I came to read American plays much later than my reading of British plays which I have sampled from the Elizabethan Age till the late twentieth century) and modern European plays. So I have got some new insights which I am sharing here.
One might even say that there was hardly any playwriting of note in America before the 20th century – Royall Tyler’s ‘The Contrast’ in 1780s is considered to be the first play (it had the form of a Farce) that had the Yankee character and lampooned the abiding proclivity of a part of American aristocracy of imitating the British manners. To be sure there was lot of theatre in America with figures like William Dunlap and David Belasco – indeed the latter, known as Bishop of Broadway, staged no less than 200 different plays. But even with their grandiose settings they had nothing distinctive to speak of the American character. Thus drama in America, had evolved as a performative art but not as literature. Musicals, farces, vaudevilles were common and so were nationalistic and melodramatic plays. Staging of successful plays from Britain and the continent, like the French Well-made play were common. And of course if there was nothing to take, there was always Shakespeare to fall back on.
All this began to change because of developments in Europe itself in the second half of the nineteenth century. Darwin’s 1858 ‘Origin of Species’ initially and a little later the coming of Marx gave birth to different kind of drama in Europe itself. Europe had Emile Zola, pioneering what came to be known as Naturalism, and in Norway, Henrik Ibsen burst on the scene with great plays in the mould of what came to be known as Realism. Ibsen’s greatest admirer was the then uncelebrated Irishman moving in London circles, George Bernard Shaw, who is an 1894 essay, which has become a classic of sorts, hailed Ibsen as the greatest after Shakespeare – indeed in his characteristic Shavian humour he claimed Shakespeare was now a thing of the past. Shaw himself gave great plays for next several decades.
But to my mind, as far as American drama is concerned, an even more important role was played by the Swedish playwright August Stindberg, who traversed two different kinds of dramatic trajectories – one was of Ibsenian Realism and the other inspired chiefly by the new kind of art movement on the continent, was that of the dramatic Expressionism. If one has to describe Expressionism in drama in one sentence, I would say it chiefly relies on overstatement or understatement as opposed to the photographic verisimilitude of ‘Realism’ and depiction of characters as ‘types’ than ‘individuals’.
There had been other stupendous practioners of Expressionist playwriting in Europe like the German dramatist Georg Kaiser and the Czech playwright Karel Capek (I would commend anyone to read his Kaiser’s ‘Morning to Midnight’) and Capek’s fascinating RuR (which gave the world the word ‘Robot’, something I feel is not widely known.)
Strindberg caught the fancy of the young Eugene O’Neill who through his family vocation was part of travelling theatre in America – indeed he was born in a hotel and died in one. His father had played a role in the dramatic adaptation of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ some 4000 times – one wonders whether anyone else has done a single role more times. O’ Neill started with the offbeat group, the Provincetown Players and while he wrote a large number of plays I am most marvelled by his first two Expressionist dramas – ‘The Emperor Jones’ and ‘The Hairy Ape’, both in early 1920s. It would not be wrong to say that American drama with its own distinctive character started only with Eugene O’Neill. This registered the notice of the Stockholm pundits and till date he is the only American playwright to receive the Nobel Prize (in 1936). His last triumph came posthumously with ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ which got him his fourth Pulitzer.
But expressionist plays are best seen than read, and having no such opportunity, I have read more on O’ Neill’s plays than the plays per se. For the pleasure of reading I would rather commend the the other two of what is often referred to as the great American triumvirate – Tenesse Williams and Arthur Miller. I find William’s ‘The Glass Menagerie’ deeply moving. If one has to read a single American play, probably one can choose this Though considered an Avant Garde play, it is an easy read. It has eminently watchable cinematic adaptations too – I would commend one featuring Kirk Douglas.
Williams repeated his success of the Menagerie a few times more – particularly with ‘The Streetcart named Desire’ which was staged with the then virtually unknown Marlon Brando, and ‘Cat on the Hot Tin Ròof’. I find Tenessee Williams personal life also to be moving. – his deep care for his incapacitated sister Rose (which served as the model for the character of Laura in Menagerie), his troubled and tormented life, and his philanthropy.
Arthur Miller of course is most known for his ‘Death of a Salesman’ but one can also read his controversial play ‘All My Sons’.
Besides, the celebrated triumvirate, at least two more playwrights need to be mentioned for their impact. But before going to them I would mention the supremely talented African American woman playwright Lorainne Hansberry, and her play ‘ A Raisin in the Sun’. This sterling talent’s luminous possibilities were tragically cut short at the age of 34 due to cancer.
But it is some consolation that the burden of showcasing the problems of the African-Americans was taken up by August Wilson who is most known for his ‘Pittsburgh Cycle ‘plays. Wilson’s legacy in turn has been taken up in earnest by Denzel Washington who is making serious efforts towards bringing Wilson’s works to stage and screen.
The last name I would mention is that of Thornton Wilder who also wrote novels and screenplays beside drama. It came as a pleasant surprise to me that he was one of the screenwriters of one of my favourite Hitchcock fims – the 1943 work ‘Shadow of Doubt’, a film which he considered his greatest (though many including me regard ‘Vertigo’ as his finest. Satyajit Ray considered ‘Rear Window’ as Hitch’s best work, while a popular vote will any day overwhelmingly choose the 1960 film ‘Psycho’ which Hitch (he was film world’s Bernard Shaw) merely regarded as a work ot humour and expressed surprise (or at any rate pretended to) at the reception it got.