing director,
Jory watched as many directors failed to realize a scripts full potential
or revealed their own shortcomings through inferior productions. Martin
makes fun of incompetent directors (whether for their concepts, their
egos, or their methods), yet it is not clear where Martin would have gained
such exposure to a wide variety of directors and their methods since every
premiere of her plays (save one) was directed by one man: Jon Jory. Jory,
however, has come into contact with hundreds of directors and certainly
would have the depth of experience to make light of the many tortuous
moments he endured as a producer.
31
The third and fnal category of references in Anton in Show
Business concern the challenges of producing regional theatre, and there
are many moments in Martins play that can be linked to events in Jorys
life or his work as a producer. The most striking example is a moment that
makes fun of the New York bias, reminiscent of Jorys rejection from/
of the Great White Way following his Broadway debut and subsequent
failure of his own musical Tricks in 1973.
32
Reiterating his new goal to
29
Martin, Anton in Show Business, 179.
30
Jon Jory, Why Directors Cant Direct, American Theatre, October 1996, 7.
Martin also provides a tirade against British directors, stating Brits are arrogant, pompous,
chauvinistic, smug, insufferable boors who take jobs from American actors and directors
because of the toadying of the American press and the Anglophile American rich. Jory
has hired numerous London directors over the years, including Adrian Hall who directed a
successful production of Naomi Wallaces The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek (1998) and Dominic
Dromgoole who presented a disastrous production of Wallaces One Flea Spare (1996). Ibid;
Martin, Anton, 179.
31
Martin, Anton, 177, 179, 184, 213.
32
While several plays transferred to Broadway, that decision was made by the
64 64 ULLOM
service playwrights by producing quality work at the regional theatre level
instead of constantly looking to Broadway for success and inspiration,
Jory rebuffed Broadway and its throng of theatre critics, boasting, I dont
see what New York could do for me. The New York critics may teach
me something about directing a play, but I dont need them to affrm that
I can direct one.
33
Martin appropriates Jorys attitude by mocking the
self-assigned superiority of New York theatre professions in the opening
moments of Anton when the stage manager describes the theatre scene in
New York and the country:
Beyond that [Off-Broadway], radiating out in all directions for
thousands of miles is something called regional theatre, which I
understand once showed a lot of promise but has since denigrated
into dying medieval fefdoms and arrogant baronies producing
small-cast comedies, cabaret musicals, mean-spirited new plays
and the occasional deconstructed classic, which everybody hates.
34
In this speech, Martin not only ridicules the pomposity of New York theatre
artists and critics that Jory or other Actors Theatre staff members have
suffered on numerous occasions, but she also makes light of Broadways
perception of the commercial viability of most Humana Festival works,
labeled mean-spirited plays.
35

Martin also makes light of this populist criticism in the second act
when the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the theatre company
(given the Southern name Joe Bob) complains about the plays selected
by the artistic director. Offering the common mans perspective on
the companys productions, Joe Bob bemoans, Half the time, that stuff
doesnt have a story, and its been fve years since you done one that takes
place in a kitchen, which is the kind all of us like.
36
Throughout the
festivals history, Jory has been attacked either for presenting work that
would not attract a mainstream audience or for not supporting enough
experimental drama, and he frequently used the kitchen sink as a
metaphor. For example, during the 1988 festival, Jory defended himself
playwright. Jory made the conscious choice for Actors Theatre of Louisville not to receive
royalties from future productions of a Humana Festival play, allowing the writer to reap
more of the rewards.
33
Jon Jory, quoted in Jon Jory Gives His Regards to Broadway by John Cris-
tensen, Louisville Times, 8 January 1972, 4.
34
Martin, Anton in Show Business, 173.
35
Ibid., 187.
36
Ibid., 210.
against the national presss assertions that he was not experimental enough
by stating, I think its signifcant that theres only one kitchen in this
festival.
37
Jory would later make a statement refecting Joe Bobs concerns
when he joked, Psychological realism may be dead, but the audience
forgot to read the obituary.
38

If there were any doubt concerning Martins feelings for critics,
she provides her strongest commentary in the second act when the three
actresses decide to ignore Joby, labeling her a distraction and questioning
her qualifcations as a critic with the statement, Shes nobody, lets act.
39

Certainly it is no coincidence that Martin chose the year of the gathering
of the American Theatre Critics Association to write a play featuring a
critic sitting in an audience entirely surrounded by critics, and only Jory
would have known of those plans far enough in advance to write play that
would be perfect for the occasion.
In addition to attacking the press, Anton also alludes to the various
challenges that Jory faced in producing the annual festival. The most
obvious example comes when the artists have to entertain and endure
the corporate sponsor who supports the Three Sisters production. The
acting company in Anton invites Don Blount, Vice President for Grants
and Contributions at Albert and Sons Tobacco, into a rehearsal to watch
and to address the cast. This moment is reminiscent of a decision by
Actors Theatre to allow its largest donors to watch some of their Humana
Festival rehearsals as a means of rewarding their support.
40
Obviously,
37
Michael Phillips, Voices of Change, Times Herald (Dallas), 26 March 1988,
F-3.
38
Jon Jory, Gone West, American Theatre, July/August 2000, 30.
39
Martin, Anton in Show Business, 178-9, 206. The dismissive insult of Joby is not
surprising when viewed in the context of the performance as well as Jorys history with
critics. When the assertive critic stops the play, Holly invites her to share her thoughts
on the performance. Her response is briefIts defnitely interesting, sometimes amus-
ing, well-paced, but a very uneasy mix ofbut the specifc criticisms are interesting
to note. The evaluations of interesting, amusing and uneasy mix are some of the
most repeated descriptions of Martins Humana Festival productions, evidenced in the
many reviews collected by Actors Theatres public relations staff. The criticism of the
production being well-paced is the most frequently ascribed compliment given to many
of Martins later works and Jorys talents as a director. For example, for his work with
Martins Vital Signs, Anton in Show Business, Keely and Du, Mr. Bundy and Jack and Jill, critics
frequently praised Jory for his quick and lively staging; in fact, Jory himself stressed the
importance of rhythm and pacing in his American Theatre article. Jobys criticism in Anton
in Show Business, therefore, was very familiar to Jory, and, given his history of serving as his
own critic under the pseudonym of Brooks Kerr, this new criticism simply serves as a
more recent example of Jory publicly evaluating his own work. Ibid.; Jory, Why Directors
Cant Direct, 7.
40
Martin, Anton, 184, 196.
66 66 ULLOM
Jory and Actors Theatre have had their fair share of relationships with
corporate sponsors (what few there are in Louisville), but Martins choice
of a tobacco corporation is noteworthy, especially since one of the largest
corporations in Louisville is Brown and Williamson, a tobacco company.
Furthermore, Martin opts to reference frequently the corporate presence
and pressure throughout the play, mirroring the consistent questioning
Jory received from the press concerning any infuence by the Humana
Corporation upon the play selections of the festival. Ironically, Jory would
later write about this issue, joking, It is important to remember that no
artistic director notices when they are funded by corporations they ought
to abhor. I mean, weve got casting to think about!
41

Jory/Martin also uses Anton to espouse advice to regional theatre
producers derived from Jorys own experience. Early in the play, the
producer of the San Antonio theatre company arrogantly claims that their
unique mission has made them essential to San Antonio. Throughout
the history of the Humana Festival, Jory continuously argued that theatres
ought to pay attention to the needs and desires of the community and that
it would be folly to ever consider an institution essential to a community
(as Martins character does). This issue is raised again at the closing of the
play when Lisabette describes a different and idealistic type of community,
one where the citizens were the actors, where families brought their kids
to see the shows, and where the actors treated the audience as equals.
This description serves as Jorys call to the leaders of regional theatres:
never forget the origins of the regional theatre movement, provide the
community with its needs, and always be an active part of the community.
This philosophy was the remedy that Jory proposed when he was hired
in 1969 to fx the fedgling Actors Theatre. Realizing the importance of
community relations, Jory instructed the Board of Directors at Actors
Theatre, I think you are going to have to face the fact that you are going to
have to fund-raise this year, next year, and every year.
42
To make this task
easier and entice the community to support the theatre, Jory argued to the
press that the primary purpose of theatre was to entertain, claiming My
basic love is theatre that relates to what theatre once was audeville and
circuses. That feeling you got when you watched jugglers or a high-wire
actI want to recreate that feeling for adult audiences in the theatre.
43

Sacrifcing artistic goals to ensure audience support proved a wise tactic by
41
Jon Jory, Gone West.
42
Actors Theatre of Louisville Board of Directors Minutes, 9 March 1969, Ac-
tors Theatre of Louisville Archives.
43
Joan Riehm, New Director Wants to Help A.T.L. to Run, Courier-Journal
(Louisville), 11 March 1969, B-1.
Jory when establishing the Louisville theatre, and Martin (not surprisingly)
shares this belief when she suggests that theatre professionals not forget
that their work will only be worthwhile if there is an audience to enjoy it.
Having criticized and advised the audience, Martin uses the fnal
moments of the play to describe the benefts of developing new work,
resulting in the most endearing moment of the play that also refects
Jorys experience in Louisville occurs. Knowing that the audience would
be flled with national critics and local supporters, Martin and Jory present
the actress Lisabette onstage in a single light, directly speaking to those
who have come to judge her about the magic and potential of theatre:
It always feels like anything could happen. That something
wonderful could happen. Its just people, you know, just people
doing it and watching it, but I think everybody hopes that it might
turn out to be something more than that. Like people buy a ticket
to the lottery, only this has more heart to it. And most time,
it doesnt turn out any better than the lottery, but sometimes
44
Lisabettes speech parallels Jorys passion for developing new work as
well as his realization of the need to convince local patrons to support
the new endeavor. According to former literary manager Tanya Palmer,
Jory celebrated the potential for an exciting theatrical entertainment by
promoting the festival as an event to raise awareness and pique interest
in the new play festival, suggesting that local audiences would be more
willing to support new work if it were part of a larger celebration.
45
Jory
himself admitted as much that the idea of the festival was for local rather
than national or international reasons. Subscribers to A.T.L. might not
look forward to new plays, but they would reluctantly put up with one a
season. If we grouped the plays, each subscriber would see only one, but
we could produce two in rep (and then fve, and then seven, and then, God
help us, eleven). Thus, the idea of a new play festival was to camoufage
just how interested we were in new plays.
46

Parallels abound in Anton in Show Business that link Jory to Martin,
not only in the aforementioned examples, but in dozens of other moments
in the play that refect Jorys experience in Louisville as a producer of
regional theatre. Anton is Jorys valedictory to the Humana Festival, asking
44
Martin, Anton, 218.
45
Tanya Palmer, Risky Business, Theatre Topics 13, no. 1 (2003): 66.
46
Jon Jory, We Love Writers, Humana Festival of New American Plays: 25 Years at
Actors Theatre of Louisville, edited by Michael Bigelow Dixon and Andrew Carter Crocker
(Louisville: Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2000), 11.
68 68 ULLOM
critics and fellow theatre professionals to look past the business of theatre
and cherish the value and potential of the art formas Jory would later
write in an article for American Theatre, Process is the only reward.
47
Does
Jory believe that this necessary change in the value system of professional
theatre can occur? Lisabette and Martin seem hopeful: Some day Id like
to be in a play like that. I would. So I guess Ill go on keep trying what
do you think? Could happen. Maybe. Maybe not. (She looks at the audience.)
Well, you came tonight anyway. (Blackout.)
48

Actors Theatres Legacy Revisited
Filled with inside-jokes and tailor-made for the audience of critics at the
2000 Humana Festival, it is no surprise that Anton in Show Business was
designated the hit of the festival by most attendees. Given the extensive
guessing game to identify Jane Martin, the fact that Jory presented this
play at this exact moment was surely not mere coincidence. Anton was
written for this audience, this stage, and this point in his careera self-
congratulatory work that allowed the Producing Director to lampoon
those critics who attacked him and to provide him with a soapbox upon
which to stand and preach his ideas about contemporary theatre. The
critics adored the metatheatricality within the play so much that many
reviewers failed to acknowledge to the many references to Jorys own
career or to his questionable treatment of positionality and gender roles
within the play.
Given his track record of writing under a pseudonym and his
many connections to the play which establish Jory as the author, one could
easily ask: so whats the issue? On the surface, Jorys decision to write
under a pseudonym could be explained in that he wanted to continue
his playwriting endeavors and simply wanted the plays to be judged on
their own merits. This decision in and of itself is not problematic, but
the treatment and inclusion of Jane Martin in the festival greatly impacts
Actors Theatres reputation on numerous levels. By celebrating Jane Martin
through its productions and its publicity materials, it becomes necessary
to call into question the theatres true legacy. For example, how good was
Actors Theatre in discovering playwrights? It is easy to marvel at Jorys
ability to fnd quality plays in distant theatres in addition to his skill for
47
Jory, Gone West.
48
Martin, Anton, 218. As Jory stated in an interview, This play is about the
enormous diffculty in our culture of not simply being interested in the money because the
culture itself really considers artists a very low priority. Rich Copley, Anton Sends Sisters
down the Rabbit Hole of American Theatre, Lexington Herald-Leader, 10 March 2000.
spying potential playwrights, but the frequent inclusion of Martin in the
festival meant that Jory simply selected himself instead of pursuing writers
from other regions of the country. With Actors Theatres celebrated record
of discovery, the numerous Martin productions suggests that Jory and his
staff quit trying to fnd new writers, becoming comfortable with their own
success. While the festivals early rise is attributed to Jorys dogged pursuit
of new writers to establish his event, Martins introduction signifes a shift
in the annual event when the festival became a celebration of new plays
rather than new playwrights.
The Jory/Martin connection also raises doubts concerning
Actors Theatres objectivity when selecting Humana Festival plays. Critics
frequently heralded the Louisville event as a signpost for American
playwriting, employing the festival to spy various trends in playwriting.
This faulty assumption by the press relied upon Jorys objectivity to
present a balance of works that represented a variety of genres, styles,
and authors. With Jory selecting himself under the guise of a Southern
female playwright, that objectivity comes into question and suggests
that the festival was a refection of Jorys personal tastes rather than an
accurate refection of the current state of American playwriting. The lack
of objectivity in selecting Martins plays leads to speculation concerning
how unobjective Jory and his staff may have been with other plays. As
suggested in The Humana Festival, Jory claimed to have never received a
well-written play that criticized Americas health care system. Although
there is no proof to refute Jorys claim, the coincidence is certainly
questionable.
49
One criticism resulting from the Jory/Martin revelation is most
troubling: If Jory is Jane Martin, how does this fact affect Actors Theatre
of Louisvilles reputation as a home for women playwrights? As previously
reported, Actors Theatre trumpeted its support for female playwrights,
embracing and celebrating its nationwide reputation as a home for
women writers.
50
On numerous occasions, Actors Theatre employees
have stressed the institutions dedication to supporting female playwrights,
adding to the theatres legacy. However, with the assumption that Jory
is Martin, this achievement becomes tainted. For Jory and his company
to have celebrated Jane Martins inclusion in any list of female writers is
disingenuous at best and a lie at its worst.
The decision to continue the Jane Martin charade for publicity
49
Jeffrey Ullom, The Humana Festival (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univer-
sity Press, 2008), 72.
50
Bell, Role-ing on the River: Actors Theatre and the Southern Woman Play-
wright, 93.
70 70 ULLOM
benefts perhaps exposes the true desperation of the theatre and its
festival in the past two decades to remain relevant. Unfortunately, the coy
handling of the authorship has dire consequences for the legacy of Actors
Theatre and its festival. Martins continued presence at the festival was/is
an insult to women playwrights. The suggestion that a man could explore
womens issues with the aplomb, depth, and sincerity of a female writer
is preposterous. Gainor echoed this criticism in her article, pointing out
that Martin routinely presented female characters that, while seemingly
strong, are ultimately victimized, demonized, or objectifed by the action
of the play.
51
Critic Hedy Weiss of the Chicago Sun-Times also questioned
the identity of the playwright, suggesting that a female writer would not
create such weak central characters as exhibited by Martins grating
tendency to put women characters in the drivers seat only to subversively
undermine them.
52
Nevertheless, the Louisville theatre consistently
suggested that Martins work was worthy of support and fnancial reward.
For a theatre that celebrated female playwrights, Actors Theatre routinely
displayed its insensitivity to womens issues by intentionally misleading the
public, knowing that the desired balance of offerings was not accurate.
In short, Actors Theatres playfulness concerning the authors identity
unequivocally ignored the very need that the institution proclaimed to
address.
The question then becomes how the theatre handled Martins
identity through its coy publicity. Compared to the advertising of new
works by Tony Kushner and other established playwrights where the
merits of the work attracted patrons to the theatre, Martin the playwright
became more of a story than his/her plays. Actors Theatres refusal to
diffuse the controversy over authorship at an early stage allowed the
issue to evolve into a publicity stunt, encouraging audiences to see the
latest work of a mysterious playwright to look for clues to the authors
true identity. The decision to continue the charade not only cheapened
the output of the Humana Festival and necessitates the reevaluation of
Martins contribution to the annual event, but the repeated inclusion of
Martin legitimizes a frequent criticism of Jorys decisions as a producer of
the festival. Throughout the history of the festival, theatre critics accused
Jory of resorting to gimmicks to entice the press and local patrons to
the Louisville theatre. For example, beginning with the Twelfth Annual
Humana Festival of New American Plays, Jory commissioned novelists
Jimmy Breslin, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Harry Crews to pen plays
51
Gainor, Pseudonymy and Identity Politics, 150.
52
Hedy Weiss, Narrow Visions: Humana Festival of New American Plays Con-
templates Identity Crisis, Chicago Sun-Times, 7 April 1996, 4.
for the festival (only Crewss play received favorable reviews). Jorys
fnal gimmicks included the T(ext) Shirt plays, the Phone Plays, and a
play performed in a car for the 2001 festival. In Jorys defense, Dixon
supported these choices as endeavors to discover new writers. (No one
complained when he discovered Marsha Norman).
By commissioning established playwrights or wealthy novelists
to pen plays for the festivals, struggling playwrights took umbrage at
Jorys gimmicks, arguing that each of these gimmicks occurred at the
expense of new playwright development. Jane Martin can now be added
to this infamous list of Jorys gimmicks. The continued appearance of
Jane Martin at the Humana Festival transitioned from a publicity stunt
into stunted publicity in the sense that the focus on her identity not
only stole attention from lesser-known playwrights, but the inclusion
of Martin inherently hindered the growth of many female playwrights,
ignoring many struggling writers waiting and hoping to be discovered.
This reevaluation of Martin and her impact on the legacy ironically also
negatively affects Jory and his future. Jory is trapped in his charade. If he
admits that he is Martin, then his reputation as a visionary with a keen
eye for new playwright development is immediately questioned and the
legacy of his beloved festival is diminished. If Jory wants to protect his
image and his legacy, then it is in his best interest to continue the mystery,
regardless of how ludicrous it becomes. One day he may take credit as
the writer of Martins plays, but when and if that day ever comes, Martins
body of work will be exposed as a gimmick (regardless of the actual
merits of the plays) and perhaps proven masturbatory as one critic
formerly suggested. With these implications in mind and with so much to
lose, Jory may never reveal the playwrights true identity and be forced to
continue to attempt to defect attention away from the mysterious writer
and onto the merits of the plays. For Jory, what was once justifable as an
exercise in freedom of expression also has become an inhibiting, offensive
practice that cannot be rectifed without damaging the reputation of a
renowned theatre institution and its remarkable accomplishments in new
play development.
FEMINIST PERIODIZATION AS A STRUCTURAL COMPONENT OF WENDY
WASSERSTEINS THE HEIDI CHRONICLES
Ahmed S. M. Mohammed
People are products of the time in which they came of
age. I know that to be true. In my plays these women are
very much of their times.
Wendy Wasserstein
1
Most scholarship and critical studies on the dramatic works of Wendy
Wasserstein (19502006), during her lifetime and after her untimely death
at the age of 55, have been largely concerned with her representation
of the feminist question. More specifcally, considerable attention has
been paid to The Heidi Chronicles (1988), not only because the play won a
series of honors, including the New York Drama Critics Circle Award,
the Tony Award, and the Pulitzer Prize,
2
but also because it presents
serious issues germane to the evolving feminist sensibility.
3
The play
was a bona fde success when it premiered in 1988. First appearing at the
Seattle Repertory Theatre in April 1988, The Heidi Chronicles opened off-
Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in New York City in November 1988
and moved to Broadways Plymouth Theatre on 9 March 1989. The play
ran an impressive 622 performances.
4
A television production premiered
15 October 1995.
5
Critics have accentuated her awareness of gender
issues, which, Wasserstein believed, still needed more vigorous attention.
As Gwendolyn Hale notes, Wasserstein captured the plight of gender
and theater when she stated, there arent enough plays by womenby
and about women.
6
Some feminist critics have not been completely
satisfed with the representation and the treatment of feminist issues
in Wassersteins plays and the plays of other women dramatists such as
Beth Henley and Marsha Norman. These dramatists have been criticized
1
Qtd. in Jan Balakian, Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein (Milwaukee, WI: Ap-
plause Theatre, 2010), 1.
2
Mary C. Hartig and Jackson R. Bryer, The Facts on File Companion to American
Drama (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2010 ), 570.
3
Wiley Lee Umphlett, From Television to the Internet: Postmodern Visions of American
media Culture in the Twentieth Century (New Jersey: Associated Universities Press, 2006), 159.
4
Ken Bloom, Broadway: An Encyclopedia (N.Y.: Routledge, 2012), 413.
5
Gail Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein: Dramatizing Women, Their Choices and Their Boundar-
ies (North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2005), 140.
6
Gwendolyn N. Hale, Gender and Theater, in Kimball King, ed. Western Drama
Through the Ages: A Student Reference Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 350.
74 MOHAMMED
for not being more feminist.
7
Although Angelika Czekay is certain that
Wasserstein was tokenized as one of the central feminist playwrights
of the past twenty years,
8
she notices that Wassersteins plays have been
subjected to feminist criticism. Jill Dolan, for example, regarded The Heidi
Chronicles as an antifeminist
9
play, but after Wassersteins death, Dolan
admits that the dramatist was one of the few women playwrights to open
a play directly on BroadwayAn American Daughter in 1997, and regrets
that she and other feminist critics had only disparaged her writing and
her prominence.
10

In a comprehensive study of the most popular American plays,
David Savran categorizes Wendy Wasserstein with Beth Henley and
Marsha Norman, considering that their plays do what Alisa Solomon aptly
describes . . . as representing intelligent, educated women, and assur[ing]
us that they are funny for the same, traditional reasons women have
always been funny.
11
But, Savran does not seem to support Solomons
generalization that their plays focus on the affuent and cultured, but most
recycle these misogynist clichs and stereotypes in a surprisingly uncritical
way.
12
Wiley Lee Umphlett also classifes Wasserstein with Henley and
Norman and indicates that they continued the feminist movement which
had begun to defne itself in the 60s in the output of Adrienne Kennedy
and Megan Terry.
13
In addition to the varied discussions of Wassersteins
treatment of feminist issues, some critics have noted her use of chronology
in developing the action of The Heidi Chronicles, but they seem to have
overlooked the fact that this chronological order can be also considered
a pivotal structural component. Therefore, in this article, I reinvestigate
Wassersteins play and trace her reliance on feminist periodization as a
schematic design of the entire dramatic structure.
Primarily, this endeavor is based on the premise that
periodization is viewed as a paradigm utilized by literary critics as they
7
Ibid.
8
Cited in Joan Herrington, ed. The Playwrights Muse (New York: Routledge, 2002),
3. (Czekays statement refers to the two decades before the year 2002 when Czekays article
was published and it should be more than three decades now)
.
9
Jill Dolan, Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance (NC:
Wesleyan University Press, 2001), 80.
10
Jill Dolan, Feminist Performance Criticism and the Popular: Reviewing Wendy
Wasserstein, Theatre Journal 60, no. 3 (October 2008): 433-4.
11
David Savran, A Queer Sort of Materialism: Recontextualizing American Theater (Ann
Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 202.
12
Ibid.
13
Umphlett, From Television to the Internet, 158.
FEMINIST PERIODIZATION AS A STRUCTURAL COMPONENT 75
consider the placement of major authors, genres, and themes in relation
to their traditional period affliations.
14
The paradigm includes three major
domains: historical, literary, and feminist periodization. Periodization
involves any general prototypal division of history into possibly perceived
periods of time. As Horkheimer notes, human history has been divided
into periods in very varying ways. The manner in which periodization has
been carried out has not depended exclusively on the object, any more
than other concept formations have; the current state of knowledge and
the concerns of the knower have also played a part.
15
A less sophisticated
defnition holds that periodization may be understood as an analytical
prism through which times past are organized into meaningful clusters.
16

The process of periodization may embody historical/categorical
segmentation and classifcation. Therefore, the past might be divided
into segments reducing time into calculable units regardless of their
length. Notwithstanding, Radstone believes that theories of temporality
and differences ought surely to raise questions about periodization
itself.
17
Payne and Barbera emphasize the use of modernity, as a
historical periodization category having a dual function: it designates
the contemporaneity of an epoch to the time of its classifcation, and,
it registers this contemporaneity in terms of a qualitatively new, self-
transcending temporality.
18
Literary periodization of modernity is
limited by two factors: newness of quality and contemporaneity of
historical time. This sort of periodization does not focus on or distinguish
writers on the basis of their gender, race, or ethnic origin, but rather on
their similar interests, ideologies, and literary expressions.
The second periodization norm is one that utilizes and relies on
literary features. This sort of critical endeavor explores literary works on
the basis of their most distinctive literary aspects within or outside their
chronological register. According to Parker, this type of literary periodization
has a curious status in critical writings: there is wide agreement about
what periods do, general discontent at these activities, and no consensus
14
Lawrence Besserman, ed. The Challenge of Periodization: Old Paradigms and New
Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1996), xi.
15
Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: The Continuum Publ.
Company, 2002), 47.
16
Alexander Orakhelashvili, ed. Research Handbook on the Theory and history of Interna-
tional Law (Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc., 2011), 379.
17
Susannah Radstone, The Sexual Politics of Time: Confession, Nostalgia, Memory (New
York: Routledge, 2007), 95.
18
Michael Payne and Jessica Rae Barbera, eds. A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical
Theory (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010), 458.
76 MOHAMMED
about alternatives to them.
19
However, because literary periods are not
strictly systematic or constant, studies on literary periodization may be
only feasible when corresponding literary resemblances or common
features exist in literary works written at any period of time irrespective
of their contemporaneity. If gender is considered, there would be a more
complicated dimension in the use and process of literary periods. Treating
issues such as race and ethnicity together with gender leads to a number
of inquiries: how can literary periods be established if the literary works
break the boundaries of gender, time periods, colors, or ethnicities? This
question does not allow simple or fnite answers because it addresses
entangled issues concerning categorization and periodization on the
basis of thematic, gender, and ethnic bases within or outside historical
boundaries.
Feminist periodization has been recognized as a critical norm
used to trace the development of the feminist situation in terms of
historical phases. As Kelly-Gadol notes, Once we look to history for an
understanding of womans situation, we are, of course, already assuming
that womans situation is a social matter,
20
no matter if women believe that
history has or has not confrmed this assumption. However, any revision of
womens situation proves that it has been in continuous change. Feminist
periodization must have also developed out of what women considered
as male disregard of feminist concerns. As Shari Benstock notes, most
male-authored histories of modern criticism . . . not only exclude feminist
criticism but in a curious way negate it.
21
Thus far, feminist periodization
bears strong connotations to womens history and feminist history
with apparent slight difference. Sawyer and Collier attempt to resolve the
confusion and separate the two expressions: whereas womens history is
defned by its subject matter, feminist history . . . is designated by its mode
of analysis.
22
This proposition leads to a narrower view of feminist
history that seems dependant on womens history.
In The Heidi Chronicles, as well as in her other plays, Wasserstein
historicizes each plays present by integrating references from
19
Mark Parker, Measure and Countermeasure: The Lovejoy-Wellek Debate and
Romantic periodization, in Theoretical Issues in Literary History, ed. David Perkins (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 227.
20
Joan Kelly-Gadol, The Social Relation of the Sexes: Methodological Implica-
tions of Womens History, in Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism, eds. Sandra M. Gilbert
and Susan Gubar (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2007), 431.
21
Shari Benstock, Feminist Issues in Literary Scholarship (Indiana: Indiana University
Press, 1987), 31-2.
22
Deborah F. Sawyer and Diane M. Collier, eds. Is There a Future For Feminist Theology
(Sheffeld: Sheffeld Academic Press, 1999), 92.
contemporary cultural, political, and feminist history.
23
Like a historian,
Wasserstein rewrites feminist social and cultural histories from a past she
had lived and a contemporary present she was then living. Her dramatized
histories, though appearing realistic, are only fctional treatments of
events, issues, and people she might have met or known. Apart from its
treatment of feminist themes and issues, The Heidi Chronicles is structured
on divisible time periods that trace feminist existence and challenges. The
title itself references historicization and provides several clues for the
audience and readers to anticipate sequential eras. Studying the dramatists
chronological mapping of the periods from the 1960s to the 1980s, Gail
Ciociola writes: What Wasserstein dramatizes in between is the chronicle
she wants us to understand: not the fuzzy autobiographical center, but the
evolution of Heidis personal crisis within the social arena of feminism.
24

Wasserstein re-envisions an era of time that seems more convenient for
her to periodize. She retrieves from Heidis life history (i.e., also from
her own life), a quarter of a century: from her high school years during
the students movement in the mid-1960s, through the beginning of
feminism and conscious-raising groups in the 1970s, to the careerism and
yuppie life style in the 1980s Reagan years.
25
As the action begins, three
divisible time phases are set to periodize the feminist condition during
defnable periods. The following scenes capture, register, and organize the
most infuential experiences and developments in the heroines life. The
dramatists periodization of Heidis life and career refects an alternative
historical register of the feminist scene at those given periods.
The Heidi Chronicles is made up of two acts, each beginning with
a prologue taking place in the same year, 1989, and in the same location,
a lecture hall in New York. The stage directions to the frst prologue
introduce the heroine, Heidi Holland, an art history professor standing
in front of a screen. Slides of paintings are shown as she lectures.
26
This opening
scene introduces Heidi with her slides and screen, which she uses outwardly
as instructional media to aid in explaining her subject matter. The slides
and screen are also signifcant as a device to help her move backward
in history to focus on particular moments. Heidi presents several artistic
paintings by women artists who had been completely ignored during their
lifetime and after their death. As Czekay notes: The prologue to the frst
23
Angelika Czekay, Not Having it All, in The Playwrights Muse, ed. Joan Her-
rington, (New York: Routledge, 2002), 20.
24
Ciociola, Wendy Wassertein: Dramatizing Women, 62.
25
Cited in Joan Herrington, The Playwrights Muse, 29.
26
Wendy Wasserstein, The Heidi Chronicles and Other Plays (New York: Vintage
Books, 1991), 160. All subsequent references are indicated in parentheses.
78 MOHAMMED
act introduces Heidi as a feminist art historian invested in the excavation
of the artists left out of traditional historical accounts. Heidi uses slides...
to segue into her own history, establishing the link between the personal
and the political.
27
However, it would be diffcult to highlight this early
point in history and move onward because there would be a wide gap in
history from that point (i.e., the time of the neglected women artists) to
the late 1960s (when Heidi was a school girl). Nevertheless, Heidi uses the
slides of feminist paintings from 1559 to 1869 to leap from one period
to another. By doing this, she points to the negation of women, and as
she moves from one slide to another, Heidi emphasizes the idea of the
unvalued and depreciated feminist art no matter how excellent.
In her lecture prologue, Heidi addresses her students to focus
public attention on these neglected works in order to re-envision and
revive them for re-evaluation. Shifting the audiences focus to another time
and place, scene one takes place in Chicago and provides the precipitating
moment for the entire dramatic action. The timeline serves as an easy
reference for the plays periodization by decade: the 1960s and 1970s in Act
One, and the 1980s in Act Two. The acts and the prologues implement two
periodization strategies: the periodization of the feminist case from 1960s
through the 1980s by tracing Heidis life and development, and Heidis
periodization of the feminist case during the sixteenth century onward.
By means of feminist periodizing structures, aside from the act prologues,
the play is divided into three separate phases; the 1960s, the 1970s, and
the 1980s. The frst phase is manipulated by the frst and second scenes of
Act One; the second is covered by the three remaining scenes, three, four,
and fve successively; and the third phase occupies the entire second act
being comprised of six scenes. This division is structurally signifcant. The
least number of scenes focus on the farthest and relatively oldest periods
in Heidis life and development, while the emphasis shifts as she grows
and develops until she reaches the current year, the same year she delivers
her lectures and appears in the fnal scene set in her New York apartment.
Heidis introductory lecture is thus a dramatic device through
which Wasserstein asserts a signifcant theme denoting facts about
womens conditions and the long history of negation and this is made
credible by Heidis professional experience and bolstered by suffcient
documentary material and historical paintings. Heidis frst slide depicts
a portrait by a woman artist named Sofonisba Anguissola, who, as Heidi
explains: painted this portrait of her sister, Minerva, in 1559. Not only
was Sofonisba a painter with international reputation, but so were her six
sisters (160). Showing the next slide, she emphasizes: Heres half the
27
family in Sofonisbas Three Sisters Playing Chess, painted in 1555 (160).
In spite of the value and artistic quality of the paintings, Heidi asserts
to her students that Sofonisba was ignored: there is no trace of her, or
any other woman artist prior to the twentieth century, in your current
art history textbook (160). Underscoring the total negation of women
artists, Heidi indicates that the standard textbook used in her own college
years mentioned no women from the dawn of history to the present
(160).
In addition to Heidis explicit connotations and ironic discourse
used to periodize a history of unfairness and erasure of women and
feminism, William Storm notes that Wasserstein
[...] . . . initiates the action on the topic of a historically authentic
Renaissance woman, introduced here by a woman with her own
catholic proclivities. . . . Her commentary provides wittiness
and personality in combination with historical allusion; it
also introduces the speakers own past (in my day) and,
correspondingly the aspect of time set in ratio to ones awareness
and appreciation of it.
28

Further excavating and re-inserting feminist achievements into the public
consciousness, Heidi informs her students that Clara Peeters was the
greatest woman artist of the seventeenth century (160). Apart from
highlighting the artistic value of Clara Peeterss work, Heidi humorously
criticizes the era: Notice here the cylindrical silver canister, the disc of
the plate, and the triangular cuts in the cheese. Trust me this is cheese.
After breakfast, in fact, Clara went through a prolonged cheese period
(161). From Clara Peeters and the satiric reference to her cheese period,
Heidi moves to Lily Martin Spencer, another female artist best known by
her 1869 We Both Must Fade, a painting which more acutely refects
feminist periodization.
Spencers painting shows a melancholic fgure described by Heidi
as a young woman posing in an exquisitely detailed dress, surrounded by
symbolic still-life objects. The fading fower and the clockface are both
reminders of mortality and time passing (161). Heidi also establishes a
kind of correlation between this artistic fgure and real ones despite the
distance of time and conditions. She compares her own baffement and
disillusionment during her schooldays to the impressions suggested by
this painting:
28
William Storm, Irony and the Modern Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2011), 186.
80 MOHAMMED
This portrait can be perceived as a meditation on the brevity
of youth, beauty, and life . . . frankly, this painting has always
reminded me of me at one of those horrible high-school dances,
and you sort of want to dance, and you sort of want to go home,
and you sort of dont know what you want. So you hang around,
a fading rose in an exquisitely detailed dress, waiting to see what
might happen (161).
Indeed, the fnal comment, which ends the frst-act lecture prologue is the
impetus for moving from the feminist condition of the young woman in
the painting to Heidis own experiences as an adolescent. In both cases,
the fgure in the painting and Heidis experiences epitomize the feminist
condition with all its paradoxes, confusion, ambivalence, the zeal for life,
uncertainty, and expectation. One can also infer from Heidis comment
that no great change has happened to improve the negative attitudes
toward women from those early periods until the mid 1960s.
Heidis frst prologue lecture ends abruptly but only temporarily
because the prologue of Act Two is a complementary part of the same
lecture. This structural division is relevant to the overall periodizing
process. It seems that Wasserstein intentionally inserted these two
prologues before the two acts in order to disrupt the feelings of
dissatisfaction of women and refect her own sense of disconnection. The
Heidi Chronicles, Cathleen McGuigan suggests, was created by Wasserstein
at a sad and disconnected period of her life.
29
Therefore, this structural
division separates two eras, which are virtually separated by a long span
of time. Nevertheless, it appears that the most impelling feminist issues in
all periods, from the early eras periodized in Heidis lectures to the 1980,
demonstrate that women still experience inequality in a male-dominant
society. Wasserstein divides the prologues and the scenes corresponding
with the development of the women characters. The act prologues and
their references to the disregarded women artists of the sixteenth century
problematically parallel the cases of successful but still dissatisfed women
of the twentieth century.
At the end of the second prologue, Heidi maintains the sense of
perplexity she established earlier as she comments on the fgures appearing
in another painting: They appear to watch closely and ease the way for
the others to join in. I suppose its really not unlike being an art historian.
In other words, being neither the painter nor the casual observer, but a
highly informed spectator (206). Heidis career success and academic
29
Cited in Gail Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein: Dramatizing Women, 15.
achievements are still questionable because these accomplishments do not
provide satisfaction. On the contrary, her feelings are blurred with some
implicit grievances arising from her baffement and uncertainty of her
role and signifcance. This ambivalence is ubiquitous throughout the play,
but it is especially lucid in the closing scene when she appears alone as a
single mother with an adopted baby. Heidi is not satisfed, yet she aspires
for prospects of a better future. When Scoop asks if she is happy, she
postulates, Well, I have a daughter. And I have never been particularly
maternal. . . And shell never think shes worthless unless he lets her
have it all. And maybe, just maybe, things will be a little better (246-7).
Heidis feminist periodization aligns with an allusion to feminist fgures
documented in the prologues and who were ignored but are offered new
hope through Heidis intervention.
In tracking down Heidis history as a feminist case, the play
associates the periods of the action with specifc locations, adding
more evidence and credibility to the feminist sensations related to the
characters chronicles. In Act One, for example, Heidi travels back in
history to 1965 when she was a school girl. By several implications and
refections, she emphasizes the male-dominant outlook of women as
supposedly inferior, helpless, and powerless. As Wasserstein dramatizes
Heidis life and experiences, she approximates the original premise
for The Heidi Chronicles by re-enacting the contemporary history of the
Womens Movement in all her plays, but by providing mere glimpses into
its political manifestations, she succeeds only in highlighting a few select
milestones.
30
In her own way, Wasserstein divides the personal life of
her heroine into three defnite periods; three decades marking the mental,
emotional, and physical development of Heidi who still seems dissatisfed.
The frst scene of Act One begins with Heidi Holland, in 1965, as
a sixteen-year-old girl accompanying her friend Susan to a school dance.
Heidi and Susan refect different attitudes towards self-perception and
personal drives; Heidi attends the dance for mere joy and entertainment
while Susan attends in search for a man. Viewing a man they describe as
cute, Susans unexpected reaction astonishes Heidi:
Susan: Look! He can twist and smoke at the same time. I love
that! (Susan unbuttons her sweater and pulls a necklace out of her purse.)
Heidi: Susie, what are you doing?
Susan: Men rely on frst impressions. Oh, God, hes incredible!
Heidi, move! (162-3)
30
Ibid., 18.
82 MOHAMMED
Susan does not feel at ease with Heidi standing close to her as this will
presumably prevent her from attracting her prey. She is also concerned
about Heidis fnding a man for herself. For this reason, and contradicting
the notion of the strength of women as a community, she urges Heidi to
move away because the worst thing you can do is cluster. Cause then it
looks like you just wanna hang around with your girlfriend (163). Unlike
Heidi, Susans ideals and perceptions are very much infuenced by the
culture of that time and women have no choice but to comply with the
prevailing ideas. Therefore, Susan continues her cynical observations and
recommends that Heidi should not look desperate. Men dont dance with
desperate women (163).
The scene dramatically depicts the historical marginalization of
women as introduced in the prologues. Susans advice reinforces male-
dominant ideas: You know, as your best friend, I must tell you frankly
that you are going to get really messed up unless you learn to take men
seriously (164). Commenting on both girls behavior at the dance, Brewer
writes: Heidi appears unusually independent for a teenage girl in the mid-
1960s, uninterested in being the object of a boys attention if it means
leaving her girlfriend alone.
31
When Chris approaches Heidi and invites
her for a dance, she apologizes saying that she and Susan came to the
dance together. The central episode in the plays frst structural period
focuses on Susan as she leaves Heidi to dance with the young man. In
the meantime, Peter approaches Heidi and gradually attracts her by his
spiritedness and cynicism: Dont be sorry. I appreciate bored people.
Bored, depressed, anxious. These are the qualities I look for in a woman.
Your lady friend is dancing with the gentleman who looks like Bobby
Kennedy. I fnd men who smoke and twist at the same time so dreary
(165). It does not take long for Peter to win Heidis admiration as they
continue their lively conversation and join the dance. Peter proposes to
Heidi: Will you marry me? But when Heidi declines, Peter says, I want
to know you all my life. If we cant marry, lets be great friends (167).
Having shown some sort of affnity with one another, Heidi and Peter
close the frst scene dancing together.
As Heidi and Peter continue their dance and conversation, The
Shoop Shoop Song is heard (166), an indication that Wasserstein relies
on musical tunes, songs and dances as periodization markers. When
asked about the role of music in her plays, particularly with regard to
establishing a time period, in an interview with Angelika Czekay, the
dramatist replied:
31
Mary F. Brewer, Staging Whiteness (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press,
2005), 152.
There are two things. First of all, the music itself helps me write.
So, whatever play I am working on, sometimes when I stop
writing I sit and listen to the music, and I fnd it relaxing. Or
Ill drive around with the music on from that time period . . . .
Hearing Aretha Franklin sin Respect during The Heidi Chronicles,
you know exactly what that is.
32
Wassersteins use of music is further noted by Canning as she states:
Most of The Heidi Chronicles takes place in the past . . . . These moments
are evoked in four ways: popular music (e.g. Shoop Shoop Song or
Imagine).
33
However, in this early scene, Susan distances herself from
Heidi to attract a young man, an indication that women of that period in
time experienced an awkward sense of disenfranchisement.
The plays feminist register of the 1960s continues in the second
scene where Heidi meets Scoop Rosenbaum at another dance arranged as
part of Eugene McCarthys run for the democratic nomination in 1968.
The stage directions introduce Scoop as intense but charismatic (168).
Scoop takes no time to win Heidis attention by his seeming recklessness
and impudence. In an extraordinarily cynical manner he uses a letter-
grade to evaluate aspects of life as they come to him. Scoop is a self-
congratulatory prig and represents the familiar image of a hyper-macho,
aggressive man. In addition to his disparaging views of others, he appears
to be proud of his male-oriented precepts and experience. Assuming an
air of superiority, he humorously upbraids Heidi for her unwillingness to
join in the mating ritual:
Scoop Are you guarding the chips?
Heidi: No.
Scoop: Then youre being very diffcult.
Heidi: Please, help yourself.
Scoop: Where are you going?
Heidi: Im trying to listen to the music.
Scoop: Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. A
singer. C+ band. Far less innovative than the kinks. You know,
you really have one hell of an inferiority complex (168).
32
Angelika Czekay, Interview conducted by Angelika Czekay in February 2001,
in The Playwrights Muse, ed. Joan Herrington, 47.
33
Charlotte Canning, Feminist Perform Their Past: Constructing History in The
Heidi Chronicles and The Break of Day, in Women, Theatre and Performance: New Histories,
New Historiographies, eds. Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner (N.Y.: Manchester University
Press, 2000), 167.
84 MOHAMMED

Even though Heidi eventually submits to his seductive charm,
in a half-defeated feminist tone, she defends herself against Scoops
masculine forwardness: Actually, I was wondering what mothers teach
their sons that they never bother to tell their daughters (171). Determined
to win her affections, Scoop changes his approach. He dodges the issue
of gender: Youre a very serious person. In fact, youre the unfortunate
contradiction in terms a serious good person. And I envy you that (172-
3). Scoop persists and pursues Heidi by complimenting her independence
and coolness: Maybe Ill remember when Im thirty-fve and watching
my sons performance . . . Ill look at my wife, who put up with me . . .
I could fall in love with Heidi Holland, the canvassing art historian, that
frst snowy night in Manchester, New Hampshire, 1968 (174). Probably,
the most powerful indictment of Scoops stereotypical masculinity in this
period can be discerned from the stage directions, which describe Scoop
and Heidi at the end of the scene: He begins to leave the room and turns back
to Heidi. She looks at her watch and follows him. He clenches his fst in success (174).
The ending of the scene epitomizes a vision of the decade of the 1960s
by presenting an image of Heidi as she succumbs to the pressures of a
male-dominant society.
Throughout her structural division of the scenes, Wasserstein
highlights the general milestones between 1965 and 1989 that demonstrate
Heidis association with the eras causes.
34
The remaining three scenes
of the frst act depict the era extending from 1970 to 1977. Shifting
from Heidis high school and the 1960s, the action now takes place in a
Church basement in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1970. Two years after Heidis
experience with Scoop, the scene focuses a signifcant development in
feminist history referring to the establishment of womens consciousness
raising groups. In an ironic twist Susan, who had previously scoffed at the
idea of women clustering, joins one of these groups and takes Heidi
to one of the meetings. There, they meet Jill, a forty-year-old woman;
Fran, who is thirty years old; and Becky, the youngest, who is seventeen
and attending for the frst time. As the discussion proceeds, Jill unveils
how boring her life is since Everybody in my lifemy husband, Bill, my
daughters, my friendscould lean on perfect Jill (177), while regretting
that she had only forgotten to take care of herself. Unlike Jill, Fran is
indignant and exasperated with patriarchal double standards: No. We
grow up on fuckin Father Knows Best and we think we have rights!
(177). Moreover, she yells at Susan, who tells her about her new position
at the Law Review, What are you bullshitting about? Youre going to work
34
Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein: Dramatizing Women, 57.
from within the male-establishment power base (178). Again, the play
articulates the prevailing feminist thought and enunciates entrenched
central tenet of feminist belief. Fran explains: Heidi, every woman in this
room has been taught that the desires and dreams of her husband, her son,
or her boss are much more important than her own (181). Nevertheless,
Fran is unyielding in her quest for equal rights and treatment. She argues:
the only way to turn that around is for us, right here, to try to make
what we want, what we desire to be, as vital as it would undoubtedly be
to any man. And then we can go out there and really make a difference
(181). Of all the women, Fran is the strongest, most stubborn, and most
determined, as she takes a stand in the battle of the sexes: Maybe I should
dress for combat more often (177).
Despite the remarkable feminist activism and fervor propelled
by such consciousness-raising groups, the play proposes the notion that
womens conditions had not improved signifcantly in the 1970. Judging
from Wassersteins dramaturgical representations, women remained
subservient to men as refected by Beckys complaint about the negative
treatment she receives from her boyfriend: I try to be super nice with him.
I make all his meals, and I never disagree with him. But then he just gets
angry or stoned (179). Her boyfriends disrespectfulness has a negative
impact on Becky as she adds, when I need to think things through, I
lock the bathroom door and cry. But I try not to make any sound (179).
Heidis experience with Scoop has similarly caused her dejection, a dreary
feeling that would last until the end of the play. The problem in Heidis
case is that she has been strongly committed to this odd relationship with
Scoop, as Susan notes: The point is that Heidi will drop anythingwork,
a date, even a chance to see mejust to be around this creep (181). Heidi
does not refute Susans description of Scoop as a creep, yet she cannot
easily rid herself of him because hes a charismatic creep (181). Being
fully aware of the nature and development of her relationship with Scoop,
Heidi confesses that Scoop is not to blame and that she could have chosen
better. Heidi appears incapable of resisting his charisma and admits to
allowing this guy to account for so much of what I think of myself. I
allow him to make me feel valuable. And the bottom line is, I know thats
wrong (182).
As she ends her periodization of the 1970s, Wasserstein presents
two contradictory attitudes toward feminism: frst, there was a growing
awareness of feminist demands for improved status; and second, these
consciousness-raising groups did not improve the feminist condition.
The shared feelings among the women in this scene are confusion,
irresolution, the sense of an immeasurable gap between what they want
86 MOHAMMED
and what their society tells them they can get.
35
Of course, this feeling
urges Heidi to aspire for a more prosperous future for younger generations:
Becky, I hope our daughters never feel like us. I hope all our daughters
feel so fucking worthwhile. Do you promise we can accomplish that much,
Fran? (182). In a general comment on this scene, Czekay writes: [g]iven
the scenes general tone, the meetings actual conversations allude only
tangentially to the important historical function of consciousness raising
in this early phase of radical and liberal feminism.
36

The subsequent scene focuses on the period of the mid-1970s,
specifcally 1974, and takes place outside the Chicago Art Institute. A
slight change has occurred in Heidis character. She appears leading a
protest against the Institute because the show of Napoleonic art does
not include female artists. Speaking into a bullhorn, Heidi proclaims
reprehensible facts and statistics: This museum is publicly funded by our
tax dollars. Our means both men and women. The weekly attendance
at this institution is sixty percent female. The painting and appreciation
classes are seventy percent female (184). Shamefully, only two female
artists are included, and in the current event, The Age of Napoleon.
Despite her enthusiasm, Heidi fails to draw many supporters even when
her friend Debbie takes the bullhorn and tries all over again; evidence of
even more negation.
In the subsequent structural division, the last scene of Act One
traces the development in Heidis life in 1977. Accompanied by Peter, she
attends the wedding of Scoop and Lisa while Susan has already arrived
on the scene with Molly, a twenty-six-year old woman. Heidi justifes her
decision to attend the wedding, telling Scoop: Peter wanted to meet you.
Thats why we came. He said if I witnessed your ritual, it would put an
end to an era (200). Peter mocks Scoop and Lisa in a histrionic speech
spoofng what Scoop may say in his marriage ritual:
Peter: Do you, Scoop Rosenbaum, take Lisa Friedlander to be
your bride? Well, I feel ambivalent about her. But I am blocked
emotionally, and she went to good schools, comes from a very
good family, and is not particularly threatening. So, yeah, I do.
Anyway, its time for me to get married. (193)
Imitating Lisas Southern accent, Peter resumes, Rabbi, ever
since I was a little girl I have been wanting to matriculate with an M.R.S.
35
Richard Gray, A Brief History of American Literature (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,
2011), 323
36
degree. I idolize Scoop because he is as brilliant and rich as my daddy,
whom I also idolize . . . . So, yes, Rabbi, I do take Scoop (193). Peters
assumption that Lisa agrees to marry Scoop partially to obtain an M. R. S.
degree is a reference to the prevalent cultural belief about young women
during the 1950s.
37

This scene covering the period of the late 1970s is important for
Heidi and Scoop to recount how they reached this point. Scoop admits that
he is not pleased with his marriage to Lisa, as he sighs in mock despair: Oh,
God, Im so unhappy! and further questions Heidi: Why did you let me
do this? (198). Although hurt, Heidi calmly explains she is now seeing
someone. Sort of living with someone (198). Nevertheless, before the
scene ends, Scoop clarifes his relationship with Heidi. He indicates that he
could not deceive Heidi any longer because he wanted to marry a woman
who would not be a competitor in his own success:
Lets say we married and I asked you to devote the, say, next ten
years of your life to me. To making me a home, a family and a
life so secure that I could with some confdence go out into the
world each day and attempt to get an A. Youd say, No. Youd
say, Why cant we be partners? Why cant we both go out into the
world and get an A? And youd be absolutely valid and correct.
(201)
Commenting on Scoops motives and choice to ignore Heidi and
marry another, Boone and Cadden write: Although still in love with A+
Heidi, Scoop marries a more accommodating woman (a secure 6 on his
10-point rating scale). . . . Unlike Peter, Scoop is threatened by Heidis
independence and her desire to fulfll her potential. He is threatened by
her feminismand not her humanism.
38
Scoop is certain that Heidi
37
Sitkoff discusses this issue stating that Popular culture in the 1950s glorifed
marriage and parenthood, emphasizing a womans role as a helpmate to her husband and
a full-time mother to her children. As Hollywood actress Debbie Reynolds declared in The
Tender Trap (1955), A woman isnt a woman until shes been married and had children....
Education reinforced these notions...Guidance counselors cautioned young women not
to miss the boat of marriage by pursuing higher education. Men are not interested
in college degrees but in the warmth and humanness of the girls they marry, stressed
a textbook on the family. More men than women went to college, and only one-third of
college women completed a degree. They dropped out, women joked, to get their M. R.
S. degree or a Ph.T.Putting Hubbie Through. For more details, see: Harvard Sitkoff
et al, The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People (Boston, MA: Houghton Miffin,
2008), 845.
38
Joseph A. Boone and Michael Cadden, eds. Engendering Men: The Question of Male
Feminist Criticism (New York: Routledge, 2012), 285.
88 MOHAMMED
would not submit to his patriarchal thoughts and desires as Lisa might.
Even though he managed to win her heart at their frst meeting, he
understands that Heidi has other interests such as: Self-fulfllment. Self-
determination. Self-exaggeration (201), and this would make their life
together impossible, as he tells Heidi: Then youd be competing with
me (201). Therefore, he chooses to marry Lisa while still in love with
Heidi, who is also unable to stop loving him. As they talk before the scene
ends, Scoop and Heidi are gradually infuenced by their strong love and
memories. Scoop holds her tightly and promises: I love you, Heidi. Ill
always love you (203). The lights fade as they dance and sing together,
and Act One concludes the period of the 1960s and the 1970s and the
feminist condition has not signifcantly improved for Heidi. In spite of the
formation of feminist consciousness-raising groups and the development
of womens awareness of equal rights and treatment, the end of the
decade for Heidi is marked by Scoops decision to marry a woman who
will labor only at home for his success and without any commitment or
liabilities on his side.
Moving forward in time, Act Two is divided into six successive
scenes occurring chronologically in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, and
1989. The structural division of the scenes and the episodic development
are signifcant. First, unlike Act One, which covers two decades in fve
scenes, the six scenes of the second act are devoted to a single decade, an
indication of the momentousness of this period in Heidis life. Second,
the act inserts a two-year interval between each scene, except for the ffth
scene, which takes place after only one year and transforms the order from
even-number into odd-number years. This act, as Czekay notes, explores
the 1980s as a decade of individualism, ambitiousness, careerism, and
materialism, which, as the play suggests, is a historical consequence of the
preceding me decade. In particular, the act explores different variations
of women who are trying to have it all.
39

The frst scene takes place in Scoops and Lisas apartment. Susan
and Heidi are visiting Lisa, who is now very pregnant (206). In addition,
two other women join them: Betsy, a pregnant woman aged thirty-fve,
and Denise, Lisas sister, twenty-six. Even his absence indicates Scoops
male superiority. He has lied to his wife, stating that he had to go to
Princeton for one of those looking forward to the eighties, looking
back on the seventies panels (210). Ironically, Betsy, Denise, and Heidi
know that Scoop is seeing another woman, but they are not certain if
Lisa knows. The scene ends cheerfully as the women toast and play the
music. The scene powerfully demonstrates Scoops sustained confdence
39
Cited in Herrington, The Playwrights Muse, 31.
and readiness to cheat women even after marriage. Heidis professional
advancement is marked by the news of her new book.
Resuming the periodization of the plot development, the play
schematically moves through the 1980s. The entire scene presumably
comes from Heidis memory. Onstage, there is a TV studio attendant calling
light cues(214), in preparation for a program hosting a group drawn from
the boomer generation. Scoop tells Peter that it was Denise who arranged
for this TV program to have them all on the show together (215), and
Denise tells the group that April will have them discuss topics such as:
the sixties, social conscience, relationships, Reaganomics, money, careers,
approaching the big 4-0; Scoop: opinions, trends; Heidi: women in art, the
death of ERA, your book; Peter: the new medicine, kids today (215). In
her seemingly popular show, Hello, New York, April understands that
she is hosting a number of guests who all belong to this period, of the
baby boom generation, the kids who grew up in the ffties, protested in the
sixties, were the mes of the seventies, and the parents of the eighties
(216).
Peter and Scoop take up most of the air-time to express their
vision of the era. Even though Scoop assumes at frst that they are an
idealistic generation, Peter contends their generation is distinguished
from the previous generation by their belief that any individual has a
right to pursue his or her particular life-style(218). Again, Scoop gives a
more detailed description of the 1980s boom generation:
were serious people with a sense of humor. Were not young
professionals, and were not old lefties or righties. Were unique.
Were powerful, but not bullies. Were rich, but not ostentatious.
Were parents, but not parental. And I think we had the left
magazine in college, we had the music magazines in the seventies,
and now we deserve what I call a power magazine in the
eighties. Were opinion-and trend-setters, and I hope Boomer is our
chronicle. (219)
Emphasizing the signifcance of the boomer generation and the
synchronous cultural and socio-political conditions, Jan Balakian explains:
Daniel Yankelovich divides the Boomers into two categories: the frst
comprises those born from 1946 to 1954, whose memorable events were
the assassination of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King;
political unrest, and the later Boomers generation, Balakian adds, born
from 1955 to 1964, have a different set of memorable events: Watergate,
Nixons resignation, the Cold War, the oil embargo, raging infation,
gasoline shortages. . . . The characters in The Heidi Chronicles have a foot in
90 MOHAMMED
each group.
40

Scene three takes place in 1984 and shows that the conditions of
women have not improved. Susan and her friends are still complaining
about men. Susan broke up with her boyfriend because, she tells Heidi,
hes still married, and he doesnt want to start another family . . . . I tell
you Heidi, its rough. Every other woman I know is either pregnant or just
miscarried (223). This justifes Heidis own decision: Im planning to start
my family at sixty(223). Having been raised with much enthusiasm, their
fundamental feminist issues have not achieved any satisfactory aspirations,
as Susan explains in a bitter, cynical, and realistic mode: Heidi, you and I
are people who need to commit. Im not political anymore. I mean, equal
rights is one thing, equal pay is one thing, but blaming everything on being
a woman is just pass (226). Denise believes that the problem is only a
problem of their own generation, as she tells Susan and Heidi, like a lot
of women your age are very unhappy. Unfulflled, frightened of growing
old alone (226). She continues and compares their generation to much
younger generations: Our girls have a plan. They want to get married at
their twenties, have their frst baby by thirty and make a pot of money
(226). However, the scene ends poignantly as Susan waves goodbye to
Heidi in the same way she did two decades earlier when they were in high
school.
Continuing the structural division to periodize the decade of the
1980s, the next scene occurs at the Plaza Hotel in 1986. In this scene,
Sandra Zucker-Hall, president of Miss Crains School East Coast Alumnae
Association introduces Dr. Heidi Holland, a distinguished alumna of this
school in 1965, to give a speech. Structurally, this high-school luncheon is
signifcant. Primarily, it propels Heidis projections and awareness of two
periods: 1960s with memories of her high school days, and the mid-1980s
with her present achievements as a distinguished guest representing the
schools alumnae. Of no less importance is the topic, Women Where Are
We Going, which is selected for Heidi to ponder based on her feminist
experience and achievements. Her topic, according to Hart and Phelan,
is Women, Where Are We Going? Nowhere is her answer. She sums
up the history of the feminist movement in an ironic acrobatic class
locker room scene, in which she fnds herself alienated from, envious of,
and superior to the young women.
41
Heidis lecture communicates her
negative views to a younger generation of women for a comprehensive
assessment. In Heidis lecture, there is nothing exemplary except for the
40
Balakian, Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein, 97.
41
Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan, eds. Acting Out: Feminist Performances (Ann Arbor,
MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2005), 2-3.
way she addresses the young women. Heidi does not have any organized
or prepared material to discuss: I appear before you today with no formal
speech, I have no outline, no pink note cards, no hieroglyphics scribbled
on my palm. Nothing (228).
Starting this womens meeting, Heidi tells the young women
that they might forgive her not preparing a speech and attribute it to a
regular busy-day schedule. Indeed, Heidi may feel ambivalent, but there
is a glimpse of melancholy in her tone as she surmises what these young
women may think of her: After teaching at Columbia yesterday, Miss
Holland probably attended a low-impact aerobics class . . . picked up her
children from school, took the older one to drawing-with-computers at
the Metropolitan, and the younger one to swimming-for-gifted-children
(228). Heidis regretful tone as she expresses her speculations of being a
mother of two intelligent kids reinforces her maternal instinct. It does
not, however, diminish her role as a strong woman who did not marry the
one she loved. Instead, she has succeeded as a reputable college professor.
Heidi pursues her speculations of what the young women might have
thought would detain her from preparing an organized speech (or she
herself has been yearning for):
On returning home, she immediately prepared grilled mesquite
free-range chicken with balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes,
advised her investment-banker well-rounded husband on future
fnances . . . put the children to bed, recited their favorite Greek
myths . . . fnished writing ten pages of a new book, took the
remains of the mesquite free-range dinner to a church that feeds
the homeless . . . after all this, we forgive Miss Holland for not
preparing a speech today. (228-9)
Heidi assures her audience that all these activities were only
illusory and that her actual activities of the preceding day included meeting
and talking with women in the locker room. As Ciociola notes, Heidi
makes it clear that she feels left out by the women in the locker room.
. . . In truth, she barely masks her condescension.
42
Likewise, Dolan
states that Wassersteins play narrates the uncomplimentary view of the
feminist movement promoted by the dominant culture,
43
and adds that
Heidi, alone at the end of the play, wonders what the social movements
of the 1960s and 1970s were all for and wonders still what she and other
42
Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein: Dramatizing Women, 74.
43
Jill Dolan, Presence and Desire: Essays on Gender, Sexuality, Performance (Michigan:
The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 51.
92 MOHAMMED
women want.
44
Heidis alumni luncheon is so important that Balakian
considers it the climax of the play, and that she [Heidi] delivers a long,
impromptu confession concerning her feelings of abandonment and her
disappointment with her peers.
45
In her speech, Snodgrass comments,
Hollands heart interrupts her brain, causing her to lose her grasp on
perky self-confdence.
46
Nevertheless, she does not attempt to hide her
dissatisfaction as she recalls the pathetic feeling she felt in her conversation
with one of the women in the locker room: No, Jeanette. Im just not
happy. Im afraid I havent been happy for some time (232). The ideas
and refections of the luncheon lecture aroused much of the negative
feminist criticism as the play exposes the marginalization of women
artists, sexism in general, womens loss of identity, an unromantic view of
marriage, and lost idealism of the second wave of feminism that began in
the early sixties.
47
According to Demastes, Wasserstein should certainly
not be banished from the ranks for exposing the pitfalls of the 1960s and
70s feminism; feminists themselves have recognized the limitations of the
liberal goal of individualist equality.
48
The scene concludes with Heidis
lecture ending with a desperate tone: I dont blame any of us. Were all
concerned, intelligent, good women. Pauses. Its just that I feel stranded.
And I thought the whole point was that we wouldnt feel stranded. I
thought the point was that we were all in this together (232).
Scene fve is set in 1987 at a Childrens ward in a New York
hospital. From the stage directions, the time is evident from a late-night
movie on the TV. The entire midnight scene is structured to have Heidi
and Peter recall the past twenty fve years and express their respect for one
another. Eventually, the intensity of the scene arises from their confused
emotions as she tells him about her intention to leave for Northfeld,
Minnesota the following day:
Heidi: Peter, I came to say good-bye.
Peter: Good-bye.
44
Ibid., 53.
45
Jan Balakian, Wendy Wasserstein: a Feminist Voice From the Seventies to the
Present, in The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights, ed. Brenda Murphy
(N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 220.
46
Mary Ellen Snodgrass, Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature (New York: Infobase
Publ., 2009), 256.
47
48
William W. Demastes, Realism and the American Dramatic Tradition (Tuscaloosa,
Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1996), 209.
Heidi: Thats it.
Peter: What do you want me to say?
Heidi: I dont know. Youll call me?
Peter: Ill call you. Heidi, what do you want me to say? You are a
brave and remarkable woman. A proud pioneer. My Antonia driv-
ing ever forward through the unknown.
Heidi, softly: Peter, sweetie, what is it?
Peter, moves away: Nothing . . . So youre going to Northfeld, Min-
nesota, to start again. Good-bye, New York. Good-bye, mistakes.
Make new friends. Give donations to the old.
Heidi: I hate it when youre like this. (235)

The scene ends in an exquisite moment as Heidi reminds Peter
of his early statement: I want to know you all my life. If we cant marry,
lets be great friends (239). Despite her power to control her nerves and
relations with others, in addition to her outstanding academic success,
Heidi feels broken-hearted being abandoned by the most important men
in her life: Scoop, by his emotional vacuity and negligence, and Peter, by
his homosexuality. Although Peter, as Balakian notes, may be Heidis soul
mate, he is unattainable. . . . Peter and Heidi enact their own melodrama,
pretending they are star-crossed lovers on a Queen Mary cruise . . . and
Peter and Heidi never kiss.
49
However, at the end of the scene, they
embrace and wish one another Merry Christmas.
To sustain the periodization of the 1980s, the play ends at Heidis
new apartment in New York in 1989. Contrary to her intention to go to
Northfeld, Minnesota in the previous scene, Heidi still lives in New York
where she teaches at Columbia. The scene is a culmination of Heidis
ultimate endurance and determination to secure a better social position.
In addition to her academic career and growing reputation as a writer,
Heidi seems to have achieved suffcient emotional growth to confront
the arrogant Scoop, who reappears in this fnal scene (i.e. Scoop is now
father of two children; Maggie and Pierre). With his customary histrionics,
Scoop attempts to show his genuine interest in Heidi: I made a list the
other day of the people I care about. And you made the top ten. In fact,
I reworked the list a few times, and you were the only one who made the
top ten through three decades (241). Heidi is not deceived by Scoop and
will not help him in cheating on his wife. The scene approaches its end as
Scoop recognizes that his efforts will never win Heidis heart or retrieve
the old days. He tells Heidi that he learned from Susan about the baby she
adopted and asks her the babys name. Heidi calls the baby Judy whom
49
94 MOHAMMED
she describes, as she lifts her up to show her to Scoop, A heroine for the
twenty frst! (248).
In its periodization of the 1980s, the play emphasizes the
difference between historical feminism and realism. Holland happily
immerses herself in the creative freworks of centuries past. Replicating
them in her own life becomes downright scary. She confesses to feeling
stranded.
50
In the play, Wasserstein uses specifc historical points and
stops not only to follow the development of her heroines life history
but also to implement a clear structural division of the scenes. As Brook
indicates,
Generational periodizing is always problematic, of course, given
that historical generations themselves discursive constructions
overlap messily rather than stop or start at specifc points. Indeed,
part of the reason Jan Lewis chose Wendy Wasserstein as a prime
focus for her analysis of post-modern American Jewish theater is
that Wassersteins work spans and straddles generations.
51

To periodize the entire action of The Heidi Chronicles, Wasserstein manages
to draw a true generational picture in a very schematic method and
successive historical development making it possible to follow the action
and trace whatever happens to the heroine from the mid-1960s to the end
of the 1980s.
In addition to the divisible time structures of the scene,
Wasserstein has made good use of music and dances throughout the play.
From her frst scene she employs music and dances to evoke memories of
those specifc periods of time and inspire a nostalgic recognition on the
part of audience members who experienced personally (or have close ties
to those who do) who lived through the events that Wasserstein depicts.
52

Regarding Wassersteins use of specifc musical tunes as a device that aids
in recalling certain eras in history, Furnish notes that the music and the
songs used in Wassersteins play conjure whatever personal associations
audience members may have with those songs individually.
53
Besides,
these tunes can be also regarded as periodizing markers, as Furnish adds:
50
Snodgrass, 256.
51
Vincent Brook, ed. You should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture
(New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2006), 55-6.
52
Ben Furnish, Nostalgia in Jewish-American Theatre and Film: 1979 2004 (New York:
Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2005), 97.
53
Ibid.
As a device, the music further serves to establish the time period
of its scenes and move forward the plays action. For example,
the shift from the 1960s Shoop-Shoop song at a school dance
to Aretha Franklins R-E-S-P-E-C-T as background music to
an early 1970s womens conscious-raising meeting serves as an
unmistakable shorthand for how the womens movement had
entered the American cultural scene.
54
Along with Furnish, Dolan analyzes Wassersteins use of music,
particularly the Shoop-Shoop song of the frst scene, noting that this
song is period appropriate and inspires a jolt of recognition that conjures
up a sentimental nostalgia, rather than a more thoughtful consideration
of the history the music recalls.
55
Moving from the 1960s to the 1970s,
Wasserstein continues to use music for the same purpose. She opens scene
three of the frst act with the consciousness raising group playing Aretha
Franklins Respect, and Fran dancing and singing Sock it to me, Sock it
to me (175). Shortly before the scene ends, the group plays another song,
but soon Fran breaks out of the circle (183) and plays Aretha Franklins
song. Commenting on this scene, Gail Ciociola writes: Switching from
campfre songs to more contemporary music, they end the scene laughing
together and dancing to Aretha Franklins Respect, thereby re-creating
the euphoric spirit of the time.
56
Truly, the music and the songs in The
Heidi Chronicles are time defners and indicative of the multiple experiences
of the women. Of the several musical tunes used in the play, at the end
of the last scene of the frst act, newly wedded Scoop and Lisa request
to have their favorite song, You Send Me, played. Ironically, the music
proves that Heidi and Scoop still love one another so passionately that
they appear momentarily oblivious of Scoop and Lisas wedding. As the
song is heard, Heidi sits down and begins to cry silently. Scoop reenters the room
and they look at each other . . . . They simultaneously move toward each other and kiss.
They are suddenly slow-dancing (203). Periodizing as it is, the song at the end
of the scene concludes a memorable stage in Heidis life. Likewise, when
Susan suggests to change Imagine, which is played and enjoyed by Betsy
in the frst scene of the second act, Lisa and Susan mention other songs
such as: Rocky Raccoon, Its Been a Hard Days Night, and Here
Comes the Sun. Both women indicate that these songs are memorable as
they remind them of their own signifcant experiences.
54
Ibid.
55
Jill Dolan, Presence and Desire, 51.
56
Ciociola, Wendy Wasserstein, Dramatizing Women, 66.
96 MOHAMMED
In conclusion, apart from its powerful political indictment and
treatment of feminist issues through comedy, Wassersteins The Heidi
Chronicles makes good use of periodization as a structural component of
the setting and scene divisions. Relying on such a device, the dramatist
manages to register the growth and development of the female
protagonist, and to draw a schematic feminist chronology of three
generations in feminist history. From scene to scene, the play manages to
shift and focus a kaleidoscope on a specifc period of time to highlight the
signifcant development in the heroines life that parallels feminist history.
In her structural division of the scenes, Wasserstein follows a clear and
straight forward schema to frame the entire action from the protagonists
school days in 1965 to her professional and personal apex in 1989. As
the action proceeds, she uses two- to three-year time intervals to separate
the successive development of the action. The only exception that adds
a slight complexity and interrupts the fow of the structural development
is the insertion of the two prologues to the two acts. Additionally,
Wasserstein has employed a number of musical tunes, songs, and dances,
which characterize specifc periods in time and serve as setting devices to
recall memories and experiences which the audience and characters might
have or have not had in their lives.
WAITING FOR TRIUMPH: ALAN SCHNEIDER AND THE AMERICAN
RESPONSE TO WAITING FOR GODOT
Natka Bianchini
Alan Schneider, one of the most important American directors of the
twentieth century, was known for being a playwrights director. He
believed it was his responsibility to interpret the script as a faithful
representation of the playwrights intent.
1
For this reason, so many major
playwrights sought him out to direct their American premieres, including
Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, and, above all others, Samuel Beckett.
Schneider directed the American premiere of every one of Becketts
major plays between 1956 and 1984, and he became known worldwide
as Becketts primary American interpreter. Despite being labeled at the
time of his death as one of the most important American directors of
contemporary theatre by Times critic Mel Gussow,
2
Schneider has received
relatively little scholarly attention in the intervening thirty years.
3

Paradoxically, Schneiders strengths as a director have frequently
been cited as weaknesses, which may partly account for this academic
omission. Working during an era that increasingly came to privilege the
auteur director,
4
Schneiders meticulous staging and scrupulous attention
to authorial intent raised doubts about his own creative abilities. His
contemporary Herbert Blau called out Schneider directly in an interview:
Alan was always very dutiful. [He] did, so to speak, what Beckett wanted.
+
I would like to thank Lynda Corey Claassen and Heather Smedberg at the
Mandeville Special Collections Library, UCSD, as well as Dale Stinchcomb at the Harvard
Theatre Collection for their assistance in securing permissions for this essay. I would also
like to thank JADTs peer reviewers for their comments and James Wilson and Naomi
Stubbs for their editorial guidance. Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues in the
Humanities Tenure-Track Research Symposium at Loyola University Maryland for their
feedback on an earlier draft of this essay.
1
Alan Schneider, Working with Beckett, in On Beckett: Essays and Criticism, ed.
S.E. Gontarski (New York: Grove Press, 1986), 239. Schneider articulated this theme of-
ten in writing, including in his autobiography Entrances (New York: Limelight, 1987), 252.
2
Mel Gussow, Alan Schneider, Pioneering Director, Is Dead, The New York
Times, 4 May 1984, A1.
3
This journal published one recent exception, see Jeffrey Stephenss article Ne-
gotiations and Exchanges: Alan Schneider, Our Town, and Theatrical Dtente, Journal of
American Drama and Theatre 23, no.1 (Winter 2011): 43-65.
4
See David Bradby and David Williamss introduction in Directors Theatre (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1988), 1-23, for a discussion of this shift in the mid-twentieth
century.
98 BIANCHINI
. . . I never felt, however, that I had to see such a production. . . . Im not
particularly interested in versions of the plays that you can see without
half-trying by merely reading the text.
5

Yet it is an insult to denigrate Schneiders work as merely
dutiful, just as it is a fallacy to assume that a faithful interpretation of a
text requires no creative skill on behalf of the productions director. As
this article will demonstrate, Schneider was remarkably visionary when
it came to interpreting Becketts plays for American audiences. He was
equally savvy about the vicissitudes of the American theatre and retained
as much control over these productions as he could in order to position
them for the best possible reception by critics and audiences.
Using two productions Schneider directed of Waiting for Godot
as case studies and relying on primary archival evidence, I will reveal
Schneiders visionary directionboth in his interpretation of the script,
and in his understanding of how and where to situate Becketts play for
American audiences. The frst production, the American premiere, was a
critical and commercial disaster that closed after only two weeks. Yet from
the seeds of that failure grew a triumphant revival ffteen years latera
production that fundamentally transformed how critics and audiences
understood this groundbreaking play.
Te American Premiere: Waiting for Godot, Miami, 1956
Waiting for Godot had already premiered in Paris and London when, in the
fall of 1955, New York producer Michael Myerberg obtained the rights to
the American premiere and contacted Schneider to see if he was available
to direct a Broadway production starring Bert Lahr as Estragon and Tom
Ewell as Vladimir. Schneider was initially hesitant about the offer; he was
uncertain whether the play would appeal to Broadway audiences, and he
was wary of Myerberg, whom he heard had a reputation for being diffcult
to work with. Still, he had not been able to banish Godot from his mind
since seeing the world premiere in Paris two years earlier, so he agreed.
The original contract, dated 16 November 1955, was a document
that would cause years of headaches. Schneider was to be paid $1,000
at contract signing, a $250 weekly salary, and 1% of the royalties of the
weekly box offce gross. The contract further stipulated that he would
direct the New York City opening and all out-of-town try-outs prior to
that opening, and gave him the right of reasonable approval of the
cast, scenery, costumes and all other artistic matters connected with the
5
Lois Oppenheim, Directing Beckett (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1994), 55.
WAITING FOR TRIUMPH 99
production of the Play.
6
Each of these stipulationsthe salary, the
location of the out-of-town previews, and the right of approval over
casting and design choiceslater became points of contention.
1955 was a transitional time in New York theatre as off-Broadway
became an increasingly legitimate alternative to Broadway. Jose Quinteros
1952 revival of Summer and Smoke is widely credited as the production that
created the off-Broadway phenomenon,
7
and by the mid-to-late ffties,
off-Broadway had become a destination for new work. Concurrently,
elsewhere in the country the frst regional theatres were established in
Dallas (Theatre 47 in 1947), Houston (the Alley Theatre in 1947), and
Washington, D.C. (Arena Stage in 1950), marking a broader shift away from
Times Square and towards a network of professional theatres nationwide.
8

Both movements worked in tandem to weaken the importance
of Broadway as Americas theatrical center and to expand the locations
from which new work and new talent would emerge. Waiting for Godot is
an anomaly as the only Beckett play with a planned U.S premiere as an
offcial Broadway production. All subsequent U.S. premieres took place
either off-Broadway or outside of New York altogether.
With tentative arrangements in place, Schneider began pre-
production work in the fall of 1955. Myerberg approved a trans-Atlantic
research trip so that Schneider could meet Beckett in Paris and attend Peter
Halls London production (the British and English-language premiere).
Barney Rosset, owner and editor of Grove Press (Becketts American
publisher), was already in communication with Beckett and arranged the
introduction by post, writing, I hope he will turn out to be somebody you
like.
9
In November, Schneider set sail on aboard an ocean liner bound
for the continent.
Beckett reluctantly offered thirty minutes of his time one evening
to meet with the American director. Once they met, however, his
hesitation was immediately resolved, their connection instantaneous.
At the end of two days together in Paris, Beckett offered to accompany
Schneider to London so they could discuss the play further. They
6
Myerberg to Schneider, 16 November 1955, Contract Agreement, Waiting for
Godot (1956) Arbitration, Schneider vs. Myerberg, Alan Schneider Papers Box 10, Mandev-
ille Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego.
7
David A. Crespy, Richard Barr: The Playwrights Producer (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 2013), 79.
8
Joseph W. Zeigler, Regional Theatre: The Revolutionary Stage (Minneapolis: Univer-
sity of Minnesota Press, 1973), 17-31.
9
See Craig, et al. ed., The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume II (1941-1956) (London:
Cambridge University Press, 2009, 2011), 569, n.1.
100 BIANCHINI
attended six performances of Halls Godot, spending parts of each evening
analyzing various directorial choices. Although he did not dislike the
production outright, Beckett had a number of objections; chief among
them was the cluttered and complicated set design, which he felt burdened
the play, burying some of its central themes.
10
Schneider left London
with a much more thorough understanding of the play and Becketts
vision for it. Becketts frst letter to him after his trip included a copy of
the multi-page letter he sent to Hall in response to the London premiere.
11

Becketts inclusion of this letter to Schneider strongly indicates that he was
looking to the American production to correct some of the mistakes he
perceived in the London premiere.
Schneiders visits to Paris and London were some of the last
positive experiences he had working on this production. The troubles
began even before he left, when he received two urgent telegrams begging
him to return immediately so that rehearsals could begin. The frst alarmist
message read, LAHR EWELL NERVOUS AND DISTURBED URGE
YOU FLY BACK FRIDAY MYERBERG.
12
The second telegram was
hardly milder in tone. This one was signed by Lahr and Ewell themselves
and urged Schneider to return home to begin rehearsals by Monday, 5
December.
13
Schneiders promptbook indicates that rehearsals began on
Friday, 9 December and ran for the standard four weeks until the 3 January
1956 opening.
14
It is hard to understand the near-hysteria conveyed by
these messages since Schneiders return was both imminent and not in
question. Schneider later discovered that Myerberg had sent both cables
10
Production photos reprinted in Theatre Arts Magazine, August 1956, confrm
this impression, as they reveal that the stage was covered with dead branches, a barrel, and
a background draped in layers of fabric. Waiting for Godot (1956), Theatre Arts Magazine,
Alan Schneider Papers, Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of Cali-
fornia, San Diego. Beckett also mentions this frequently in Volume II of his correspon-
dence; see, for example, Craig et al., eds., The Letters of Samuel Beckett, 548, 568, 570.
11
Maurice Harmon, ed., No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beck-
ett and Alan Schneider (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), Beckett to Schneider,
14 December 1955, Harmon, 2-5. The majority of Becketts notes to Hall concern details
of pronunciation, pacing, pauses, and emphasis.
12
Myerberg to Schneider, undated telegram, Waiting for Godot (1956) Correspon-
dence 1955-1956, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Library,
University of California, San Diego.
13
Lahr, Ewell to Schneider, 1 December 1955, Western Union Cablegram, Wait-
ing for Godot (1956) Correspondence 1955-1956, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 11, Mandeville
Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego.
14
Waiting for Godot (1956), Directors Promptbook (Photocopy) Part 1, Alan
Schneider Papers, Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California,
San Diego.
and duplicitously signed Lahrs and Ewells names to the second one.
15

Myerbergs distress over Schneiders absence is strange given that he had
agreed to the pre-production trip in the frst place.
Schneider returned from London to fnd the remaining roles of
Pozzo, Lucky, and the Boy already cast, the location of their frst try-
out changed, and the set design completely overhauled, all without his
consultation. These changes were harbingers of myriad conficts to come.
Myerberg conceived of the production as a vehicle to promote
his two stars, Lahr and Ewell. Lahr, an accomplished vaudevillian, was
best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion in MGMs The Wizard of
Oz (1939). Ewell, who had won a Tony for The Seven-Year Itch (1952), had
also starred in the 1955 flm version with Marilyn Monroe. Because of this
focus, Myerberg paid little attention to the casting of the remaining three
roles. Although Schneider and Myerberg had communicated several times
about casting (Schneider sent Myerberg a lengthy letter on the eve of his
voyage, detailing his thoughts on the subject),
16
and although Schneider
suggested several specifc actors who he thought would ft each role,
Myerberg disregarded Schneiders input. When he learned this, Schneider
was both furious and worried. The actors cast as Pozzo, Lucky, and the
Boy were all inexperienced and poorly suited to their parts. Despite his
misgivings, the terms of Schneiders contract gave him no offcial recourse
to dispute the casting.
Even more concerning was Myerbergs decision to change the
location of their frst try-out. The show was originally scheduled to open
in Washington, D.C. and continue to Philadelphia before arriving in New
York, but advance ticket sales for each location had been slow. Myerberg
cancelled the bookings and instead took an offer from a Miami businessman
who was looking for a high-profle event to open his refurbished 800-seat
playhouse, The Coconut Grove, in Coral Gables, Florida, near Miami,
Florida. Miamis limited credentials as a theatrical training ground made
it an illogical choice, both geographically and intellectually, to replace
Washington and Philadelphia.
Perhaps most grievously given Becketts concerns in London,
Schneider discovered that Myerberg had interfered with the set design.
Halls production clarifed for Schneider the need for a simple, spare set
that mirrored the sparseness of Becketts text. Before he left, he had met
15
Schneider, Entrances, 226.
16
Schneider to Myerberg; the letter is undated but refers to it being the night
before he left for France. Waiting for Godot (1956) Correspondence 1955-1956, Alan Schnei-
der Papers, Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San
Diego.
102 BIANCHINI
with the set designer, Albert Johnson, who agreed to Schneiders vision of
a simple tree and rock, surrounded by a cyclorama refecting the sky. He
promised to send a foor plan to Schneider in Europe, but none arrived.
Instead, Schneider received a letter explaining that Myerberg had gotten
wind of the design plans, distrusted the simplicity, changed the designs,
and then forbade Johnson to send Schneider the changes.
17

The new set was much more elaborate and bore several similarities
to the London design.
18
It involved a black cyclorama and a complicated
ramp in the middle of the stage with various rocks and trees surrounding it;
there was no sky. Myerberg had completely changed the essential elements
agreed upon between Schneider and Johnson. More revealing than his
duplicity, however, is his fear and mistrust of the play. Realism, still the
dominant genre of the era, typically involved elaborate and detailed sets
with representational locations and interiors. No playwright yet had called
for such emptiness on stage.
Les Essif has articulated the radical nature of Becketts emptiness,
which is fundamentally not representational. This emptiness is different
from that of the classical stage where emptiness still signifed a fully
realized world, psychologically.
19
Becketts emptiness is quite specifc, and
many productions of Godot have had diffculty achieving it. Essif writes:
Too many productions of Godot sacrifce emptiness for illusion, even for
an illusion of emptiness,
20
which is precisely what Myerbergs changes
sought to doto localize and naturalize the country road setting. In his
correspondence, Beckett revealed his vision of a non-representational
setting, writing, In Godot it is a sky that is sky only in name, a tree that
makes them wonder whether it is one, tiny and shriveled.
21
Later, when
Beckett directed Godot himself, he eliminated the country road entirely,
leaving the stage even more bare.
Given the elliptical dialogue and the lack of back-story for the
characters, it is not surprising that Myerberg clung to a more realistic
17
Johnson to Schneider, 20 November 1955, Waiting for Godot (1956) Correspon-
dence 1955-1956, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Library,
18
See David Bradby, Waiting for Godot, Plays in Production (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), 80. Bradby offers an insightful reading as to why both English
and American audiences were hesitant about the play at frst, which resulted in similar
problems in each premiere.
19
Les Essif, Empty Figure on an Empty Stage (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2001), 27.
20
Ibid., 64.
21
Quoted in Aaron Their, Love, Sam, The Nation (4 June 2012), 31.
outdoor settingat least that would assure audiences one recognizable
thing. This response highlights how innovative Schneider was in
envisioning the set. He was able to commit to Becketts central vision of
absence, despite pressures to conform to a more representational setting.
Simply by pushing for what Beckett wanted, Schneider showed artistic
moxie, since it takes courage and vision to push for something so radical.
Schneider pushed back against the changes in the set. He wrote a
lengthy letter to Myerberg pleading his case:
Ever since our conversation of the other day, I have been
thinking and stewing, stewing and thinking, examining
the play and my conscience. And I come back to the
same inevitable and unfortunate conclusion: the setting
with which we are going into rehearsal on this diffcult
and special play is wrong for the play, wrong for the
production, wrong for me, wrong. . . .
22
As his promptbooks reveal, his understanding of the play was inextricably
bound to the plays visual representation and include many notes on the
plays meaning linked to visual metaphors. For example, in his directors
notebook, he wrote, Tree is the only thing alive.
23
The sight of a barren
tree on a barren landscape, and its meager blooms in the second act, serve
as one of the plays central visual metaphors. To incorporate a realistic
setting with shrubbery and extraneous vegetation destroys the symbolism
of the lone tree.
Myerberg ultimately agreed to make some changes; the necessity
of a sky became obvious, since the sun sets and the moon rises at the end
of each act. But he let Schneider know immediately how he felt about
them:
There are at least a half dozen ways to stage any play
of merit. We will open in Miami with substantially the
settings indicated by Beckett and favored by youa sky
drop, the mound of earth and the tree. After the Miami
opening we will determine whether or not this is the de-
fnitive staging for our production or not. This decision
will be made in collaboration with Bert Lahr, Tom Ewell,
Albert Johnson, you and myself. In the management of
22
Schneider to Myerberg, 11 December 1955, Waiting for Godot (1956) Corre-
spondence 1955-1956, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Li-
brary, University of California, San Diego.
23
Waiting for Godot (1956) Directors Notebook, Alan Schneider Papers Box 11,
Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego.
104 BIANCHINI
a play with stars of the caliber of Bert and Tom I am
trying to reconstruct the classic relationship of the past
in that the manager is the servant of the stars. As far as
I am concerned, Bert and Toms decision will be fnal
with me.
24

Myerberg could not have been have been more clear about his priorities,
or more at odds with Schneiders. His main concern was to please his ac-
tors, even if achieving that goal meant running roughshod over Becketts
text. Myerbergs allusion to the classic relationship of the past between
manager and star reveals a hint of nostalgia for an increasingly antiquated
system.
This confrontation with Myerberg highlights Schneiders com-
mitment to the playwrights vision. He objected to the implication that
Godot could be staged any number of ways because he was committed
to creating a performance text in harmony with the visual directions as
Beckett wrote them. He also believed that an actors suitability to his role
would be a better indication of success than hiring a big name, and that
off-Broadway, not Miami or Broadway, was where the play would fnd a
truly receptive audience. Schneider envisioned a completely different in-
troduction for this play and this playwright to the American theatre; one
that few others involved could imagine at the time.
The fnal set design was a compromise between Schneiders
simplicity and Myerbergs cluttered realism. The seven design blueprints,
which have been archived, indicate a long, curved ramp running through
the middle of the stagewith the tree on top and rocks and pebbles
built around itmade to look like an organic mound of earth.
25
In the
drawings the set appears rather cumbersome. Becketts letter in response
to viewing the blueprints hints at this: Why the platform? Is it just rising
ground?
26
Although Schneider had succeeded in eliminating some of
the added scenery and in reinstating the sky backdrop, the set was still
more literal and realistic than he intended. It interfered with one of his
central concepts, which was to create a binary structure contrasting the
barren emptiness of where Vladimir and Estragon wait, with the lively and
engaging banter they engage in while waiting.
24
Myerberg to Schneider, 12 December 1955, Waiting for Godot (1956) Corre-
spondence 1955-1956, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Li-
brary, University of California, San Diego.
25
Waiting for Godot (1956), Floor Plans, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 65, Mandev-
ille Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego.
26
Beckett to Schneider, 27 December 1955, Harmon 6.
As a director, one of Schneiders hallmark styles was to explore
and enhance the dramatic energy that comes from binary structures. His
approach to staging sought a balance and harmony wrought from the
tension of two diametrically opposed forces. The relationship between
cerebral Vladimir and corporeal Estragon represents one duality. Other
binaries listed in the notebook for this production included birth and
death and awareness and non-awareness.
27

The most important binary that Schneider identifed was Vladimirs
and Estragons attempts to repudiate the nullity of their existence. This
creates tension between absence (the fnal reality of human existence)
and presence (the characters attempt to create something to fll the void).
Anything they employ to pass the time is in service of this repudiation.
For example, all of their acts of waitingthe games they play, the insults
and tangential discussionsare affrmations of their lives. Dramatically,
these all serve to balance their uncertainty in this liminal world. What
Vladimir and Estragon seek is validation of their existence. As Vladimir
instructs the boy to tell Godot, Tell him[He hesitates]tell him you
saw us. [Pause.] You did see us, didnt you?
28
Schneider wrote: Suspense
and interest will come from the play and interplay, the counterpoint of
repudiation and nullity.
29

On stage, Schneider explored this binary of absence/presence
through blocking and physicalitymovement, speech, arguments, games,
and other activities. The moments of metaphysical wondering (such as
Vladimirs insistence that the boy does see him), usually blocked as slow
and still, are then balanced by moments of physical and emotional comedy
and connectionthey do their exercises, they insult each other, they make
up, they dance together.
30
In these moments, to borrow from Gogo, they
fnd something to give us the impression we exist.
31
In this uncertain
world where even their own existence is in question, the only certainty
Vladimir and Estragon have is each other.
Schneider wrote copious notes on each character. He saw very
27
28
Beckett, Complete Dramatic Works (London, Faber and Faber, 1986), 50.
29
30
My comments about blocking and other staging details are extrapolated from
the two Schneider Godots that I have seen on tapethe 1960 version made for television
and the 1971 off-Broadway revival available at the Theatre on Film and Tape archive, Billy
Rose Theatre Collection at Lincoln Center, New York Public Library.
31
Beckett, Complete Dramatic Works, 64.
106 BIANCHINI
clearly the mutual dependence of Vladimir and Estragon. He described
it as relationship of the two men: love and affection, sad little clowns,
real necessity to hang together. [T]hey need each other, cannot exist
alone.
32
The symbiosis of Vladimir and Estragon is central to the balance
of the play. Temperamentally opposite, Vladimir and Estragon express
differing responses to their situation, yet they are each equally essential to
the structure of the play. Vladimirs metaphysical musings are balanced by
Estragons physical demands. Schneider felt it was important that neither
role top the other as this would upset the equilibrium of the play.
That was the ideal. The reality was signifcantly different.
Balancing Lahr and Ewell proved impossible. Once Schneider began
rehearsals with the two actors, he found immediately that Lahr viewed
Estragon as the plays top banana and wanted Ewell to function strictly
as a set-up man for his jokes. Schneider and Ewell tried to convince him
that the show had no top banana, but to no avail. Lahr persisted in
stepping on Ewells lines and creating distracting stage business whenever
he was not speaking. Lahr was not wrong about the plays comedy or
the vaudeville-like nature of Didis and Gogos many canters. But he
insisted on viewing the play as Estragons. Rehearsals became increasingly
strained as Ewells frustration rose. In Schneiders recollection:
Bert had to dominate, and Bert had to get the laughs.
Bert would just not look at Tommy or listen to him. He
was never concerned with the scene or situation; he just
wanted Tommy to feed him the line so that he could get
a laugh out of his response. If Tommys line seemed to
be getting the laugh, he would fnd a way of topping it.
33

Much has been made of the conficts between Lahr and Schneider
in Miami. John Lahr called his fathers experience with Schneider a
study in misunderstanding.
34
The fact that Lahr was quite successful as
Estragon in the subsequent Broadway premiere is further evidence
that blame should be shared between both men for their breakdown in
communication.
The troubles with Lahr and Ewell were only part of the story.
Schneider was also having diffculties with Jack Smart as Pozzo and
32
33
Schneider, Entrances, 231. For Schneiders full account of the experience, see
pages 227-35.
34
John Lahr, Notes on a Cowardly Lion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), 263-4.
Charles Weidman as Lucky. Smart struggled repeatedly to integrate all
of Pozzos stage business and prop work smoothly into his performance.
His mistakes constantly interrupted rehearsals, to the frustration of all
involved. Weidman, a dancer with no acting experience, was wonderful
physically, but completely unable to get through Luckys think without
collapsing from stage fright.
35
By the time opening night arrived no one
held much hope for a smooth performance.
Amid performance preparations, Schneider mused on how to
position the play for an American audience. Despite his comprehension
of Godot in human terms, he wondered how American audiences would
receive it. What is universal and what American? he wrote, followed
by, How to transmute in American terms.
36
This was the frst Beckett
play ever to be performed for American audiences. Would the United
States, a country not directly devastated by the destruction of World War
II, understand the existential and nihilistic post-war mindset this Irish-
French playwright had experienced? While Becketts play poses questions
fundamental to the human experience, the lived experience of his post-war
European audiences was substantially different from that of American
audiences. Particularly outside of New York, where audiences were even
less likely to have seen new or non-realistic plays, the approaches to
introducing the show were paramount concern.
37
These hesitations were natural given the climate of American
theatre in the mid-ffties. The 195556 Broadway season was dominated
by musicals, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and socially realistic plays.
Theatre historian John Bell surveys American theatre in the decade
following the war and characterizes its dominant style as social realism
mixed with an intense introspection of the individual, a style typifed by
playwrights such as Tennessee Williams (The Glass Menagerie) and Arthur
Miller (All My Sons). Bell further asserts that during this era, Americans
embraced a sense of their own superiority for the frst time: the post-war
period was certainly the time when citizens of the United States began to
believe that theirs was the greatest country in the world.
38
Given this
35
Schneider, Entrances, 227-30.
36
37
Director Herbert Blau encountered similar skepticism when he frst worked
on the play with the Actors Workshop around the same time. He even raised with Beckett
his concern that the play was somehow un-American: see Blau, As If (Ann Arbor: Uni-
versity of Michigan Press, 2011), 220-221.
38
John Bell, American Drama in the Postwar Period, in Concise Companion to
Postwar American Literature and Culture, ed. Josephine G. Hendin (Malden: Blackwell, 2004),
110-113.
108 BIANCHINI
climate, it is easy to understand why Schneider was concerned with the
American response to Godot.
39

Of the many mistakes made by all parties leading up to opening
night, by far the most humorous was the decision to market the play to
Miami audiences as the Laugh Sensation of Two Continents.
40
Myerberg,
relying on the name recognition and comic reputation of his two stars,
packaged the play as a riotous comedy in order to attract crowds. Although
the play contains many funny moments, to represent it as a light-hearted
comedy is, at best, fairly misleading. Even more hyped were the plays stars,
whose names appeared in all capital letters on the cover of the playbillin
a larger font than the names of the author, play, director, or producer.
41
The productions biggest star, however, was the Coconut Grove
playhouse, which had been recently enlarged and refurbished. Waiting for
Godot would mark the theatres grand re-opening. The expansive foyer had
undergone an elaborate facelift, and it now included several tanks with live
goldfsh, a point that did not escape the reviewers attention. As the mink-
clad audience arrived, they lingered for over an hour in the foyer, drinking
and socializing. The actual performance, which started more than an hour
late, was of secondary importance.
The productions playbill reinforced the theatres importance by
using an image of its exterior on the cover, rather than any sort of image
related to the play. The inside material was devoted almost exclusively to
buzz about the re-opening. The only dramaturgical excerpt included
was short and full of inaccuracies. It claimed the play had had its world
premiere at the Thtre de Babylone in 1952 (it opened 5 January 1953),
and made the embarrassing gaffe of referring to two of the characters as
Wladimir and Ponzo.
42

Predictably, opening night, 3 January 1956, was a fasco. The
audience became restless after the frst ffteen minutes when it became
39
Harold Clurman made essentially the same point in his review of the Broad-
way premiere in The Nation: What is all this if not the concentrate in almost childlike im-
ages of the contemporary Europeanparticularly Frenchmood of despair, a distorted
mirror refection of the impasse and disarray of Europes present politics, ethic, and com-
mon way of life? If this play is generally diffcult for Americans to grasp as anything but
an exasperatingly crazy concoction, it is because there is no immediate point of reference
for it in the conscious life of our people. See Theatre, The Nation 182 (5 May 1956),
387-390.
40
Schneider, Entrances, 229.
41
Waiting for Godot (1956) Programs and Publicity Materials, Alan Schneider Pa-
pers Box 11, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego.
42
Ibid.
clear that a laugh sensation this was not. They started leaving before
intermission and continued to leave in droves. By the shows end, only
one-third of the house remained. The following morning there was a long
line at the box offce of dissatisfed patrons wanting their money back.
The reviews ranged from dismissive to downright hostile towards the play,
the playwright, the actors, and the director. Walter Winchell attacked both
the play and its participants, calling it vulgar and a great bore.
43
The
theatre itself, however, got raves.
44
Reporters from as far away as New
York were there to mark its opening; the Times listed the names of some of
the celebrity attendees, including Tennessee Williams and Joan Fontaine.
Becketts name did not appear anywhere in the article.
45

43
Quoted in Craig, 595, n.3.
44
Theatre is a Hit but Godot Isnt was the headline in the Miami Daily News.
See Craig, 593, n.4.
45
800-Seat Theatre is Opened in Miami, The New York Times, 5 January 1956.
Fig. 1. Cover of the Waiting for Godot Playbill, Coconut Groove Playhouse. Im-
age courtesy of Alan Schneider Papers, mss 103, Mandeville Special Collections
Library, University of California, San Diego.
110 BIANCHINI
Myerberg decided almost immediately, on 5 January, to close the
show in Miami.
46
The show limped through its two-week run. Given how
disappointing the entire experience had been, the decision to close early
came as something of a relief. In retrospect, Myerberg accepted his own
share of blame for what went wrong in Miami, admitting he worked too
hard to appeal to the broadest possible audience, and this ended up being
very misleading.
47

Embarrassed, Schneider wrote Beckett and recounted the fasco,
accepting full responsibility for the shows closing. Becketts generous
response has oft been quoted: Success and failure on the public level
never mattered much to me, in fact I feel much more at home with the
latter, having breathed deep of its vivifying air all my writing life up to the
last couple of years. He went on to reassure Schneider that he was in no
way to blame and even that he felt Schneider had succeeded better than
anyone else in stating [the plays] true nature.
48
This last sentence is the
most important. Schneiders production may not have been a commercial
or critical success, but Beckett believed that Schneiders interpretation (or
what little of it he was able to preserve) was closer than any previous
directors to his own vision for the play.
Myerberg did end up producing a Broadway production of Godot,
which opened in April of the same year. Retaining Lahr as Estragon, he
recast the other roles and hired a new director. Learning from his previous
mistakes, Myerberg completely retooled the plays marketing. This time, he
sent out a call for seventy thousand intellectuals to come support it,
49

thereby shifting the focus from the plays comic aspects to its philosophical
ones. The Broadway production ran for ffty-nine performances in the
spring of 1956. Lahrs performance was praised by all the major critics,
including Walter Kerr, Kenneth Tynan, and Brooks Atkinson, the opening-
night critic for the Times.
Although he had not seen it, Schneider felt certain that the Broad-
46
Sam Zolotow, Play by Beckett to Close on Road, The New York Times, 6
January 1956.
47
Lahr, Notes on a Cowardly Lion, 262. When Myerberg opened his Broadway pre-
miere that April, he freely admitted fault for the way the Miami production was positioned.
See Arthur Gelb, Wanted: Intellectuals, The New York Times, 15 April 1956, 117.
48
Beckett to Schneider, 11 January 1956, Harmon 8.
49
Arthur Gelb, Wanted: Intellectuals, The New York Times, 15 April 1956, 117.
See also James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (New York, Simon and
Schuster, 1996), 380. Myerberg also held open forums between the cast and audiences
after certain performances. See Forum on Godot Tuesday, The New York Times, 11 May
1956, 25 and Enoch Brater, The Essential Samuel Beckett (London: Thames and Hudson,
1989), 67.
way premiere of Waiting for Godot had not satisfed Becketts vision. Be-
tween 1956 and 1971 the play was performed across the country, including
Herbert Blaus storied 1957 production with the Actors Workshop in San
Francisco, best known for its performances before an audience of inmates
at San Quentin Prison.
50
Schneider himself directed a second production
of the play just three years later, at the Alley Theatre in Houston in 1959.
Many professional repertory companies throughout the country staged
their own productions, as did numerous colleges and universities. Henry
Sommerville calculates that Between 1956 and 1969 amateur perfor-
mances of Waiting for Godot were given in every state except Arkansas and
Alaska. On average, during each of these years, the play was performed by
North American amateurs in thirty-three cities spread across 18 states.
51

Yet New York City remained the one location where Godot did not appear
in a signifcant professional revival during this time.
Ironically, Godot had never been staged in the one place for which
it was best suited: off-Broadway. This was not due to any lack of effort
on Schneiders part. He longed to bring the play to New York audiences
and knew that off-Broadway was the right venue. After many false starts,
it would ultimately be ffteen years between the Miami fop and the off-
Broadway revival of 1971.
Te Of-Broadway Revival: Waiting for Godot, New York, 1971
Both Schneider and Barney Rosset were distressed that Myerberg had been
able to mount a Broadway production of Godot, but had no legal recourse
to challenge his contract.
52
Beckett found the matter disconcerting as well
and in 1957 transferred the control of licensing his plays for performance
to Grove Press.
53
Once Grove took control, Beckett charged both Ros-
set and Schneider equally with the responsibility of approving or denying
royalty requests, a move that essentially gave the two men a monopoly on
Beckett performance in this country for close to thirty years. This transfer
50
Martin Esslin opens his landmark book The Theatre of the Absurd, with a de-
scription of this production. See The Theatre of the Absurd, Third Edition (New York: Vin-
tage Books, 2004 [1961]), 19-28. Blaus production was also invited to represent the United
States at the Worlds Fair in Brussels in 1958 and they performed for six weeks in New
York prior to departing for Europe. Blau felt New York audiences were hostile towards
his company and called the run there a terrible disappointment. See Blau, The Impossible
Theatre (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), 236.
51
Quoted in Loren Glass, Counter-Culture Colophon: Grove Press, The Evergreen Re-
view, and the Incorporation of the Avant-Garde (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 70.
52
Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 380.
53
Beckett to Schneider, 16 April 1957 and 30 April 1957, Harmon, 13-14.
112 BIANCHINI
had enormous implications for Schneider as Becketts American director.
He was now able to retain much more control over artistic matters of
casting, design, and staging when negotiating with producers and theatre
owners. That control enabled him to correct many of the errors made in
Miami.
Determined to fnish the job on Godot, as he put it,
54
Schneider
began searching in the mid-sixties for producers to fnance a revival. Ref-
erences to an off-Broadway revival, or even a revival in conjunction with
some other sort of Beckett festival, start appearing in Schneiders letters to
Beckett as early as 1962, and recur at least once a year.
55

Schneider sensed that the time was right for a major revival of
this play. His correspondence from this period shows how many strang-
ersactors, students, teacherswere contacting him about Beckett and
about this proposed Godot, evidence that he was seen as a national author-
ity on Becketts work. He felded requests from graduate students who
wanted to observe or interview him, actors who wanted to be cast by
him, and teachers looking for more information for their classes.
56
He
remarked in several places that a revival offered the chance to bring Godot
to a new generation: The younger generation knew it; obviously the play
said something even more to them than it had to us a generation earlier.
57

A play that had seemed foreign and bizarre just ffteen years earlier now
spoke to a new generation.
These young adults had come of age amid the tumultuous events
of the late sixties. It is not surprising that a play that evoked the essential
uncertainty of life appealed to them in a way that had not appealed to
many in their parents generation. These young men and women often felt
disenfranchised by their government, unsettled by assassinations and vio-
lence, and devastated by the futility of the Vietnam War. In contrast to the
fundamentally optimistic narrative of growth and prosperity that charac-
terized the post-war ffties, the anomie of 1971 had a powerful resonance
with Didis and Gogos plight.
58
54
Schneider, No More Waiting. The New York Times, 31 January 1971, D1.
55
See letters from 1962-1970, Harmon.
56
Waiting for Godot (1971) Correspondence, 1970-1971, Alan Schneider Papers,
Box 24 Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego.
57
Alan Schneider, No More Waiting, D1.
58
Grove Press was often on the receiving end of this youthful enthusiasm
for Godot. Many readers wrote to the press seeking more information about the play
and playwright. Eager to promote Beckett to as wide an audience as possible, Grove
started publishing scholarship on Beckett and preparing leafets such as A Discussion
Guide for the Play Waiting for Godot, published in 1971, probably in conjunction with
By the late sixties, Schneider redoubled his efforts to fnd a pro-
ducer for Godot. But it would take two full years of planning before he was
fnally able to assemble the funding, theatre, designers, and actors. Corre-
spondence from 1969 reveals Schneiders frustration with the project. In
January 1970, he broke off negotiations with two producers, Jeffrey Knox
and Leslie Shenkel, whom he deemed unqualifed for the job. He wrote to
Rosset, It was only after I had all sorts of evidence that these guys were
unreliable that I decided not to go ahead. That particular show just means
too much to me: after 15 years of waiting to do it the way I believe Sam
would want it, I just could not take the chance of another fuckup (after
Myerbergs) that I could not control.
59
His letter, which ended negotia-
tions with the producers, alluded to differences over casting (an echo of
his Miami experience), and questioned their level of experience as well as
their ability to fund the production adequately.
60

Finally, in the fall of 1970 plans were set for the production. But
just as Schneider had secured a venue (Sheridan Square Playhouse), pro-
ducers (Mark Wright, Edgar Lansbury, and Joseph Beruh), and a cast, he
was waylaid by the 1970 off-Broadway strike.
61
The strike delayed rehears-
als until just after the New Year. In a New Years Day letter to Beckett,
Schneider conveyed his enthusiasm about the cast and the theatre, which
was ideally located in the heart of Greenwich Village.
62
Given the budget-
ary constraints, the entire production team (minus the cast) worked for
freea testament to the commitment of all involved.
The Sheridan Square Playhouse contained just fewer than two
hundred seats. Bill Ritman, a frequent collaborator on Beckett premieres,
was hired as set designer, and production photos show a sparse set with a
this revival. Their infuence complements and augments that of Schneiders produc-
tions. While Schneider was primarily interested in promoting Becketts plays theatrical-
ly, Grove was equally invested in promoting his plays as literature, and encouraged high
school and college students to study him as a literary fgure in addition to experiencing
his plays in performance. Although my focus in this article has been on Schneider, Bar-
ney Rosset and Grove Presss role cannot be overlooked. For more see Glass, 65-76.
59
Schneider to Rosset, 21 February 1970, Waiting for Godot (1971) Correspon-
dence 1970-1971, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 24 Mandeville Special Collections Library,
60
Schneider to Knox and Shenkel, 24 January 1970, Waiting for Godot (1971) Cor-
respondence 1970-1971, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 24 Mandeville Special Collections
Library, University of California, San Diego.
61
See Louis Calta, Off-Broadway Actors Go on Strike, The New York Times, 17
November 1970, 52.
62
Schneider to Beckett, 1 January 1971, Harmon, 240.
114 BIANCHINI
bare wood foor.
63
Ritmans barren set refected the placelessness evoked
by Becketts text. The stage was completely empty except for a small stick
of a tree, which stood slightly off stage center. The foor was made of
wooden boards, roughly six to nine inches wide, arranged in a central
hexagon with boards jutting off horizontally from each of the six sides.
64

The hexagonal pattern of the wood foor refected the plays central theme
of searching. The hexagon itself gave the impression of circularity, em-
phasizing the futility of the search, while the boards extending from it
signifed the many dead ends of Didi and Gogos attempts to pass the
time while giving the impression that they exist.
65
63
The set photos from this production are very similar to the photos of the set
from the 1959 Alley Theatre production, although Ritman was not the designer there. This
suggests the design was fundamentally an articulation of Schneiders vision.
64
Waiting for Godot (1971) Photos, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 25, Mandeville
65
Estragons line: We always fnd something, eh Didi, to give us the impression
we exist? Samuel Beckett, Complete Dramatic Works, 64.
Fig. 2. Production still from 1971. Revival with Pozzo, Vladimir, and Estragon as Lucky
looks on. Note Ritmans sparse design and position of the foorboards. Image by Alix
Jeffry, coutersy of the Harvard Theatre Collection, Harvard University.
Schneider had been evolving towards this scenic spareness with
each subsequent return to the play. From the cluttered and over-designed
set in Miami, he eliminated many of the realistic elements in his 1959 set
in Houston, and fnally arrived at the simplicity and emptiness of this
almost-bare stage in 1971.
66

The original cast featured Henderson Forsythe as Vladimir.
Schneider knew him well and had worked with him on several produc-
tions, including Becketts Krapps Last Tape (1960), which he took over
from Donald Davis when that productions run was extended. The rest of
the cast included Paul B. Price as Estragon, Edward Winter as Pozzo, An-
thony Holland as Lucky, and David Jay as the Boy. Rehearsals proceeded
smoothly. Schneider had a cast of willing actors and designers with whom
he had worked before (and who were working for free), and a theatre that
suited both the play and the audience well. Previews began on 26 January,
with an opening night of 3 February 1971. Press releases for the opening
emphasized that this was the plays frst off-Broadway production. They
also quoted Schneiders assessment of how Godot had evolved since its
opening: The world and times have fnally caught up with the play.
67

The productions critical success was the frst sign of its signif-
cance. Schneider wrote Beckett after opening night that the reviews were
ninety percent excellent, an occurrence almost unheard of in New York.
68

Clive Barnes, writing for the Times, echoed Schneiders statement from the
publicity materials, claiming that the times had caught up with Becketts
genius. He praised Schneider for his coaching of the actors performance,
his understanding of the texts rhythm, and his ability to make active and
dramatically compelling a play about something utterly inactivethe act
of waiting. Finally, he mentioned the stark placelessness of Ritmans
set as having helped the production, and its central concept, infnitely.
69
Many reviewers alluded to the Broadway Godot, Bert Lahrs per-
formance as Estragon, or both. Reading the reviews collectively, the bur-
66
There is one hiccup in this evolutionhis 1961 made-for-television Godot had
a lavish look, with abundant, rolling hills and a long, winding road leading up toward bil-
lowing clouds. Jonathan Kalb describes this set as cartoon-like (See Beckett in Performance,
27) and pitted against the emptiness of the 1971 set, it seems wildly out of place. Yet the
transfer from stage to screen partly accounts for the television sets realism, given that
television and flm are very literal mediums.
67
Waiting for Godot (1971) Publicity Materials, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 25,
68
Schneider to Beckett, 8 February 1971, Harmon, 245.
69
Clive Barnes, Theatre: Waiting for Godot Revived, The New York Times (4 Feb-
ruary 1971) in Waiting for Godot (1971) Reviews, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 25, Mandeville
116 BIANCHINI
den of comparison between the two productions is instantly clear; the
revival became, in some ways, a referendum on the Broadway production.
Schneider referred to the way Lahrs interpretation lingered in the public
consciousness: The myth of his performance is very widespread.
70
Wal-
ter Kerr compared the two directly. Originally a fan of Berghof s produc-
tion and Lahrs Estragon, Kerr wrote that he now felt he had misunder-
stood the play and that Lahrs interpretation was wrong. Lahrs approach
to Estragons stage business, such as taking off his shoe, eating his carrot,
was to relish it and use it to provide relief from the waiting. Kerr wrote
that he now realized that relief is not the point.Giving a man what he
wants gets him no nearer what he wants.
71
The fact that Kerr, writing for
the most infuential paper in the city, felt that this production changed his
understanding of Becketts best known play speaks to the productions
signifcance.
Schneider sat down with Bert Lahrs son, John Lahr, for a flmed
conversation about the production on 21 May 1971. Lahr was just shy of
thirty at the time and at the beginning of his career as a writer and theatre
critic.
72
They discussed at length the question of balance between the two
main characters, and Schneider explained that while Vladimir articulates
the essential thematic statement of the playEstragon is equally impor-
tant. Lahr fought him on this, arguing for Estragon as the more comic
and the more tragic of the two fgures, once again raising the specter of
the Miami and Broadway premieres, and his fathers performance. He also
criticized Schneiders direction on several accounts. First, he felt Didi and
Gogo were too playful and energetic. Second, he told Schneider, I want-
ed to see more of your interpretation of the play. Schneider responded,
You saw my interpretation. You just wanted a different interpretation.
73

Lahr was not an established critic at the time of this conversation,
yet he lobbed at Schneider the familiar critique that his direction lacked
interpretation. Schneiders riposte was not merely fippant. As he ex-
plained, he did interpret the play, and his interpretation was based on bal-
ance between those two forces (Vladimir and Estragon) and on a sense
of eternal, constant, unredeemed, unfulflled waiting on as many human
70
Schneider to Beckett, 8 February 1971, Harmon, 246.
71
Walter Kerr, Drama as We Have Known It Is Terminated, The New York
Times (14 February 1971), D18.
72
He became the senior drama critic for The New Yorker in 1992 and is the author
of numerous books.
73
Conversation between Alan Schneider and John Lahr, 21 May 1971, Theatre
on Film and Tape Archive, Billy Rose Theatre Collection at Lincoln Center, New York
Public Library.
levels as possible.
74
These concepts, the balancing of opposites and the
search for certainty, are both clearly articulated in Schneiders notebooks.
When Lahr says he did not see enough of Schneiders interpretation,
he is alluding, in part, to the bias against directors who create textually
faithful interpretations, and who are seen as lacking vision. Yet Schnei-
ders interpretation, as evidenced by this production, was changing the
way audiences and critics understood the play. So his work as interpreter
was visionary.
In a much later appraisal, Jonathan Kalb echoed Lahrs criticism
that the production was too active. Viewing the production on tape, Kalb
labeled the acting and directing unexplainably enthusiastic and energet-
icwith no emotional basis.
75
My own viewing of the archived perfor-
mance (recorded on 23 February 1971) led me to a different conclusion.
While Vladimir and Estragon were certainly lively and many bits were
comic, these were balanced by the many moments of stillness and con-
nection. I found Henderson and Price to be wonderfully bonded as a pair.
There is a charming fall into an embrace when they greet each other at the
top of Act II, and the moments of quiet after the Boy exits in each act
provided multiple opportunities for them to connect both physically and
emotionally. Schneiders skill at balancing comedy with pathos was again
on display.
76

Viewing the performance on tape forty years later gives the view-
er only a hint of what the live audiences experienced. The quality of the
recording archived at Lincoln Center is poor, with signifcant sound dis-
tortion and black-and-white images that are diffcult to see clearly. Yet my
reactions to the performance parallel those of contemporary reviewers.
Clive Barness and Walter Kerrs reviews were public endorsements of the
production, but Schneider received some private accolades as well.
A personal note found its way into Schneiders papers from
Brooks Atkinson, who was now the former head theatre critic at the Times.
The two had become friendly over the years, and Schneider personally
solicited Atkinsons opinion on the production. You said the other night
that you would like to know what I thought of your Godot, Atkinson
wrote. I thought and I think it is reborn. I did not know that it was so
lively and witty and coherent. I still dont know what Godot means but
on the stage it gives an impression of being the statement of a coherent
74
Ibid.
75
Jonathan Kalb, Beckett in Performance (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1989), 30.
76
Waiting for Godot, 1971, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, Billy Rose Theatre
Collection at Lincoln Center, New York Public Library.
118 BIANCHINI
theme by characters with agile minds.
77
Atkinson echoes Kerrs sense that
this production, not merely stellar in its own right, was powerful enough
to change the way he understood the play, with the further implication
that his original understanding was wrong. Atkinsons letter goes on to praise
the actors performances, particularly the sense of bond between Didi and
Gogo, which give the play warmth, which was missing from the earlier
production. At the end of the letter, Atkinson calls this one of Schneiders
fnest performances.
78
This kind of praise, that Schneiders production changed the
way both Atkinson and Kerr fundamentally understood the play, is usu-
ally reserved for the auteur directors whose re-imagination of a clas-
sic text transforms the way audiences conceive of that text. This is what
critics said, for example, of Andrei Serbans all-white Cherry Orchard in
1977, when he stripped the naturalism from Chekhovs setting and placed
the characters in an abstract and non-realistic space.
79
What is signifcant
about Schneiders Godot revival is that his textually faithful interpretation
of Becketts text accomplished the same thing: he allowed critics, in this
case the same critics who reviewed the play on Broadway, to see a now
familiar play in a completely new way.
Critical acclaim translated into ticket sales and the show did not
close until October after almost three hundred performances. Although
it is risky to attempt an assessment of the audiences reception to the
production, one can extrapolate some of their enthusiasm from both the
favorable reviews and the long run. Between the new, younger audience
members Schneider referred to in his letters, and the older, prominent
critics assertions that this production was closer to Becketts text than any
previous Godot, this revival represents a signifcant moment in American
Beckett performance history.
80

The only aspect of the production that did not go smoothly was
the constant need to replace actors, and which is a practical reality for any
off-Broadway run of more than a few weeks. Actors frequently left the
77
Brooks Atkinson to Alan Schneider, 15 February 1971, Waiting for Godot (1971)
Correspondence, Alan Schneider Papers, Box 24, Mandeville Special Collections Library,
78
Ibid.
79
See Clive Barnes, Stage: A Cherry Orchard that Celebrates Genius, The New
York Times, 18 February 1977 or Walter Kerr, Stage View: A Daring, Perverse, and Deeply
Original Cherry Orchard, The New York Times, 27 February 1977.
80
Beckett had eye surgery the month the production opened which partially
explains why there are no letters to Schneider about the plays opening and initial success.
See Knowlson, 513-516. He did reply that he would be delighted to autograph books for
the staff and cast in a letter dated 14 March 1971, Harmon 250.
show when offered more lucrative work on Broadway, or in flm and tele-
vision. By 20 March, less than two months after opening, only Henderson
Forsythe remained of the original cast and he too would soon be gone.
Each role was recast more than once during the ten-month run.
Of all the actor replacements, the most noteworthy was the 28
July succession of Tom Ewell as Vladimir, the original Vladimir from Mi-
ami. Ewells addition to the cast only reprised reviewers references to the
original Godots of both Broadway and Miami. A Times feature that ran in
August helped revive audience interest and explained Ewells long history
with the play.
81
In his second chance as Vladimir, Ewell was reunited with
Schneider and was able to play the role the way both men originally in-
tended. He stayed with the production for the rest of its run, his presence
added a hint of irony to the triumph of Schneiders new Godot over the
ghosts of the Broadway premiere.
There are many reasons American audiences responded so
differently to the Godot revival than they did to the American premiere.
While Schneiders fundamental vision for the play did not change,
his ability to execute that vision changed signifcantly. By 1971 he had
collaborated with Beckett for over ffteen years and directed six American
premieres of his works.
82
He was able to control and oversee the casting,
design, publicity, selection of venue, and timing of the revival in ways
he had not been able to before. These details are not just logistical; they
also represent the acumen with which Schneider understood not only the
American theatre but also the cultural change in zeitgeist that allowed for
such a different response. By 1971 Waiting for Godot was not a new or
unfamiliar play. Critics, and many audience members, came to it thinking
they understood it already. Yet it was the way Schneider directed it, and the
resonance of his interpretation for those early seventies audiences, that
shifted the way many perceived this familiar play.
A director committed to staging a textually faithful interpretation
of a plays text is a master of subtlety. It is easy for the novice viewer
to miss what is so innovative about the directors workso seamlessly
does it blend with the plays text that the directors hand becomes nearly
invisible. Particularly when contrasted with other major revivals of classic
texts that fundamentally disrupt that works performance history through
bold visual choices or blatant textual infdelities, Schneiders skill may be
harder to detect still. Yet, Schneiders visionary staging of Waiting for Godot
81
Ira Peck, At Last, Hes Shaken the Seven-Year Itch, The New York Times, 29
August 1971, D1.
82
One of these was a world premiere, the off-Broadway production of Happy
Days in 1961.
120 BIANCHINI
is a testament to the creativity inherent in the work of a playwrights
director and the legacy that it bequeaths to its audiences and successive
interpreters. Visionary directing and textual fdelity are not mutually
exclusive. It is past time for Schneider to receive recognition for his
achievements, not just as Becketts preferred American director, but also
as an inspired interpreter who paved the way for how Becketts plays were
understood in this country.

CONTRIBUTORS
Natka Bianchini is an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the department
of Fine Arts at Loyola University Maryland where she teaches theatre his-
tory, special topics seminars on dramatic literature and performance, and
directing. Her monograph, Samuel Becketts Theatre in America: The Legacy of
Alan Schneider as Becketts American Director, is under contract with Palgrave
Macmillan Press and will appear in early 2015. Her writing has also ap-
peared in Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, The Beckett Circle, and the edited
collection Samuel Becketts Endgame, published by Rodopi in 2007. She is
the vice president and conference planner for the Edward Albee Society.
In addition to her scholarship and teaching, she has also directed plays by
Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Shakespeare, Aristophanes, Lee Blessing,
Sarah Ruhl, Diana Son and others. She received her Ph.D. in Drama from
Tufts University in 2007.
Kevin Byrne is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hunter College.
Mary McAvoy is an independent scholar living and working in Chicago,
IL. She received her Ph.D. in Theatre and Drama at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 2013. Her research focuses on radical and experi-
mental theatre with, by, and for young people in the United States and
Russia. Her book project, Rehearsing Revolutions: Radical and Experimental
Drama Pedagogies in United States Labor Colleges, 1920-1940, examines drama
courses and productions in communist and socialist labor colleges during
the interwar period. She also works with young people as a theatre educa-
tor and teaching artist.
Ahmed S. M. Mohammed is an Associate Professor of Drama and The-
atre, and acting Chair of the Department of English, Faculty of Arts,
Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt. He has published on American drama in
The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Studies in Literature and Language,
and edited and reviewed articles for Theory and Practice in Language Studies
and The Online International Journal of Arts and Humanities, and the Journal
of Human Science, Bahrain University. He has taught drama and theatre at
several universities in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Jeffrey Ullom is Director of Undergraduate Theater Studies in the De-
partment of Theater at Case Western Reserve University and teaches the-
atre history, dramaturgy, and Introduction to Theatre. His research in-
122
terests have focused on contemporary American theatre, especially new
play development in the regional theatre circuit and on Broadway. His
frst book The Humana Festival: A History of New Plays at Actors Theatre of
Louisville (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008) charts the growth of
the nations leading new play festival and its ability to endure economic,
administrative, and artistic challenges. In addition to publishing work in
Theatre History Studies, Contemporary Drama, Theatre Topics, Studies in Musical
Theatre, Theatre Journal and the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Ul-
lom also contributed a chapter to Angels in the American Theater: Patrons,
Patronage, and Philanthropy (edited by Robert A. Schanke). His newest book,
Americas First Regional Theatre: A History of the Cleveland Play House, is being
published by Palgrave Macmillan this year.
martin e. segal theatre center publications
Please make payments in US dollars payable to: The Graduate Center Foundation, Inc.
Mail Checks or money orders to: The Circulation Manager, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center,
The CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY10016-4309
Visit our website at: www.segalcenter.org Contact: mestc@gc.cuny.edu or 212-817-1868
Quick Change: Theatre Essays and Translations
Written and translated by Daniel Gerould
Quick Change is full of surprises. It is a
nicely seasoned tossed-salad of a book
concocted by an ironic cookmeister with
a sometimes wild imagination. And how
many quick changes has he wrought
in this book of 28 pieces. The writings
range from translations of letters and
plays to short commentaries to fully-
developed essays. The topics bounce
from Mayakovsky to Shakespeare, Kantor
to Lunacharsky, Herodotus to Geroulds
own play, Candaules, Commissioner,
Gorky to Grotowski, Shaw to Mroek,
Briusov to Witkacy. From ancient Greeks to
Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe,
from pre-revolutionary Russia to the
Soviet Union, from France and England
to Poland. From an arcane discussion of
medicine in theatre a libertine puppet
play from 19th century France.

Richard Schechner
Quick Change: Theatre Essays and Translations, a volume of previously uncollected
writings by Daniel Gerould from Comparative Literature, Modern Drama, PAJ, TDR,
SEEP, yale/theater and other journals. It includes essays about Polish, Russian and
French theatre, theories of melodrama and comedy, historical and medical simula-
tions, Symbolist drama, erotic puppet theatre, comedie rosse at the Grand Guignol,
Witkacys Doubles, Villiers de LIsle Adam, Mrozek, Battleship Potemkin, and other
topics. Translations include Andrzej Bursas Count Cagliostros Animals, Henry Mon-
niers The Student and the Tart, and Oscar Mtniers Little Bugger and Meat-Ticket.
Price US $20.00 plus shipping ($3 within the USA, $6 international)
Claudio Tolcachirs Timbre 4
Translated and with an introduction by Jean Graham-Jones
Claudio Tolcachirs Timbre 4 is one of the most excit-
ing companies to emerge from Buenos Airess vibrant
contemporary theatre scene. The Coleman Familys
Omission and Third Wing, the two plays that put Tim-
bre 4 on the international map, are translated by Jean
Graham-Jones and Elisa Legon.
Playwrights Before the Fall:
Eastern European Drama in Times of Revolution
Edited by Daniel Gerould.
Playwrights Before the Fall: Eastern European Drama
in Times of Revolution contains translations of Por-
trait by Sawomir Mroek (PL); Military Secret by Duan
Jovanovi (SI); Chicken Head by Gyrgy Spir (HU); Sor-
row, Sorrow, Fear, the Pit and the Rope by Karel Steiger-
wald (CZ) ; and Horses at the Window by Matei Viniec
(RO).
Price US $15.00 each plus shipping ($3 within the USA, $6 international)
Barcelona Plays: A Collection of New Works by
Catalan Playwrights
Translated and edited by Marion Peter Holt and Sharon G. Feldman
The new plays in this collection represent outstanding
playwrights of three generations. Benet i Jornet won
his rst drama award in 1963, when was only twenty-
three years old, and in recent decades he has become
Catalonias leading exponent of thematically chal-
lenging and structurally inventive theatre. His plays
have been performed internationally and translated
into fourteen languages, including Korean and Arabic.
Sergi Belbel and Llusa Cunill arrived on the scene
in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with distinctive and
provocative dramatic voices. The actor-director-play-
wright Pau Mir is a member of yet another generation
that is now attracting favorable critical attention.
Josep M. Benet i Jornet, born in Barcelona, is the
author of more than forty works for the stage and has
been a leading contributor to the striking revitalization
of Catalan theatre in the post-Franco era. Fleeting, a
compelling tragedy-within-a-play, and Stages,
with its monological recall of a dead and unseen
protagonist, rank among his most important plays.
They provide an introduction to a playwright whose
inventive experiments in dramatic form and treatment
of provocative themes have made him a major gure in
contemporary European theatre.
Josep M. Benet i Jornet: Two Plays
Translated by Marion Peter Holt
Czech Plays: Seven New Works
Edited by Marcy Arlin, Gwynn MacDonald, and Daniel Gerould
Czech Plays: Seven New Works is the rst English-
language anthology of Czech plays written after
the 1989 Velvet Revolution. These seven works
explore sex and gender identity, ethnicity and
violence, political corruption, and religious taboos.
Using innovative forms and diverse styles, they
tackle the new realities of Czech society brought on
by democracy and globalization with characteristic
humor and intelligence.
Jan Fabre Books:
I am a Mistake - 7 Works for the Theatre
The Servant of Beauty - 7 Monologues
Flemish-Dutch theatre artist Jan Fabre has produced
works as a performance artist, theatre maker, choreog-
rapher, opera maker, playwright, and visual artist. Our
two Fabre books include: I am a Mistake (2007),
Etant Donnes (2000), Little Body on the Wall (1996),
Je suis sang (2001), Angel of Death (2003) and others.
Jan Fabre: Servant of Beauty
and I am a Mistake - 7 Works for the Theatre
Edited and foreword by Frank Hentschker.
roMANIA After 2000
Edited by Saviana Stanescu and Daniel Gerould
Translation editors: Saviana Stanescu and Ruth Margraff
This volume represents the first anthology of new
Romanian Drama published in the United States
and introduces American readers to compelling
playwrights and plays that address resonant issues
of a post-totalitarian society on its way toward
democracy and a new European identity. includes
the plays: Stop The Tempo by Gianina Carbunariu,
Romania. Kiss Me! by Bogdan Georgescu, Vitamins by
Vera Ion, Romania 21 by tefan Peca, and Waxing West
by Saviana Stanescu.
This publication was produced in collaboration with
the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and
Bucharest.
BAiT epitomizes true international theatrical
collaboration, bringing together four of the most
important contemporary playwrights from Buenos
Aires and pairing them with four cutting-edge US-
based directors and their ensembles. Throughout a
period of one year, playwrights, translator, directors,
and actors worked together to deliver four English-
language world premieres at Performance Space 122
in the fall of 2006.
Plays include: Women Dreamt Horses by Daniel
Veronese; A Kingdom, A Country or a Wasteland, In
the Snow by Lola Arias; Ex-Antwone by Federico Len;
Panic by Rafael Spregelburd. BAiT is a Performance
Space 122 Production, an initiative of Saln Volcn,
with the support of Instituto Cervantes and the
Consulate General of Argentina in New York.
Buenos Aires in Translation
Translated and Edited by Jean Graham-Jones
Witkiewicz: Seven Plays
Translated and Edited by Daniel Gerould
This volume contains seven of Witkiewiczs most
important plays: The Pragmatists, Tumor Brainiowicz,
Gyubal Wahazar, The Anonymous Work, The Cuttlefish,
Dainty Shapes and Hairy Apes, and The Beelzebub
Sonata, as well as two of his theoretical essays,
Theoretical Introduction and A Few Words About
the Role of the Actor in the Theatre of Pure Form.
Witkiewicz . . . takes up and continues the vein of dream
and grotesque fantasy exemplified by the late
Strindberg or by Wedekind; his ideas are closely
paralleled by those of the surrealists and Antonin
Artaud which culminated in the masterpieces of the
dramatists of the Absurd. . . . It is high time that this
major playwright should become better known in the
English-speaking world. Martin Esslin
Hugo Claus is the foremost contemporary writer of
Dutch language theatre, poetry, and prose. Flemish
by birth and upbringing, Claus is the author of some
ninety plays, novels, and collections of poetry. He is
renowned as an enfant terrible of the arts throughout
Europe. From the time he was afliated with the
international art group, COBRA, to his liaison with
pornographic lm star Silvia Kristel, to the celebration
of his novel, The Sorrow of Belgium, Claus has
careened through a career that is both scandal-ridden
and formidable. Claus takes on all the taboos of his
times.
Four Works for the Theatre by Hugo Claus
Translated and Edited by David Willinger
Theatre Research Resources in New York City
Sixth Edition, 2007
Editor: Jessica Brater, Senior Editor: Marvin Carlson
Theatre Research Resources in New York City is the
most comprehensive catalogue of New York City
research facilities available to theatre scholars. Within
the indexed volume, each facility is briefly described
including an outline of its holdings and practical
matters such as hours of operation. Most entries
include electronic contact information and web
sites. The listings are grouped as follows: Libraries,
Museums, and Historical Societies; University and
College Libraries; Ethnic and Language Associations;
Theatre Companies and Acting Schools; and Film and
Other.
This bibliography is intended for scholars, teachers,
students, artists, and general readers interested in
the theory and practice of comedy. The keenest minds
have been drawn to the debate about the nature of
comedy and attracted to speculation about its theory
and practice. For all lovers of comedy Comedy: A
Bibliography is an essential guide and resource,
providing authors, titles, and publication data for over
a thousand books and articles devoted to this most
elusive of genres.
Comedy: A Bibliography
Editor: Meghan Duffy, Senior Editor: Daniel Gerould
Four Plays From North Africa
Translated and edited by Marvin Carlson
This volume contains four modern plays from the
Maghreb: Abdelkader Alloulas The Veil and Fatima
Gallaires House of Wives, both Algerian, Jalila Baccars
Araberlin from Tunisia, and Tayeb Saddikis The Folies
Berbers from Morocco.
As the rich tradition of modern Arabic theatre has
recently begun to be recognized by the Western theatre
community, an important area within that tradition is
still under-represented in existing anthologies and
scholarship. That is the drama from the Northwest of
Africa, the region known in Arabic as the Maghreb.
This volume contains four plays based on the Oedipus
legend by four leading dramatists of the Arab world.
Tawq Al-Hakims King Oedipus, Ali Ahmed Bakathirs
The Tragedy of Oedipus, Ali Salims The Comedy
of Oedipus, and Walid Ikhlasis Oedipus as well as
Al-Hakims preface to his Oedipus on the subject of
Arabic tragedy, a preface on translating Bakathir by
Dalia Basiouny, and a general introduction by the
editor.
An awareness of the rich tradition of modern Arabic
theatre has only recently begun to be felt by the
Western theatre community, and we hope that this
collection will contribute to that growing awareness.
The Arab Oedipus
Edited by Marvin Carlson
The Heirs of Molire
Translated and Edited by Marvin Carlson
This volume contains four representative French
comedies of the period from the death of Molire to
the French Revolution: The Absent-Minded Lover
by Jean-Franois Regnard, The Conceited Count by
Philippe Nricault Destouches, The Fashionable
Prejudice by Pierre Nivelle de la Chausse, and The
Friend of the Laws by Jean-Louis Laya. Translated in
a poetic form that seeks to capture the wit and spirit
of the originals, these four plays suggest something
of the range of the Molire inheritance, from comedy
of character through the highly popular sentimental
comedy of the mid-eighteenth century, to comedy that
employs the Molire tradition for more contemporary
political ends.
This volume contains four of Pixrcourts most
important melodramas: The Ruins of Babylon or Jafar
and Zaida, The Dog of Montargis or The Forest of
Bondy, Christopher Columbus or The Discovery of the
New World, and Alice or The Scottish Gravediggers,
as well as Charles Nodiers Introduction to the 1843
Collected Edition of Pixrcourts plays and the two
theoretical essays by the playwright, Melodrama,
and Final Reections on Melodrama.
Pixrcourt furnished the Theatre of Marvels with
its most stunning efects, and brought the classic
situations of fairground comedy up-to-date. He
determined the structure of a popular theatre which
was to last through the 19th century.
Hannah Winter, The Theatre of Marvels
Pixrcourt: Four Melodramas
Translated and Edited by Daniel Gerould & Marvin Carlson

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