Chapter The Essay and The Drama of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

Evening Sun, author of Hermione (1916), Prefaces (1919), and The Old Soak (1921), and of other volumes of light and serious verse, is one of our best contemporary humorists. In 1922 he became the successor of F.P.A. on the Tribune staff. In a somewhat broader literary field is the work of Christopher Morley (born 1890), a writer in the Saturday Review, whose Parnassus on Wheels (1917) and The Haunted Book Shop are narratives especially to be enjoyed by book-lovers; while his Shandygaff (1918), Mince Pie (1919), and Plum Pudding (1921) are more sketchy and more characteristic of the literary journalist.

The American Stage.

Cleverness in the mechanical construction of an acting play and in the handling of a theatrical situation has characterized the work of American playwrights rather than any marked quality of genius in portraying dramatic forces at work in character and conduct. Our stage has not lacked for actable and entertaining plays, many of which have been frankly imitative if not actual adaptations of British or continental productions. Something more in the way of originality and native atmosphere, however, has appeared with the new century and there is a promise of better things to come. Without entering into the details of theatrical history, the general development of dramatic writing in America since 1870 will be briefly summarized.

Melodrama and Realism.

Bronson Howard (1842-1908), whose light society comedy, Saratoga, was produced in 1870, was a leader in this development. The Banker's Daughter (1878), Young Mrs. Winthrop (1882), The Henrietta (1887), and Shenandoah (1889) are representative of his serious effort. These are all melodramas -- but melodrama of the higher type. Shenandoah was one of several effective plays built upon dramatic incidents in the Civil War, this particular play reaching a spectacular climax with a picture of Sheridan's ride from Winchester. Similarly inspired were two successful war-plays, Held by the Enemy (1886) and Secret Service (1895), by William Gillette (born 1855), a popular actor whose talent as a playwright has supplied the productions in which he has appeared. In this same field of melodrama belong the plays of Augustus Thomas (born 1859), among which Alabama (1891), In Mizzoura (1893), and Arizona (1900) are good examples of a type of drama reproducing traditional characteristics and local atmosphere. His later work in The Witching Hour (1907) and As a Man Thinks (1911) is of a more modern cast; both plays use the motive of suggestion. A pioneer in the realistic field was James A. Herne (1839-1901), an actor-author from whose intelligent conceptions of dramatic principles the American stage should have gained more than it did. Two of his plays, Margaret Fleming (1890) and Rev. Griffith Davenport (1899), are unfortunately lost; the only copies extant having been burned in a fire which destroyed the Herne home. Shore Acres (1892), with its homely New England atmosphere, was Herne's most successful play and enjoyed long-lived popularity.

Comedy of Manners.

Clyde Fitch (1865-1909), most prolific of American writers for the stage, is credited with more than fifty dramatic productions, many of which were, however, adaptations from French and German sources. A keen observer and adept in theatrical devices, he was especially successful in his society comedies, portraying with good-natured satire phases of life and manners characteristic of New York. Of his numerous plays, Beau Brummel (1890) is a study in character; Nathan Hale (1898) and Barbara Frietchie (1899), as their titles indicate, present historical figures although the treatment is not conventional. The Moth and the Flame (1898), The Climbers (1900), The Stubborness of Geraldine (1902), and The Girl with the Green Eyes (1902) are more distinctive examples of his stronger work.

Purpose and Problem Plays.

Prominent among those who have written plays touching on the more serious aspects of our social, domestic, and economic life are: Charles Klein (1867-1913), who found in the aggressive policies of great corporations the motive of The Lion and the Mouse (1905), and in the extreme methods of police inquisition that of The Third Degree (1908); George Broadhurst (born 1866), whose Bought and Paid