Richard Wattenberg | Portland State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Richard Wattenberg
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY is a series devoted to the best of theatre/pe... more PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY is a series devoted to the best of theatre/performance scholarship currently available, accessible, and free of jargon. It strives to include a wide range of topics, from the more traditional to those performance forms that in recent years have helped broaden the understanding of what theatre as a category might include (from forms as diverse as the circus and burlesque to street buskers, stage magic, and musical theatre, among many others). Although historical, critical, or analytical studies are of special interest, more theoretical projects, if not the dominant thrust of a study, but utilized as important underpinning or as a historiographical or analytical method of exploration, are also of interest. Textual studies of drama or other types of less traditional performance texts are also germane to the series if placed in their cultural, historical, social, or political and economic context. There is no geographical focus for this series, and works of excellence of a diverse and international nature, including comparative studies, are sought. The editor of the series is Don B. Wilmeth (Emeritus, Brown University), PhD, University of Illinois, who brings to the series over a dozen years as editor of a book series on American theatre and drama, in addition to his own extensive experience as an editor of books and journals. He is the author of several award-winning books and has received numerous career achievement awards, including one for sustained excellence in editing from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2011
The appeal of plays dealing with frontier western materials for first-class New York theater audi... more The appeal of plays dealing with frontier western materials for first-class New York theater audiences an appeal that was evidenced in the 1905–1906 theater season by the outstanding successes of Royle’s The Squaw Man and Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West continued into the 1906–1907 season. Burns Mantle and Garrison Sherwood list more than one hundred productions for the 1906–1907 season, and of these, four of the seven longest-running productions dealt with the frontier West. The four include: William Vaughn Moody’s The Great Divide, which opened at the Princess Theatre on October 3, 1906, and ran for 238 performances; Rachel Crothers’s The Three of Us, which opened at the Madison Square Theatre on October 17, 1906, and had a run of 227 performances; David Belasco and Richard Walton Tully’s The Rose of the Rancho, another of Belasco’s spectacularly mounted productions, which opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 27, 1906, and ran for 240 performances; and Pioneer Days, “a spectacular drama in three scenes by Carroll Fleming,” which opened at the New York Hippodrome on November 28, 1906, for a run of 288 performances.1 The Rose of the Rancho was not meant to be as broad a spectacle as Pioneer Days, but Belasco’s play abounded in the theatrical wizardry that made him such a success at the turn of the century.
Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and Da... more Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West, which opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 14, 1905, were among the most successful Broadway-style plays of the 1905–1906 theater season. According to the information on New York productions for that theater season, compiled by Garrison P. Sherwood for Burns Mantle’s The Best Plays of 1899–1909, The Squaw Man, which had an initial run of 222 performances,1 and The Girl of the Golden West, which had an initial run of 224 performances,2 were among the five longest-running productions in a season that included over a hundred entries. The other three long-running shows were Charles Klein’s incredibly successful four-act play The Lion and the Mouse (686 performances), the Hippodrome musical extravaganza A Society Circus (596 performances), and the legendary production of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, starring Maude Adams (223 performances).3 Of the five, Royle’s and Belasco’s plays both frontier plays had the most in common. The success of these two works indicates not only their authors’ skills but also the general appeal of the frontier play for 1905 Broadway theater audiences.
Modern Drama, Sep 1, 1998
Luis Valdez's approach to theatre production and dramaturgy has changed considerably since hi... more Luis Valdez's approach to theatre production and dramaturgy has changed considerably since his early work with El Teatro Campesino. As the leading theatrical voice for the Chicano movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, Valdez focused on raising the social and cultural consciousness of Chicano farm workers and Barrio dwellers through performances, often of an agitprop nature; however, beginning in the mid-seventies, Valdez began a new phase of his career with El Teatro Campesino — a phase which Jorge Huerta has described as "the infiltration of the regional theaters."
Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteent... more Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteenth-century frontier discourse was, nevertheless, transformed when it entered the theater. As a mode of representation, or (re) presentation, the theater production process inevitably impresses itself on the material with which it deals. In other words, the theater does not function as a transparent window through which either the actual frontier western experience or the experience as it was constructed through nontheatrical discourse can be viewed in its pure state. When set within a theatrical context, the turn-of-the-century frontier western “discourse” was unavoidably recast to meet the needs of prevailing theatrical practices that is, in the theater, frontier discourse was shaped to accommodate a “vocabulary” and “syntax” specific to the theater of the period. Insofar as this vocabulary and syntax set the parameters of theater representation, they can be seen as the distinguishing elements of what we might call “theater discourse.” Late-nineteenth-century frontier western drama should be understood, then, as the product of what Stephen Greenblatt referred to as a complex cultural “negotiation.”1 Drama representing frontier western experience is the outcome of an intersection of two discursive fields: one defining the limits of what was said about the frontier western experience, and the other defining the limits of what constituted theater or what could be expected of theater representations in the late nineteenth century.
Modern Drama, Dec 1, 1990
Mainstream theatre in the United States has undergone a number of transfonnations in the past dec... more Mainstream theatre in the United States has undergone a number of transfonnations in the past decade. Not the least is the acceptance of woman to the playwriting elite. Plays by Beth Henley, Marsha Nonnan, Tina Howe, and Wendy Wasserstein have all had successful Broadway runs, and Henley, Norman, and Wasserstein have been honored with Pulitzer Prizes. These successes suggest the opening of the "establishment" to new and diverse voices. While some feminist critics view this "opening up" as a co-optation , it may indicate a shift in mainstream cultural attitudes. Whether or not such a shift has actually occurred is debatable; nevertheless, these new woman playwrights touch on themes close to the hearts of traditionalists. For instance, in The Holdup (I98(}-3), Marsha Nonnan confronts the frontier West - long the focus of a male-centered mythology. While admitting that this play was not a typical "Nonnan play," that it has more fantasy than substance, and that it was not intended "to substantiate Western mythology" (all facts that might explain why some critics responded negatively to it), Nonnan also claimed that in The Holdup "there are serious things to be said about stories and how they operate on our minds." Indeed, the structure of this play's "story" suggests a transfonn.tion of the frontier myth.
Western American Literature, 1989
Throughout his playwriting career, Sam Shepard has challenged the presuppositions and myths that ... more Throughout his playwriting career, Sam Shepard has challenged the presuppositions and myths that underlie the modern American self-image. Bonnie M arranca (16-19) and Ruby Cohn (Dramatists 172-3, "Passion ate" 164-65) have pointed out that Shepard is especially fascinated by the hold that the myth of the western cowboy has had on the contemporary American imagination.
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2011
Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World ex... more Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World experiences, the American discourse on the frontier West has taken numerous shapes. Certainly, variations in the who, what, where, when, and why of the discourse have affected its content; nevertheless, the assorted statements and expressions that comprise frontier western discourse have had a certain coherence. From the early seventeenth century, recurring modes of expression, concepts, and strategies or themes have furnished this discourse with a degree of continuity. Most important, the ongoing effort to give American frontier experience some clear shape has provided a continuous source of unity. The geographic nature of the actual frontier may have varied from eastern forests to midwestern prairies to far western plains, deserts, and mountains, but the underlying view of the western frontier as a liminal zone, a borderland, on the edge of civilization has pervaded European-American efforts to represent frontier existence.
The Journal of American Culture, Jun 1, 1993
... More specifically, as Thomas Hellie has demon-strated in his dissertation, Clyde Fitch: Play... more ... More specifically, as Thomas Hellie has demon-strated in his dissertation, Clyde Fitch: Playwright of New York's Leisure Class, Fitch's success ... underlies various popular turn-of-the-century frontier plays, such as Bartley Campbell's My Partner (1879), David Belasco's The Girl ...
Western American Literature, 1989
El manejo de los desechos hospitalarios y los riesgos laboralesambientales en el Hospital de Daul... more El manejo de los desechos hospitalarios y los riesgos laboralesambientales en el Hospital de Daule área 16 "Dr. Vicente Pino Morán" The management of hospital waste and occupational risks at the Daule Hospital 16 "Dr. Vicente Pino Morán" A gestão dos riscos de resíduos hospitalares e profissionais-área Hospital Daule
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011
Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and Da... more Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West, which opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 14, 1905, were among the most successful Broadway-style plays of the 1905–1906 theater season. According to the information on New York productions for that theater season, compiled by Garrison P. Sherwood for Burns Mantle’s The Best Plays of 1899–1909, The Squaw Man, which had an initial run of 222 performances,1 and The Girl of the Golden West, which had an initial run of 224 performances,2 were among the five longest-running productions in a season that included over a hundred entries. The other three long-running shows were Charles Klein’s incredibly successful four-act play The Lion and the Mouse (686 performances), the Hippodrome musical extravaganza A Society Circus (596 performances), and the legendary production of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, starring Maude Adams (223 performances).3 Of the five, Royle’s and Belasco’s plays both frontier plays had the most in common. The success of these two works indicates not only their authors’ skills but also the general appeal of the frontier play for 1905 Broadway theater audiences.
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011
Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World ex... more Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World experiences, the American discourse on the frontier West has taken numerous shapes. Certainly, variations in the who, what, where, when, and why of the discourse have affected its content; nevertheless, the assorted statements and expressions that comprise frontier western discourse have had a certain coherence. From the early seventeenth century, recurring modes of expression, concepts, and strategies or themes have furnished this discourse with a degree of continuity. Most important, the ongoing effort to give American frontier experience some clear shape has provided a continuous source of unity. The geographic nature of the actual frontier may have varied from eastern forests to midwestern prairies to far western plains, deserts, and mountains, but the underlying view of the western frontier as a liminal zone, a borderland, on the edge of civilization has pervaded European-American efforts to represent frontier existence.
Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteent... more Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteenth-century frontier discourse was, nevertheless, transformed when it entered the theater. As a mode of representation, or (re) presentation, the theater production process inevitably impresses itself on the material with which it deals. In other words, the theater does not function as a transparent window through which either the actual frontier western experience or the experience as it was constructed through nontheatrical discourse can be viewed in its pure state. When set within a theatrical context, the turn-of-the-century frontier western “discourse” was unavoidably recast to meet the needs of prevailing theatrical practices that is, in the theater, frontier discourse was shaped to accommodate a “vocabulary” and “syntax” specific to the theater of the period. Insofar as this vocabulary and syntax set the parameters of theater representation, they can be seen as the distinguishing el...
Choice Reviews Online, 2011
PART I: THE AXES OF ANALYSIS: FRONTIER WESTERN DISCOURSE AND THEATRE PRACTICE The Frontier Wester... more PART I: THE AXES OF ANALYSIS: FRONTIER WESTERN DISCOURSE AND THEATRE PRACTICE The Frontier Western Discourse at the Turn of the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century The Turn-of-the-Century American Theatre Context PART II: THE PLAYS Discipline and Spontaneity: Clyde Fitch's The Cowboy and the Lady and Augustus Thomas's Arizona Drama from Novels: John Ermine of the Yellowstone and The Virginian Variations on the Frontier Myth: Edward Milton Royle's The Squaw Man and David Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West From Melodrama to Realism: William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide and Rachel Crothers's The Three of Us
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway
The opposition of savagery and civilization functioned significantly as a way of distinguishing c... more The opposition of savagery and civilization functioned significantly as a way of distinguishing characters from each other and motivating plot development even in early frontier drama. To be sure, the shape of the action in early-nineteenth-century plays like Metamora (1829) and The Lion of the West (1830) depended heavily on the civilization-savagery contrast. Later frontier plays, like My Partner (1879), had even begun to explore the possibility of bridging this opposition by bringing together in marriage at play’s end the characters representing civilization and savagery, East and West, respectively. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth century, however, the possibility of a reconciliation of civilization and savagery crystallized into a major preoccupation both of writers of frontier drama and of other artists and intellectuals who pondered the frontier experience. This turn-of-the-century frontier western discourse to which Turner, Roosevelt, Wister, and Remington were key contributors provides a context within which the frontier visions presented in plays like Clyde Fitch’s The Cowboy and the Lady (1899), Augustus Thomas’s Arizona (1900), Frederic Remington and Louis Evan Shipman’s John Ermine of the Yellowstone (1903), and Owen Wister and Kirke La Shelle’s The Virginian (1904) can be profitably analyzed.
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY is a series devoted to the best of theatre/pe... more PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY is a series devoted to the best of theatre/performance scholarship currently available, accessible, and free of jargon. It strives to include a wide range of topics, from the more traditional to those performance forms that in recent years have helped broaden the understanding of what theatre as a category might include (from forms as diverse as the circus and burlesque to street buskers, stage magic, and musical theatre, among many others). Although historical, critical, or analytical studies are of special interest, more theoretical projects, if not the dominant thrust of a study, but utilized as important underpinning or as a historiographical or analytical method of exploration, are also of interest. Textual studies of drama or other types of less traditional performance texts are also germane to the series if placed in their cultural, historical, social, or political and economic context. There is no geographical focus for this series, and works of excellence of a diverse and international nature, including comparative studies, are sought. The editor of the series is Don B. Wilmeth (Emeritus, Brown University), PhD, University of Illinois, who brings to the series over a dozen years as editor of a book series on American theatre and drama, in addition to his own extensive experience as an editor of books and journals. He is the author of several award-winning books and has received numerous career achievement awards, including one for sustained excellence in editing from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2011
The appeal of plays dealing with frontier western materials for first-class New York theater audi... more The appeal of plays dealing with frontier western materials for first-class New York theater audiences an appeal that was evidenced in the 1905–1906 theater season by the outstanding successes of Royle’s The Squaw Man and Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West continued into the 1906–1907 season. Burns Mantle and Garrison Sherwood list more than one hundred productions for the 1906–1907 season, and of these, four of the seven longest-running productions dealt with the frontier West. The four include: William Vaughn Moody’s The Great Divide, which opened at the Princess Theatre on October 3, 1906, and ran for 238 performances; Rachel Crothers’s The Three of Us, which opened at the Madison Square Theatre on October 17, 1906, and had a run of 227 performances; David Belasco and Richard Walton Tully’s The Rose of the Rancho, another of Belasco’s spectacularly mounted productions, which opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 27, 1906, and ran for 240 performances; and Pioneer Days, “a spectacular drama in three scenes by Carroll Fleming,” which opened at the New York Hippodrome on November 28, 1906, for a run of 288 performances.1 The Rose of the Rancho was not meant to be as broad a spectacle as Pioneer Days, but Belasco’s play abounded in the theatrical wizardry that made him such a success at the turn of the century.
Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and Da... more Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West, which opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 14, 1905, were among the most successful Broadway-style plays of the 1905–1906 theater season. According to the information on New York productions for that theater season, compiled by Garrison P. Sherwood for Burns Mantle’s The Best Plays of 1899–1909, The Squaw Man, which had an initial run of 222 performances,1 and The Girl of the Golden West, which had an initial run of 224 performances,2 were among the five longest-running productions in a season that included over a hundred entries. The other three long-running shows were Charles Klein’s incredibly successful four-act play The Lion and the Mouse (686 performances), the Hippodrome musical extravaganza A Society Circus (596 performances), and the legendary production of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, starring Maude Adams (223 performances).3 Of the five, Royle’s and Belasco’s plays both frontier plays had the most in common. The success of these two works indicates not only their authors’ skills but also the general appeal of the frontier play for 1905 Broadway theater audiences.
Modern Drama, Sep 1, 1998
Luis Valdez's approach to theatre production and dramaturgy has changed considerably since hi... more Luis Valdez's approach to theatre production and dramaturgy has changed considerably since his early work with El Teatro Campesino. As the leading theatrical voice for the Chicano movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, Valdez focused on raising the social and cultural consciousness of Chicano farm workers and Barrio dwellers through performances, often of an agitprop nature; however, beginning in the mid-seventies, Valdez began a new phase of his career with El Teatro Campesino — a phase which Jorge Huerta has described as "the infiltration of the regional theaters."
Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteent... more Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteenth-century frontier discourse was, nevertheless, transformed when it entered the theater. As a mode of representation, or (re) presentation, the theater production process inevitably impresses itself on the material with which it deals. In other words, the theater does not function as a transparent window through which either the actual frontier western experience or the experience as it was constructed through nontheatrical discourse can be viewed in its pure state. When set within a theatrical context, the turn-of-the-century frontier western “discourse” was unavoidably recast to meet the needs of prevailing theatrical practices that is, in the theater, frontier discourse was shaped to accommodate a “vocabulary” and “syntax” specific to the theater of the period. Insofar as this vocabulary and syntax set the parameters of theater representation, they can be seen as the distinguishing elements of what we might call “theater discourse.” Late-nineteenth-century frontier western drama should be understood, then, as the product of what Stephen Greenblatt referred to as a complex cultural “negotiation.”1 Drama representing frontier western experience is the outcome of an intersection of two discursive fields: one defining the limits of what was said about the frontier western experience, and the other defining the limits of what constituted theater or what could be expected of theater representations in the late nineteenth century.
Modern Drama, Dec 1, 1990
Mainstream theatre in the United States has undergone a number of transfonnations in the past dec... more Mainstream theatre in the United States has undergone a number of transfonnations in the past decade. Not the least is the acceptance of woman to the playwriting elite. Plays by Beth Henley, Marsha Nonnan, Tina Howe, and Wendy Wasserstein have all had successful Broadway runs, and Henley, Norman, and Wasserstein have been honored with Pulitzer Prizes. These successes suggest the opening of the "establishment" to new and diverse voices. While some feminist critics view this "opening up" as a co-optation , it may indicate a shift in mainstream cultural attitudes. Whether or not such a shift has actually occurred is debatable; nevertheless, these new woman playwrights touch on themes close to the hearts of traditionalists. For instance, in The Holdup (I98(}-3), Marsha Nonnan confronts the frontier West - long the focus of a male-centered mythology. While admitting that this play was not a typical "Nonnan play," that it has more fantasy than substance, and that it was not intended "to substantiate Western mythology" (all facts that might explain why some critics responded negatively to it), Nonnan also claimed that in The Holdup "there are serious things to be said about stories and how they operate on our minds." Indeed, the structure of this play's "story" suggests a transfonn.tion of the frontier myth.
Western American Literature, 1989
Throughout his playwriting career, Sam Shepard has challenged the presuppositions and myths that ... more Throughout his playwriting career, Sam Shepard has challenged the presuppositions and myths that underlie the modern American self-image. Bonnie M arranca (16-19) and Ruby Cohn (Dramatists 172-3, "Passion ate" 164-65) have pointed out that Shepard is especially fascinated by the hold that the myth of the western cowboy has had on the contemporary American imagination.
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2011
Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World ex... more Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World experiences, the American discourse on the frontier West has taken numerous shapes. Certainly, variations in the who, what, where, when, and why of the discourse have affected its content; nevertheless, the assorted statements and expressions that comprise frontier western discourse have had a certain coherence. From the early seventeenth century, recurring modes of expression, concepts, and strategies or themes have furnished this discourse with a degree of continuity. Most important, the ongoing effort to give American frontier experience some clear shape has provided a continuous source of unity. The geographic nature of the actual frontier may have varied from eastern forests to midwestern prairies to far western plains, deserts, and mountains, but the underlying view of the western frontier as a liminal zone, a borderland, on the edge of civilization has pervaded European-American efforts to represent frontier existence.
The Journal of American Culture, Jun 1, 1993
... More specifically, as Thomas Hellie has demon-strated in his dissertation, Clyde Fitch: Play... more ... More specifically, as Thomas Hellie has demon-strated in his dissertation, Clyde Fitch: Playwright of New York's Leisure Class, Fitch's success ... underlies various popular turn-of-the-century frontier plays, such as Bartley Campbell's My Partner (1879), David Belasco's The Girl ...
Western American Literature, 1989
El manejo de los desechos hospitalarios y los riesgos laboralesambientales en el Hospital de Daul... more El manejo de los desechos hospitalarios y los riesgos laboralesambientales en el Hospital de Daule área 16 "Dr. Vicente Pino Morán" The management of hospital waste and occupational risks at the Daule Hospital 16 "Dr. Vicente Pino Morán" A gestão dos riscos de resíduos hospitalares e profissionais-área Hospital Daule
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011
Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and Da... more Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man, which opened at Wallack’s Theatre on October 23, 1905, and David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West, which opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 14, 1905, were among the most successful Broadway-style plays of the 1905–1906 theater season. According to the information on New York productions for that theater season, compiled by Garrison P. Sherwood for Burns Mantle’s The Best Plays of 1899–1909, The Squaw Man, which had an initial run of 222 performances,1 and The Girl of the Golden West, which had an initial run of 224 performances,2 were among the five longest-running productions in a season that included over a hundred entries. The other three long-running shows were Charles Klein’s incredibly successful four-act play The Lion and the Mouse (686 performances), the Hippodrome musical extravaganza A Society Circus (596 performances), and the legendary production of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, starring Maude Adams (223 performances).3 Of the five, Royle’s and Belasco’s plays both frontier plays had the most in common. The success of these two works indicates not only their authors’ skills but also the general appeal of the frontier play for 1905 Broadway theater audiences.
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011
Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World ex... more Since the first British colonists in North America began to give expression to their New World experiences, the American discourse on the frontier West has taken numerous shapes. Certainly, variations in the who, what, where, when, and why of the discourse have affected its content; nevertheless, the assorted statements and expressions that comprise frontier western discourse have had a certain coherence. From the early seventeenth century, recurring modes of expression, concepts, and strategies or themes have furnished this discourse with a degree of continuity. Most important, the ongoing effort to give American frontier experience some clear shape has provided a continuous source of unity. The geographic nature of the actual frontier may have varied from eastern forests to midwestern prairies to far western plains, deserts, and mountains, but the underlying view of the western frontier as a liminal zone, a borderland, on the edge of civilization has pervaded European-American efforts to represent frontier existence.
Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteent... more Circumscribed as it was by diverse period assumptions and intellectual constructs, late-nineteenth-century frontier discourse was, nevertheless, transformed when it entered the theater. As a mode of representation, or (re) presentation, the theater production process inevitably impresses itself on the material with which it deals. In other words, the theater does not function as a transparent window through which either the actual frontier western experience or the experience as it was constructed through nontheatrical discourse can be viewed in its pure state. When set within a theatrical context, the turn-of-the-century frontier western “discourse” was unavoidably recast to meet the needs of prevailing theatrical practices that is, in the theater, frontier discourse was shaped to accommodate a “vocabulary” and “syntax” specific to the theater of the period. Insofar as this vocabulary and syntax set the parameters of theater representation, they can be seen as the distinguishing el...
Choice Reviews Online, 2011
PART I: THE AXES OF ANALYSIS: FRONTIER WESTERN DISCOURSE AND THEATRE PRACTICE The Frontier Wester... more PART I: THE AXES OF ANALYSIS: FRONTIER WESTERN DISCOURSE AND THEATRE PRACTICE The Frontier Western Discourse at the Turn of the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century The Turn-of-the-Century American Theatre Context PART II: THE PLAYS Discipline and Spontaneity: Clyde Fitch's The Cowboy and the Lady and Augustus Thomas's Arizona Drama from Novels: John Ermine of the Yellowstone and The Virginian Variations on the Frontier Myth: Edward Milton Royle's The Squaw Man and David Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West From Melodrama to Realism: William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide and Rachel Crothers's The Three of Us
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway
The opposition of savagery and civilization functioned significantly as a way of distinguishing c... more The opposition of savagery and civilization functioned significantly as a way of distinguishing characters from each other and motivating plot development even in early frontier drama. To be sure, the shape of the action in early-nineteenth-century plays like Metamora (1829) and The Lion of the West (1830) depended heavily on the civilization-savagery contrast. Later frontier plays, like My Partner (1879), had even begun to explore the possibility of bridging this opposition by bringing together in marriage at play’s end the characters representing civilization and savagery, East and West, respectively. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth century, however, the possibility of a reconciliation of civilization and savagery crystallized into a major preoccupation both of writers of frontier drama and of other artists and intellectuals who pondered the frontier experience. This turn-of-the-century frontier western discourse to which Turner, Roosevelt, Wister, and Remington were key contributors provides a context within which the frontier visions presented in plays like Clyde Fitch’s The Cowboy and the Lady (1899), Augustus Thomas’s Arizona (1900), Frederic Remington and Louis Evan Shipman’s John Ermine of the Yellowstone (1903), and Owen Wister and Kirke La Shelle’s The Virginian (1904) can be profitably analyzed.
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011
Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway, 2011