Broadway Goes to War : American Theater During World War II [1 ed.] 9780813181011

Citation preview

Broadway Goes to War

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Broadway Goes to War American Theater during World War II

Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry

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Copyright © 2021 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com “This Time” from the Stage Production THIS IS THE ARMY Words and Music by Irving Berlin Copyright © 1942 Irving Berlin Music Co. Copyright Renewed All Rights Administered by Williamson Music Co., a division of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization: a Concord Company International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: McLaughlin, Robert L., 1957– author. | Parry, Sally E., author. Title: Broadway goes to war : American theater during World War II / Robert   L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry. Description: Lexington, Kentucky : University Press of Kentucky, [2021] |   Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020053333 | ISBN 9780813180946 (hardcover) | ISBN   9780813181011 (pdf ) | ISBN 9780813181004 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945—Theater and the war. | War and   theater—United States—History—20th century. | American drama—20th   century—History and criticism. | World War, 1939–1945—United   States—Literature and the war. | Theater—New York (State)—New   York—History—20th century. | Theater and society—United States. |   Popular culture—United States—History—20th century. Classification: LCC PN2041.W37 M38 2021 | DDC 809.2/93581—dc23 This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America Member of the Association of University Presses

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We dedicate this book to the memory of our most enthusiastic cheerleader, our sharpest critic, and our most supportive friend, the much-missed and much-loved Roberta Parry.

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Contents Preface ix

1. Popular Culture, Broadway, and World War II  1 2. Before Pearl Harbor  23 3. Overseas  64

4. The Home Front  99

5. Anticipating the Postwar World  132 Conclusion 180

Acknowledgments 183

Appendix: Annotated List of War-Related Plays Produced in New York, 1933–1946  185 Notes 251

Bibliography 267 Index 281

vii

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Preface The inspiration for this book came while we were finishing up our previous collaboration, We’ll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema during World War II, a study of how Hollywood films helped supply the basic narratives by which Americans understood the war and their place in it. We were intrigued by the many films that were adapted from stage plays, and we were led to wonder what role theater played in the popularculture effort to support the war. We identified around two hundred warera plays that, broadly considered, had something to do with the war, and, drawing on the resources of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the Library of Congress, searching theater-licensing agencies’ websites, and haunting used-book stores, we were able to read almost all of them. We researched the reviews of the original productions, which also helped us understand how they were received by their original audiences. Thanks to New York’s excellent Metropolitan Playhouse and Mint Theater, we were able to see a few plays in performance. Our research surprised us in two main ways. First, we were surprised that the New York theater began addressing the rise of the Nazis, the belligerency of the Japanese, and the burgeoning world war many years before any other popular-culture media. Indeed, the first Broadway play critical of the Nazis was produced only months after Hitler was named chancellor. Throughout the rest of the 1930s, American theater presented a range of opinions on European fascism, Japanese aggression, the new war, and the extent, if any, to which the United States should be involved in it, a range that reflected a divided American society at the time. Second and concomitantly, we were surprised that a range of opinions continued to be presented in the theater even after the United States entered the war. Although we had found some Hollywood films that subverted the official narratives of the war, the vast majority of movies reinforced and disseminated these narratives. Something very different, we found, was at work among the theaters in midtown Manhattan. Certainly, many plays, ix

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Preface

especially musicals and revues, supported the official narratives, but many others looked with a skeptical eye at the U.S. involvement in the war, at the military, at the home front, at sexual relationships, and at the postwar future. As a result, looking at the theater provided us with a more complex understanding of how popular-culture media functioned during the war and of the experience of living during the war years. We offer a caveat and a couple of instructions. The caveat first. Unlike movies, radio broadcasts, fiction, journalism, posters, and almost all other war-era media, theatrical performances are unrecoverable in their original form. Of course, we can work from the scripts, the production photos, the reviews, and the participants’ memoirs to imagine what the show might have been like in performance, but all we can do is imagine. In rare cases we might find snippets of film or audio recordings of a play, but as a rule, these original performances have disappeared. We do our best to write about these plays as we imagine they must have been, but we also recognize that in some cases, we may be wrong. If this ambiguity encourages you to search out these plays and imagine them for yourself, we will, even if you disagree with us, be thrilled. An instruction concerning documentation: play scripts use more than one style of pagination. The published versions usually use straightforward page numbers (e.g., 16), but in some cases—for example, typescripts and prompt books—play scripts are paginated by act number and page number (e.g., 1-16) or act number, scene number, and page number (e.g., 1-3-16). An instruction concerning ellipses: because many of our primary sources incorporate ellipses, sometimes eccentrically, we put our own ellipses in brackets to distinguish them from the authors’.

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1

Popular Culture, Broadway, and World War II Monday, 20 February 1939. An estimated 22,000 people fill Madison Square Garden, on West 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, not for a New York Rangers hockey game or a championship prizefight, but for the German-American Bund’s celebration of George Washington’s birthday. Behind the speakers’ platform is a thirty-foot-high, full-length portrait of Washington, flanked by alternating American flags and the Bund’s swastika. The militaristic mood of the evening is established by the music of a number of marching bands and the presence of the Ordnungsdienst (OD), the Bund’s security force, wearing their uniforms of black pants, brown shirts, Sam Browne belts, and garrison caps. The six main speakers, climaxing with Bundesführer Fritz Kuhn, hammer home their messages, blaming America’s economic and social problems on Jews, communists, and immigrants, warning against involvement in foreign entanglements (the George Washington connection), and looking to Adolf Hitler’s Germany as a model for the nation’s moving forward. Another show is going on outside the Garden. Over 1,700 police officers, the largest number ever called out to keep the peace at a New York City event, block off the streets around the arena, trying to keep at least 10,000 protesters from storming the doors. Representatives of groups ranging from the Socialist Workers Party to a group of World War I veterans seek to make their opposition to the Bund and Nazism known. Adding to the commotion is a minor traffic accident, and providing entertainment is the orchestra from the Broadway musical I Must Love Someone, which sets up outside its stage door and plays tunes from the show along with “The Star-Spangled Banner.”1 If, as the theater historian Paul Woodruff states, “theater is the art by which human beings make or find human action worth watching,” this evening offers theater on a grand scale.2 1

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The next night, Tuesday, 21 February 1939. New Yorkers partake of a more conventional kind of theater. Two long blocks east of Madison Square Garden, audiences at the Center Theatre see the extravaganza The American Way, a play about a German immigrant to the United States, who, through hard work, builds a prosperous furniture company only to lose his fortune in the Depression. He dies trying to break up a meeting of a fascist organization. One block south and across 6th Avenue, theatergoers at the Windsor Theatre laugh themselves silly at the longrunning Pins and Needles, a revue performed by members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Among the topical songs and sketches is a scene satirizing the fascist leaders and their supposed desire for peace. Four blocks farther south, on West 44th Street, the crowd at the Belasco Theatre sees Franchot Tone and Sylvia Sidney in The Gentle People, about two modest fishermen who are driven to violence by the demands of a small-time hood. Many people see it as an allegory about the dangers of appeasing fascists. One block farther south, audiences at Henry Miller’s Theatre enjoy Kiss the Boys Good-bye, a comedy with a semiserious subplot involving the Ku Klux Klan as harbingers of American fascism. Across 7th Avenue and Broadway and up two blocks, the crowd at the Imperial Theatre enjoys the new Cole Porter musical Leave It to Me!, about a midwestern manufacturer who is unhappily made ambassador to the Soviet Union. Along with the songs and dances are a variety of satiric shots at life in the Soviet Union and at the Nazi ambassador, along with an ironic climax wherein the ambassador’s idealism, his desire for peace and a world without national boundaries, gets him fired from his job. Juxtaposing these two evenings, one an ordinary night of Manhattan theatergoing, the other a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, can help us understand how New York in the years leading up to the beginning of World War II was the site of multiple conversations, many of them quite contentious, about the rise of fascism, the possibility of war, the United States’ role in the world community, and the future of democracy after a decade of depression. These conversations took place in restaurants, in political meetings, in the city’s newspapers, and in its theater. Less censored than the movies, less sponsor-dependent than radio, less advertising-driven than newspapers and magazines, the theater, while still commercially minded, was better able to engage the world on the brink of war in all its 2

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complex possibilities, and even after 7 December 1941, it debated a range of ideas about the war, about America’s role in it, about our enemies and allies, and about the postwar world that would soon come into being. Those of us who study the popular culture of World War II express astonishment that Warner Bros. released Confessions of a Nazi Spy, a film highly critical of the Nazi propaganda and espionage machines, in April 1939, almost five months before the war in Europe began and over two and a half years before the United States declared war on Germany. How daring, we think, to criticize so explicitly a nation with which the United States had diplomatic relations and at a time when our country was deeply divided over how to respond to the burgeoning conflict in Europe.3 But would it surprise you to know that the first anti-Nazi play to be performed on Broadway opened on 26 September 1933, only eight months after Hitler was named chancellor and five and a half years before Warner Bros. released Confessions? Adolf Philipp’s adaptation of Theodore Weachter’s Kultur—about a Jewish surgeon who is dismissed from his university post in a country very like Germany, only to be called on when the new chancellor is injured and needs an operation—ran only ten performances, but it was the first of several Broadway plays that, in the early and mid-1930s, turned a critical eye on fascism in general and Nazi Germany in particular. Richard Maibaum’s Birthright opened 21 November 1933, and Leslie Reade’s The Shatter’d Lamp opened 21 March 1934; both plays were about the effects of the rise of the Nazis on a typical family. Elmer Rice’s Judgment Day, a fictionalized version of the Reichstag fire trial, opened 12 September 1934. In addition to these plays, several others were performed by workers’ theater groups and other small companies. As the decade went on and Europe and Asia descended into war, more and more plays addressed the international situation and the United States’ position regarding it. By the time Hollywood began cautiously producing films about the dangers of fascism and the possibility of war, the New York theater would be deep into debates about fascism, interventionism, and the perilous state of democracy at home. This study seeks to understand both the role theater had in the popularculture representation of the Second World War and how the theater functioned differently from other popular-culture media. We contend that, for a 3

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variety of reasons, theater was less in step with the government-sanctioned, official narratives of the war promulgated by the various popular-culture media and that, especially at the beginning of the war and at its end, theater engaged the challenges and the contradictions of the war in a more sophisticated manner than other media. In this chapter we will look briefly at the operations of popular culture during the war; the rise of socially conscious theater in the 1930s, which established the aesthetic and ideological contexts in which theater about the war was produced; the economics and audiences for Broadway theater; and the cultural place of theater in American life in the 1930s and 1940s. Just as the U.S. military, industry, and political administration marshaled their resources and increased their activities in the face of America’s entry into World War II, so too did the nation’s popular-culture media— movies, radio, music, journalism, comics, publishing, and posters among them—come together to do their part to support the war effort. They worked to help the American public understand the big questions about the war: why we were fighting; why we had to defeat our enemies; why we had to support our allies; what each American man, woman, and child had to do to make victory possible. That this work was necessary is clear from public opinion polls of the time. The historian Allan Winkler reports: In the first months after Pearl Harbor, it seemed obvious that the United States was fighting in self-defense. By the middle of 1942 public opinion analyst Jerome Bruner found that significant numbers of people were not as sure why they were involved. In July, 30 percent of those responding to the question, “Do you feel that you have a clear idea of what this war is all about—that is, what are we fighting for?,” answered negatively, while in December the number had risen to 35 percent. Other polls in the fall of 1942 showed that approximately a third of the people interviewed were willing to accept a separate peace with Germany, and even after the announcement of the policy of unconditional surrender at the Casablanca conference in early 1943, the percentage remained almost as high. Other surveys too indicated significant public mistrust of America’s allies.4 4

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Added to this confusion over America’s part in the war was the enormous domestic upheaval America underwent during the war years, as 12 million men joined the military services; women and African Americans entered the industrial workforce in unprecedented numbers; unsupervised children, especially adolescents, slid into delinquent behavior; cities and towns near military bases and defense plants expanded rapidly, with concomitant strains on utilities, infrastructure, and social services; rationing, wage freezes, and the threat of inflation caused economic uncertainty.5 Clearly, the American public needed explanations for why we were fighting and the motivation to carry on the fight. To a great extent, this need was filled by popular culture. The work of the popular-culture media is usually categorized, often dismissively, as propaganda. Our work with the popular-culture artifacts of the war years convinces us that such an attitude oversimplifies propaganda as an idea and a practice. The truth of propaganda is always to a great extent subjective; in practice its truth value is determined by the spin it puts on the facts.6 Further, World War II popular culture often worked in complex ways aesthetically and culturally, conveying its intended message about the war effort but also reflecting the societal tensions of its moment. Finally, although propaganda frequently seeks to arouse its audiences’ emotions, if that is all it aims for, it isn’t likely to succeed. Emotions fade: in not much time anger becomes irritation, then annoyance, and emotional identification becomes a general sympathy, then indifference. Successful propaganda aims for the mind, attempting to shape the beliefs its audiences hold. The public relations pioneer Edward L. Bernays argued in his 1928 book, Propaganda, that “the haphazard staging of emotional events without regard to their value as part of the whole campaign, is a waste of effort.”7 Rather, the goal was to repeat the idea so frequently that it became ubiquitous and in its ubiquity came to affect what consumers believe and, thus, the way they behave. As Bernays put it, “Emphasis by repetition gains acceptance for an idea, particularly if the repetition comes from different sources.”8 To modify the way the public thinks was also the goal of America’s war-era popular-culture media. Although not coordinated in any particular grand scheme à la Bernays, they nevertheless worked together to provide the American people with a set of narratives, communicated in a variety of ways, that both helped explain the various big questions about the war and helped provide ways to think about them, to know what to 5

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believe about them, and, finally, how to act in relation to them. Film, radio, and journalism were probably the most important media in terms of communicating the official messages about the war. Ninety million Americans went to the movies every week, and Hollywood’s influence was evident in everything from fashion to vocabulary.9 Nearly every home had a radio, which thereby became the primary source of news and entertainment. Radio reports, newspapers, and magazines provided both the big-picture news of the war and the up-close-and-personal profiles of men in combat, such as the widely read dispatches of Ernie Pyle. Popular music, comics, and posters were extensively disseminated and also communicated the narratives by which the pubic could understand the war.10 The commercial theater, however, represented most comprehensively by Broadway, functioned differently from other popular-culture media during the war years.11 These differences were based in its economic underpinnings, its audiences, its place in the culture at large, its tradition of social engagement, and its relative independence from such governmentsponsored propaganda agencies as the Office of War Information (OWI).12 As a result, Broadway during the war years offered a mélange of attitudes toward and ideas about the war, from the flag-waving This Is the Army and Winged Victory, which celebrated the army and army air forces respectively, to the critical Decision, which exposed fascist tendencies in American society; from Tomorrow the World, which presented the Nazis as almost irredeemably cruel, to The Moon Is Down, which presented them as sympathetically human; from Janie, which gently spoofed adolescent girls’ fascination with men in uniform, to Pick-Up Girl, which grittily showed teen-aged girls falling into delinquency by dating servicemen. The theater, because of its unique and unsettled position among the popular-culture media, presents an interesting and probably more accurate picture of wartime America: the desire for pulling together and the political and social tensions; the need for everyone to contribute and the ontological crises that come with a world falling apart; the determination to defeat our enemies and the realization that we may be more like them than we want to admit; the embracing of the new world our victory makes possible and the exposure of the social and psychological problems that come with victory. Producers of commercial theater worked within the tension between culture and commerce. To what extent were they willing to provide 6

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entertaining but intellectually empty plays with the prospect of comfortable profits, and to what extent did they feel an obligation to present plays that questioned the status quo and commented on national and international situations? In the late 1930s and early 1940s the answer, as it still is today, was mixed. For every producer who was willing to back a serious play about the economic inequities engendered by the Depression or the malignancy of fascism abroad, there was another who felt that lighthearted fare was what the public craved, and even the producers who were willing to present serious plays on serious subjects had to be convinced that they stood at least a chance of getting a return on their investment. It is important to remember that there were no legal provisions for not-for-profit theaters as there are today, and most theater groups that tried to behave in a nonprofit manner while working in a for-profit milieu—groups like Eva Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Theatre and the Group Theatre—were not able to survive. Nevertheless, the theater of the 1930s was unusually politically conscious. The Great Depression engendered heightened awareness of class divisions and the distribution of wealth. To many, it provided proof of the failure of capitalism, and thus it led many to embrace the alternative systems of socialism and communism. It provided a breeding ground for demagogues like Father Charles Coughlin who agitated for radical social and economic reform. It caused some to cast their eyes to Europe, where fascist governments in Italy and Germany offered either—depending on one’s point of view—a model of how to respond to social and economic chaos or a threat to democracy. Many in the theater, from playwrights and directors to actors and designers, were deeply invested in these political debates. At the same time, liberal groups, unions, and the Communist Party saw the theater as a vehicle for communicating their ideas, rallying supporters, and gathering converts. The longtime critic John Gassner reminisced in the 1960s: “The label of ‘leftism’ got attached to the entire serious-minded stage in America. And the label of ‘leftism’ was not used pejoratively, as it came to be used in the 1950’s, but in a vaguely complimentary sense by proponents of liberalism. ‘Leftism,’ for them, was the banner under which one fought against fascism and for human decency and social reforms soon to be incorporated in the law of the land without commitment to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ ”13 Theater not only had the potential to 7

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change the world; theater had a mission to save the world. As the historian Jay Williams explains, The various amateur groups which made up the workers’ theatre movement arose largely as a political response to the economic troubles of the day. Some of their organizers were Communists, some Socialists, a great many had no official affiliation with any party although they were generally sympathetic to the Left, but all were united in seeing the theatre, like other arts, as an implement for spreading the message that present-day society was decadent and that only in some profound change could an answer be found. To imagine, however, that their appearance was a stealthy plot on the part of the Communist Party to seize control of the American theatre is the most superficial of conclusions. [. . .] It didn’t require orders from Moscow to compel American playwrights to write against poverty, injustice, or war; they did so because they felt a great resentment against these things.14 The roots of the political theater of the 1930s can be found in the years of World War I. At the beginning of the twentieth century, American theater was focused almost exclusively on entertainment. Broadway theaters and the theaters across the country were filled with comedies, melodramas, musical revues, and extravaganzas. What became known as the Little Theater Movement developed from a dissatisfaction among playwrights, actors, and other theater artists with the prolonged childhood of the American theater. Such companies as the Wisconsin Players, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, the Cleveland Playhouse, the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, and the Provincetown Players, which premiered the early plays of Eugene O’Neill, were determined to make the American stage grow up. They did so with plays that represented the reality of American life, presented in styles that defied the conventions of the commercial theater. The most important of these Little Theaters was the Theatre Guild (originally the Washington Square Players). Run by a six-person board made up of a combination of artists and administrators, the Guild eschewed “commercial exploitation” and strove to present “the best drama of one’s time, drama honestly reflecting the author’s vision of life or sense of style 8

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and beauty.”15 In short order, the Guild was presenting five or six plays a season to a growing audience of subscribers in New York and on the road. On the one hand, the Guild usually gave Broadway audiences far more daring drama and consistently high-quality acting than the typical commercial theater offering. Among its outstanding productions were such plays as Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine, George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, Karel Čapek’s R.U.R., Ferenc Molnár’s The Guardsman (pairing Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne for the first time), Dubose and Dorothy Heyward’s Porgy, and Sidney Howard’s They Knew What They Wanted, and it became a home for such playwrights as Eugene O’Neill, Robert E. Sherwood, and Maxwell Anderson. On the other hand, the Guild had to draw audiences, sell subscriptions for their road companies in cities across the country, and have on salary a permanent company of actors. They had to be prudent in how daring they wanted to be in any one season, and this prudence led to charges of compromise and commercialism. By the beginning of the 1930s, the Theatre Guild was well established; it had 35,000 subscribers in New York and another 45,000 on the road.16 It was also, in the minds of some, the Establishment that needed to be rebelled against.17 Harold Clurman was among this latter group. In late 1930 Clurman and two of his Guild colleagues, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford, along with a number of like-minded actors and theater artists, began meeting to discuss the possibility of an ideal theater: “An ensemble of artists who would create, out of common beliefs and technique, dramatic productions that spoke to an equally committed audience about the essential social and moral issues of their times.”18 Thanks to some seed money, these artists, now calling themselves the Group, spent the summer of 1931 at a Connecticut retreat, talking about the possibilities for remaking the theater, taking acting lessons—Strasberg introduced them to his version of Constantin Stanislavski’s method acting—and rehearsing their first play, Paul Green’s The House of Connelly. Connelly opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on 29 September 1931 to rapturous audience response and strong notices from the reviewers, both for the production and for the idea of the Group’s ensemble acting and aesthetically integrated productions. The Group would experience similar highs and many lows over the next ten years. Its members never quite solved the problem of running an organization through participatory consensus making, and they frequently had trouble finding plays they could all agree on producing. They reinvented 9

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their plans as they went along, which made long-range scheduling difficult and building a subscription audience impossible. The historian Wendy Smith sums up: “The essential cause of the agonizing personal and professional discontents tearing the Group apart was the inherent difficulty of running a theatre with uncommercial ideals—artistic or political—in a commercial system.”19 Although Clurman frequently denied that the Group worked from an ideological position, there is little doubt that in addressing the “social and moral issues of their times,” they often engaged the urgent political problems of the Depression and a world on the brink of war.20 If one end of the theatergoing spectrum was represented by the serious drama of the Theatre Guild and the innovative ensemble professionalism of the Group, the other end was represented by the amateur workers’ theaters. These groups, in cities around the country, were backed variously by unions, leftist and socialist groups, and the Communist Party. Their goal was to educate their audience—a proletarian audience, not Broadway first-nighters—about the workings of capitalism, the necessity for workers joining together, and, in some cases, the triumphant inevitability of revolution. The historian Colette A. Hyman explains, “The workers’ theatre movement was part of the left-wing political and cultural milieu of the 1930s, when writers, artists, musicians, and labor educators, Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists believed that collective leisuretime activities—whether sports, musical performances, classes in labor history, or theatrical productions—could be used to develop and sustain among working people and their allies the solidarity necessary for bringing about social and political transformation.”21 Polished presentation and deep characterization were less important than making a political point with punch. Thus, in the first part of the decade, amateur workers’ theater groups, such as the Proletbühne and the Workers Laboratory Theatre (the two groups merged in 1931), tended to specialize in agitprop drama. As its name suggests, agitprop combined agitation and propaganda to educate its audiences and spur them to action. Agitprop plays tended to be short and highly stylized, with a loose narrative construction, a satiric attitude, and larger-than-life characters. Actors often broke the fourth wall and directly addressed the audience. The theater historian Mark Franko describes its effect: “While transmitting explicit propaganda about worker exploitation, the energetic improvisational style of 10

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agitprop also invigorated its audience with the expectancy of change epitomized by their own flexibility.”22 This kind of theater could be performed in union halls or on street corners, alongside a picket line or marching in a May Day parade. Jay Williams concludes about these performances: “They were theatre. And for working people involved in trade union battles or in the dire difficulties of the Depression, and especially for those who felt a bitter discontent with the political situation, it was theatre that spoke for them and they welcomed it.”23 In 1933 two new groups formed, the Theatre Collective and the Theatre Union, both bringing together the social activism of the Workers Laboratory Theatre and the professional know-how of the more politically inclined members of the Group Theatre. Their aim was to produce socially significant, full-length, professional dramas for a working-class audience. The previous year, the League of Workers Theatres (later the New Theatre League) had been formed as a service organization for the many workers’ theaters around the country, distributing plays, holding conferences, sponsoring new-play contests, and publishing Workers Theatre magazine (later New Theatre). Always walking a budgetary tightrope, the magazine held frequent benefits, New Theatre Nights, usually on Sundays, when sympathetic performers would put on entertainments of various kinds to raise funds for the next issue. Some of the best examples of the merging of activism and professionalism would come out of these benefit performances. The 3 June 1934 New Theatre Night included the play Dimitroff, by Art Smith and Elia Kazan, both moonlighting from the Group Theatre. The play presents Hitler and Goering as having ordered the Reichstag fire and then prosecuting communist leaders for the deed. One of these leaders, Georgi Dimitroff, earns acquittal because of the pressure brought by communists protesting around the world. He ends the play by directly addressing the audience and demanding that two other communist leaders still in prison be released. The 6 January 1935 New Theatre Night was especially historic: it presented the premiere of Clifford Odets’s breakthrough one-act drama Waiting for Lefty, which placed its audience in the milieu of a taxi drivers’ union meeting. Through flashbacks, we see the conditions that led many of the union members to go against their own corrupt union leadership and demand a strike. The end of the play is designed to rouse the audience to join the actors in chanting, “strike, strike, strike!!!”24 The play’s success was astounding. 11

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The Group Theatre would take Waiting for Lefty to Broadway in March 1935, pairing it with another Odets one-act, Till the Day I Die, about the persecution of communists in Nazi Germany. This play focuses on Ernst Tausig, a Berlin Communist Party member, who, with his brother and lover and a host of other comrades, prints and distributes leaflets, bringing the truth to the workers of Germany. At the end of the first scene, Ernst is arrested, and the rest of the play shows the process by which the Nazis attempt to break him down to reveal the names of the others in the underground. When torture doesn’t work—not even when they smash his fingers (Ernst is a violinist in his above-ground life)— they proceed to discredit him with the communists, spreading the word that he has informed, having him present when others are identifying prisoners, sitting him in a staff car when underground meeting places are raided. The smear campaign works, and the party blacklists Ernst. He manages one last visit to his lover and brother, telling them that he knows he is about to break, and rather than turn informer, he must die. When his brother says dismissively, “They’ve killed you already,” Ernst responds: “That’s right. But you’re alive. Other comrades are working. The day is coming and I’ll be in the final result. That right can’t be denied me. In that dizzy dazzling structure some part of me is built.”25 Through Ernst’s story the play presents a thematic tension between the reality of the Nazi state and the communists’ vision for the future. The Nazis are presented as exploiting workers to increase the profits of large corporations like the Krupp armament works. Concomitantly, Hitler’s demands for lebensraum and the buildup to war provide the justification for linking the economy to military and weapons expenditures. The government ensures a compliant population through its use of propaganda, violence, and fear. The newspapers are full of lies, the common soldier has become a brute by means of the culture of violence in which he is trained, and even the most loyal soldiers and government employees are afraid to read or speak anything even slightly heretical for fear of arrest and execution. Behind the screen of propaganda, the government is revealed to be corrupt and inefficient. Nazi officers hide dirty secrets behind the facade of ideological correctness, and at Gestapo headquarters documents are missing or misfiled. The communists’ vision for the future is best articulated by Ernst before he’s arrested: “My present dream for the world—I ask for happy laughing people everywhere. I ask for hope in eyes: for wonderful baby boys and girls 12

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I ask, growing up strong and prepared for a new world. I won’t ever forget the first time we visited the nursery in Moscow. Such faces on those children! Future engineers, doctors; when I saw them I understood most deeply what the revolution means.”26 The Nazis are the most immediate threat to this future, and the play suggests that good people everywhere have to join together to defeat them. Till the Day I Die, like Dimitroff, brings together the themes of the labor play with a critique of European fascism and, equally significantly, presents them for a Broadway audience. Another New Theatre Night, on 14 March 1936, presented Irwin Shaw’s Bury the Dead, an important antiwar play, which the next month transferred to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. Set in “the second year of the war that is to begin tomorrow night,” the play focuses on the turmoil caused when six soldiers killed in battle stand up in their mass grave and refuse to be buried.27 While the military tries desperately to keep the news of this insubordination from leaking out, generals try to order the men to lie down and be buried, their women—girlfriends, sisters, mothers, wives—try to convince them to give up their useless protest, the clergy try to exorcise the demons from the corpses, and finally their officers turn a machine gun on them, trying to kill the already dead. The corpses resist the authority of military systems, family systems, religious systems, and even violence and insist on their posthumous protest. They refuse to be buried for various reasons. In death they understand that a life is too precious to be sold “for four yards of bloody mud.”28 In death they see the folly of dying for their country. One says, “Men, even the men who die for Pharaoh and Caesar and Rome, must, in the end, before all hope is gone, discover that a man can die happy and be contentedly buried only when he dies for himself or for a cause that is his own and not Pharaoh’s or Caesar’s or Rome’s.”29 In death they understand the things they “ain’t had enough of,” the mundane pleasures of everyday living.30 The labor message becomes explicit in a later conversation between one of the corpses and his embittered, estranged wife. They review the disappointments of their life together, all of which come down to the limitations placed on them by his pathetic mechanic’s salary of $18.50 a week. Of his standing up and refusing to be buried, she says: What took you so long, then? Why now? Why not a month ago, a year ago, ten years ago? Why didn’t you stand up then? Why 13

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wait until you’re dead? You live on eighteen-fifty a week, with roaches, not saying a word, and then when they kill you, you stand up! You fool! [. . .] Just like you! Wait until it’s too late! There’s plenty for live men to stand up for! All right, stand up! It’s about time you talked back. It’s about time all you poor miserable eighteen-fifty bastards stood up for themselves and their wives and the children they can’t have! Tell ’em all to stand up!31 The play ends with the corpses stepping out of their grave, walking through the generals’ machine-gun fire, and striding offstage, presumably to spread their message to the working classes of the world. Bury the Dead, like Dimitroff and Till the Day I Die, connects the concerns of the labor play, broadly articulated, with the growing anxiety over the international situation. It doesn’t, however, directly address fascism in Europe or the growing belligerence of Italy and Germany. In fact, its take on war—that nationalist wars obscure the transnationality of labor’s interests and force powerless workingmen to die for powerful moneyed interests—is derived from labor’s position on World War I. (This position is also argued in an odd little book published the previous year, War Is a Racket, by retired Major General Smedley D. Butler, the most decorated marine in history to that point. He spells out the profits made by the various war industries at the expense of the fighting man.32) Taken together, these three plays, influenced by the conventions and concerns of the labor play, establish the two sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary approaches political theater would take to the international situation, at least until 1939, when the war in Europe began: a warning about the dangers of fascism, and a plea for pacifism in the face of a world heading toward war. These two themes were brought together in a humorous manner by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), one of a number of unions with their own amateur theater group. Louis Schaffer, the head of recreational programs for ILGWU, dreamed of a theater group that would draw on members from all unions and even went so far as to incorporate Labor Stage, Inc. As it turned out, however, Labor Stage “became exclusively an ILG enterprise,” but one with its own theater, previously the Princess Theatre.33 Its goal was to educate and entertain union members, and unlike many of the other leftist theater groups, the ILGWU was not afraid to put the emphasis on entertainment. The result 14

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Hy Gardner, Al Eben, Murray Modick, and Paul Seymour in “Peace! Peace! Peace!” from Pins and Needles (1937). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

was Pins and Needles, a collection of songs and comic sketches satirizing the international situation, capitalism, and other workers’ theater groups. It even poked fun at itself: the girls’ ensemble, instead of asking their beaux for a love song, demand a song of social significance. With music and lyrics mostly by Harold Rome and sketches by Arthur Arent, David Gregory, Emanuel Eisenberg, and Marc Blitzstein, Pins and Needles premiered at the Labor Stage in September 1937 and ran there through June 1939, when it moved to the Windsor Theatre on Broadway, where it ran until 22 June 1940, for a total of 1,108 performances. The songs and scenes were continually updated to reflect the current national and international situations, but the tone remained consistently pro-union and antifascist. Pins and Needles is a good illustration of the mainstreaming of the labor play. Beginning as an amateur revue, performed by and for union members, it became a Broadway smash, entertaining middle- and upper-class audiences; the company was even invited to give a command 15

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performance for President and Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House in 1938. As one historian sums up, “ ‘Pins and Needles,’ in fact, was perfectly calibrated to win a public that had to be kidded and charmed, rather than bullied, into more liberal attitudes.”34 The most successful attempt to bring together socially activist theater with professional presentation and to make high-quality theatrical productions widely available to a broad audience originated not in New York, but in Washington, D.C. In 1935 the Federal Theatre Project was established as part of the Works Progress Administration. The goals of the Federal Theatre were to put theater artists, who were especially hard hit by the Depression, to work and to provide low-cost and sometimes free entertainment to a range of audiences not generally served by the traditional Broadway and commercial theater, or, as its director, Hallie Flanagan, put it, “Our more far reaching purpose is to organize and support theatrical enterprises so excellent in nature, so low in cost, and so vital to the communities involved that they will be able to continue after Federal support is withdrawn.”35 Even measured by such ambitious rhetoric, the Federal Theatre Project, which ran from 1935 to 1939, was an enormous success. As one historian sums up its accomplishments: Within a year after Flanagan took the reins, the Federal Theatre had two hundred producing groups across the country and employed more than twelve thousand people. It was performing before audiences of thousands, for many of whom this was the first experience of the theatre, and its stages ranged from public parks, armories, or auditoriums, to professional houses. [. . .] It was doing all Flanagan and her aides had hoped for, presenting low-cost and in most cases admirable shows from coast to coast. It had won wide critical approval and had made itself a vital part of the cultural life of many communities.36 Commercial producers complained that the Federal Theatre created unfair, government-subsidized competition, and congressional reactionaries targeted it as part of their anti–New Deal agenda. Charging it with presenting propaganda for FDR and with being overrun with communists, House Republicans and southern Democrats were able eventually to cut funding for the project entirely. 16

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Although Flanagan’s vision for the Federal Theatre was clearly social—seeing government-supported theater as providing education, bringing people together across class lines, and generally increasing the quality of life—its offerings were not exclusively or even primarily political. Still, its more politically oriented productions drew the most attention—positive and negative—and are what the project is mostly remembered for today. Federal Theatre plays addressed the effects of the Depression, labor issues, racial prejudice and institutionalized racism, among other topics, and, most relevant for our study, the effects of fascism abroad and at home. The Federal Theatre’s most ambitious project came in October 1936, when it not only adapted for the stage It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis’s dystopian novel about the possibilities of a fascist takeover of the United States, but also planned to open twenty-one productions around the country on the same night. Like the novel, the play depicts the rise of a folksy, uber-patriotic politician, Buzz Windrip, who manages, primarily through the inertia of well-meaning but slow-to-act average citizens who can’t believe that fascism could happen in America, to be elected president. The average citizens are then appalled as Windrip uses his private army, the Minute Men, to dissolve Congress and the courts, install military rule, and brutally suppress dissent. The play follows the education of one particular average citizen, Doremus Jessup, a Vermont newspaper editor, as he moves from a state of inertia to an awareness of the fragility of a democracy to a resolution to fight to preserve “the free, inquiring, critical spirit.”37 The logistics of the multiple simultaneous productions were tremendously challenging: Lewis and his collaborator, John Moffitt, wrote and rewrote scenes while the far-flung theater companies, including a Yiddish company in New York and a mostly African American company in Seattle (only the fascist leaders were played by whites), begged for revised scenes. The finished version of the play was unpolished (Lewis would later return to the script for further revisions), but the effect of so many theaters producing the play on the same evening was stunning, in effect dramatizing the appearance and growth of home-grown fascism. In April 1937 the Federal Theatre’s New York Jewish Theater Unit produced Friedrich Wolf ’s Professor Mamlock, about a Jewish German surgeon who, like the characters in Lewis’s play, doesn’t recognize until 17

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It Can’t Happen Here, Federal Theatre Project production (1936).

too late the changes occurring in his country and becomes a victim of the Nazis. Although he served with distinction in the First World War, after the Nazis come to power his clinic is taken away from him, and his children are persecuted. At the end of the play, rather than continue his resistance to the Nazis, he kills himself. Professor Mamlock was one of the 18

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more successful of the plays criticizing Nazi Germany, offering seventysix performances over fifteen months.38 One unfortunate upshot of the Federal Theatre’s success in providing high-quality theater to broad audiences at cheap prices is that it made superfluous many of the amateur and labor theaters. As the Federal Theatre did the work they had imagined themselves doing but with a budget they could never have dreamed of, and as many of their playwrights, actors, and other theater artists left to do work with the Federal Theatre, the Theatre Collective and other groups not so much died as “melted away into the Federal Theatre.”39 By the end of the decade, when the Federal Theatre’s funding was stopped and the Group Theatre was on its last legs, the Broadway commercial theater once again dominated New York stages. The 1920s and 1930s saw sweeping changes in the state of the theater. At the beginning of the 1920s, serious drama by American and European playwrights was a rarity on the commercial stage; by the end of the 1930s, reviewers complained if new plays were fluffy instead of intellectually challenging. At the beginning of the 1920s, experiments in dramatic form and style were generally found in the Little Theaters; by the end of the 1930s, mainstream theatergoers were accustomed to the realism of Chekhov, Ibsen, and Shaw and were no longer nonplussed at the expressionistic experiments of Eugene O’Neill, Elmer Rice, and Philip Barry. At the beginning of the 1920s, plays addressing such urgent social issues as labor, race, and the international situation were the province of amateur theater groups; by the end of the 1930s, plays of social significance were common not only among the offerings of quasi nonprofits like the Theatre Guild, the Group, and the Federal Theatre, but also on the Broadway stages of commercial producers (notably Herman Shumlin). The influence of the Little Theater Movement and the labor theaters had extended into the professional theater through the companies we have discussed as well as Orson Welles and John Houseman’s Mercury Theatre, which produced such socially significant fare as The Cradle Will Rock (1937), a Julius Caesar that pointed toward contemporary fascism (1937), and Native Son (1941), a stage adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel, and the Playwrights Company, formed by Robert E. Sherwood, Maxwell Anderson, Elmer Rice, Sidney Howard, and S.  N. Behrman, which produced such politically oriented plays as American Landscape (1938), 19

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Key Largo (1939), Flight to the West (1940), and Candle in the Wind (1941). Indeed, political theater pervaded Broadway and its road companies, so much so that in 1937 the Theatre Guild felt obliged to apologize in a message to its subscribers: “With so many of our authors engaged for a considerable part of the year in Hollywood, the number of worthwhile manuscripts to choose from has been somewhat reduced during the past few years. This has made our selection more difficult, but it has not caused us to change our policy. Many of our leading authors are deeply concerned with the political and social changes which are taking place in the world today. It is impossible to find vital plays of contemporary life which do not take cognizance of these facts.”40 Implied in this message is the fact that the Guild’s playwrights were unable to address their political concerns in their work in Hollywood and so used their stage plays as a way of developing their political thought. This distinction between Hollywood as wary of overt politics in its films and the New York commercial theater as a venue wherein debates about the state of American society flourished vibrantly and contentiously helps us understand why the theater was more prepared to engage the issues of the burgeoning war in a complex manner and why the theater’s discussions of these issues were less molded to official government policy: theater audiences had been attending, experiencing, and reflecting on socially significant theater throughout the decade, and in many ways the terms of the discussions had been well established. The theater, as we will see, in the pre–Pearl Harbor years and the war years presented a wider range of thought and tone in its presentation of the many facets of the war than audiences were likely to see in the movie houses. The result was a chance for audiences to think deeply about the state of the world, the bitter necessity of fighting the war, and the effect the war would have on our society. It is important, then, for us to understand the numbers and the nature of that audience. In 1940 a Broadway play, depending on the size of its cast and the complexity of its physical production, could be capitalized at between $25,000 and $60,000.41 This comparatively modest investment meant that if a playwright with a message could find a producer who believed in it, the money could probably be raised. This was a very different process from that in Hollywood, where a screenplay was usually subject to the kibitzing of an army of producers, directors, and additional 20

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screenwriters, all collaborating to make sure that the resulting movie would earn back its several-million-dollar investment. That the capitalizing and producing of a play could be accomplished more simply is evidenced by the sheer numbers of plays produced every season. In the 1941–42 season eighty-four plays were produced on Broadway, more than twice as many as are produced in a typical season now.42 Many of these plays ran for less than a month, but most plays needed a run of only one hundred to two hundred performances to pay back their investment, so the risk for producers and backers—both in terms of the initial investment and chances of breaking even—was not prohibitive.43 Of course, if the financial stakes were lower on Broadway than in Hollywood, the potential numbers of tickets sold were too. Most Broadway theaters seated around 1,000 patrons, some more, some less. A successful show could play at capacity for a full season and be seen by only 300,000 people. A successful road tour might match that figure. An unsuccessful show might be seen by only a few hundred. Those kinds of numbers pale in comparison to the movies, where even a B movie might be seen by millions of people. Clearly, films had a much greater potential to reach large numbers of people with their messages about the war. How then did the theater, with its modest reach, contribute to or affect the nation’s conversations about the war? For one thing, the influence of the theater was enhanced by the position it occupied as cultural capital, in Pierre Bourdieu’s sense of the term. Attending theater, especially commercial theater—Broadway and the road versions of Broadway shows—was a sign of taste associated with the socially upwardly mobile. Attending the theater was a manifest demonstration of taste, breeding, education, and class—in short, one’s social status. Those striving for upward social mobility could as well make clear their aspirations for taste, breeding, education, and class by attending theater or displaying knowledge about the theater.44 In the 1940s theater was much more central to U.S. culture than it is today, and its reach extended far beyond Times Square. Broadway productions were regularly reviewed not just in New York but in weekly or monthly nationally distributed magazines. Successful plays were published and distributed to the trade by prominent publishers. As we noted above, national tours of successful plays visited most large cities, and eventually these plays would be produced by Little Theaters and community 21

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theaters. Many plays were further disseminated through film adaptations. Therefore, plays’ cultural influence was amplified far beyond the number of seats in a Broadway house, and it was possible for those who didn’t have ready access to Broadway nevertheless to be in the know culturally and to acquire the associated cultural capital. The theater also came with its own set of gatekeepers, the many reviewers who divided the worthy from the deplorable. Interestingly, these gatekeepers also sought to maintain a firm boundary between the theater and its lesser cousin, the Hollywood film. Actors and playwrights who drifted to Hollywood were scolded. Plays that seemed designed for a quick movie sale were scorned. And producers who accepted Hollywood investments in their plays were scrutinized. Movie audiences were larger, but they did not represent the social position occupied by America’s theatergoers. Moreover, the theater’s desire to distinguish itself from these other media and their audiences suggests that its representation of the war, the narratives with which it sought to understand and explain the war, were different: less uniform, less regimented, more iconoclastic. In the following chapters we will provide both a broad exploration of the trends and tensions in wartime theater and detailed analyses of how these trends and tensions are manifested in specific, seminal plays. Chapter 2 examines the variety of positions presented in plays produced before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into the war. Chapter 3 looks at plays set overseas, some depicting our occupied and fighting allies, some depicting U.S. servicemen in combat. Chapter 4 looks at plays that address life on the home front, including the infusion of thousands of civilians into the military, the threat of enemy sabotage, the social upheavals caused by the sudden, cross-country movement of large groups of people, the effect of rapid industrialization on social infrastructure, wartime life’s effect on young people, and the results of carpe-diem pressure on wartime romances. Chapter 5 explores how plays produced near or just after the end of the war imagined the promises and dangers of the postwar world. In sum, we argue that U.S. theater presented a less tidy but more complex view of the war than any other popular-culture medium, a view that invited the critical thinking of its audiences and frequently challenged the official narratives of the war.

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2

Before Pearl Harbor Looking back through the many layers of popular-culture-inspired myth about the homogeneity of thought, belief, and purpose during World War II (a myth that maintains surprising currency considering the mountain of evidence that calls it into question), we need to remember that in the years before 7 December 1941, when the United States finally entered the war, U.S. public opinion was sharply divided on the complex topic of the war. While Imperial Japan invaded and plundered more and more of China, and Nazi Germany began annexing its neighbors, the United States was still smarting from its experience in World War I. From the 1920 presidential election, in which voters interpreted a “return to normalcy” as meaning isolationism, and into the 1930s, as Germany remilitarized and Italy flexed its muscles in Ethiopia, Americans eyed foreign wars and entanglements suspiciously. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the great majority of Americans opposed the United States’ involvement in the war. President Roosevelt knew this, and despite his conviction that the United States would eventually have to fight Nazi Germany and his ingenious strategies for circumventing the Neutrality Act and sending aid to Great Britain, he pledged in his 1940 reelection campaign, “I have said this before, but I shall say it again, and again, and again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”1 The public, however, opposed intervention in different ways. Some idealists were pacifists on principle. Some isolationists opposed U.S. involvement in foreign wars but insisted on a strong defense at home. Some sympathizers with Great Britain supported all aid short of war. But a comparatively small number of people, mostly leftists, called for military action against the fascist states.2 In the wake of the September 1939 initiation of open war in Europe, a host of noisy organizations sought to influence public opinion and government policy. The America First Committee, led by General Robert E. Wood (head of Sears, Roebuck) and boasting such celebrity members as Charles 23

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Lindbergh, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and Lillian Gish, fought against intervention and for a strong defense. The Keep America Out of War Congress, the National Council for the Prevention of War, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom similarly urged the United States to keep out of the war in Europe. On the political margins a number of profascist or anti-Semitic groups, including the GermanAmerican Bund, the Silver Shirts, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Legion, and the Crusader White Knights, drew a small but dangerous membership whose fears and anger were provoked by such demagogues as Father Charles Coughlin and Gerald L. K. Smith.3 On the other side, the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies argued for military support for Great Britain and the other victims of Nazi aggression, and the Century Group, which later became Fight for Freedom, Inc., pushed for military intervention. This range of deeply held convictions and loudly proclaimed opinions was reflected in the New York theater in the years before Pearl Harbor. We have already seen how the labor theater spawned plays that were critical of Nazi Germany and plays that were against war. Between 1933 and 1941 New York theatergoers saw many more plays representing multifarious positions, from pacifism and anti-interventionism to critiques of fascism. Other plays used the world crisis as a means of considering the state of the nation after a decade of depression or the state of the individual as the world teetered toward war. The first group of plays we will examine are fellows of Bury the Dead in that they are against war, but they are against war in different ways. There were few plays that promoted pacifism as an ideal—after World War I, ideals of this sort seem to have been regarded with suspicion. There were, however, a couple. If This Be Treason, by John Haynes Holmes and Reginald Lawrence, opened at the Music Box Theatre on 23 September 1935, in a Theatre Guild production. It begins on the evening of President John Gordon’s inauguration. Gordon was elected on a peace platform and is a committed pacifist. Yet in the days leading up to his inauguration, tensions with Japan have been rising: the Japanese have fired on the U.S. embassy and rejected an ultimatum sent by the outgoing president. Gordon is tested when, not long into the inaugural ball, word comes that the Japanese have effected a surprise attack on the Philippines and seized 24

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Manila. Against the advice of almost all his advisors, Gordon recalls the navy and orders the army to stand down. The next day, he gradually learns that the former president, military leaders, and some large arms manufacturers had conspired to force the Japanese into attacking. Predictably, Congress and the press are clamoring for war. Gordon says to his secretary of state: “Did you ever stop to think, Dickinson, why people always choose war in a crisis? Because they’re never given the opportunity to choose anything else. The moment trouble begins, press, politicians, pulpits start braying for war. But what if peace had a decent chance? What if people were asked not to fight, as urgently as they are now asked to fight?” He goes on, “Can’t you see what it will mean to men in the future for a country like ours to come up against a great and terrible and righteous provocation to fight—and refuse!”4 In his introduction to the published play, Holmes writes: “It was always easy to tell what a pacifist President in a war crisis should not do— namely, not take his country into war. But it was never easy to tell what he should do. A negative policy, mere inaction, was not enough to win and hold popular support and thus swing the people to the side of peace.”5 The third act takes up the challenge of what Gordon should do. Amid the resignations of his cabinet members and threats of impeachment from Congress, Gordon announces that he will go to Japan to negotiate with the Japanese leaders. At first, the Japanese refuse to confer, but even when they agree to talk, they can’t fathom Gordon’s arguments: to them, peace is what comes after the war is over, not instead of the war. But when word comes that the U.S. Senate has suspended the impeachment trial pending the outcome of the conference, apparently in response to overwhelming popular support for Gordon’s peace mission, a popular uprising among the Japanese common people in support of a Gandhi-like figure leads the Japanese officials to agree to a peaceful resolution of differences. The message is clear: given the choice, the common people will opt for peace. It is the responsibility of our leaders to give them that choice. In March 1936 the Federal Theatre Project produced Samuel Jesse Warshawsky’s similarly plotted A Woman of Destiny. Here, a pacifist woman vice president must take over the presidency after the president has declared war on Japan and then died. Refusing a military solution, she negotiates directly with the Japanese emperor, and they mutually agree to end the war. Both of these plays aver that people of goodwill working 25

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together can prevent war. That such a sentiment was deemed naive is evidenced by their brief runs (forty and thirty-five performances, respectively) and by the general lack of enthusiasm with which they were received, especially compared to the excitement created by the modestly produced Bury the Dead. Bury the Dead presaged a set of plays that cast their antiwar arguments in cynical rather than idealistic terms. Ten days after Bury the Dead ’s New Theatre Night premiere, the Theatre Guild opened Robert E. Sherwood’s new play, Idiot’s Delight (24 March 1936). The play, which would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize, is set at an inn in the Italian Alps, near the borders with Austria and Switzerland, on the eve of the next war. Because the Italian government has closed the borders, a variety of travelers are stuck at the inn, notably a down-at-the-heels vaudevillian, Harry Van, with a half-dozen chorines, and Irene, a dubiously posturing White Russian, who is the mistress of Achille Weber, an international arms manufacturer and merchant. (Harry and Irene were originally played by Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, for whom the play was written.) While the travelers worry about when they will be able to move on, war is declared: the Italian air force bombs Paris; Britain and Germany enter the fray; and, at the play’s climax, French planes bomb a nearby airfield, threatening the inn with collateral destruction. The play’s critique of war is developed through its exploration of the idea of nationalism. There is a tension established early on between the various characters who in different ways think of themselves as internationalists and the power of the imaginary line that marks the border between two nations. Dr. Waldersee (played originally by Sydney Greenstreet) is a German scientist working on a cure for cancer and desperate to get his experiments to Zurich—Italy is now unsafe because of the brewing crisis, and in Germany he would be forced to work on weapons of war. Rejecting an appeal to the fascist states standing together, he eschews nationality, saying: “I am a scientist. I am a servant of the whole damn stupid human race.”6 Another traveler, Quillery, is a Frenchman, but he tells Harry: “I have no nationality. [.  .  .] I went to work in a factory—and machinery is international.”7 (In an ironic counterpoint to Weber, Quillery works in a factory that makes artificial limbs, so he too, in a way, is an arms manufacturer.) He is returning from an international meeting of workers, and, like Waldersee, he is eager to cross the border: 26

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“There we were—gathered in Zagreb, representatives of the workers of all Europe. All brothers, collaborating harmoniously for the United Front! And now—we are rushing to our homes to prevent our people from plunging into mass murder—mass suicide!”8 Waldersee and Quillery are idealists whose aims transcend nationality but whose goals in practical terms are threatened by the power of the border. Other characters suggest a multinationalism. Weber, a Frenchman, speaks with a vaguely Continental accent. Mr. and Mrs. Cherry are British honeymooners who have defied their families’ expectations by getting married in Florence. Irene, who carries herself as Russian nobility, is of Armenian birth but has resided in England, the United States, France, and apparently a host of other countries. When she looks out the inn’s windows, which famously overlook four countries, she remarks: “And they all look so very much alike, don’t they! [. . .] All covered with the beautiful snow. I think the whole world should be always covered with snow.”9 She expresses her desire here for the snow to display the homogeneity of the land while hiding the borders that establish national difference. That borders are imaginary lines, however, does not mean that they aren’t powerful. Weber has the best understanding of the power of borders, how they help create, in Benedict Anderson’s term, imagined communities in which a shared sense of nation demands the defense of those borders and, in time, the desire to expand them.10 He explains to Irene: “[The others at the inn] consider me an arch-villain because I furnish them with what they want, which is the illusion of power. Big guns—to protect them from the consequences of their own obvious inferiority! That is what they vote for in their frightened governments—what they cheer for on their national holidays—what they glorify in their anthems, and their monuments, and their waving flags!”11 This cynical understanding of nation allows Weber to be the most successful internationalist of all the characters. As Quillery explains to the other travelers, “He is a master of the one real League of Nations—The League of Schneider-Creusot, and Krupp, and Skoda, and Vickers and Dupont. The League of Death!”12 In Quillery’s rhetoric the League of Nations, an organization founded in an idealistic belief in the ability of nations to work together, has been transformed into the cartel arrangements of the multinational arms manufacturers, whose power and profits depend on nations being at war. 27

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Weber is the only one of the would-be internationalists who is able successfully to resist the siren song of nation. Once the war begins, the characters respond with a knee-jerk nationalism. Waldersee gives up his cancer research to go back to Germany and work on weapons of war. The Cherrys head home to Britain, cutting their honeymoon short, so they can help their country. Quillery has the most dramatic change of heart: confronting the bomber crews after their attack on Paris, he has become a raging patriot, ready to stand with England and the United States against the fascist nations because his beloved Paris lies in ruins. Unable to control his anger or his rhetoric, he is arrested and shot by a firing squad. Of the internationalists, Irene has the most ambiguous ending. Abandoned by Weber, her League-of-Nations-issued passport not recognized by the Italian government, she is forbidden from crossing the border with the other travelers and left at the inn. Without a passport to confirm identity and nationality, a person is, as far as official recognition goes, not a person. For much of the play, Irene has used the vagueness about her identity—her national origin, her supposed royal blood, her travels—to her advantage to transcend nationalism, but here at the end, with Weber gone and everyone else in thrall to the conditioned response of nationalism, she sees the disadvantage of being a stateless soul. Harry Van, the main American representative to this mock League of Nations, stands out from the other characters in embracing neither nationalism nor internationalism; instead, he puts his faith in more intimate, personal relations. Early on, he seems to be a stereotypical American, ignorant of world affairs. As we learn more about him, however, we see that Harry connects nationalism and the international situation to the “false beliefs—false fears—false enthusiasms” with which most people are deluded.13 He explains to Quillery that he too supports a revolution, but “I’m just in favor of any revolution. Anything that will make people wake up, and get themselves some convictions.”14 Later he makes the clearest statement of his life philosophy to Waldersee: “I’ve remained an optimist because I’m essentially a student of human nature. [. . .] All my life, Doctor, I’ve been selling phoney goods to people of meagre intelligence and great faith. You’d think that would make me contemptuous of the human race, wouldn’t you? But—on the contrary—it has given me Faith. It has made me sure that no matter how much the meek may be 28

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bulldozed or gypped they will eventually inherit the earth.”15 It is this faith in others that accounts for Harry’s kind sympathy for the Cherrys, his confidence that Waldersee will win the Nobel Prize and his disappointment when the doctor returns to Germany to do war work, his attempt to save Quillery from his own self-destructive denunciation of the Italian bomber crews, and, most important, his returning to the inn as the others finally cross the border so that Irene won’t be alone. For much of the play, Harry has been trying to figure out if he had previously known Irene; she reminds him of a girl he shared a vaudeville bill with in Omaha and who, indiscreetly, came to his room. Irene, all nobility and pretense, has denied knowing him until the moment of his departure, when she admits, “Yes—I did know you, slightly, in Omaha!”16 Irene has been established as such a liar that Harry doesn’t know whether to believe her. Still, after some consideration, he decides to take her on faith, return to the inn, and establish with her their own nation of two. As French planes bombard the nearby airfield, death in the air, and the world tumbling into apocalypse, the two of them take a stand, mocking the explosions outside the inn’s windows by singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” refusing to participate in others’ false enthusiasms, and conjuring their own fantasies for the future. Like Idiot’s Delight and Bury the Dead, The Ghost of Yankee Doodle projects its action into the future; it is set “eighteen months after the commencement of the next world war.”17 Written by Sidney Howard and produced by the Theatre Guild, The Ghost of Yankee Doodle opened 22 November 1937 at the Guild Theatre and starred Ethel Barrymore and Dudley Digges. Like Idiot’s Delight, this play presents its ideas about war by means of a microcosm, but instead of an international gathering at an inn, here we encounter a family in their home during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. At the center of the Garrison family are two brothers, John and Rudi, and Sara, the widow of another brother who was killed in the First World War. The brothers inherited from their father the Garrison Tool and Die Company and a staunchly liberal worldview. In the past the company, which John manages, has been successful enough to employ a large part of this midsized western city’s workforce as well as to underwrite Rudi’s liberal daily newspaper and support Sara and her children, Roger and Joan, in the family mansion. This Christmas Day, however, sees the country in a severe economic 29

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depression: the Neutrality Act forbids trade with the belligerent nations— Germany, Italy, and Japan fighting against Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—and many companies, including the Garrison Tool and Die Company, are suffering canceled orders and lost customers. Adding tension to the international situation, on Christmas Eve a French submarine sank the Farragut, a U.S. merchant ship secretly transporting a load of spark plugs to Italy, killing seventeen sailors. The play quickly establishes the conflict with which the Garrisons and, by extension, the world will struggle: the conflict between ideals and self-interest. As family members open presents and sample the eggnog, John tells Rudi and Sara that the business is about to go under. Three major orders have been canceled, layoffs will be announced the next day, and the bank has set a deadline of 15 January for the payment of a loan of over $700,000. The failure of the company will also mean the loss of Rudi’s newspaper, the sale of the family home, and, more than that, the end of their way of life. There is, however, a possible way out. The Italian government has offered to buy all three orders and at a better price than the original buyers had offered. There will be a pretense of selling the goods to another neutral country, and in transit the destination will be changed. John sums up: “There’s your choice! Between salvation at a price we hate like hell to pay and shutting up shop!” He goes on: “I’ve learned an important lesson these last four days: that we liberals have to live in two opposite worlds. Our beliefs in one, our experience in the other.”18 Sara, while regretting the potential loss of her home and all she’d hoped to give to her children, nevertheless sticks to her beliefs: “I can only see how we’d feel if any deal of ours were to involve this peaceful country in war—I don’t know how. I can only see that I’ve a son just at the fighting age whose father was killed in the last war.”19 Rudi, desperate, wants to live up to his principles, but proclaims: “Self-preservation! That’s a kind of principle, too!”20 Later, a Garrison Company foreman will put this principle more bluntly: “We all have our own interests to look after!”21 In the broader picture, the United States’ involvement in the war hangs in the tension between principle and self-interest, between idealism and practicality. Self-interest and practicality are represented by James Madison Clevenger, a Hearst-like publisher who owns a chain of antilabor, redbaiting, and generally reactionary newspapers. He is also a former beau of 30

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Sara’s, and he has come to her house on Christmas morning to renew his suit and to seek her guidance. His success as a publisher has come from knowing what the public wants, but as the Depression has worsened and more U.S. merchant ships have been sunk, he has become unsure of the public mood. He’s hoping that Sara can clear his mind. Up to this point, despite his own desire to help the fascist states, he has supported the White House’s stance on neutrality, underplaying incidents like the sinking of the Farragut, because he thinks the public wants neutrality. When Sara tells him that she can’t marry him now, on the brink of ruin, because she’ll never know if she simply wants to be rescued, he decides it’s time to open the floodgates. He tells her, “In any choice made by any man, between the levelled balances of his interests, there’s always a feather’s weight to tip the scale.”22 The feather’s weight is Sara: he orders his papers’ New Year’s Eve editions to play up the Farragut incident and call for a military response, demanding that the government restore our national honor. In the subsequent Clevenger-orchestrated patriotic and militarist hoopla, the Garrison Company is saved (the bank extends unlimited credit), and the way is clear for Sara to marry him. For Clevenger, war is a practical exigency that serves his and others’ self-interest. On the broadest level it will end the Depression, put people back to work, and revitalize the American economy. On the most personal level it will save the Garrison Company and clear the way for Sara to marry him. Even when his illegitimate son, a famous aviator, dies trying to take off in a snowstorm on his way to join the French air force (the wrong side as far as Clevenger is concerned; remember, the French sank the Farragut), Clevenger is able to twist the news to serve his warmongering purposes: “I don’t have to say he was rushing to fly with the French. Let ’em think he was on his way to offer his life for his own country!” Appalled, Sara finally breaks with Clevenger, attacking his “instinct to use everything, even that poor burned body, to your advantage.”23 The play ends ambiguously. On the personal level, Clevenger loses Sara. On the national and international levels, the United States loses as self-interest trumps the idealism that might keep the country at peace. As midnight approaches on New Year’s Eve, the Garrisons are left pondering the value of liberal idealism in a world hell-bent on war. John says: “The truth about us is: we’re afraid of Clevenger. He makes the world as men have messed it up more valid than the world as it ought to be. That’s 31

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part of the power of evil in men like him. They can make what’s sound and good seem senseless folly. And men like you and me sound like solemn fools.”24 The play leaves little encouragement as the United States heads to war while its citizens celebrate, leaving the idealists and pacifists abandoned, ignored, and irrelevant, but Sara offers a comforting quotation from John Oliver Hobbes to assuage the wounds Clevenger has caused: “Oh, I know he has confused you now and set you back! But I read in a book once: ‘Stone the idealist—no flint can reach his thought. Bury the dreamer—his dreams will color the sky above his grave. Imprison the philosopher—his philosophy will wander free in the market place.’ ”25 Idiot’s Delight and The Ghost of Yankee Doodle both look cynically at the ways knee-jerk nationalism and craven self-interest envelop people who should know better and lead nations into war. A variety of other pre–Pearl Harbor plays made their case for peace or at least for nonintervention by presenting with some cynicism the selfserving mechanisms that existed behind the public rhetoric of war. Sidney Kingsley’s Ten Million Ghosts (23 October 1936) focuses on a French World War I pilot (played by Orson Welles) who discovers a conspiracy among the belligerents’ arms manufacturers to protect each other’s factories as the fighting goes on. Hooray for What!, a musical comedy by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg and music by Harold Arlen (1 December 1937), takes a lighter and more fanciful approach to the arms industry and the rush to war.26 In it a scientist, played by the great comic Ed Wynn, accidentally invents a deadly poison gas, initiating a mad rush by the nations of the world to acquire it by hook or by crook. Emjo Basshe’s Snickering Horses (a one-act play presented by the Federal Theatre Project in May 1936) tells the story of a man who, gullibly swallowing patriotic rhetoric, enters the military in the place of the owner of a meatpacking plant. The owner argues that he is needed at his plant to serve the war effort. While the owner and other businessmen sing patriotic songs and pocket profits, the soldier loses both his arms on the battlefield. Another set of plays, like Ten Million Ghosts, uses the First World War as a vehicle for revealing the horror that idealistic rhetoric seeks to mask. When Bury the Dead moved to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, it was preceded by another one-act, Prelude, by J. Edward Shugrue and John O’Shaughnessy (18 April 1936), which featured three 32

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soldiers, crippled during World War I, who recount their ghastly experiences and warn against another war. Johnny Johnson, a play by Paul Green with songs by Green and Kurt Weill, inspired by the classic Czech novel The Good Soldier Švejk, was produced by the Group Theatre (19 November 1936). In expressionistic style it traces the experiences of Johnny Johnson, an everyman figure, who begins as a pacifist stonecutter in his small American hometown and then gets swept up into America’s entry into World War I. At first he resists enlisting, but he changes his mind when he reads President Wilson’s words about fighting to end all war. His attempts to be a soldier and an idealist go awry on the battlefield, however, and he is arrested and committed to an asylum. Most of his fellow inmates share his vision of a world without war, but several years later, when he is released, in his hometown the so-called sane townspeople have begun agitating for war again. We can think of Johnny as a more naive version of the idealist Garrisons in The Ghost of Yankee Doodle: he believes in ideas deeply, and he can’t understand that others don’t or that the people who have the power to wage war or declare peace are using soldiers like him to serve their own interests. In a surreal battlefield moment, while Johnny and his fellow soldiers sleep, the barrels of three gigantic artillery pieces loom over them and sing that the iron from which they were made might have been used for humanitarian purposes, but human beings decided to make weapons of war instead. Similarly, a boy whom Johnny meets at the end of the play, as the cries for war are heard again, might “make things—or be a great doctor—or a good farmer—do something that would be of use to the world” but will be a soldier.27 Later that same season, Walter Charles Roberts’s Red Harvest (30 March 1937) focused on Red Cross nurses during the World War I Battle of Château-Thierry. The nurses are presented heroically, but the horrific bloodshed of the battle and the bungling of the army’s commanding officers are emphasized as well. The implied message of all these plays is that World War I offers in itself the best argument for not having another war. These plays have in common the theme of ideals and the rhetoric that supports them being hypocritically used to justify wars that serve the interests of the few while spreading destruction and suffering among the many. Karel Čapek’s The Mother (25 April 1939) shows the way in which ideals, the causes for which one is willing to die or, as Harry Van calls 33

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them, “false enthusiasms,” are inculcated in a people. The setting is an unnamed family’s study in an unnamed European country. Seventeen years earlier, the family patriarch was killed in a colonial war in Africa, and some years after that, the eldest son died when he was infected with the yellow fever he was trying to find a cure for. The day the play begins, the next son has been killed in a plane crash while trying to set a new altitude record. As the play goes on, the next two sons, twins, are killed fighting on opposite sides of their country’s civil war. And in the last act, as the country responds to the invasion of a much more powerful neighbor, calling for all men to rush to the front, the Mother tries desperately to keep her youngest boy (sensitive and nervous—played by Montgomery Clift) from joining the army. The trick here is that the dead family members periodically appear in the study and converse with the Mother, arguing with her about the value of their deaths. The play sets up a conflict between the men, who believe in the value of dying for a cause, and the Mother, who thinks the lives of her family members are more important than any cause or ideal. One of the men speaks of the need “to stick to a cause through thick and thin, to do things for its sake that you’d never do for your own sake.”28 The Mother, on the other hand, feels shut out of the family’s masculine tradition; she sees only the sacrifice, loss, and death. In arguing with her youngest son, Tony, about the war, she says of every mother: “Do you think she can ever calmly face the idea of having her children taken away from her, one after another? Why, she wouldn’t deserve the name of mother, if she willingly put up with that.”29 Interestingly, however, the conflict becomes muddied. At one point, talking among themselves, the ghosts express their own doubts about dying for a cause: george: You know, we were always told how fine it is to die on behalf of something or other: science or country or faith or the salvation of mankind or whatever it might be. But when you’ve done it—

andrew:—you find that it’s different from what you were led to expect. I know. If people could only realize what it makes a man feel like, then perhaps they wouldn’t harp so much on how fine it is to die for a cause. Fine! There’s nothing particularly fine about my death, as far as I can see.30 34

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Their causes, their ideals, their enthusiasms are shown to be false in the sense that they have inherited them, and they have been taught to die for them. On the other hand, the Mother, who has denied the value of dying for a cause, reveals at the end of the play her own deeply held ideal. When she hears on the wireless that the invading enemy is killing children, she thinks of the world outside her home: “Children! Children like my own used to be! Children with untidy hair and dirty faces.” At this point she hands Tony a rifle, points to the front, and says, “Go!”31 She reveals that all her arguments have been supported by a belief in the importance of children: that is the cause for which she is willing to die or, in this case, send her last son to die. The play’s final lines, then, far from being an endorsement of war, conclude a careful deconstruction of the conflict between the men and the Mother and reveal the danger of ideals and causes. The play asks us to examine where the ideals we would be willing to fight for come from and to consider the extent to which they are our own. These plays present an almost contradictory stance: arguing for peace but acknowledging that the human tendency to self-interest, the socially conditioned reflex to nationalism, the mendacity of governments, and the corruption of international industry make war seemingly inevitable. This contradiction is embodied nicely but probably unintentionally in the first-act finale of the musical Yokel Boy (6 July 1939), “Uncle Sam’s Lullaby,” in which, according to one reviewer, after a character sings, “Uncle Sam’s knocking at your door singing ‘Sleep tight, my baby [. . .] there won’t be any more war,’ ” “The stage was thereupon filled with Minute Men, Indians, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, West Point Cadets, battleships, tanks, airplanes flying in formation, and hordes of chorus girls with overseas helmets and that tense expression. This was a trifle confusing in view of the song, but we gathered this is how Uncle Sam is putting up a firm front to soothe baby into sweet, untroubled sleep.”32 We might consider this an America First production number, encouraging the United States to stay out of war by having a strong defense. Other 1930s plays began defining the enemy against which we might need a strong defense. Fascism was the subject of a number of plays throughout the decade and into the 1940s. These plays worked together to construct an understanding of fascism as a negative development on the world stage, of the fascist states as potential threats to democracies 35

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and the United States in particular, and of the possibility of native-born fascism in the United States. As we noted in chapter 1, the first anti-Nazi play, Kultur, appeared on Broadway only eight months after Hitler came to power. Kultur, Dimitroff, Till the Day I Die, and Professor Mamlock, all of which we discussed in chapter 1, illustrate the pattern for most of the antifascist plays: they depict the fascist states as denying basic human and civil rights, as persecuting minorities, usually Jews or communists, and as being internally hypocritical and corrupt. Birthright (21 November 1933), by Richard Maibaum, shows a family torn apart by the ascendency of Nazism as some members choose to resist, some to go along, some to go along enthusiastically. In Leslie Reade’s The Shatter’d Lamp (21 March 1934) a young couple’s engagement descends into tragedy when it is revealed that the boy’s mother is Jewish. In Victor Wolfson’s Bitter Stream (30 March 1936) the Italian government not only seizes the fertile farmland some peasant families have worked for generations but also diverts the course of the stream that makes their hilltop homes habitable. The farmers in their simplicity don’t understand the ideological issues at stake and are persecuted by Mussolini’s thugs for their feeble opposition. Some plays, while lightly fictionalizing the nations and figures they depict, were also based on historic incidents. Like Dimitroff, Elmer Rice’s Judgment Day (12 September 1934) was inspired by the trial of the alleged Reichstag fire conspirators. Set in a fictional Slavic country dominated by Minister-President Grigori Vesnic and his chief henchman, Minister of Culture and Enlightenment General Rakovski, the play depicts the trial of two leaders of the opposition People’s Party and another man, a drugaddicted stooge, for the attempted assassination of Vesnic. It becomes clear in the course of the trial that most of the government’s evidence is manufactured, and when the defense in a coup presents a witness who shatters the prosecution’s case, the five judges are split among the true believer who wants to convict, two vacillators who are intimidated into agreeing to a guilty verdict, and two honorable men who won’t in good conscience convict without more solid evidence. As a result, Vesnic himself agrees to come to the court to testify and demand that the accused be condemned. When he arrives, most of the guards and his soldiers have joined with the opposition to depose him. Just before his arrival, one of the accused turns the tables on the proceedings by laying out the case 36

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against the dictator, a case that clearly is being made against real-life dictators Hitler and Mussolini: Four years ago, Grigori Vesnic seized power and made himself dictator. I stand here tonight, as spokesman for our oppressed people, to charge Grigori Vesnic, in their name, with his crimes. I charge him with tyranny, cruelty, ruthlessness and wholesale slaughter, with annihilating the liberties of the people and the institutions of justice. I charge him with destroying the precious heritage of our science and our art and with sending into exile the flower of our intellectual life. I charge him with sowing the seeds of terror and hatred. I charge him with racial and religious fanaticism, with deliberately endangering the peace of the world. I charge him with the murder of the thousands of innocent men and women who have perished on the scaffold, in the torture chamber and in the concentration camps.33 This speech sums up the attacks all these plays made on the fascist states. A later, similar play is Richard Rohman’s Tell My Story (15 March 1939), which takes place in a vaguely European country and is inspired by the true story of Giacomo Matteotti, an Italian socialist who opposed Mussolini and was assassinated in 1924. The play shows government officials and police collaborating with American gangsters to kill Matteo, an opposition leader who has been speaking against the Duke, a dictator, at home and abroad. His death, however, inspires some government deputies to rise against the Duke, and he is forced to make concessions in his rule. The critique of the fascist states is also presented in a set of plays about refugees fleeing the dictatorships for freedom in the democracies. In Robert Steiner and Harry Horner’s Escape This Night (22 April 1938), an author and his wife arrive in New York after making their way out of an unnamed totalitarian state. Because the author holds damaging information about the dictator, thugs from their home country pursue the couple, confronting them in the New York Public Library and killing the wife. In Lorelei (29 November 1938), by Jacques Deval, a leading German scientist escapes to France. The Nazis send a beautiful former student of his to lure him home. She seems genuinely in love with Germany, its 37

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history and culture, and is able to separate that love from her less enthusiastic regard for the country’s leader. When she urges the scientist to his duty to serve his country, he responds: “Serve what? A Germany of barracks and prisons; a Germany no longer dreaded for her strength, but for her violence; a Germany shunned by nations like the last unexploded shell in a recultivated battlefield!”34 Though he won’t admit it, he shares her love of his country, refusing offers to move to Paris or the Rockefeller Institute in New York so that he can live in a small French town with a view of Germany. He returns to Germany when he learns that the student’s life will be forfeited if he does not. In The Brown Danube (17 May 1939), by Burnet Hershey, an Austrian prince and his family are thwarted in their attempts to leave the country until the prince learns that the local Nazi commander has Jewish blood and uses that information to barter his family’s escape. Another Sun (23 February 1940), by the celebrated journalist Dorothy Thompson and Fritz Kortner, focuses on the refugee community in New York City. The refugees have left their home countries because of the rampant human-rights abuses they or their friends have suffered, but most of them are unable to find ways to pursue their professions in their new country, and some of them weigh the possibility of going home. Like several other of the antifascist plays, these refugee plays make their case by demonstrating the results of the fascist operations of power on the lives of specific individuals. We see again and again the broken families, the lost professions, the physical harm, and even the deaths caused by the fascists’ celebration of ideology over humanity. Other plays of the very late 1930s and early 1940s went beyond criticizing the fascist countries to suggesting that these countries, especially Nazi Germany, posed a threat to the United States. It is in these plays that we see implied the turn from the antiwar position to a promotion of an interventionist stance. Margin for Error, by Clare Boothe, opened on 3 November 1939 and ran for 264 performances, making it the first anti-Nazi play to be a financial success.35 The play, inspired by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s decision, in response to the German consul’s demand for police protection, to provide only Jewish policemen, is a comedy-mystery with serious undertones. Set in the German consulate of an unnamed city (but probably New York), Margin for Error presents a Jewish flatfoot, Officer Moe Finklestein (played by Sam Levene), trying to solve the richly deserved murder of the consul (played by Otto 38

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Leif Erickson, Elspeth Eric, Bramwell Fletcher, Otto Preminger, Sam Levene, Bert Lytell, and Philip Coolidge in Margin for Error (1939). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Preminger, who also directed), which took place while he, his aide, his wife, her newspaper-columnist lover, a German-American Bund leader, and a doctor were all listening to a speech by Hitler on the radio. Each had a motive to kill the consul. The consul represents all the cruelty of the Nazis: he is obsessed with his own power and enjoys seeing others suffer, from his wife’s pet parrot, which he poisons, to his aide, Baron Max von Alvenstor, whom he tortures with the information that his grandmother was Jewish. He also represents the megalomania, hypocrisy, and corruption of the Nazis: he has been embezzling funds meant for supporting the Bund; he has also been taking money from petitioners seeking the release of family and friends held in Germany and then doing nothing to help them—the doctor is among the people he has defrauded. Beyond this critical portrait of Nazism, however, the play shows Germany as acting against the United 39

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States. The consulate is financing and directing activities of the GermanAmerican Bund. More than that, the Bund leader, the buffoonish Otto B. Horst, has been designated the American Führer against the day when Germany will conquer the United States. Both Horst and the consul speak of their plans, already in place, for when the new world order comes to America. In fact, that’s what the consul has done with the embezzled funds: invested in the stock market in anticipation of how business will boom under German control.36 Interestingly, however, while the consul is presented as despicable, Max von Alvenstor is presented as being something of a noble Nazi. He is deeply loyal to his country and to its leader. He says to the consul at one point: “For God’s sake, sir—you know I love Germany. I love all [Hitler] has done for it. He gave us back our honor, our belief in the beauty of our own traditions.”37 He is scrupulously honest and is appalled by the consul’s malfeasance. But he is clearly troubled by the violence that has brought about the new Germany and guilty about his own participation in it. When the consul’s investigations reveal that his grandmother was Jewish, he is at first devastated both at the fate that will await him in Germany and at the thought that he can no longer be a part of this revived nation of which he is so proud. He says: “I have the same eyes, the same fair hair, quite the same face I had this morning. But now, because I had a grandmother I never laid eyes on, I’m no longer a Nazi—not even a German.”38 In talking to Moe, however, he comes to regard his heritage positively and suggests that he will work to make other Germans understand. He implies that he will help other German Jews: “I have a lot to do when I get back to Berlin.”39 We see by the end of the play that Max is not so much an admirable Nazi as he is an admirable person who comes to understand that he must work to save his country from the violent bigotry of the Nazis. Watch on the Rhine, by Lillian Hellman, is the masterpiece of the plays warning of the Nazi threat. Produced by Herman Shumlin, to whom the play is dedicated, and opening on 1 April 1941, only seven months before Pearl Harbor, Watch on the Rhine focuses its case less on the cruelty, belligerence, and subterfuge of the fascist states than on the arrogant naïveté of the America that has isolated itself from the rest of the world. The setting is the living room of the Farrelly family’s early nineteenth-century country house, a large structure with several wings and a terrace on land 40

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spacious enough to contain a pond with its own island. The living room represents the generations that have lived here, but not in any ordered way: “There are no styles, no periods; the room has never been refurnished. Each careless aristocrat has thrown into the room what he or she liked as a child, what he or she brought home when grown up. Therefore the furniture is of many periods: the desk is English, the couch is Victorian, some of the pictures are modern, some of the ornaments French. The room has too many things in it: vases, clocks, miniatures, boxes, china animals.”40 The room is significant. It suggests something of a hothouse or closed system wherein the sense of the past has been lost along with a sense of coherent connection to the world outside this house. The room is dominated by a large portrait of Joshua Farrelly, patriarch, attorney, and statesman, dead many years. This portrait is also significant: Joshua’s values, ideas, words, and habits—as out-of-date as the nineteenth-century suit he is depicted as wearing—dominate the family, primarily through the determination of his widow, Fanny Farrelly, who refuses to let the light of the contemporary world into the house or to let her son, David, step out of Joshua’s imposing shadow. David acknowledges wryly: “Mama thinks of me only as a monument to Papa and not a very well-made monument at that. I am not the man Papa was.”41 Later, when Fanny boasts that she is proud to have her husband’s convictions, her daughter, Sara, who has lived in Europe these last many years, replies: “Of course. But it might be well to have a few new ones, now and then.”42 The Farrelly family represents the United States, isolated and stuck in the past as the world tumbles into war. Fanny’s ideas about Europe are based in her memories of having lived there as a young woman when her father was an ambassador. She remembers the fancy-dress balls, the gossip about the various titled families, and being courted by minor royalty. This notion of Europe is put into tension with the reality of Europe in 1940 by the presence of two families she has invited into her house. The first is the Count and Countess de Brancovis. The countess, Marthe, is the American daughter of an old friend of Fanny’s who fulfilled her dream of status acquisition by managing to marry her daughter off to Romanian royalty. Such a marriage is what Fanny would have liked for her daughter. The reality, of course, doesn’t measure up to the dream. The count, Teck, is a failed diplomat who played his chances wrong when Hitler came to power and is now informally exiled 41

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Paul Lukas, Eric Roberts, Ann Blyth, Peter Fernandez, and Mady Christians in Watch on the Rhine (1941). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

in the United States and scheming to find a way to get back in the Nazis’ good graces. He and Marthe are almost broke and are straining the hospitality of the Farrellys as their visit reaches its sixth week. The second family is that of Fanny’s daughter, Sara, who, much against her mother’s wishes, married a German engineer, Kurt Müller (played by Paul Lukas), twenty years earlier and has lived in Europe ever since. Now, for some unexplained reason, Sara and Kurt, along with their three children, have come to the Farrelly home, another set of European refugees. Their presence results in an interesting clash of experience and attitudes. Kurt, we gradually learn, has long ago given up engineering: since 1933 he has worked full-time as an antifascist, agitating against Hitler, fighting for the Loyalists in Spain, and slipping in and out of Germany in his work for the underground. Because of his activities, the family has 42

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lived hand to mouth, frequently on the move, often using aliases. Thus, the children are astounded when they arrive at the Farrelly home: they have never known such luxury, such space, such bathroom facilities, or such food, but, more than that, they have never known a house in which it was not necessary to lock the front door and in which the people did not live in fear. For her part, Fanny, well invested in her romantic memories of Europe, can’t understand how her daughter and her family went without enough food or comfortable rooms to live in. She can’t understand why Kurt hasn’t made a good living as an engineer. When he explains that he is an antifascist, she doesn’t understand the urgency of such a profession and dismisses it with an airy “We are all Anti-Fascists,”43 as if antifascism were simply a position one takes in Washington, D.C., cocktail-party conversations. One of the children notes simply, “Grandma has not seen much of the world.”44 The narrative focus of the play is on Kurt’s having to return to Europe with money that has been raised by the underground to try to rescue three comrades from the Gestapo and Teck’s trying to blackmail him: for $10,000 he will not notify his friends in the German embassy that Kurt is in the Washington area and is about to head back to Germany. The thematic focus, however, is on the Farrelly family and their home, symbolic of Americans and America, and how they are forced to come out of their isolation and face the reality that Europe at war threatens the United States. The Farrellys have essentially invited European intrigue and corruption, in the person of Teck, and the resistance to those things, in the person of Kurt, into their house. When Fanny is shocked by Teck’s behavior, Kurt reprimands her, “It was careless of you to have in your house a man who opens baggage and blackmails.”45 This is the first warning that their house is not inviolate. When David and Fanny are dumbfounded that Teck simply ignores their orders to leave their house, Sara says resignedly: “My mother and brother feel shocked that you are in their house. For us—we have seen you in so many houses.”46 The crisis for the Farrellys comes after Kurt kills Teck. Kurt tries to explain the nature of the world he lives in and the disjunction between his desires for peace and the violence he must do. He offers Fanny and David a choice: they can call the police and report the murder, in which case he will not be able to return to Europe to rescue his friends, or they can stall for two days before reporting Teck missing, giving Kurt time to 43

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be on his way but risking being accused as accomplices to the murder. This is their call to enter the new century and to join the fight against the violent, duplicitous, bullying fascists who are seeking to make it their own. Fanny is helped in her decision and her movement into a new world by remembering some words of her late husband’s: “ ‘A Renaissance man,’ he said, ‘is a man who wants to know. He wants to know how fast a bird will fly, how thick is the crust of the earth, what made Iago evil, how to plow a field. He knows there is no dignity to a mountain, if there is no dignity to man. You can’t put that in a man, but when it’s really there, and he will fight for it, put your trust in him.’ ”47 She sees that Kurt is such a man, and it is here that she makes the transition from relying on the nineteenth-century worldview of Joshua Farrelly to putting her faith in the twentieth-century worldview of Kurt Müller. After Kurt bids farewell to his family and Sara goes to comfort the children, David and Fanny share this exchange: david: Mama. We are going to be in for some trouble. You understand that?

fanny: I understand it very well. We will manage. You and I. I’m not put together with flour paste. And neither are you—I am happy to learn.48 The Farrellys have lost their innocence. They have seen that they cannot keep themselves safe from the rest of the world in their comfortable house. They have seen that the verities of the nineteenth century cannot guide them in the strange new world Mussolini and Hitler have created. They have moved from being cocktail-party antifascists to actively joining the fight against fascism. Hellman’s play asks Americans at large to make the same recognition and make the same move. Although there were elements in U.S. society that defended Hitler or admired the accomplishments of the fascist states, we have found no plays that support fascism. There were, however, some plays, such as Till the Day I Die and Margin for Error, that tempered their critique of Nazi Germany by including one or more characters who can be characterized as Good Germans. Interestingly, there was a cluster of three such plays that opened on Broadway in late 1941. Maxwell Anderson’s Candle in the Wind (22 October 1941), set in Nazi-occupied France, focuses on an American actress (played, fittingly, by Helen Hayes) trying to ransom her 44

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lover, a French naval officer and leftist journalist, from a concentration camp. She is finally able to arrange an escape with the help of a German corporal who is swayed by her determination and selfless love. Fritz Rotter and Allen Vincent’s Letters to Lucerne (23 December 1941—although this play opened after Pearl Harbor, it had been in preparation beforehand) is set in a girls’ school in Switzerland. The students are of various nationalities, and their friendships are tested by the outbreak of war. The German student especially is ostracized until a letter from her mother reveals that her pilot brother deliberately crashed his plane rather than bomb the civilian population of Warsaw. The mother writes, “It was the only thing he could do—the only way he could protest and deny this terror that has swept over our country.”49 Most interesting is Norman Krasna’s The Man with Blond Hair (4 November 1941), which developed a concern with understanding the effects of Nazi ideology in constructing a compliant subject and with anticipating the postwar process of undoing that construction. The play is set in an apartment house on the Lower East Side of New York City. It begins with a group of men, one of them an off-duty cop, who plan to break two captured German aviators, escaped from a Canadian POW camp, out of jail so they can give them a good beating, but the plan goes awry, and one of them gets away.50 After some ineffective attempts to frighten the other, Carl, they leave him alone on the roof with orders to jump off; if he doesn’t, they will return and throw him off. As he is about to jump, the girlfriend of one of the fellows, Ruth, who has been secretly observing, leads him down the fire escape to hide in her apartment. For the rest of the play, while the men search for him offstage, Ruth and her mother, who thinks he is a refugee, hide Carl. There is quite a bit of cultural miscommunication and some heated ideological arguments, especially after Carl finds out Ruth and her mother are Jewish. (Ruth has no sympathy for the Nazis, but she wants to keep the neighborhood guys out of trouble.) To complicate things, the other POW, Sturner, Carl’s superior, is hiding in the basement of the building; he periodically hauls himself up the dumbwaiter and appears in the apartment to give Carl orders. The locals eventually spot Sturner, who leads them on a merry chase offstage, and Carl is deeply affected when, watching out the apartment window, he sees a police officer shoot one of the Americans who was about to shoot Sturner. 45

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The play’s dramatic tension and its thematic development lie in the incongruity of placing a Nazi in the home of a typical urban, Jewish American family. On the simplest level much of the play’s humor comes from Carl’s misunderstanding American slang and customs. More important are those instances when Carl is truly perplexed by the foreignness of what he encounters, such as a radio commentary critical of the government or the police officer defending Sturner. More important still are the beliefs Carl spouts, beliefs that are laughably bizarre to the other characters and to the audience, but which for Carl, the product of socialization into the Nazi ideology, are simply and self-evidently the truth. Humor turns to horror as the audience realizes that this is no joke—Carl accepts all he’s been told as fact. This theme is introduced early on, when the men have Carl on the rooftop. Trying to crack his stoicism, they conjure an absurd story about their all being Jewish and planning to sacrifice him and drink his blood. He replies calmly that he knows they are lying because that ceremony takes place only in synagogues on holy days. The men are dumbfounded: harry: Is everybody in Germany like that?

sid: Where do you think he picked it up? And what’s going to happen after the war? What are you going to do with all these crackpots—who’ve been taught this stuff from the time they were in kindergarten.51 Later, in the apartment, after Carl and Ruth argue about democracy, Ruth pleading its virtues and Carl denouncing its decadence, Ruth concludes in frustration: “Deep in my heart I’ve always felt you people could be saved. Most people here feel that. Maybe it’s something we want to feel, aside from being human, because there are eighty million of you and we don’t know what to do with you. But I may be wrong. It’s possible you’re too far gone and all the education and pleading in the world won’t change you.”52 The long center section of the play seeks to dramatize the breaking down of Carl as the product of the Nazi socialization process. His confidence in what he knows is continually undercut by his conversations with Ruth and her mother, by the things he hears on the radio, and the things he sees. His growing doubts are countered by the appearances of Sturner, who functions as a symbol of the entire process of interpellation through 46

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which Carl as a Nazi subject has been constructed. Sturner serves to reinforce Carl’s Nazi-constructed sense of self, but only to a point. Interestingly, it is not words that finally break Carl’s sense of self but action: the police shooting an American to save a Nazi, the rule of law trumping nationality and ideology. After he has betrayed Sturner and surrendered, Carl brings home the play’s main point in his final line: “It’s not true we can’t be saved. It’ll be hard, but don’t give up! Don’t give us up! In God’s name—help us!”53 He suggests that, just as his Nazi socialization has been shattered by seeing the example of Americans and their ideology in action, the other eighty million Germans can be rehabilitated to take a productive place among the nations of the world. Interestingly, though, the play complicates this notion of rehabilitation in its depiction of the characters whose identities have been constructed by the ideological forces of American democracy. In a telling moment, Ruth’s mother offhandedly remarks that the Nazis eat babies. How different, we wonder, is that from Carl’s propaganda-inspired beliefs about Jewish rituals? Similar media-disseminated notions about Germany and the nations it is fighting are parroted by the local guys we meet in the first scene. More frightening, these local guys—in their planning to beat up Carl and Sturner, in their threatening to throw Carl off the roof, in their trying to hunt down and kill Sturner—become a mob and, in so doing, undercut the ideals of democracy that are supposed to rehabilitate the Nazis. The play suggests that there may be elements of fascism in American society, elements that pose a danger to our own freedom. In chapter 1 we saw how the Federal Theatre Project’s 1936 adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here depicted the rise of fascism in the United States. Other plays, one earlier and several later, also warned of the danger of homegrown fascism. S. N. Behrman’s Rain from Heaven (24 December 1934) features a subplot about an American industrialist who has gone to England to collaborate with a British lord in founding an Anglo-American Youth League, which, he says, will appeal “to the generous spirit of the youth of both countries to mobilize against the subversive forces current in the world today.”54 When his hostess, a titled but politically progressive woman, accuses him of wanting a “private army” to support a dictatorship, he replies: “As a matter of fact, Lady Wyngate, it’s commonly acknowledged that democracy is passé. At home, the historic system of ‘checks and balances’ has brought us where we are.” 47

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He goes on to explain: “If I favor dictatorship as against democracy, it is because I’ve applied dictatorship in my business and in my private life, and have made it successful. [. . .] I am a very rich man, Lady Wyngate. I should never have become so through a system of divided powers. In the political realm also such a system is impractical. The state of the world today proves how impractical it is.”55 As an object lesson about where this kind of thinking can lead, the play includes among Lady Wyngate’s guests a German music critic who has been exiled after an extended term in a concentration camp. The industrialist excuses the Nazi camps: “It’s a government trying to make headway against tremendous odds. They’re justified in putting down opposition.”56 The critic explains that he was imprisoned because of a satiric pamphlet he wrote called “The Last Jew.” He summarizes: With the extermination of the Jews, the millennium has been promised the people. And with the efficiency of a well-organized machine that purpose is all but accomplished. They are all dead— but one—the last Jew. He is about to commit suicide when an excited deputation from the All-Highest comes to see him. There has been a meeting in the sanctum of the Minister of Propaganda. This expert and clever man has seen that the surviving Jew is the most valuable man in the Kingdom. He points out to the Council their dilemma. Let this man die and their policy is bankrupt. They are left naked, without an issue, without a programme, without a scapegoat. The Jews are gone and still no millennium. They are in a panic—till finally a committee is dispatched—and the last Jew is given a handsome subsidy to propagate.57 Putting aside our astonishment that in 1934 Behrman anticipated the Final Solution, albeit as a fantasy, we nevertheless see here that fascism is not a product of the need to organize a chaotic political world, as the industrialist would have it, but of what Lady Wyngate later calls “an epidemic of hatred and intolerance.”58 Hatred and intolerance as the seeds of fascism in American society are explored in several other plays that premiered at the end of the decade. Clare Boothe’s Kiss the Boys Good-bye (28 September 1938) spoofs the nationwide search to find an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in the film 48

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version of Gone with the Wind and features in a subplot a southern senator who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan is presented as the American version of fascism. In another comedy, The Male Animal (9 January 1940), by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent, the crisis is precipitated when a mild-mannered, absent-minded college professor (played originally by Nugent) is threatened with dismissal when he plans to read to his class a letter by Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The chairman of the board of trustees is presented as intolerant, bigoted, and in general suspicious of the life of the mind. The professor, who had initially been undecided about reading the letter, becomes more determined to do so the more he is threatened. It is this determination more than the principle of freedom of thought that wins the college community to his side. More serious is The American Way, an extravaganza by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, which opened at the Center Theatre in Rockefeller Center on 21 January 1939. The play featured music and pageantry, a complex scenic design and a cast of over one hundred men, women, and children. It was designed to be a spectacle big enough to fill the 3,500-seat theater; it used the story of one man, Martin Gunther (played by Fredric March) to tell the story of twentieth-century America. Hart’s biographer explains that the playwrights “chose to dramatize and celebrate the American Dream as experienced by an immigrant German (not Jewish) family over forty years in small-town America. The passage of years would demonstrate the resilience of democratic ideals in the face of social change. Ending in the present would add contemporary relevance, stressing the ongoing need for defense of freedom.”59 The play begins with Martin meeting his wife and child at Ellis Island and taking them to the home he’s built in Mapleton, Ohio. In a series of fast-moving vignettes we see Martin develop from humble cabinetmaker to wealthy factory owner, a narrative punctuated with lessons about democracy, freedom of thought, equality of opportunity, and technological progress. Trouble enters this American success story with the advent of World War I, and what had been a community quickly becomes a mob. The German Gunthers are suspected of disloyalty, and their son, Karl, is killed in battle just before the armistice. Then, a decade later, Martin loses everything when he tries to support the local bank during a run. These trials don’t shake Martin’s faith in America, but as the Depression goes on, others, especially the younger generation, despair and 49

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turn bitter. Where Martin had earlier praised America as the land of opportunity—“Just look at all the little boys who came from little towns and became great Americans. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Lincoln—all the rest of them. Starting with nothing—not even as much as you have. But all of them had a spirit inside them that made them great Americans”—now his grandson Karl gripes, “There must be some place where a fellow’s got a chance, where the cards aren’t stacked against you right from the beginning.”60 Karl decides to join a fascist group, telling his grandfather, “You don’t know what’s going on. We’ve got different problems now. And the same old system can’t meet them any longer. [. . .] Go ahead—wave the flag. Let the bands play. But if you stop listening to ‘The Star-spangled Banner’ for a minute, you can hear this whole rotten system crashing around your ears.” Martin responds: “Freedom is a curious thing, Karl—you do not get up every morning saying ‘Ah! I am free!’ You do not even think about it, perhaps, but it is part of a man, as much as living and breathing. It is the very spirit of a man. To live where there is freedom, Karl, that is the greatest thing in the world.”61 Martin breaks in on the fascist meeting, arguing for the American way, and is beaten to death. At his funeral, a friend eulogizes him: “Martin Gunther lived with tolerance and in peace among his neighbors. He had a deep and simple faith in the goodness of his fellow men, and he died fighting for that which he felt gave meaning to life—for that which made it rich and beautiful—Freedom. He died for the thing he loved—his country.”62 The authors offer Martin’s life as an exemplar of all that is good about the American experience and as proof against those who, like the industrialist in Rain from Heaven, claim that democracy is passé. Irwin Shaw’s The Gentle People, which opened in a Group Theatre production two weeks before The American Way (5 January 1939), complicates the problem of American fascism. Where these other plays present it as an aberration that has developed in response to the loss of faith in U.S. democracy, political institutions, and economic life, The Gentle People suggests that fascism is endemic to the American experience. The play begins with two working-class men, Jonah Goodman and Philip Anagnos, fishing in their small boat in New York Harbor. This ritual is the one pleasure in their lives, and they dream of buying a larger boat and fishing in the Gulf Stream off Cuba. Their pleasure and their dream are interrupted, however, when a small-time hood, Harold Goff, demands $5.00 50

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per week protection money. Basically, if they don’t pay, he will wreck their boat. The two fishermen argue over how to respond—resist, give in, call the police. Diffident Philip says to fuming Jonah: “Every place you go, you gotta pay to be allowed to live. In Greece you pay the government, here in America it’s a democracy—you pay people like Mr. Goff.” Later Jonah rejects this policy of appeasement: “What does history show? Look at Mussolini. They fed him Africa, then he has his teeth on Spain. They let Hitler taste Austria, then he was dribbling at the lips for his other neighbors.”63 As Jonah’s comparison makes clear, Goff, a bully who tramples over others to get what he wants, represents the fascist states. Interestingly, however, he is presented as having a certain appeal, especially to Stella, Jonah’s daughter. Stella, who chafes under the narrow possibilities her life offers and anticipates them becoming even narrower after marriage to her timid fiancé, dreams of a life of luxury and sees Goff as the means to get it. He gives her fancy clothes, takes her to hot spots, and invites her on a cruise to Cuba—just the life she’s dreamed of. That he is dangerous and dominates weaker people, including her father, is part of what fascinates her. Acknowledging that Goff is stealing from Jonah, she says: “It’s not personal. That is the way the world is made, Pop. The strong take from the weak.”64 That she blithely dismisses Goff ’s bullying suggests that it is necessarily a part of something very American, the pursuit of the American Dream. Goff represents the dark side of the American Dream, which we saw enacted so positively in Martin Gunther’s story. Where Martin advanced because of hard work and a free society with limitless opportunity, Goff advances because of the ability to dominate the gentle people, people who are too timid to stand up for themselves. Goff brings this understanding of the American Dream home in a speech near the end of the play, where he reports what he’s learned about the founding of the United States: “The Americans just stepped out into the woods and they looked it over and they said, ‘I can get a godamn [sic] good living out of this place. I will put a farm here and I will dig a mine here and over here I will put a factory.’ And it if meant bumping off a coupla Indians, that didn’t stop ’em one minute. No, sir. They were tough guys. They knew what they wanted.”65 Described this way, the colonizers of the American continent sound more like Goff and the European fascists than the heroes of the history books. 51

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Jonah and Philip try a variety of responses to Goff ’s bullying. They try the justice system. They report him to the police, but the case is dismissed by a corrupt judge and results in a beating for Jonah. They try appeasement. They give him the $5.00 per week he asks for, but he then demands the $190.00 they have saved to buy a bigger boat. Facing the loss of their dream, they finally try violence. Jonah explains to the nervous Philip: “If you want peace and gentleness, you got to take violence out of the hands of the people like Goff and you got to take it in your own hands and use it like a club. Then maybe on the other side of the violence there will be peace and gentleness.”66 They persuade Goff to let them take him across the harbor in their boat, and halfway across, they knock him out and dump him overboard. Just before the murder, Goff explains his political philosophy: “There are superior people and there are inferior people. [. . .] The superior people make the inferior people work for them. That is the law of nature.”67 In killing Goff, Jonah and Philip are enacting this philosophy, redefining themselves from inferior people, the victims, to superior people, the victimizers. In so doing, they regain their peace: they are able to fish unmolested. They also gain Goff ’s bankroll, over $400, which they plan to use to finance their dream trip to fish in the Gulf Stream. Although the play seems to end happily—the two old men we have been asked to sympathize with have beaten the bully who was harassing them—the means by which this happy ending is achieved are troubling. The men defeat Goff by, in effect, becoming like Goff. The fundamental rightness of the American way isn’t what triumphs here; rather, it’s the violence implicit in the American way and its history. The Gentle People, with the critical eye it casts on the United States, connects to two more sets of plays. The first examines the United States as a country in crisis. These plays look at an American society still struggling with the economic devastation of the Depression and with the political threats engendered by joblessness and depravation. They see American democracy besieged by the growth of fascism in Europe and Asia and, as we have seen, by the possibility of homegrown fascism. They wonder if America, its values and its beliefs, can survive. The second set looks at individual Americans’ existential crises. They wonder how, in a world where traditional institutions and systems are failing and nations are tumbling toward a potentially devastating war, any clear purpose or meaning for life can be found. 52

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An example of the first set is American Landscape, by Elmer Rice (3 December 1938). The setting is an old colonial house and farm, home for five generations of the Dale family. The stage directions tell us, “The original house, built in the middle of the eighteenth century, has undergone numerous alterations, enlargements, and embellishments; but its core still remains.”68 The house, much like the house in Watch on the Rhine, is clearly symbolic of the United States and its history, and the Dales, founders and still owners of a local shoe factory and participants in all America’s wars, are symbolic of Americans in general. The play begins on Decoration Day, 1938, with the family’s current patriarch, Captain Frank Dale, depressed over the dwindling number of his Spanish-American War comrades at the local parade. The number of veterans is not all that is diminishing. There is a general sense of entropy throughout the first part of the play. The house and farm “haven’t been kept up as they should have been,” says Carlotta, Frank’s daughter-in-law, and Frank confirms, “We seem to have let things run to seed for one reason or another—or maybe for no reason.”69 The factory’s shoes are described as low-quality and “flimsy.” Frank sums up the gradual running down of the family’s fortunes: “Here I am, a poorer man than my father was—poorer not only in material things, but in power and influence and resourcefulness. We were never rich, we Dales, but we were always comfortable and a little more. What’s become of it all? Just dribbled away, dribbled away.”70 Depressed by the decline of the farm and the business as well as by his own failing health, Frank has decided to sell the shoe factory to a larger company that will close it down to decrease competition for its brand. More shocking, he has decided to sell the house and move to Florida. To cap it all, he’s decided to sell it to a German American organization, which plans to use it for a summer camp.71 The Dales’ situation is that of the United States in 1938: crippled by economic depression, by entropic failure of character, by the threat of fascism. In times of trouble the Dales always gather together, and that includes not just Carlotta and her children—Frank’s grandchildren—Fran and Connie. No one is very surprised when the ghosts of the previous generations come on the scene one by one to offer advice. Matter-of-factly appearing are Captain Anthony Dale, Frank’s son, killed in World War I; Captain Samuel Dale, the Revolutionary War hero who built the house and founded the factory; Captain Heinrich Kleinschmidt, Frank’s 53

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maternal grandfather, who fought in the Civil War; his cousin Moll Flanders, who turns out not to have been a fictional character after all; and his distant relative Harriet Beecher Stowe. The ghosts try to dissuade Frank from his plans to sell, basing their arguments in tradition. Stowe says: “Cousin Frank, this is an old house. Many generations of our kinsmen have dwelt here. I have called it a hallowed place—and so it is: hallowed by the ideals of liberty and self-respecting labor and the sacredness and dignity of the individual soul. It has been shaped by those who have lived here, but in turn it has shaped them, too. One by one, it has given them up. But none has ever given it up. Will you be the first?”72 Frank protests that it is not he who has given up but America. His savings, invested in mortgages and stocks, are now worthless. The farm can’t be run profitably because of middlemen and government regulations. The shoe factory has become unionized, resulting in a loss of control for the owner. Frank concludes: “I was brought up in the old Puritan virtues of thrift, industry, and foresight. But in the vernacular of the day, where do they get me? [. . .] Perhaps this is the new dispensation, the way things must inevitably go. If so, so be it. But not for me.”73 At this climactic moment, Frank has a heart attack. He lingers for a few days before dying, long enough to make a new will. The ghosts of the past have convinced him to give the generation of the future a chance to succeed where he failed. He leaves the house and farm to his granddaughter Fran and her husband, who will give up their frivolous life in Hollywood to make the farm thrive. Fran resolves: “What it really needs is a good healthy dose of enthusiasm and a lot of real hard grubbing. And there’s nothing I’d like better than to roll up my sleeves and get to work.”74 Frank leaves the factory to his other granddaughter, Connie, and the plant foreman, who, it’s suggested, will soon be a couple. After the reading of the will, Frank joins his ghostly forebears and leaves his grandchildren with these words: “And over and above my worldly goods, I leave you a tradition that is rich and deep and alive: a tradition of freedom and of the common rights of humanity. It’s a priceless inheritance. Cherish it! Cherish it! And be prepared to defend it. Do not let the specter of my defeat cast its shadow over you. The past exists only to serve the future, and the future is in your hands.”75 Other plays followed a similar narrative pattern in depicting the American malaise. Philip Barry’s expressionistic allegory Liberty Jones 54

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(5 February 1941) focuses on a sick and failing young woman named Liberty, clearly representing America, who is harassed and threatened by three enormously symbolic men—Black Shirt, Brown Shirt, and Red Shirt. She is defended by a heroic young navy officer who eventually succeeds in defeating the Shirts. More realistic in style, The Land Is Bright, by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber (28 October 1941), is set between the 1890s and the 1940s and focuses on three generations of the Kincaid family. The patriarch of the first generation is a rough-and-tumble, selfmade millionaire, but the 1920s generation has degenerated into pretentious and hedonistic brats, spending but producing nothing. By 1940 the grandchildren of the patriarch have begun to notice what’s going on around them, and, when one of them shows up in New York after a term in a German concentration camp, the characters resolve to work for a better world. In Hope for a Harvest, by Sophie Treadwell (26 November 1941), Carlotta Thatcher, a widow, returns from war-torn Europe to the rundown California farm of her childhood and decides to bring it back to prosperity. She faces the sullenness of her disillusioned cousin, who denounces the neighboring Italian and Japanese immigrants who exhibit the pioneer values that he and many other Americans have lost. Carlotta ends up working with an Italian fruit grower and rekindling enthusiasm for the land in her cousin. Closely connected to these plays that depict an America of depleted energy and lost ideals are several other plays that dramatize individual existential crises. In a world where war is imminent, democracy is ineffective, intolerance abounds, and the Depression seems endless, what kind of meaning can there be in the universe and what kind of purpose can there be for one’s life? An early example is Ben Hecht’s To Quito and Back (6 October 1937), in which an American novelist, fleeing his wife, his country, and in many ways himself, joins a communist revolution in Ecuador and, after its success, becomes something of a cultural dictator, closing cinemas and tossing books from libraries—even recommending a reign of terror so as to inculcate ideals in the people. Yet these are ideals he himself doesn’t hold. He is jealous of those who can commit themselves to a cause because he is empty. When the fascist forces retaliate and overrun the communist troops, the novelist goes out to die with the communist commander in an impossible last stand because, as he writes in a final note, “in a world too loud with false gods there is nothing left to 55

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serve except the least false of them.”76 His hope is that the heroism of the last stand will create a legend that will inspire a future generation of revolutionaries; it will give them meaning where he can find none. The play that most immediately connects the individual American’s existential crisis with the burgeoning world war is Thunder Rock, by Robert Ardrey. Thunder Rock opened in a Group Theatre production just ten weeks after the beginning of the war in Europe (14 November 1939). It is about a man named Charleston who had been a foreign correspondent and whose career reached its peak during the Spanish civil war. He has become disgusted with what seems to him to be a world “hell-bent for destruction,” and so he has retreated from it, becoming a lighthouse keeper on a small, uninhabited, rocky island in the middle of Lake Michigan—Thunder Rock.77 The play begins on 1 August 1939—one month before Germany’s invasion of Poland. The lighthouse service’s inspector is making his monthly visit, and his seaplane pilot, Streeter, an old friend of Charleston’s, announces that this will be his last trip because he is off to China to fly against the Japanese. Like Charleston, he has become sickened by the world situation, but unlike Charleston, he’s unwilling to give up completely—to withdraw into the isolation of a lighthouse. He knows that the odds of his surviving are poor. In the words of his own bad joke, he thinks that he and the world have “a Chinaman’s chance” of survival, but as long as there’s a chance, he must act on it.78 Charleston tries to explain his preference for living alone on Thunder Rock by referring to a plaque memorializing the Land o’ Lakes, a ship that foundered and sank in a storm in 1849, drowning all its passengers, immigrants from Europe heading west. In meditating on the plaque and perusing the Land o’ Lakes’ logbooks, which for some reason are stored at the lighthouse, Charleston does two things. First, he compares the world of 1849 with the world ninety years later. He tells Streeter: “Eighteen fortynine. That was one of our best years. Things weren’t so good in Europe, but over here the rush to California was in full swing. Through all the Middle West there was good farm-land for the asking. You might call it the year of the Chinaman’s chance. Everybody had one.”79 Imagining the immigrants on the ship, he explains: “A human being is a problem in search of a solution. In their day you looked up the answer in the back of the book. No matter what your situation was, the answer was always there. The land. Expansion. Go West, young man.—Ninety years pass. We expand the 56

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world around. Everything there is to exploit—we exploit it. Come down to our day, Street, look up the answer in the back of the book. You know what you find. A blank page. [. . .] And there at that point, the actual horror begins.”80 He concludes that the end of the human race is inevitable, and, he says, “For all humanity, I make one wish—let the people die off fast.”81 Charleston then confesses to Streeter the second thing his meditations on the Land o’ Lakes and its passengers have led him to: he has imaginatively conjured up the captain and some of the passengers to live in the lighthouse with him. Unable to face his own time, he uses his imagination to live in a time when optimism was still possible. As he says to Streeter, “It’s good to live among hopeful people once more.” Streeter tries to shake his old friend out of his solipsism and urges him to go to China, but Charleston responds: “I want a decent world to live in. If I’ve got to make it myself.”82 The second and third acts take place a month later—on the night of 31 August and the morning of 1 September—and show us Charleston interacting with his creations: Briggs, a Cockney laborer whose offstage wife is in labor with their tenth child; Stefan Kurtz, a Viennese doctor, his wife, Anne Marie, and his daughter, Melanie; Miss Kirby, a suffragette; and Captain Joshua, the master of the Land o’ Lakes and the only one of Charleston’s characters who knows that they are all dead, figments of the lighthouse keeper’s imagination. It is Captain Joshua who, on this night that Briggs’s baby is born and Europe is crashing into war, challenges Charleston about his creations: “You’ve made them silly and shallow!” he says; “These people weren’t this way.”83 He forces Charleston to reimagine the passengers, to see them not as stereotypes blindly optimistic about the new world they are heading toward but as people very much like the people in the present, running away from an intolerable past and toward an already dead future, turning hopelessly away from the ignorance, degradation, and destruction that dominate the world. In this revision of the evening, Mrs. Briggs and her baby die, and all the characters agree that this is for the best. Charleston tries to get them to see that from the perspective of ninety years in the future the awful problems that so overwhelm them weren’t a dead end at all, but they can’t bring themselves to believe him. By morning the passengers, all now aware that they are dead, creations of Charleston’s mind, resolve to help Charleston find his way. Charleston asks for “a logical, reasonable basis for belief that a future exists.”84 They 57

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convince him by returning to the same argument he used the night before—that from the perspective of the future all their problems have been solved—and building on it. Dr. Kurtz, who had experimented with anesthetics in Vienna until ignorant and fearful neighbors burned down his house, argues that his failure, his giving up, did not prevent anesthetics from being developed, but if he hadn’t given up, they might have been perfected sooner. He says: “Men may lose, but mankind never! Sooner or later, tomorrow or in a thousand years, mankind finds an answer. And you [. . .] or I—we have only one power—To decide just this: will it be sooner? Or will it be later?”85 By dawn, as the ghosts disappear and the lighthouse service inspector arrives with Charleston’s replacement (the inspector has fired Charleston because he just can’t figure him out), Charleston is ready to reenter the world, ready, like Streeter, to risk his life on the Chinaman’s chance that he can help save it. As he explains to his replacement, another man who wants to retreat from the world: “A man who fights for an ideal—a man who fights against poverty or ignorance or the rule of tyrants—he doesn’t ask for assurance that he’ll win. He wouldn’t believe it if he got it. All he asks for is assurance that he has a chance to win.”86 Maxwell Anderson’s Key Largo opened thirteen days after Thunder Rock (27 November 1939), starring Paul Muni and Uta Hagen. (It is quite different from the celebrated 1948 film adaptation.) In a prologue King McCloud, an American fighting with the Loyalists in Spain, deserts several other Americans, whom he had originally recruited, after they are ordered to cover a retreat in what is essentially a suicide action. We later learn that in order to save his life, he switched sides and fought with Franco’s forces. In the play proper he visits the family of one of his betrayed comrades at their home in the Florida Keys only to find that it has been taken over by a gangster and his mob. In deciding whether to stand up to the gangster, he faces and conquers his own cowardice and fear of death. The prologue establishes the play’s themes; the men’s debate on whether their deaths will have any meaning for the Loyalist cause segues into a broader discussion of belief. King has become disillusioned by what he’s seen in Spain and projects his disillusionment onto the world as a whole: We should know by this time—we’ve looked at Europe long enough to know there’s nothing to fight for here—that nothing 58

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you win means freedom or equality or justice—that all the formulas are false— and known to be false—democracy, communism, socialism, naziism—dead religions nobody believes in—or if he does believe he’s quietly made use of by the boys who long ago learned better, and believe in nothing but themselves.87 Responding to King’s nihilism and speaking for all the others is his friend Victor (played by José Ferrer): I have to believe there’s something in the world that isn’t evil— I have to believe there’s something in the world that would rather die than accept injustice—something positive for good—that can’t be killed— or I’ll die inside. And now that the sky’s found empty a man has to be his own god for himself— has to prove to himself that a man can die for what he believes—if ever the time comes to him when he’s asked to choose, and it just so happens it’s up to me tonight.88 King’s inability to take a stand, to believe in something that he can die for, haunts him from Spain to Key Largo. There, faced with injustice and corruption that seem to confirm his worldview, King is inspired by Victor’s father and sister and by the memory of the person he used to be to stand up to the gangster and the bribed sheriff who supports him. He says: A man must die for what he believes—if he’s unfortunate enough to have to face it in his time— and if he won’t then he’ll end up believing in nothing at all—and that’s death, too.89 He kills the gangster, though he is then killed by the police. Like the novelist in To Quito and Back and like Charleston in Thunder Rock, King has been driven to existential despair by the seeming chaos in the world, and, 59

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like the others, he accepts the need to believe in something—the least false belief, the Chinaman’s chance—to hold on to any sense of identity, integrity, and self-respect. Two plays work well to sum up the ideological and practical debates that fill the plays of the 1930s as war in Europe became inevitable and the United States’ position became more conflicted. The first is Flight to the West (30 December 1940), written and directed by Elmer Rice. The play is set entirely on the Pan-American transatlantic clipper as it flies from Lisbon to New York. The plane’s interior functions as something of a hothouse wherein the passengers’ experiences, ideologies, and plans are put into tension. The passengers include a young, newlywed American couple; a liberal author, whose beliefs are challenged by the new world situation; a Nazi diplomat; a Russian, seemingly a linguistics professor but really a Nazi agent; an American oil magnate; a woman newspaper columnist, apparently inspired by Dorothy Thompson; and several refugees, including an older Jewish woman and a sad Belgian family composed of a man blinded during a bombing, his daughter who lost her arm in a bomb blast, a baby born during an evacuation, and the children’s mother, who has become mentally deranged by all the horror she has encountered. In the course of the passengers’ conversations, ideas that we have encountered in earlier plays return and are developed. The Nazi makes the case that force is necessary to create order in society and, eventually, peace. He says: “Force is the fundamental law of nature. In the struggle for existence, the strong must conquer the weak.”90 The oilman thinks that Europe’s political affairs are its own worry, but that there are good opportunities for American industry to do business with the fascist states. He argues: “The Nazis have plenty to do in Europe, without bothering us— that is, providing we don’t coax them into it. Matter of fact, I had that right from Hitler himself.”91 This live-and-let-live philosophy is undercut by the presence of the Russian, whose orders seem to involve recruiting supporters in anticipation of Germany’s waging war on the United States. The young American and the disillusioned liberal discuss the place of the pacifist in the new world war and begin to cast off their previously held convictions and to support waging war on fascism. The liberal further argues that the effects of the Great Depression have created the possibility for fascism in the United States: “Social injustice—that’s what makes 60

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Grandon Rhodes, Harald Dyrenforth, Lydia St. Clair, Karl Malden, Paul Hernried, Boris Marshalov, and Kevin McCarthy in the stage production Flight to the West (1940). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

us vulnerable—because it breeds resentment and weakens loyalty. Millions of youngsters who’ve never been able to get jobs; millions of adults out of work in a country that boasts of being the richest and the most progressive in the world; millions of our black citizens subjected to daily humiliations. And certain individuals talking and acting as if they owned America, merely because they happen to have got hold of its wealth.”92 The young American bride is pregnant and becomes the focus of a heated debate over the wisdom of bringing a baby, especially a Jewish baby, into the world at a time when there seems to be no meaning in the world. Finally, some of the Americans begin to understand that this flight to the United States isn’t an escape from Europe’s troubles, that America can’t build strong enough borders to keep itself isolated from Europe’s disease. The liberal says: “Take us, all of us here, Americans and Europeans alike, flying through space to imagined security and carrying with us, all the 61

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while, the same corrosive elements that have destroyed security everywhere. Like a homing pigeon, flying from a plague-stricken land and yet bearing in its very wings the germs of the infection.”93 In one sense Flight to the West has a happy ending. The spy is thwarted. The pacifists decide to fight fascism. The bride and groom welcome their baby and the future it represents. In another sense, however, there is much that is unresolved. America’s neutrality has been shown to be an inadequate response to the war in Europe and the humanitarian crisis it has engendered, but at play’s end it is still official policy; the nation still welcomes smiling Nazi diplomats and is still doing business with Hitler. The second play, far from summing up the debates of the time, gently mocks socially significant theater. S. N. Behrman’s No Time for Comedy (17 April 1939) follows twenty-four hours in the tempestuous marriage of a playwright, Gaylord Easterbrook, and his leading-lady wife, Linda (played by Laurence Olivier and Katharine Cornell). Gaylord has made his success writing light comedies for Linda, but now, having come under the influence of a beautiful, would-be muse, Amanda, who wants to bring out his latent talent, he is dissatisfied with his earlier work and wants to write a new play that will make a difference in a war-torn world. He says to Linda: “Darling, death is being rained from the sky on whole populations. [. . .] And you expect me to sit in my room contriving stage situations for you to be witty in!”94 While Linda maneuvers to displace Amanda and keep her husband, Gaylord struggles with the new, serious play he is writing, Immortality, in which he punctures the dream of an afterlife. When Linda objects that his play is saturated with death, he responds: “But we are living in an era of death. Death is our hero, our protagonist—war and death—death and the fear of death. Death purrs over us, a huge bombing-plane—its shadow darkening the green pastures, its bombs churning the still waters. That is why my play is dominated by the idea of death—because we are.” Linda counters: “The difficult thing is to live—that requires skill. That requires imagination—that’s the index of civilization—the ability to live, not the ability to die. Don’t spin for me fantasies of death—imagine for me variations of life.”95 Linda defuses Gaylord’s plan to go to Spain to get real experience in fighting and dying by suggesting that his current situation might make a good subject for a play about a writer torn between an inspiring muse and a critical wife. The idea takes hold, and we leave Gaylord struggling to find the words to bid good-bye to Amanda and, apparently, 62

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about to start writing the play we’re watching. The socially significant play is set aside in favor of the comedy celebrating life. The plays produced before the attack on Pearl Harbor, then, explore a variety of ideas about the rise of fascism, the burgeoning war, the United States’ position in the world, and the state of the individual in the late-Depression, prewar world. This variety represents the public discourses of the time, a time of confusion and uncertainty, when there was no single way of understanding the problems facing us and no clear path through the problems into the future. This confusion is evidenced even in the playwrights we have been studying, whose take on the world situation was by no means consistent. Robert Sherwood, who, in Idiot’s Delight, labeled all ideologies false enthusiasms and all wars contests over factitious borders, in There Shall Be No Night (29 April 1940), about the Soviet invasion of Finland, argued for the obligation to defend one’s nation and to die to defeat totalitarianism. Irwin Shaw, who, in Bury the Dead, presented war as a sucker’s game serving the interests of the powerful and wealthy, in The Gentle People showed violence as the only way for the world’s little people to respond to fascist bullies. S. N. Behrman, who, in Rain from Heaven, warned against American fascism and prophesied the extermination of the Jews, in No Time for Comedy suggested that plays about the world’s troubles are ineffectual and called for a celebration of life’s possibilities in comedy. After Pearl Harbor brought the United States into a war in the Pacific and the war in Europe, public opinion became more focused, as did the productions mounted in New York theaters. As we shall see in the subsequent chapters, however, American drama by no means settled on a single, homogenizing narrative about the war and America’s place in it. The plays, while more focused, nevertheless continued to debate ways to understand the war, ways to participate in it, and what future lay beyond it.

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3

Overseas A major factor that affected most Americans’ experience of the war is that it was always elsewhere. Although its effects were felt in the fortyeight states, the world war was fought in other parts of the world. One role of U.S. popular culture during the war was to bring home the killing and dying, the heroism and mendacity, the triumph and suffering, the occupation and resistance that were occurring in Britain, Europe, Africa, the Soviet Union, China, the Philippines, the Solomons, and a host of other islands in the Pacific. The Broadway theater grappled with disadvantages when it came to some kinds of overseas settings. Unlike films, plays could not realistically replicate battle scenes, and, unlike radio, plays could not expect theatergoers to close their eyes, listen to sound effects, and imagine battles, ships at sea, or B-17s in formation. As the New York Post’s reviewer Earl Wilson quipped, “You can’t fight the Japs in the South Pacific very realistically on a stage on W. 48th St.”1 Nevertheless, many plays sought to represent the experiences of our allies, under attack and occupied, and the experiences of American fighting men in the far-flung battlefields of the war. In the case of representing the British as the victim of Nazi aggression and as an ally for whom the United States should be fighting, the New York theater tended to reflect U.S. public opinion, which was heavily sympathetic toward Great Britain. In the fifteen-month period between September 1941 and December 1942, there were eight plays about the British experience of the war produced on Broadway. Surprisingly, the plays about the British put less emphasis on fighting for king and country or on the cause of defeating fascism than Hollywood films of the same time did; rather, they’re more about familial and personal relationships and how they inspire the determination to endure and to fight. The story of the British in the early years of the war is a familiar one. After several years spent trying to avoid war by dealing diplomatically 64

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with Hitler, Great Britain finally declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, two days after Hitler’s invasion of Poland. The subsequent socalled Phony War didn’t provide enough time for Britain to prepare militarily: when Germany invaded Norway on 9 April 1940, British troops and the Royal Navy offered unsuccessful resistance.2 A month later, Germany’s invasion of Belgium and France sent French and British troops reeling, and only the miraculous rescue at Dunkirk prevented the total destruction of the British Expeditionary Force. On 22 June France signed an armistice with Germany, and Britain stood alone in Europe against Hitler. In July Germany began its U-boat campaign against British shipping in earnest; the Battle of Britain also began as Germany aimed to destroy the Royal Air Force in preparation for a cross-channel invasion. In September the Luftwaffe initiated the intense bombing of London and other British cities in what came to be known as the Blitz. The British knew that in order to survive and defeat Hitler, they would need support from the United States. In the late 1930s, as the European continent moved steadily toward war, U.S. public opinion of Great Britain was almost as negative as it was of Nazi Germany. How to account for this? To some minds Britain’s long history of colonizing and oppressing the peoples of its empire was little better than Hitler’s oppression of Jews, other minorities, and political dissidents. There was also the lingering perception that Britain had suckered the United States into the First World War and resentment over Britain’s unpaid war debts.3 Public opinion polls, however, show that by late spring 1940, 70 percent of the public supported aid to Britain in its fight against Hitler. After the fall of France, 80 percent supported aid. By the end of 1940, over 50 percent of the public supported aid to Britain even if it drew the United States into the war.4 This change in public opinion did not happen by itself. It was the result of a joint allied operation anticipating the military ones that would soon be taking place. Several quasi-official British offices located in the United States, including the British Library of Information, the supersecret British Security Coordination, and the British Press Service, plotted overt and covert public-relations and propaganda schemes to enhance Britain’s image.5 Above all was Britain’s ambassador to the United States, Lord Lothian, who traveled the country and lobbied Washington officials, tirelessly promoting Britain, its cause, its ideals, and its danger. On 65

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the American side, as we saw in chapter 2, a number of influential groups attempted to sway public opinion and lobby the president and Congress in favor of the British. Edward R. Murrow’s broadcasts and other journalists’ reports on Britain under attack by Nazi bombs further generated sympathy among the American public.6 By the end of 1940, 500,000 American women were members of Bundles for Britain, an organization founded to send personal items to bombing victims. Demonstrating the breadth of U.S. generosity, Gypsy Rose Lee, at a fund-raising event, even stripped for Britain.7 The historian Nicholas Cull sums up the effect of the combined British and American efforts to transform U.S. public opinion of the British: “Hitler had given America something to hate; now Britain provided something for America to love.”8 This love may account for the number of plays about the British that sprang up on Broadway from late 1941 to late 1942, though only the first of them, The Wookey, had a successful run in this country. These plays are nevertheless interesting because of the ways they depict the British in their fight against the Nazis. They tend to be interested in their characters as individuals, not representatives of the nation, and their motivations for resisting the Nazis are personal rather than idealistic. There were six Broadway plays set during the Blitz. Each features a wide variety of characters whose lives are brought into conflict and turned upside down by the bombing. The German bomber war against London began on 7 September 1940 and continued almost nightly until mid-November. It had several purposes: first, to draw the RAF into battle and destroy it; second, to disable British war production and shipping; third, to spread terror among the British civilian population and flatten its morale. This was all with the goal of preparing for Operation Sea Lion, the cross-channel invasion. Although none of these goals was achieved, the Germans did manage to cause significant physical damage to London and other cities; in London over two million houses were destroyed or damaged. They also caused the deaths of over 43,000 civilians and more than 139,000 serious injuries. By early 1941, more women and children than military personnel had been killed in the war.9 This sense of the common people of London fighting the war is at the heart of The Wookey, by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan (10 September 1941). Starring Edmund Gwenn in the title role, The Wookey establishes 66

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three themes that we’ll see repeated in subsequent plays about the British at war: a focus on the common people; an antipathy for authority; and the motivating force of personal relationships. The Wookey of the title is Mr. Horace Wookey, a tugboat captain who lives in the East End slums of London, near the docks. Mr. Wookey, however, aspires to higher class standing: he is the benevolent monarch of his home, and his authority is unquestioned; his home, filled with the bric-a-brac he has salvaged on his various voyages, is indeed his castle, and he insists that it be kept orderly; he raises his daughter and son to think of themselves and to treat each other as a lady and a gentleman; he has high moral standards and has no patience with family members, especially his music-hall performer sister-in-law, who do not live up to them. A hero of World War I, Mr. Wookey has since become soured on British foreign policy, for despite his sending suggestions to the prime minister on how to deal with Hitler, his advice has been ignored: “An’ I says: ‘Blarst the British Empire. Blarst king an’ country, too. They mucks about with politics an’ raises up ’Itler against us, that’s wot they done.’ ”10 He thus refuses to cooperate with the government, in the form of several air-raid wardens, and he refuses, when asked, to use his tug to rescue soldiers from Dunkirk: “I’ve washed me ’ands of this war. They didn’t consult me when they started it, an’ they ain’t took my advice as to the proper conduck of it.”11 Mr. Wookey gets involved in the war when it becomes personal. He takes his tug to Dunkirk, not because of the desperate need to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force, but because his brother-in-law is among the trapped soldiers. After a German incendiary bomb damages his home, he becomes chief fire warden of the district. After his house is destroyed in the bombing and his wife is killed, he becomes the unofficial leader of the dockworkers and military commander of the district. Although he is still at odds with the government (his tug has been seized because he refuses to pay a bill for fuel used during the Dunkirk adventure), when the authorities order that the docks be evacuated, he insists that only the women and children leave. He will convince the dockworkers to continue unloading the ships, even under enemy bombardment and strafing. This decision entails sending away his remaining family, something he has been loath to do, and opening what’s left of his beloved house, the basement, as a public shelter. His motivation to fight has shifted from the immediate—the 67

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presence of his family in the physical security of his home—to the abstract: his children represent the hope for the future. He says to his sister-in-law: “Wot am I fightin’ for but them? Wot comes outer this war but them an’ the free life better men than me is dyin’ ter give them?”12 Other plays focusing on the Blitz made use of The Wookey’s themes in various ways. Heart of a City, by Lesley Storm (12 February 1942), was a dramatic representation of London’s Windmill Theatre, the only theater that never closed or missed a performance during the Blitz.13 The play takes place over several months, from the fall of France to deep into the Blitz, and is set mostly in one of the basement dressing rooms. We hear about the performers’ personal lives, their families, and their loves, and we see them share affection and irritation. We also get a sense of the experience of other, everyday Londoners through the eyes of the performers. They describe how people are sleeping in the Tube, in a coal cellar, or under a billiard table, all to be safe from the bombing. Like The Wookey, Heart of a City presents London civilians as the main combatants of the war. When the theater manager, Lila Saddle, takes the girls out of town to perform at an RAF base, she has a testy exchange with the group captain: lila: You know, it’s a treat for us to come down here. Lovely an’ quiet an’ peaceful—you don’t know there’s a war on, you folks. captain: Well, sometimes we have a pretty shrewd idea. [. . .] lila: You should come up to London for a night, you’d have ringside seats where we are. One of my stagehands left to go into the army yesterday and the boys gave him a white feather. Funny war, isn’t it?14 Although it is not as pronounced as in The Wookey, there is some criticism of the government, especially for letting the country become so unprepared for Hitler’s assault. Finally, in a trope that will become increasingly familiar, the performers and staff of the Windmill are presented as forming an unconventional, ad hoc family. They love and bicker, they know each other’s good and bad qualities, and they even have a black sheep or two, but as the Blitz goes on, they live together—sleeping in the theater’s basement for protection—and come more and more to support each other. Even Lila, who’s something of a hard case, admits, “I’m mother and father to these girls.”15 At the end, when one of the girls is killed in an 68

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explosion, another girl, despite her tears and grief, must go on for her, and she does so not out of any particular sense of duty but to honor her friend. The Morning Star, by Emlyn Williams (14 September 1942), focuses on a medical student (played by the author in London and by Gregory Peck in New York) who resents being pulled away from his research to work in a hospital treating victims of the Blitz. Engrossed in himself, he writes a best-selling novel, begins an affair, and plans to move to Hollywood. When he learns that his younger brother, a pilot, has been killed while defending Surrey, however, he comes back to his senses, returns to his wife, and resumes work on a new medical treatment for shock. This Rock, by Walter Livingston Faust (18 February 1943), is about twenty children from the London slums who are evacuated to the northern England manor house of Mrs. Stanley (Billie Burke in her first Broadway appearance in a dozen years). Predictably, the children bring life to the stuffy household. The veteran Irish playwright Paul Vincent Carroll turned his hand to the war in The Strings, My Lord, Are False, which had a successful Dublin run before its Broadway premiere on 19 May 1942. Showing that the Blitz didn’t affect only London, the setting is Port Monica, in northwestern Scotland, which was badly bombed in 1941. In a trope from earlier Blitz plays, people from different walks of life are thrown together by the bombing. In this case, it’s a refuge room, run by the canon of St. Bride’s Church for people who have lost their homes, and the crypt of the church, which serves as an air-raid shelter. To this place come a reformed prostitute, a pregnant woman who gives birth during the course of the play, a communist, a pacifist, a religious fanatic, and a Jewish idealist who lost an arm at Dunkirk. They talk, mostly about the war and what they are fighting for, and they offer some strong social criticism, especially about profiteers in the black market and grafting politicians who allow substandard air-raid shelters to be built. The reviewer Wilella Waldorf summed up, “The rising wrath of the tenement dwellers against this sort of treatment, and the final realization that they are fighting a war, not only against Hitler, but also against injustice at home, is [Carroll’s] chief concern.”16 The strangest of the plays connected with the Blitz is The Seventh Trumpet by Charles Rann Kennedy. Kennedy, who had written six plays between 1906 and 1919, writes in his foreword to the published version of the play that God had told him to write seven plays for seven players. With the advent of World War II, God reminded Kennedy that he was 69

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short one play. Using Dunkirk as a metaphor for Armageddon, he wrote The Seventh Trumpet. The play, which opened on 21 November 1941, featured seven very symbolic characters who find themselves at Glastonbury, the site where the Holy Grail was supposedly brought by Joseph of Arimathea, and, according to legend, Avalon, the place where King Arthur was laid to rest. Each character presents his story to the others. The most interesting is Bomber 666, a German pilot who had studied in England but now believes in Hitler rather than God. The only action occurs when Bomber 666 tries to kill all the others, then tries to convince one of them to kill him instead, and finally goes offstage to kill himself with six bullets. At the end of the play, as they debate whether they should forgive everyone, the rest of the characters are blown up by a German bomb. The plays that focus on the British in combat work in similar ways to the Blitz plays, with an emphasis on this being a war of the common people, on traditional or ad hoc families, and on the personal reasons for fighting. Golden Wings, an RAF drama written by William Jay and Guy Bolton, had the bad luck to open on the day after Pearl Harbor, prompting a reviewer, Richard Lockridge of the New York Sun, to note, “December 8, 1941, will not, I suspect, be remembered as the day on which ‘Golden Wings’ opened at the Cort Theater.”17 The play, which the typescript indicates was initially called “Young Men in Grey,” is set in December 1940 in the lounge of the Chiligrove Service Club adjoining an RAF field and focuses on some pilots and the women in their lives. Surprisingly, the characters are not presented as heroic or even very appealing. Two pilots compete for a sexually available woman, while another woman (played by Fay Wray) pines noisily for the more successful and obnoxious one. The pilots offer different motivations for their fighting. Tom Carter, a socialist, complains about World War I and insists that this war will be different: We fought for freedom and the dignity of man once before and they told us we won. Won for whom? Go down in the slums and see how much freedom we won for those poor, white-faced wretches. [. . .] All right, sneer . . . but you’ll see a very different England when this war is over. You’ll have to open the doors of your snob schools—open them wide or else close them or board up the windows. . . . There’ll be no more teaching little boys to 70

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look down on other little boys because they play ball on the streets in Whitechapel instead of on the playing fields of Eton.18 Rex Gardner, the other pilot, fights out of sheer, alarming passion. He says that he hates the Germans and has found ecstasy in killing them. But both abstract motivations for fighting the war—social progressivism and hate—are discredited, as the two men’s animosity grows and their war becomes more about their rivalry than about saving the homeland or defeating the Nazis. At the beginning of act 3, Rex is being court-martialed for shooting down and killing Tom while they were on a mission. He is acquitted, only because another pilot lies for him, but he cannot shake off the guilt over what he has done. On leave, he spends his time in the Tube with the masses of people seeking shelter from the German bombing. He returns just in time for a massive raid on the airfield, and, when the small son of a family of relocated London slum dwellers runs onto the field amid the explosions, he uncharacteristically goes after him to save him. Rex is badly wounded, and the play ends with the others waiting for an ambulance. Rex has learned both that unrestrained hate eats away at the hater, making him inhuman, and that there are real living, breathing people behind Tom’s idealism. He ends the play transformed from an egotist asserting his reality over others, whether enemy or comrade, to a man willing to give himself to others. A little more than a year later, on 23 December 1942, Flare Path, another RAF drama, opened at Henry Miller’s Theatre. Written by Terence Rattigan, the play had had a successful five-month run in London, but it ran only fourteen performances on Broadway.19 Like Golden Wings, it is set near an RAF aerodrome, at a hotel cum public house, the Falcon Hotel, at which the wives of the fliers can stay when they visit. Among the wives are Doris, or more formally, the Countess Skriczevinsky, once a barmaid but now married to a Polish count and pilot attached to the RAF; Maudie Miller, married to a former bus conductor, now a tail gunner; and Patricia Graham, an actress, married after a whirlwind wartime romance to Teddy Graham, the squadron’s top pilot, played by Alec Guinness in his Broadway debut. An unexpected guest arrives as the play opens, Peter Kyle, born British but now an American citizen and Hollywood movie star. His arrival is not a coincidence: unbeknown to Teddy, 71

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Peter and Patricia had had an affair for several years. Patricia married Teddy during a period of separation, but now that Peter’s wife has finally divorced him, the romance has been rekindled. Peter has come to help Patricia tell Teddy she’s leaving him. This plot is developed through themes of language, acting, and inclusion and exclusion. The issue of language is always foregrounded by Johnny, the Polish count, his attempts to learn English, and the communal instruction he receives. But the need to learn a new language is evident even in some of the native speakers of English. Patricia and Peter are immediately signaled as being different, as being outsiders to the community of the Falcon Hotel, by their not understanding the jargon and the slang of the place. When Teddy calls Patricia downstairs, wanting her to meet Peter, he tells her she’ll be shaken. As she walks down, she says: “It’s funny the loose way you Air Force people use your slang. For instance, to shake someone or to be shaken seems to cover anything from crashing in flames to seeing a caterpillar or something.”20 Later, when someone refers to a mission the airmen have been sent on as “a do,” she complains: “A do. Oh, God, how I hate all this polite Air Force understatement.”21 The first signal that Patricia is going to stay with Teddy comes the morning after a mission, when she demonstrates a facility with the community’s discourse: “They had rather a shaky do last night.”22 A second, connected theme is acting. Peter and Patricia, of course, are both professional actors, but at the hotel they end up having to perform scenes in real life. For example, in front of the others, they have to pretend to be strangers. For Peter, however, the performance goes further and is more ingrained. He plays the role of an affable, self-effacing movie star, downplaying his fame and accomplishments and overtipping the staff. Alone with Patricia, he reveals himself, but otherwise it isn’t until the third act, after he learns that Patricia won’t be leaving with him, that the facade drops, and we see him as not so much demanding and inconsiderate as assuming his superiority, his right to command, his expectation that others will serve him and clean up after him. More interesting is Teddy’s private admission to Patricia that he’s an actor too. After he returns from a harrowing mission in which his bomber was badly damaged and barely made it back to base, he briefly breaks down, his nerves and anxiety on plain display, and he admits to Patricia that he is scared to fly and that to continue flying, he has to act as though he weren’t: “You 72

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don’t know what it’s like to feel frightened. You get a beastly, bitter taste in the mouth, and your tongue goes dry and you feel sick, and all the time you’re saying—This isn’t happening—it can’t be happening—I’ll wake up. But you know you won’t wake up. You know it is happening, and the sea’s below you, and you’re responsible for the lives of six people. And you have to pretend you’re not afraid, that’s what’s so awful.”23 He also tells her that it’s his love for her that gives him the strength to continue the performance. When she tells him he should get help from a doctor, he replies: “I don’t need any help. Except yours. I do need that.”24 It’s Teddy’s confession that reveals to Patricia that, without realizing it, she has become part of the Falcon Hotel community, she has a part to play there, and it’s a necessary part. Her break with Peter includes this exchange: patricia: I used to think that our private happiness was something far too important to be affected by outside things, like the war or marriage vows. peter: Yes it is, Pat, far too important.

patricia: No, it isn’t, Pete, beside what’s happening out there (she points to the window); it’s just tiny and rather—cheap— I’m afraid. I don’t want to believe that. I’m an awful coward. It may be just my bad luck, but I’ve suddenly found that I’m in that battle, and I can’t—

peter: Desert?

patricia: Yes, desert.25 Shortly thereafter, she tells Teddy that she’s giving up the stage to live full-time with him near the base. After this break, Peter is determined to tell Teddy about the affair, essentially forcing Patricia to go with him by turning Teddy against her. Before he can, however, he is approached by Doris. Johnny and his crew have not returned from the previous night’s mission, and the wreckage of their bomber has been spotted in the North Sea. Johnny has left a letter for her in case of his death, written in French, and she implores Peter to translate it for her. He haltingly reads it to her and understands that it was through her that Johnny was able to find a community in England: “ ‘It was not always easy, living in a strange country whose manners—whose 73

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customs and language and humour I could not understand. At first it seemed intolerable—and would have been so if I had not had the— blessed—good fortune to meet you, my beloved wife.’ ”26 Realizing that Patricia plays this same role for Teddy and recognizing his own status as an eternal outsider, Peter decides not to confront him but to leave with a simple good-bye. Peter’s departure goes unnoticed by all except Patricia because the others are too busy celebrating the unexpected return of Johnny. Extracting the story of how he and his crew rowed to shore in an inflatable raft and hitched a ride back to the base becomes a happy community project, after which Johnny is coerced into becoming a performer, singing “I Don’t Want to Join the Air Force” while the drinks are passed around. As the curtain falls, Patricia takes her eyes off the door and joins the circle, singing. Other plays focus on other areas of the British at war, but they too emphasize personal relationships and community over ideals. Lifeline, by Norman Armstrong (30 November 1942), is based on the true story of the merchant ship MV San Demetrio. The play depicts the fuel-laden ship separated from its convoy, attacked first by a German submarine and then by a dive bomber, and abandoned by its crew. Miraculously, however, the ship doesn’t sink, and one lifeboat returns; its skeleton crew manages to make repairs and coax the ship and its precious cargo to England. Much of this story doesn’t lend itself to stage presentation, so the focus is on the relationships among the crew members, their casual byplay, and the deeper emotions that arise as their fellows, especially the captain and the young son of the shipping line’s owner, die. In bringing the ship in to port, the sailors are motivated more by loyalty to each other than by Britain’s desperate need for fuel. James Edward Grant’s Plan M (20 February 1942) improbably imagines that Nazi agents have killed the British chief of staff, replaced him with a double, and substituted a false defense plan for the real one to facilitate the German invasion. The plot unravels when the fake general tries to seduce the dead man’s daughter, who realizes something must be wrong. Again, a personal relationship, in this case a familial one, is central to the representation of Britain at war. These plays, then, resist the impulse to present the British as patriotic supermen, sacrificing all in their devotion to their country. As Teddy says dismissively in Flare Path, “God, how Daily Mail!”27 Instead, they show that the will to fight comes from personal relationships, the ability to 74

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connect with others, the need to support others, the desire not to let others down. The plays about the British were less interested in exciting the audience’s sympathy and support for their ally and more interested in the psychology of people creating communities in wartime. The United States’ relationship with the Soviet Union was much more complex and anxious, as was its representation in popular culture. After the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the only communist nation in the world was generally perceived as a threat to the U.S. capitalist way of life, and political, economic, and popular-cultural discourse treated it that way. These discourses generally represented the U.S.S.R. in two ways. The first, focusing on such events as the forced collectivization of the farms, Stalin’s purges, the show trials, and the eventual 1939 nonaggression pact with Germany, depicted the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state, not significantly different from Hitler’s Germany. One example of this kind of discourse is Hitler and Stalin: The Murder Men and Their Plot to Rape the World, a 1940 tabloid publication, purportedly written anonymously by an American foreign correspondent, which detailed Nazi and Soviet crimes, complete with graphic photos, and claimed to demonstrate “the detailed plans by which Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin believe they will shove democracy from the face of the earth and establish in its place a world dictatorship.”28 Less sensational but still critical was Robert E. Sherwood’s 1940 play There Shall Be No Night, which is set during the Soviet invasion of Finland and presents the aggressors as enemies of freedom and democracy; after the U.S.S.R. became our ally, it was rewritten to be about the Nazi invasion of Greece. The second method of representing the Soviet Union was comic, making fun of its attempts to reform human nature, its continually revised five-year plans, and its general braggadocio regarding its modest or misrepresented accomplishments. This kind of mockery can be seen in the 1938 Broadway musical Leave It to Me!, with a score by Cole Porter and book by Bella and Sam Spewack. The show featured Victor Moore as Alonzo P. Goodhue, a bathtub manufacturer from Topeka, Kansas, who is named ambassador to the Soviet Union owing to the machinations of his ambitious wife, played by Sophie Tucker. He tries to get himself recalled by engaging in undiplomatic behavior, but he succeeds only when he starts saying what he really thinks, revealing himself to be an idealist 75

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and proposing ways to abolish war. The play’s humor depicts the Soviet Union as emotionally repressed, culturally and industrially behind the times, and politically byzantine. As we saw in chapter 1, however, elements in the New York theater, with their roots in the labor theater of the early 1930s, were more sympathetic to and admiring of the Soviet Union than U.S. popular culture as a whole. Many of the early plays attacking Nazi Germany based their criticism on Hitler’s persecution of the communists. But in the period between the August 1939 signing of the German-Soviet nonaggression pact and Hitler’s June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, American communists muted their criticism of Hitler. Nevertheless, as we saw in chapter 2, most playwrights were not constrained by the Communist Party’s temporary truce with Hitler. This array of attitudes toward the Soviet Union complicated the United States’ response when Germany invaded the U.S.S.R. on 22 June 1941. As the historian Joseph Lelyveld explains: “The narrative of Stalinist repression instantly became inconvenient, out of date, not relevant to the struggle against Nazi tyranny. It was a story left on the shelf for what was called ‘the duration.’ ”29 In early July FDR promised aid to the Soviets, and FDR’s right-hand man, Harry Hopkins, went to Moscow to consult with Stalin. In early October Lend-Lease was extended to the Soviets. Opinion polls showed that in summer 1941, 72 percent of Americans favored a Soviet victory over the Germans. That many Americans found it more difficult to accept the Soviets than the British as allies is evidenced by the boost in America First membership, which more than doubled during 1941.30 At an America First rally, Charles Lindbergh spoke for many Americans when he said he would “a hundred times rather see my country ally herself with [. . .] Germany with all her faults” than with the Soviet Union.31 Expressing the realpolitik view, Senator (and future president) Harry S. Truman said, “If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany.”32 Just as there was a cluster of plays about the British between late 1941 and late 1942, so too was there a spate of plays about the Russians in the eight-month period between late November 1942 and late July 1943. Like the plays about the British, the Russian plays focused on the common people—but not so much to celebrate a people’s war as to avoid the ideological and political issues that would highlight the differences 76

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between Americans and Soviets. Several dramas focusing on the resistance to the German invasion and occupation asked audiences to admire the stoic heroism of the Russian people; some comedies asked audiences to laugh along with Russian characters and to identify with them through humor. The play about the Soviets that received the best reviews was never produced on Broadway because of the cost of the large cast and complex set design. Winter Soldiers, by Daniel Lewis James, was awarded the Sidney Howard Memorial Award by the Playwrights Company in 1942. The company encouraged a staging because of the excellence of the script. Opening 29 November 1942, it ran for twenty-five performances at the New School for Social Research. Set in November 1941, during the main advance of the Germans against Moscow, Winter Soldiers shows how average people in the villages and towns being beset by the Nazis fought back. The scenes show minor acts of resistance: a train derailed, a German officer strangled, a broadcast from the hills. Each scene contributes to the next to show how the Russians and other oppressed people are wearing down their enemy. One of the German officers muses: “There were so many unpredictable factors—an incompetent Colonel murdered in a tiny Croatian village—a few sticks of dynamite in Poland—an hour lost there, another there—trains delayed—snowdrifts—cold—Russian fanaticism— and intangible factors of morale. Each cause in itself insignificant—yet add them up and it’s defeat.”33 Exactly one month later, Clifford Odets’s adaptation of Konstantin Simonov’s The Russian People was produced by the Theatre Guild. This is another story of ordinary Russians resisting Nazi occupation in a small town. The mayor helps the Germans, much to the disgust of his wife; she eventually poisons a Nazi officer and both she and her husband are executed. The fighting band of Russians include an idealistic captain who would rather return to his peacetime pursuits, an old officer who served the czar, a young woman chauffeur and scout, a poet, and a reformed playboy. Many of them sacrifice themselves for the good of mother Russia. Counterattack, by Janet and Philip Stevenson, adapted from the Russian play Pobyeda by Ilya Vershinin and Mikhail Ruderman, opened on 4 February 1943. Set on the Eastern Front during the fall of 1942, the play shows two Red Army soldiers taking refuge in a cellar during a heavy bombardment by the Germans and finding a small group of Nazis, 77

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including a nurse, who have taken shelter there as well. The Soviets take the Germans captive and try to discover who their leader is and what sort of military information he may have. The tension builds as the bombing closes off all exits, and there is little possibility of escape. The two Russians, despite one’s being wounded and the other nearly delirious from lack of sleep, are able not only to keep the Nazis prisoners but also to create dissension among them. Eventually, one of the Nazis is killed by the others for expressing doubts about national socialism. After three days, the Red Army is finally able to free them all. Although these plays expressed their playwrights’ admiration for the Soviets fighting for their homeland, more popular with New York audiences were two comedies that placed Russian characters in the United States. The first was Dark Eyes, by Elena Miramova in collaboration with Eugenie Leontovich (14 January 1943). In an oddly self-referential structure Leontovich and Miramova played two penniless Russian actresses who write a play about two Russian actresses in the hopes that someone will produce it and cast them in the leads. When they are evicted from their New York apartment, the two women and a down-and-out Russian opera singer are invited by a White Russian friend to spend a weekend at the Long Island home of his fiancée, whose father is a Washington dollar-a-year man. The businessman comes home for a rest and meets the overly dramatic Russians, who argue about the merits of Tchaikovsky, the depth of Russian soul, and the best method for making Chicken Kiev. The businessman and his family become fascinated by all of them: he agrees to back the play they’ve written and proposes to one of them. An unlikely source for comedy was Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most decorated female Soviet sniper of the war. Considered the most successful female sniper in history, with 309 recorded kills, she helped popularize the Soviet cause when, after being wounded in 1942, she was sent on a publicity tour to the United States and Canada. She became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a U.S. president and was celebrated in song in Woody Guthrie’s “Miss Pavlichenko.” In August 1943 the show Chauve-Souris of 1943 took her story and turned it into a song, “The WAC and the Sniper.” (Chauve-Souris was the title of a series of revues, produced primarily in the 1920s, that celebrated Russian culture.) A fictional version of Pavlichenko played a supporting role in the successful comedy The Doughgirls, by Joseph Fields and directed by 78

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George S. Kaufman (30 December 1942). The plot has little to do with Soviet relations, except for the character of Natalia Chodorov, a famous Russian sniper who has killed 397 Nazis and is clearly based on Pavlichenko. The show itself is a housing comedy in which three women find themselves sharing a crowded hotel room in Washington, D.C., with men they are not quite married to: two of the women are waiting for divorces, while the third needs to convince her man, a colonel, that it is acceptable to get married in wartime. Many people come and go, including a general on the make for one of the women, an admiral who stays a couple of weeks, a female judge who wants the women to join the War Wives Relief Corps, and an anonymous victim of the room shortage simply in search of a bed. Natalia Chodorov (played by Arlene Francis) provides yet another complication. She is brought from the Soviet embassy to the hotel by Julian, one of the almost husbands, because she wants to meet some typical American women. Although a heroine for her killing of 397 Nazis, Natalia says that her mother is actually the best sniper in Russia, as she has shot more than 425! Her mother would have an even better record, but she has had to take a break in order to give birth. Natalia says, “In small village where I am coming from, we have it custom. When woman is going for to have baby, she tell her husband—then he is running quick to window with gun for to fire salute three times—one for mother, one for baby, and one for Joe—,” Joe Stalin, of course.34 Although she is never converted to the capitalist cause, when Natalia later hears that her mother has given birth, one of her three shots is for FDR. Natalia decides to move in because there are fewer people in this very crowded hotel suite than there are in the Soviet embassy. She thereafter becomes a whirlwind of activity. She raises money to pay for the hotel room by strong-arming a pawnbroker, while at the same time organizing the hotel workers. She saves the day at the end by finding a Russian Orthodox priest to marry one of the couples so that they can go to lunch at the White House (the flyer boyfriend has just returned a hero after sinking a Japanese aircraft carrier). Natalia is nothing less than a Russian superwoman as fairy godmother. Her character is in some ways very stereotypically Soviet, with her overtly masculine behavior—she has a very strong handshake and says that she has slept “like dead horse all through twenty-six battles”35—her boundless vitality—she walks to Baltimore with a dog and has to carry him back— and her somewhat mangled speech—the movie that she saw in Baltimore 79

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was “about English people. ‘Mrs. Minovitch.’ ”36 At the same time, she is admirable in helping solve problems of all three couples and in getting things done with a cheerful demeanor. She has the last line, as the married couple leaves for the White House: “Lunch with the President! Dis America’s a hell of a nice country!”37 Other plays, including The Family (30 March 1943) and The Day Will Come (7 September 1944), made use of Russian characters and settings but offered even less of a perspective on the Soviet Union and its role in the war than the plays we discuss here. While presenting the Soviets as generally admirable in their struggle against the Germans, these plays rarely rose above the popular-culture stereotypes of Russians. Where the plays about the British were not afraid to depict the average citizen critiquing the government and the management of the war or to explore the psychology of men and women at war, the plays about the Soviets rarely ventured beneath the surface of the nation or its people. More interesting are the plays about occupied countries and their people. Unlike the plays about the British and the Soviets, which, as we saw, opened in a relatively short time span, plays about occupied countries range across the war years, from The Brown Danube (17 May 1939) to The French Touch (8 December 1945). Occupation plays were less interested in celebrating the stoicism or resilience of a particular victimized people than in using the zone of occupation as a setting wherein the dynamics of power and the psychology of people at war could be explored. The best of the occupation plays is John Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down (7 April 1942), partly because it purposefully detaches itself from any particular country and any particular invader. Although most reviewers and audiences assumed that the invaders were the Germans and the occupied country was Norway—indeed, it’s hard not to—the play’s script opens: The time is the present.

TIME

PLACE The action of the play occurs in a small mining town.38 This lack of specificity is in one sense rather coy, but in a more important sense it serves Steinbeck’s purpose: he seems to have wanted to use 80

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the specific occupation of Norway as a way of exploring the more wideranging issues of freedom, power, resistance, and individuality, especially the power relations that play out in what Mary Louise Pratt calls the contact zone, the space wherein two groups of people come together in an unequal distribution of power.39 The play begins on the first day of the invasion. The small mining town has been easily conquered thanks to the local militia’s being drawn away from town for a shooting contest organized by the local quisling. The commander of the occupying forces, Colonel Lanser, arrives at the home of Mayor Orden to discuss what will happen in the town. Cool, polite, even a bit charming, Lanser wants things to go on as before—the men working in the coal mine and power emanating from the mayor’s house—but Orden recognizes that things aren’t that simple. The country has been at peace for many years. The people are confused and don’t know how to respond to the new dispensation. As the play proceeds, we see the invaders gradually but surely lose their grip on the town and make use of more and more overt exercises of force to retain control. By the end of the play, it becomes unclear who actually has won, who is the conqueror and who the conquered. The main conflict of the play can be found in the tension between the invaders’ and the country’s notions of whence power comes. The invaders are confident that power flows from the top down; those in command can dictate to those under them. Thus, the colonel insists on sharing the mayor’s house and using it as a command post, so that his power will be seen as coming from the location that the people are accustomed to associating with authority and so that the mayor will be seen as supporting and implementing that power. For Lanser, the issue is what the invaders want and how the people will comply. The mayor, however, mildmannered and seemingly out of his depth, keeps insisting that he doesn’t know how to respond to the colonel’s orders and his desire for cooperation because the people are confused and don’t yet know how to respond. For Orden, power originates in the governed and flows up to the officials they have chosen to enact their wishes. He doesn’t think of himself as telling the people what to do; rather, they tell him what to do. Later in the play, Doctor Winter, the mayor’s friend and confidant, puts it this way: “They think that because they have only one leader and one head that we are like that. They know that ten heads lopped off would destroy them. 81

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But we are a free people. We have as many heads as we have people. Leaders pop up like mushrooms in a time of need.”40 This conflict over the nature of power is further illustrated in the first scene. The invaders seem to have all the trappings of power: soldiers in uniform, sufficient weapons to keep the townspeople cowed, and knowledge—their quisling has informed them who in the town owns guns so they can be confiscated. But while Colonel Lanser is calmly explaining the new order to Mayor Orden, the butler interrupts to warn that Annie, the cook, is getting upset that the soldiers on the porch are staring at her. The tension in the kitchen grows until Annie throws boiling water on the soldiers and then bites one. Lanser berates Orden: lanser: Have you no control over your servants, sir?

mayor: Very little. Annie is a good cook when she’s happy. lanser: We just want to do our job. You must discipline your cook. mayor: I can’t. She’ll quit.

lanser: This is an emergency. She can’t quit. mayor: Then she’ll throw water.41

The colonel eventually tells his men to release Annie and to stay off the porch, and the first attempt to resist the invaders’ exercise of power succeeds. The play goes on to present the range of the townspeople’s resistance, from the subtle (Mrs. Orden’s insistence on maintaining the regularities of everyday life) to the stubborn (the miners’ unofficial slowdown reducing the coal output) to the violent (sabotage with explosives dropped by the British). Most relentless, however, is the townspeople’s refusal to accept the new reality as defined by the invaders, to acknowledge them as part of their community, to recognize them as fellow humans. The mayor puts this refusal most frankly when Lanser wants a civil trial for a miner who killed an officer: “Why do you go into this nonsense of law, Colonel? There is no law between you and us. This is war. You destroyed the law when you came in, and a cruel new law took its place. You know you’ll have to kill all of us or we in time will kill all of you.”42 The townspeople reject any pretense that would suggest that the relationship between them and the invader is anything but war. Lieutenant Tonder, one of the junior officers, is particularly shaken by the townspeople’s resistance to any emotional connection, from 82

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simple good humor and courtesy to love. More successful than the overt resistance of sabotage and murder is this denial of the invader’s humanity. The town has reversed the power dynamic: usually it’s the invader, colonizer, oppressor who has the right to dehumanize the conquered people; here, the conquered people succeed in dehumanizing the invader. We see the results of this dehumanization among the invader’s officers. The officers feel the effects of the townspeople’s coldness. At one point Lieutenant Tonder goes to the home of Molly Morden, a woman he is attracted to, hoping for some sympathy and affection but not knowing that the man his firing squad killed was her husband. He tells her: “I want you to like me. [. . .] They told us the people would like us here. Would admire us. And they don’t. They only hate us.”43 Molly is lonely, too, and desperate for affection. Nevertheless, she adopts various strategies to deny Tonder the kindness and love he craves: she reminds him of their relative positions as conqueror and conquered; she plays the whore, offering to have sex with him for two sausages; finally, she tells him that he murdered her husband and sends him away. When he returns a few minutes later, she represses her human feelings for him and kills him with her sewing scissors. Many of the reviewers of the Broadway production complained that Steinbeck had presented the invaders (read the Nazis) as not cruel enough and too sympathetic; as George Jean Nathan wrote, it “pictured the Nazis in a fairly human light.”44 But this, of course, is the point: the audience must see them as human and recognize that they think of themselves as human in order to understand the effects of their being deprived of that humanity. In an earlier scene, set in the command post, Tonder had alarmed his fellow officers when, starved for affection, devastated by the townspeople’s hatred, losing faith in the war news from home, he had become hysterical: “Flies conquer the flypaper. Flies capture two-hundred miles of new flypaper.”45 This image, which returns at the end of the play, illustrates the reversal the play dramatizes: the power negotiated in the process of the invader seeking to exert force and the townspeople seeking ways to resist it has resolved itself in favor of the townspeople. As the frustrated invaders use more and more violent force to subdue the townspeople—at the end of the play executing Mayor Orden and Doctor Winter in reprisal for the townspeople’s sabotage—the townspeople grow more confident in their techniques of resistance. More broadly, the totalitarian conception of the operation of power, as articulated through the 83

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invader, is undercut by a less structured, more contingent, and more democratic conception of power. Other plays in their own ways explored the possibilities for responses to the Nazis’ attempts to exert force over the countries they occupied. The Barber Had Two Sons, by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan (1 February 1943), is overtly set in Norway and focuses on two brothers who disagree on how to react to the Nazi invasion. One, a sailor, advocates responding with force, strangling the quisling who helped the Germans with their invasion. The other, an apolitical artist, is seduced by his collaborator girlfriend into betraying the underground rebellion. The townspeople here, unlike those in The Moon Is Down, are overrun with collaborators, emphasizing how much easier it is simply to acquiesce to the occupiers’ force. Land of Fame, by Albert and Mary Bein (21 September 1943), is set in Greece and follows a guerrilla band and its leader as they enact their resistance through a successful sabotage campaign. In Thank You, Svoboda, by H. S. Kraft (1 March 1944), a simple Czech handyman is mistakenly accused of sabotage by the occupying Germans and sent to a concentration camp; when he is released, he actually becomes a saboteur. Through their use of force, the Nazis create what they tried to eradicate. Two of the more interesting occupation plays are set in France. France’s situation as an occupied country is complicated owing to its rapid and in some quarters enthusiastic capitulation to the Germans and the country’s subsequent division into northern occupied France and southern unoccupied France, with its collaborationist government seated in Vichy. Vichy France, led by the World War I hero Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval, embraced an ideology similar to national socialism. A third France was Free France, a government in exile headed by General Charles de Gaulle. As the film historians Michael Shull and David Wilt put it, “France had the singular distinction of being, at various times (and sometimes simultaneously), a fighting Ally, an occupied country, and even an enemy.”46 Set in France just as the German invasion is transitioning into occupation, Jacobowsky and the Colonel, by S. N. Behrman and based on a play by Franz Werfel (14 March 1944), was the most successful of the occupation plays. Jacobowsky, its central character, is a stateless Polish Jew, who has by necessity become deferential, resourceful, and clever—he is something of a trickster figure. He is desperately seeking a way out of France before he can be arrested by the Nazis. His best avenue for escape is the lumbering, 84

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conceited, not-very-bright Polish Colonel Tadeusz Boleslav Stjerbinsky, who has been tasked with delivering some secret papers to the Polish government in exile in London. Jacobowsky, seemingly the most powerless of men, must use his wits to resist the threat of force directed at him and must negotiate with or, more accurately, manipulate the Germans, ordinary French citizens, the French underground, and most particularly the colonel. Thus, he acquires a car to transport the colonel on his mission and in which he can be a passenger, he scrounges up gasoline and food, he rescues the secret documents when the colonel loses them, and eventually he is recognized for his efforts by the colonel, who rewards him with the last space on a boat sailing for England. Jacobowsky notes the fluidity of power relations when he’s trying to persuade the colonel they should travel together: “You are—if I may make so bold—cast suddenly in a new role. Instead of being in the enviable position of persecuting other people, you are persecuted yourself. Now I’m used to it. I’ll help you to get used to it.”47 Jacobowsky’s successful negotiation of several power relations is made more remarkable by the setting wherein the French people are shown as failing in all their responses to the German invader. Force fails: the colonel describes how his Polish troops were decimated at the Somme when the French air force offered no resistance to the German Stukas, the French weapons lacked ammunition, and the French troops fled. Law and justice fail: a brigadier of the gendarmerie insists on enforcing petty regulations although civil authority is empty in the face of the invasion. Isolationism fails: an old woman from Arras, refusing to recognize that the Germans are on the outskirts of Paris, complains militantly, “Why [. . .] should we die for Danzig?”48 Entrepreneurial capitalism fails: when a chauffeur tries to make a killing selling his car, Jacobowsky persuades him that as soon as the Germans enter Paris, the car becomes worthless because it will be seized. Even collaboration fails: when a former member of the French senate presents himself to a German lieutenant, ready to collaborate, he is arrested: “In the concentration camp you can begin by indoctrinating the other prisoners.”49 One philosophic Frenchman argues that the time to respond to Hitler’s use of force is long past; France should have acted when the first victim was persecuted: You remember when the Hitler pestilence first broke out in Germany we all of us said “what happens to Jacobowsky is none of 85

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our business” and when it spread from Vienna to Prague we said the same thing. But if instead, we and the British and the Americans and the Poles had said: “It is our business—Jacobowsky is a man too. We can’t allow human beings to be treated so”—in six weeks with six divisions we could have exterminated this pestilence in Germany. In other words [. . .], it was our indifference that made Hitler. We are his victory, his blitzkrieg and his world domination.50 In short, by failing in their responses to Germany’s use of force, the French are implicated in the German invasion and their own oppression. The French Touch, a comedy by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, opened 8 December 1945, three months after the end of the war and over a year after the liberation of Paris, and as such must have seemed dated even on opening night. Nevertheless, it offers another perspective on the French response to their German occupiers and, in an interesting selfreferential move, presents the theater as a site of resistance. Set in occupied Paris in spring 1943, the play takes place entirely in the theater of the egomaniacal producer, director, writer, and, above all else, star Roublard. His theater closed by the Germans, he and his current wife, Giselle, are living hand-to-mouth in one of the boxes, until the new Nazi minister of culture for Paris, Felix Von Brenner, offers him the chance to write a new play celebrating cooperation between the Germans and the French. This offer, it turns out, was inspired by Roublard’s first wife, the famous actress Jacqueline Carlier, who is now keeping company with Brenner. Privately, Jacqueline explains her complete plan: that Roublard write and his company rehearse a play that Brenner will approve, but on opening night add a new last scene that will inspire the French to continue resisting. She says: “It’s our own people I’m worried about.—It’s been years now—I still hear Frenchmen say, ‘They’re here forever—let’s make the best of it.’ [. . .] We’re losing hope—all of us!”51 The patriotism and egotism in Roublard sweep him up into the plan. He boasts, “I’ll compose a speech that school children will have to memorize for the next two hundred years!” Jacqueline responds archly, “Of course, the school children won’t have to memorize my part.”52 Roublard finds himself at the center of a number of intersecting power relations, political, professional, personal, and theatrical, but he is 86

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not as nimble negotiating them as Jacobowsky. On the political side, because the theater is reopening courtesy of the Nazis, Roublard is perceived as being a collaborator; the Union of Actors and the underground both threaten his life. He returns from a walk with a stain on his shirt and rages: “Think of what it means! My countrymen are starving yet they threw a tomato at me!” Jacqueline soothes: “Don’t feel so bad. It was probably just a rotten tomato.”53 On the personal side, another ex-wife, Odette, has come into the picture, and she, Jacqueline, and Giselle are all in the play, complaining about their parts and trying to upstage each other. On the theatrical side Brenner has trouble delivering the sets and costumes he promised. He whines: “But you don’t know how difficult it’s been.— From the military I’ve had to get back the seamstresses and carpenters— from the airplane factories and subways—such red tape!” Roublard responds, “You can’t even put a show on, and you want to run the world!”54 Yet all this squabbling occurs amid an awareness of the risk they’re taking. After their planned surprise ending, the company faces arrest, torture, exile to Poland as slave laborers, or possibly death. Before the final dress rehearsal, Brenner arrives in a fury, having discovered that Jacqueline stood him up for a late rendezvous—for which he’d absented himself from a meeting in Berlin—to spend the night with Roublard. He threatens to cancel the play and send the whole company to slave labor, when Roublard, dramatically but accidentally, shoots and kills him. No one knows he’s in Paris—he’s supposed to be in Berlin—so the actors hide the body and, as the curtain falls, proceed with the dress rehearsal, in anticipation of their opening night. For all the humor at the expense of actors and the theater, The French Touch is a celebration of the theater as a site of resistance. For Roublard’s play to have its intended effect—to give the occupied Parisians hope and to inspire them to resist the enemy—it must be performed live with the actors putting their lives on the line for what they believe. It is significant that the play ends as the actors begin their dress rehearsal: we are left uncertain about what will happen, just as the actors are uncertain as they nevertheless go determinedly ahead. Less than a year after the United States’ entry into the war, producers began offering plays about Americans in overseas combat settings. That there were proportionately fewer of this type of play than of Hollywood film is owing to the difficulty of staging realistic battle scenes in the 87

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confines of a Broadway theater. By necessity, as some reviewers complained, everything exciting happens offstage. But what the theater lacked in bombast, special effects, and the representation of the combat experience it gained in the ability to explore the psychology of those men and women experiencing combat. Like the plays about the British, plays about Americans overseas were interested in what makes men and women sacrifice physical comfort and peace of mind and even risk their lives in a time of war. They find, again like the plays about the British, that the characters’ motivations are less idealistic and patriotic and more personal. They also depict an interesting democratizing tendency in the armed forces, one that no doubt misrepresented the reality of military life but that nevertheless provided the opportunity to dramatize the motivation for individual choices. The Eve of St. Mark and Proof thro’ the Night, the first Broadway plays to depict Americans in combat, both opened in the last quarter of 1942, and both were set during the fall of Bataan. The siege of Bataan resonated in U.S. popular culture because of its story of heroic resistance in a hopeless cause. On 24 December 1941, two days after Japan landed troops at Lingayen and Lamon Bay, General Douglas MacArthur ordered the 67,500 Filipino and 12,500 U.S. military personnel under his command to withdraw to the Bataan peninsula, where, undersupplied in arms, ammunition, food, and medicine, they nevertheless managed to hold off the Japanese for over three months, until the 9 April 1942 surrender. With little to cheer in these early months of the war, Americans grasped onto what was essentially a delaying action as a victory of sorts and even insisted on casting MacArthur as a hero, although his muddled response to the news of Pearl Harbor, which led to much of the U.S. air force in the Philippines being caught on the ground when the Japanese attacked ten hours later, was disastrous. Maxwell Anderson’s The Eve of St. Mark (7 October 1942) had an unusual path to Broadway. It was originally written for the National Theatre Conference, an association of civic and college theater groups, and received over a hundred productions before being produced on Broadway. The Eve of St. Mark is a simple but effective play, focusing on Quizz West, a young man from an upstate New York farm, who is drafted into the army for a one-year hitch in 1941 and shortly thereafter becomes engaged to the daughter of one of his neighbors. The play alternates scenes of his 88

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life in the military with scenes of his home with his parents, brothers, neighbors, and fiancée, Janet. In the army he gambles and drinks to bond with his fellow soldiers, but he is moderate about both. He is tempted by women in a bar, but not so much that he loses his virginity. Although Quizz and Janet hope to marry and consummate their relationship before he goes overseas, a curtailed leave ruins their opportunity. The tension between the home scenes and the military scenes becomes especially important when Quizz must choose between the chance to go home and the good chance of death. The possibility of death is introduced early. In one of the boot camp scenes, Quizz and another private, Francis Marion, discuss the limits of duty and honor: marion: Well, there’s going to be a hell of a war; some of us are going to die young, and, the others are going to benefit by it. Which are the lucky ones? Which would I rather be?

quizz: You’d rather be one that almost got killed and didn’t.

marion: Yes, but then another question arises. How close do I have to come to being horizontal before I earn the right to remain perpendicular?55 The need for an answer becomes urgent a few months later when Quizz and his fellows are stationed at a gun emplacement on a small island off Bataan, shelling Japanese ships as they try to move invasion troops through a strait. They receive an ambiguous message from their commanding officer on the peninsula, giving them permission to withdraw but encouraging them to stay so they might impede the Japanese advance: “The final decision must be left to your discretion.”56 Although there is a sergeant in command, he and the others defer to Quizz as a natural leader, and he suggests that their duty is to stay. As the soldiers agonize over the decision and try to sleep, the play sets aside its mimetic style so that Quizz can appear to his mother and Janet and ask what he should do. Earlier, the soldiers had read about a legend regarding 24 April: “On St. Mark’s Eve, if a virgin stands at the church door at dusk, she will see entering the church all those of the parish who are to die that year. If her lover [. . .] should enter among the others, he will turn and look at her, may perhaps speak.”57 His mother tells him to choose to live and come home. Janet likewise urges him to come home, but in the only 89

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scene written in Anderson’s characteristic blank verse and elevated language, Quizz responds: It’s something in myself I don’t understand that seems to require it of me. It seems to be the best of me—the same inner self that turned to love you and love no one else, that says give more than is asked of you, be such a man as she you love could honor at a secret altar knowing all you’ve thought and done.58 In the morning the men vote to stay on the island and presumably die. In the final scene, on the farm, Janet speaks to his parents about Quizz’s appearing to her, and what he decided: “Those who love you can’t tell you what you must do. They can only say, save yourself. If they love you, they can’t say anything else. But the soldier, there with his comrades, and with the enemy in front of him, he must decide for himself.”59 Over the kitchen radio comes a broadcast in which the announcer calls this “the first war in history where there’s no possible argument about who’s right and who’s wrong,” but we have seen that such patriotic ideals played less of a role in Quizz’s decision than his desire to be the kind of man of whom Janet, his parents, and his fellow soldiers can be proud.60 Like The Eve of St. Mark, Proof thro’ the Night, by Allan R. Kenward, had a life before Broadway. It was originally produced on the West Coast to enthusiastic response and optioned for the movies by MGM before it came to New York. In what seems like an odd choice, it opened Christmas Day 1942, and although it ran for only eleven performances, it later toured with the burlesque star Margie Hart in Chicago, Detroit, and Boston, before being made into the film Cry “Havoc” in 1943. Set in an army hospital on Bataan, between the front lines and Mariveles, the harbor town from which boats sailed to the island fortress of Corregidor, the play begins with the arrival of eight women, recruited from among the refugees fleeing Manila, who have volunteered to help the overwhelmed army nurses. Their backgrounds are varied, everything from a switchboard operator to a waitress to a southern belle to a burlesque queen. Interesting here is that these are women, specifically non-military-trained women, who not only have to learn to function in the military but also, as the situation at the hospital becomes more desperate, have to learn to do 90

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men’s jobs. At the same time that the play breaks down gender differences, arguing that women are capable of contributing to the war effort too, it also makes an argument for a distinction in how men and women approach war. Doc Marsh, a respected surgeon who gave up her practice to enter the army and serve as a nurse, says at one point: “There never has been anything pretty about war. [. . .] Men have always destroyed and women have always come along behind and tried to put back the pieces.”61 That desire to put things back together, especially the wounded men in the hospital, is what motivates the characters’ final sacrifice. The women here, like the men in The Eve of St. Mark, are faced with a decision. Near the end of act 2, the volunteers are ordered to evacuate. Initially jubilant, the women begin to question leaving: “Damn it—I’d like to know who’s goin’ to take care of all these guys? Who’s goin’ to take our place here?”62 One by one, each finds reasons why she shouldn’t go, until one finally announces to the head nurse, “If guys like you can’t decide by now when we have a fight then we’d better turn in our suits and learn to goose step—we may not be much help but if we’re not allowed to try then someone else is wrong—not us.”63 As in The Eve of St. Mark, the women here choose to stay and eventually sacrifice their lives not because of their commitment to winning the “Holy War” one of them evoked earlier, but because of their loyalty to the wounded and sick men they have been serving.64 Some of these themes recur in Anderson’s next play, Storm Operation (11 January 1944). Set in Tunisia during an offensive to link the American and British armies, the play focuses on an outfit that is perpetually officer-depleted and so is under the command of a sergeant, Peter Moldau. This situation provides the means for another exploration of the democratization of the military. We see early on that Peter and his men treat rank and the niceties of military regulations casually, but when a British staff officer, Captain Sutton (also a British lord), arrives to serve as liaison, the tension between democracy and military hierarchy becomes central to the play. Peter and Sutton fall into immediate conflict when the sergeant informs the captain that a company regulation requires each soldier and officer to dig his own slit trench. Sutton orders his batman to dig his and remarks, “The Army [. . .] is not a democratic institution, no matter what you do with it.”65 His touchiness turns to anger when Peter insists on leading a patrol, although Sutton outranks him, because Sutton 91

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is a staff officer and not a line officer. The captain huffs: “I find myself in a very humorous position here, Sergeant. A damned Yankee non-com walks in [.  .  .], takes over my functions, gives me orders, and in effect makes me out a muckin’ jackass—all in the name of military discipline.”66 Our sympathies are with Peter, but the patrol is a disaster, and Sutton has to take command at a moment of crisis. Later, at the climax of the play, as a major attack begins, Peter asks Sutton to lead his men. The play tests the limits of the kind of democracy we saw in The Eve of St. Mark: where Quizz was recognized by his comrades as a natural leader, here Peter, though well-meaning and liked by his men, is too inexperienced to lead them effectively. Like The Eve of St. Mark and Proof thro’ the Night, Storm Operation depicts Americans fighting less for patriotic ideals than for personal reasons. One of the men, fatally wounded on the disastrous patrol, tries to explain the importance of personal relationships to Peter: “If you haven’t got somebody to go back to, what’s it all good for? [. . .] If you’re a soldier all alone it’s just for nothing. If you’re all alone you haven’t got any country, and it’s no use going home.”67 Peter later explains this idea to the nurse he wants to marry: “You get in the army and they teach you it’s better to be footloose. And at first it looks like a holiday with your expenses paid and no responsibilities—and you think that’s a way to live. But you aren’t living. You’re just taking orders and eating rations and killing—and you’re nothing—nothing!—unless you’ve got a line out to that blessed place back there where there are homes and children and peace. Or a line to the future—or a hope of somebody that loves you and doesn’t let go.”68 In the play’s epilogue, at the start of a future amphibious landing, Peter tells his men: “The best soldier is the one that has a picture in his pocket. And every time he looks at that picture it means home to him.”69 The picture means home, and home means the United States and the ideals for which the soldiers are fighting, but the abstractions that develop out of the immediate, the photo, the person whom the soldier loves, motivate him less than that intimate personal relationship. Storm Operation raises an interesting, self-reflexive conundrum about language, communication, and representing wartime experiences. Peter at one point exclaims: “When this is over and we get home and they begin to ask us what it was like we’re going to open our traps to say something and then we’re going to realize nobody at home will ever know—and we 92

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can’t tell ’em—and we’re going to shut our traps and keep ’em shut. Because it’s impossible. [. . .] No, this mucking war is out of this mucking world and out of range of the English language.”70 Anderson, who traveled to North Africa to research this play, may be signaling here not only the men’s inability to describe their experiences but also their chronicler’s inability to represent them.71 He suggests an unbridgeable gap between the reality of the experience of war and the necessary artificiality of the attempt to represent it, a gap that will become more pronounced in plays near the end of and just after the war. Anderson’s first stage success, the groundbreaking 1924 World War I drama What Price Glory, had been written with Laurence Stallings, a veteran who was badly wounded at the Battle of Belleau Wood. On 20 November 1944 Stallings opened his own World War II drama, The Streets Are Guarded. It is an unusual play concerning six servicemen— three from the navy, three from the army air forces—and one Dutch nurse who are stranded on a small island in the Solomons, not far from another island where a large detachment of Japanese is building an airstrip. They are saved by a mysterious marine, who says he is a man reported killed on Bataan and who is desperately searching for more marines to avenge the death of his captain. He restores order to the others’ living conditions, he leads a raiding party to the Japanese-held island, bringing back much-needed medicine and a radio, he devises a plan to use the radio to summon rescuers, and, after an admiral in command of a fleet of submarines arrives, he plans and leads an invasion of the island, after which he disappears. The play develops several by-now familiar themes. Although the marine is only a corporal and is outranked by several of the castaways, they perceive that he is a natural leader and immediately proclaim him skipper. He adopts his captain’s leadership style, which is based in discussion and consensus building: “My Captain hated to give orders. He just talked things out. [. . .] Just talked to everybody until all his men understood and did everything right.”72 Later, when the admiral is debriefing the men and planning the invasion, he’s shocked by the amount of discussion and the questioning of his orders, at one point exclaiming, “What is this? A debating society or the United States Navy?”73 Nevertheless, he too ends up collaborating with the men, especially the marine, in developing his plans. As we have seen before, the marine is motivated by a 93

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personal connection, his devotion to his captain. And like Storm Operation, The Streets Are Guarded questions the possibility of representing wartime experiences, here through the ambiguous presentation of the marine. Is he a living, breathing serviceman like the others or a supernatural being sent from heaven in answer to a prayer? On the island one of the sailors tells the admiral as his aide prepares to take down the castaways’ testimony: “There are things that cannot be written down, Admiral. Things of the spirit . . . and there’s magic in the spoken word.”74 The magic through which the marine is presented and the ambiguity of his ending suggest that wartime experiences can never be accurately represented and never completely understood, even by those who participated in them. Playwrights continued to stress these themes in plays about fighting men, even after the war was over. The Rugged Path (10 November 1945) was Robert E. Sherwood’s first play since 1940; he had spent the intervening five years working as a speechwriter for President Roosevelt and as a propagandist for the Office of War Information. The Rugged Path also marked Spencer Tracy’s return to the stage after fifteen years in Hollywood. Tracy played Morey Vinion, a foreign correspondent who, upon returning to his hometown newspaper, finds himself disgusted by the complacency of pre–Pearl Harbor Americans. He joins the navy as a cook and, after his ship is sunk, ends up on an island with a band of U.S. and Filipino guerillas. When a submarine arrives with supplies, Vinion is ordered to return home because of his value as a reporter, but, in another example of democracy in the military, he refuses the order, choosing to stay with the ad hoc band of sailors and soldiers who have restored his sense of why he’s fighting: “I kept trying to find whatever became of those rugged, crazy idealists who made this country—the men and women of the Mayflower, and the Alamo, and the covered wagons. I thought they were gone and forgotten. [. . .] I’ve found them here. [. . .] And what it has meant to me is beyond measurement, beyond expression. It’s a revival of the spirit—a restoration of faith—the discovery of life. You don’t get these things free. [. . .] And I don’t want to go back until I’m sure I’ve paid for them.”75 Harry Brown’s A Sound of Hunting opened on 20 November 1945, and it too develops these themes. The action takes place in a bomb-damaged house in the town of Cassino on the front lines of the Italian campaign. A 94

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platoon of U.S. soldiers has made the house their barracks. As the play begins, the men return at dawn from a night patrol—all but one that is: one man, the company screw-up, has been pinned down by a German machine gun. The others don’t particularly like the screw-up, and they grow more annoyed when they find out that they will be moving down from the front lines for R&R that evening and so will not be able to wait until after dark to bring him back in. In another demonstration of democracy, the men argue about whether and how to rescue the screw-up, even taking a straw poll and, when their captain orders them not to attempt a rescue, attempting the rescue anyway. One of the men, a college friend of the captain, tries to explain why: “Maybe it’s a kind of love. You see, Johnnie, you think in terms of a company—I think in terms of eight men. I live with them. I may very well die with them. I’m closer to them than I ever was to anyone in my family.”76 Once again, the men are motivated by the strength of their personal relationships. The difficulty of representing the war is raised when a celebrated correspondent tours the front and latches on to the story about the trapped soldier. One of the men denounces his columns for missing exactly what they claim to be about: the average soldier’s experience of the war. He says: “You go up in the front line for ten minutes and you tell some poor doughfeet how wonderful they are, and you squeeze something out of them. Then you write it up as though it were the Twenty-third Psalm and take all the credit for the war. I’ve read your junk. It made me sick.”77 Unlike Storm Operation and The Streets Are Guarded, A Sound of Hunting doesn’t seem interested in calling into question its own (and presumably other plays’, novels’, and movies’) ability to represent the war. Rather, it contrasts the correspondent’s glorification of war with its own more mundane representation: the boredom, the bickering, the mud, punctuated by the sudden chance of death. A play that opened earlier in 1945 provides an interesting variation on the themes the battlefield plays had been developing by extending them to civilians overseas. Common Ground (25 April 1945), by Edward Chodorov, focuses on a troupe of USO entertainers whose plane has been shot down and who are being held prisoner in an Italian castle just outside Naples as U.S. forces prepare to take the city.78 While they are waiting for their captors to decide what to do with them, we learn about their backgrounds and the differences that cause some conflict among them. Buzz Bernard is a comedian who got his start in vaudeville and eventually 95

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became a star in 20th Century–Fox films. He is also Jewish. Alan Spencer is a romantic screen star who gave up Hollywood for the marines. He was wounded on Mindanao and caught malaria but somehow was rescued. He’s been mustered out of the service but is doing his part by traveling with the camp show. His parents were born in Germany. Nick DeRosa and his wife, Kate, do a musical-comedy act. Unlike the others, they are not stars, just everyday entertainers plugging along in hopes of getting a big break. Nick was born in Italy and even fought for Italy in World War I, after which he immigrated to the United States. Kate is the daughter of Irish vaudevillians and has a soft spot in her heart for any Irishman in trouble. Geegee Gilman is a Hollywood starlet of no great depth and no identifiable heritage. When a German officer asks where her people came from she says, “Nowhere— St. Louis—.”79 The officer sets himself up with a comfy chair and a bottle of champagne and commands them to perform their show. After they finish, he makes his decision: Buzz, as a Jew, will be shipped to an extermination camp; the others have the choice of touring their show for Italian and German troops, with propaganda speeches inserted for Nick to read in Italy and Alan in Germany, or being executed in the castle garden in one hour. The rest of the play shows the characters collectively and individually trying to decide. The debate settles into predictable questions: Is one prepared to die for one’s country? Who would be hurt by their entertaining the enemy? Would it even matter after the war? What should be expected from noncombatants? Alan taunts Geegee by asking, “You mean you don’t mind being a little traitor, baby?”80 And Kate mocks Nick: “What is it you want to die for, Nick? The U.S.O.?”81 The conversations go round and round, but they end up making their decision on the basis of two examples. The first is Ted Williamson, an American, formerly a newspaper reporter, now a willing propagandist for the Nazis. (He seems disappointed that none of the characters has heard his broadcasts.) Williamson mocks the very idea of their commitment to America as a nation, because there is no American nationality. He says to Nick: “[Adolf ] made a mistake. He began in the wrong alley. Europe is full of little countries where the people all look alike, and they’re proud of it. America is the place! We’re just lousy with all kinds of animals that look different, smell different—and hate each other at the bottom. There’s no real common ground—and after a hundred and fifty years of kidding, they’re getting less and less polite about it.”82 96

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Williamson’s argument about what the Germans call “Garbage-can Americans” backfires, however:83 instead of driving divisions among the actors, he actually brings them together. Nick realizes at the very end: “So that’s it. So we all found out we’re Americans.”84 The second example is provided by the servicemen they came overseas to entertain, the men who are actually doing the fighting. At their last performance, at Salerno, Kate had connected with an American officer named Cassidy over their Irish heritage. Nick had been angry, a little jealous even, because she had given Cassidy his last bottle of rye whiskey. When she argues that the players should perform for the Germans and live, Alan suggests that in doing so, they would be double-crossing Cassidy: “How would you feel about it if there was an army of Cassidys behind us? Would you be willing to get shot, without even thinking twice about it?—for an army of Cassidys?” Alan goes on to point out that Cassidy is no different from them; he wants to live, too: “He left a good job and a wife and three kids—whom he cries about whenever he thinks of it. [. . .] He said he wanted a boy so bad. And he just got one—when he left to go to gunnery school. [. . .] Now he’s afraid he’ll never see him again. [. . .] I guess the Major loves his country, all right.”85 This argument convinces Kate to stand with those who will refuse to perform, leaving Geegee as the only holdout. None of Alan’s or Nick’s or Buzz’s arguments, however, convinces her; she ends up being convinced by something she sees. She leaves the room to tell Colonel Hofer, the German officer, that she will do as he wishes, but she returns dreadfully shaken. She describes what happened: “There were a lot of German officers— And our pilot was in the center of the room—under a light—and they were all around him—They must have been torturing him— And Colonel Hofer said, ‘You’re just in time, Fraulein. You must tell this boy not to be foolish.’—And I could see he knew—why I wanted to see him—and then—our pilot smiled at me—and Alan, he’s such a baby, his face was so white—I couldn’t—I couldn’t.”86 The performers’ decision ends up being based in personal connections—an Irish American officer, a pilot’s smile—that help the performers identify with the fighting men. They see how alike they are in the circumstances that led to their being overseas, and they want to be like them in being brave enough to die for their country. The examples of the servicemen serve to transform the thought of dying for their country 97

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from something abstract to something immediate and deeply personal. The play ends with the performers marching off, singing, to tell Hofer their decision. The most successful of the overseas plays don’t try to compete with the movies’ visuals or radio’s sound to represent the experience of war. Nor do they in general make broad appeals to patriotism or other ideals to persuade their audience of the rightness of the United States’ cause or the duty of each American. Rather, they emphasize the element of democracy, manifested in the right to criticize authority and the right to make one’s own decisions, to contrast the Allies’ way of fighting the war with the fascist enemy’s. They also emphasize that the individual’s decision to sacrifice, fight, and die is most genuine and thus most valuable when it is motivated by some kind of personal connection. In the next chapter we will look at plays set on the home front, and we will see that they both celebrate and explode the national narratives of American homogeneity and pulling together.

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4

The Home Front We have inherited a cultural myth that the World War II U.S. home front was unified, socially progressive, and unreservedly dedicated to the war effort. Many popular presentations of the war still subscribe to this myth. An exhibition connected to the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, introduced the war like this: “World War II united Americans from every walk of life, like no other war, before or since. Americans were all in, and they would accept nothing less than total victory.”1 In fact, wartime America underwent rapid transformation; men, women, and children saw their social roles redefined; and economic and racial divisions grew deeper and sharper edged. The historian Allan Nevins summed up the home front in an essay he wrote for While You Were Gone, a book intended for the returning serviceman: It has been a war in which big business has gotten bigger, while tens of thousands of small industrial plants have suffered acutely (with their managers and employees) from the high-speed mobilization. It has been a war in which the country has had to increase its forty-five millions of gainfully employed to sixty-five or seventy millions, which has meant working millions of semifit people long hours. Literally millions of workers have been moved by irresistible economic forces from one section of the country to another; millions have been shifted, or have restlessly shifted themselves, from one industry to another—the labor turnover at certain places and times has reached 30 per cent a month. Multitudes of families have been uprooted, and multitudes of children hurried into jobs. The result has been a painful strain on family ties, and a spectacular increase in juvenile delinquency. Crimes against the person—murder, rape, assault—have sharply risen. The population has had to adjust itself to the 99

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jamming of cities, the dislocation of transport, the pinch of a thousand shortages, the unpredictable shift of prices, the intrusion of government into new spheres. It has seen some groups enriched and others impoverished. The violence and confusion of these changes test many people severely even if they never see a gun.2 If not exactly a battlefield, the home front was nevertheless fraught with the kinds of changes and challenges that created tension and anxiety. If, as we noted in the previous chapter, the theater was not well suited to depict battlefield action, it was the perfect medium to represent homefront tensions and anxieties as they were manifested on the local level: the civilian thrust into the military life; the family pressured by rapid and dynamic social transformations; couples pressured by the carpe-diem spirit of the wartime romance; adolescents tested by the freedom of looser rules and mores; men and women balancing patriotism and selfishness. Not surprisingly, many of the most successful plays of the war years were set on the home front. Perhaps the first palpable intrusion of the world war into the lives of ordinary Americans was the draft. By the summer of 1940, with France fallen, Britain under siege, and Japan flexing its muscles in the Far East, the urgent need for the United States to build up its military forces was becoming clear even to some anti-interventionists. After a contentious debate in Congress (there was even a fistfight on the floor of the House of Representatives), on 16 September 1940 President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Service Act of 1940, the United States’ first peacetime draft. All male citizens between twenty-one and thirty-six were required to register. Those called would serve for one year, but the following summer, in a controversial revision to the Selective Service Act (the House passed the revision by only one vote), Congress extended the initial draftees’ service commitment to two years. By 7 December 1941, the goal of 900,000 men drafted into the military had been met. After war was declared, the term of service was revised to the duration of the war plus six months.3 The so-called citizens’ army that resulted from the draft aroused enormous social anxiety, especially among the young men who were 100

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targeted, along with their families and employers. It also created tensions between the military establishment and the civilians who were expected to make themselves over into proper and effective soldiers. Popular culture found ample material in this situation to explore the ways the army was changing these men and the ways these men were changing the army. The theater took two approaches: the first found comedy in the unlikely civilian soldiers and, working the same theme we saw in some of the overseas plays, how they might democratize the military; the second showed the ways the military transformed the civilians into fighting men. The first show to make use of the draftees’ plight was Let’s Face It!, a musical with book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields and music and lyrics by Cole Porter (29 October 1941). Written as a star vehicle for the emerging comedian Danny Kaye, the show opens with three affluent, middleaged Long Island wives who suspect that their husbands are looking to catch more than mackerel on their weekend fishing trip off Montauk Point. Deciding to make their husbands jealous, they go to nearby Camp Roosevelt and recruit three young draftees to make love to them for one hundred dollars each. The soldiers’ girlfriends get wind of the plan and decide to head off to Montauk to pick up the wives’ husbands. Complications ensue, but the play ends happily with a camp show. At the camp show, before the finale, one of the officers invokes the citizens’ army and the way it has brought together all sorts of different people with the common purpose of defending America. Applying this sentiment to Let’s Face It!, we see that it is both false and true. In one sense, very little of the play is about life in the military. Indeed, army life is presented barely at all. The score, the characters, and the plot keep the military aspects of the play firmly in the background. They serve as necessary plot complications, but once the characters start singing and performing comedy, the audience is allowed to forget the army just as, apparently, the characters do. The three soldiers put the emphasis on the citizen part of the citizens’ army; parts of their lives other than their military duty are front and center most of the time. In another sense, however, Let’s Face It! is about people coming together in a common purpose. The climax of the camp-show finale is “Melody in Four F,” a specialty number for Kaye written not by Porter but by Sylvia Fine, Kaye’s wife, and Max Liebman. In this number Kaye, mostly through nonsense words and pantomime, performs the reactions 101

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of an average American man from the receipt of his draft notice through his physical to his basic training and finally to battle, where he wins a medal for bravery.4 The number is very funny, but it’s also a concise representation of the draft process by which ordinary Americans were expected to give up their normal lives to transform themselves into members of a citizens’ army. In a sense, the 1940 draftees and the men who followed them after Pearl Harbor were not really soldiers; they were really cab drivers or farmers or factory workers or cooks who were asked for the duration to perform the role of soldier. Let’s Face It! suggests that the draftee may wear the uniform of an army private and learn his lines and blocking at boot camp, but he is nevertheless a civilian at heart. Similar points are made in Strip for Action, a comedy by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse (30 September 1942). Set near a field artillery training camp, the play follows the efforts of Private Nutsy Davis, a burlesque comedian in civilian life, to bring his old troupe together to put on a show for his fellow soldiers. Military discipline is shattered when the company of comedians and strippers gets off the train and takes over a local theater. Numbers must be staged, sketches must be rehearsed, the girls must be fed, the temperamental star stripper must be replaced when she bolts for a more lucrative gig, and, when Captain Adams denies permission for the show to be performed, Nutsy must make a road trip to Washington, D.C., to get permission from Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. As this last suggests, Nutsy has only a mild interest in military regulations and officers’ orders. He is willing to lie, connive, wheedle, beg, steal, and go AWOL for the good of the show, which, to him, is also for the good of his fellow soldiers. If he ends up in the guardhouse, well, he’s used to it. His one-liners and gags have made him something of a permanent resident. As his old burlesque pals observe, “I was afraid the army wouldn’t understand Nutsy,” and “The army ought to make allowances for a guy like Nutsy.”5 Nutsy’s civilian individuality takes precedence over his performance as soldier. Here, however, the nature of performance becomes more complicated because Nutsy’s civilian occupation is performer, and Nutsy and his burlesque comrades never turn their performances off. To them, there is no real boundary between onstage and offstage; the world is thus divided into comics, straight men, patsies, and audiences; and routines that kill onstage can be equally effective in real life. When Nutsy and his friends need to delay a British 102

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diplomat so that General Marshall will have time to sign the orders to let their show go on, they go into a routine we have already seen them rehearse, using the hapless Brit as straight man. Later, after Nutsy somehow manages to wheedle his way out of all the trouble he has caused, he suggests to his commanding officer a plan to win the war: “I’ve got a hell of an idea about Hitler. If you can drop me in Germany with a pair of baggy pants and a seltzer bottle . . .”6 Sadly, he’s interrupted before he can fully explain. Both Let’s Face It! and Strip for Action suggest that civilian individuality may be tempered as young men learn to perform their parts in the armed forces, but it won’t be extinguished. They suggest too that the effects of a few million civilians on the military are likely to be farreaching and pretty wild. Taking an opposite approach was the musical revue This Is the Army. With the United States’ entry into the war, the composer-lyricist Irving Berlin, inspired by his World War I flag-waver Yip, Yip, Yaphank (1918), dedicated himself to the production of a patriotic extravaganza, with songs and sketches about army life, put on and performed entirely by army personnel. Berlin used his fame to sell the idea to General Marshall (the real one) and his clout to get pretty much anything he wanted, including African American soldier-performers; the This Is the Army company was the first integrated unit in the army. A cast and crew of over three hundred men assembled at Camp Upton on Long Island, drilling while Berlin wrote the score and James McColl created the sketches. With all proceeds going to the Army Emergency Relief Fund, This Is the Army opened at the Broadway Theatre on 4 July 1942. An enormous hit, it played for three sold-out months on Broadway and toured the country until 13 February 1943, whereupon the cast reported to Warner Bros. to make the film adaptation. The Broadway run, the tour, and the film version raised over $6 million for the AER Fund. The movie completed, the cast embarked for England in late October, where they performed the show in London and several other cities. These performances were supposed to be the end of the run, but, after seeing the show, General Eisenhower insisted on a tour for U.S. troops. The company mounted the musical in Italy, the Middle East, New Guinea, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and a host of other locales before finally closing for good on 22 October 1945 in Honolulu. Over 2.5 million people are estimated to have seen the stage show.7 103

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As a musical revue, This Is the Army contained no continuing characters or through narrative. Instead, there were a series of scenes, sketches, and songs, all organized around different aspects of army life, including basic training, KP, inspection, and maneuvers. Unlike Let’s Face It!, This Is the Army does not present a picture of the average, individual civilian temporarily performing the role of soldier. Rather, the episodic nature of the entertainment deemphasizes individuality and emphasizes the group. More important, the theme of the individual being transformed into a part of the group is developed throughout the show. In the opening number, “This Is the Army, Mister Jones,” for example, ragtag, four-eyed, mouse-muscled civilian draftees arrive onstage and through the magic of basic training are transformed into strong, straight-postured, spic-andspan soldiers. The civilian life of the soldiers’ past is not presented, presumably because it is irrelevant. In the play’s finale, the rousing “This Time,” the cast reminds the audience that they are not performing the roles of soldiers; they are soldiers: As actors we have tried to entertain you, But soon our days of acting will be done; And we are not forgetting that we’re soldiers, And there’s a final battle that must be won.8 In “This Time” there is no trace of individuality, no trace of civilian life, only rows and rows of soldiers dressed for combat, bound, presumably, for overseas. Army life is about the denial of individuality, about the need for men to become part of a massive, machine-like group to fight the war. Envious of the success of This Is the Army, the army air forces sought a theatrical event that would draw attention to their branch of the service. (The army air forces was a part of the army, not a separate service, until after the war.) In April 1943 General H. H. Arnold called for a meeting with Moss Hart and proposed a show about the air force. Hart agreed and was immediately sent on an eight-week tour of air-force bases, meeting the cadets and participating in their training. Returning home in June, he spent the next six weeks writing Winged Victory. The show was cast with military personnel with stage experience, but no pilots or other men fit for combat. Among the cast of 210 were such future stars as Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Edmond O’Brien, Red Buttons, John Forsythe, George Reeves, and Mario Lanza. The cast was augmented by an orchestra of forty-five, a 104

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choir of fifty, and a stage crew of seventy. It opened at the 44th Street Theatre on 20 November 1943, ran 212 performances, and, after their initial investments were returned to its backers, all profits were donated to the Army Emergency Relief Fund.9 Beginning in Mapleton, Ohio, also the setting for Kaufman and Hart’s The American Way, Winged Victory follows three young men who yearn to be pilots. During cadet training, they meet three more men itching to fly, one from Oregon, one from Texas, and one, inevitably, from Brooklyn. Although we see their relationships with their wives and families, the focus of the play is on the rigorous training and testing the men go through to determine if they have what it takes to be a pilot. The process begins at the induction training field, where, instead of planes, new recruits find a sergeant ready to indoctrinate them into the army routine. The men next move to a classification center, where a battery of physical and psychological tests will determine what one officer calls “the cream of the crop” and eliminate what another officer calls “the man who gets rattled under fire.”10 At the end of the tests, many of the cadets are washed out. A major explains to them: “There is no doubt in our minds but what each of you could learn to fly a plane under peace-time conditions. We are not concerned with that, but with your probable performance under combat conditions—conditions where a slight physical deficiency may spell tragedy or where the emotional strain may cause you to crack. Remember, each man in a bomber is responsible for nine other lives besides his own.”11 Only after this long process do the cadets get near planes. The fulfillment of their long-pent-up desires to fly is exhilarating, but there is also tragedy: one of the Mapleton boys is killed in a training accident. Although the airmen don’t lose their individuality to the extent Irving Berlin’s soldiers do in This Is the Army, the play shows the process by which the air force takes what one officer calls “the burning desire to fly” in the cadets and uses it to refashion them physically and psychologically into the kind of men the service needs.12 As one of the pilots concludes, “I’m a different guy from the kid who sat in that back yard and waited for a letter a year ago. It’s more than just growing up. I’m different inside.”13 That difference is exactly what the testing and training were designed to achieve. We saw earlier that one of the classification center officers stressed the responsibility that each member of a flight crew has to the others. As 105

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the play goes on, we see this sense of responsibility recast as a sense of family. In one way the play’s including members of the main characters’ families helps the audience to retain a sense of their individuality, but in another way the play’s very form attenuates this individuality. That is, while we see the cadets interacting with wives and girlfriends, mothers and fathers, we are reminded by the show’s very scale, the 210-person cast, that every cadet has similar ties to his previous, civilian life. The six main characters’ individual situations stand in for generic situations of the air corps as a whole, in effect absorbing the six into the larger mass of men. As part of this absorption, the six become part of a different family, the family of the army air forces. Most immediately, the crew of a B-17 becomes something of a family, recognizing the authority of the army hierarchy but also interdependent. As one crewmember explains, “From now on we eat together, sleep together, fly together and maybe die together.”14 In a larger sense, however, a web of relations makes the air force itself a family. Wherever they travel, the cadets have reunions with men they trained with and officers they served under. Wherever they travel, they meet new comrades and airmen from other countries, and the web of relations gets bigger.15 Unlike Let’s Face It! and Strip for Action, where the civilian recruits’ comic quirkiness preserves individuality and democratizes military authority, Winged Victory presents a military that transforms civilian recruits into the kind of men the service needs and makes them members of a large human community whose goal is to defeat fascism. Several other plays made use of military life. Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, and Hal Block’s Sons o’ Fun (1 December 1941), a musical extravaganza successor to the successful Hellzapoppin’ (1938), featured a sketch titled “Induction Center,” in which a lisping draftee is considered for service. Cole Porter, Herbert Fields, and Dorothy Fields’s Something for the Boys (7 January 1943) focused on three cousins who open a boardinghouse for the wives of men stationed at a nearby military base, rousing the suspicions of the base’s officers. The Army Play-by-Play (2 August 1943) featured four one-act plays, the winners of a playwriting contest for soldiers; the plays focused on various aspects of army life, from the comic to the serious. Martin Bidwell’s Lower North (25 August 1944) was set at a training station for quartermaster corps candidates and follows the dayto-day activities of the men who are stationed there. Finally, Harold 106

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Rome, Arnold Auerbach, and Arnold B. Horwitt’s Call Me Mister (18 April 1946) was a musical revue that served as something of a reverse This Is the Army, focusing on the transition from military to civilian life at the end of the war. Being in the military or having a close relative in the military was the way Americans could be most directly affected by the war. Rationing was a nuisance, but it didn’t compare to the suffering civilians faced in Britain, the Soviet Union, or the various occupied countries. There was a need for the American public to participate imaginatively in the war, and so the possibility of enemy spies and saboteurs operating within U.S. borders was exploited by the popular-culture industry, the theater being no exception.16 In fact, even at the time both Nazi and U.S. officials recognized that the effect of German espionage and sabotage efforts was minimal. Nevertheless, President Roosevelt strategically played up the threat of Nazi fifth column activity, especially in the months before Pearl Harbor and early in the war.17 There was, however, one highly publicized attempt to bring Nazi spies into the United States, and it served as inspiration for two Broadway plays. In April 1942 the Abwehr, a part of German Military Intelligence focusing on sabotage, put into action Operation Pastorius, a plan to land small groups of men on Long Island and the Florida peninsula with explosives with which they could damage factories, rail lines, and power installations. These eight men were trained in various kinds of sabotage, but most of them were less committed to the Nazi cause than they represented themselves as being when they were recruited. From the very first, it was clear that their plan would not succeed. The Germans who landed on Long Island were spotted by a coastguardsman, whom they tried to threaten and bribe but who, unperturbed, reported what he’d seen; by that time, however, the saboteurs were on their way to New York. The Florida group took a train to Chicago. But the $175,000 the Abwehr had provided them to acquire an American wardrobe and make friends within the defense industry proved too great a temptation, and the Germans spent their cash in more entertaining ways. Within a few weeks one of the saboteurs turned the whole group over to the FBI. All eight of them were tried by an American military tribunal, and six were executed.18 Opening on 23 November 1942, less than six months after the saboteurs had landed, and a little over three months after the executions, 107

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Yankee Point, by Gladys Hurlbut, tried to capitalize on this case, which had fired the popular imagination and proved that the possibility of foreign spies in the United States was real. The play focuses on a very dramatic day in the life of an average Long Island family named Adams. They are all caught up in the war effort in different ways but are nevertheless surprised when the war comes almost to their front door. The mother discovers a German coat and some explosives buried in the sand as she walks out to Yankee Point. The second act hews most closely to recent events, focusing on the capture of one of the German saboteurs by the coast guard. He warns about a German air raid that will take place shortly. The third act presents the air raid itself. Lighting and sound effects represented the raid, filling the theater with searchlights and the sound of planes and falling bombs, while the family hides inside the house. The action is narrated by a radio broadcast, which describes the American air force driving the bombers away. The play uses the failed mission of the saboteurs as the opportunity to warn audiences that the home front might soon be under attack and to let them participate vicariously in the kind of stoic heroism our allies, especially the British, demonstrated. Indeed, the New York World-Telegraph’s reviewer Burton Rascoe described Yankee Point as an American stage version of Mrs. Miniver, implying that Americans, like the British, would be able to survive something so awful.19 A year later, Career Angel also incorporated Nazi saboteurs into its gentle comedy about a Catholic orphanage on the Georgia coast. The play, by Gerard M. Murray, was originally produced Off Broadway by the Blackfriars Guild on 18 November 1943 and opened on Broadway six months later, on 23 May 1944. The orphanage contains a wide variety of boys, including Kurt, an eighteen-year-old German American whose father is interned in a German concentration camp. The other boys are sometimes suspicious of him and more than a little riled up about the possibility of an invasion. As one boy, Willie, says, “They could practically come right up to our door in submarines.”20 He wants Kurt, as senior boy, to report their neighbor Mr. Barr to the authorities because he seems very suspicious—he’s painting landscapes, even at night. Brother Seraphim, the founder of the orphanage, however, is oblivious to spies because of the unpaid bills that threaten the orphanage with closure. After this setup, the play turns somewhat whimsical, as Seraphim’s guardian angel appears to help fight the Nazis and save the orphanage. The angel tells Brother 108

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Seraphim that Barr is a spy, that Germans have “been busily unloading all kinds of ammunition on your property the last three nights,” and that trucks are coming to pick up the explosives.21 The spies’ capture is complicated by Barr’s threatening Kurt, telling him that his father will be killed if the plot is revealed, but the FBI nevertheless manages to round up the saboteurs. The angel then tells Seraphim of a valuable historical document hidden on the property, thus saving the orphanage. The emphasis here is less on the immediate danger of German espionage and more on the gentle humor generated by the guardian angel. Other plays made use of espionage subplots, but they tended to be in the background. The pre–Pearl Harbor Cuckoos on the Hearth, by Parker W. Fennelly (16 September 1941), had German spies trying to steal the formula for a knockout gas from an inventor’s lonely Maine farmhouse, while a serial killer roams the area. (Coincidentally, there was an attempt to land German agents on the coast of Maine in 1944.) The Lady Comes Across, a musical by Fred Thompson, Dawn Powell, Vernon Duke, and John La Touche (9 January 1942), involves counterespionage in a dress shop, including secret papers hidden in a girdle. As late as 1945, Lady in Danger, by Max Afford and Alexander Kirkland (29 March 1945), used the presence of fifth columnists to generate the murder-mystery plot. Fifth columnists, spies, and saboteurs played roles in many other plays, but only Yankee Point uses them seriously. If the possibility of facing down saboteurs and spies was the stuff of thrillers and fantasies, there were very real challenges during the war years that directly affected millions of Americans. These challenges can be traced to two significant causes: millions of men leaving their everyday lives and going into the military; and millions of people moving from one section of the country to another in pursuit of opportunities the wartime mobilization offered. It’s estimated that 15 million Americans moved from one county to another and, of these, 8 million moved across state lines. Farm populations dropped by 17 percent, or 5.5 million people, while cities grew by 21 percent as rural people sought jobs in the defense industries.22 Many complicated problems arose from the rapid growth of cities, points of embarkation, communities around defense plants, and areas around military bases. The primary problem was housing: there just weren’t enough places for people to live. The federal government’s 109

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response was to build cheap, temporary housing, which, in the war years, was never a priority. As a result, in many areas of the country, people scrambled for any place to live, no matter how inadequate. A connected problem was infrastructure. Many cities and towns saw unprecedented strains on their utilities, highway systems, health-care systems, and educational systems and were thus faced with the conundrum of how much to invest in expanding these systems when, after the war, their communities might return to prewar population levels. Moreover, many communities did not want the newcomers to stay. The culture clashes as people from different regions, backgrounds, classes, and races found themselves together in the same geographic space were difficult to negotiate. The overcrowding of cities along with the influx of servicemen on leave or preparing to ship out also led to an increase in crime.23 A different set of problems was caused by the abrupt absence from the home front of the 12 million men who were in the military during the war. On the societal scale their absence created huge holes in the labor force. Thus, as we all know, women and African Americans were suddenly welcome in industries, especially the vital defense industries, where they had only rarely been tolerated before. In the years just before Pearl Harbor and the first two years after, society also saw a marked increase in marriages and births. The local effects of these changes and trends were wide-ranging. Women were likely to be heads of households, sometimes working while caring for children. In these circumstances, with one parent absent and the other preoccupied with working and managing the household, children were often neglected. Agnes Meyer, who wrote on social conditions during the war for the Washington Post, made this observation about the children of working mothers: “In the San Fernando Valley, in the city limits of Los Angeles, where several war plants are located, a social worker counted 45 infants locked in cars of a single parking [lot]. In Vallejo, the children sit in the movies, seeing the same film over and over again until mother comes off the swing shift and picks them up. Some children of working parents are locked in their homes, others locked out.”24 Some neglected children were forced to grow up too fast; others drifted into delinquency and crime. Playwrights and producers were drawn to such home-front issues for the topics of their plays. Some mined the home front for comedy; others seriously addressed the social problems and tensions the war was causing. 110

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Although there is some unavoidable overlap, we will divide these plays into three categories: plays about the war’s effects on the family; plays about the war’s effects on young people; and plays about the war’s effects on male-female relations. We see all these plays as working together to depict the challenges Americans at home faced during the war years. Like the plays about civilians in the military and about espionage, plays about the war’s effects on the family came in both comedic and dramatic forms. The most popular family-focused comedy of the war years was Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron’s Three’s a Family, which opened on 5 May 1943. Set in the two-bedroom New York City apartment of Sam and Frances Whitaker, the play is primarily a housing comedy, like The Doughgirls, but reflects a number of other home-front problems. The initial situation must have resonated with wartime audiences: Frances is the breadwinner, an executive for an unspecified company, while Sam hasn’t held a job in some years. In fact, when their two children were born, he stayed home to raise them. The gender-role reversal is emphasized when the maid responds to one of Sam’s orders with “Yes, Ma’am.”25 Frances’s sister Irma also lives in the apartment, occupying the second bedroom—but not for long. Their grown daughter, Kitty, has had yet another fight with her volatile husband, Gene, and has come home to mom and dad with her baby, Susan. Usually, after a few hours Gene comes over to apologize, but this time he abruptly enlists in the army, and Kitty and Susan are now permanent residents. To make space for them, Irma has to give up her room and move to a folding couch in the living room. Faced with the extra work the presence of a baby demands, the maid quits. Sam, anticipating what’s going to happen next—that Frances will tell Kitty to get a job while Sam cares for the baby—heads right out and gets Gene’s old job as foreman at a defense plant. In a few short hours a calm, organized home becomes overcrowded and overwhelmed. The complications that follow all gesture toward wartime problems the audience was undoubtedly familiar with. Because of the baby, the Whitakers can’t keep a maid—owing to shortages, housekeepers can be choosy about where they work. Frances ends up with a tipsily eccentric African American maid (she’s not quite sure of her name), whom she finds not through a maid service but on the subway. Sam and Frances’s son, Archie, can’t get a deferment from the draft, even though his wife, Hazel, is pregnant and due any minute. When Hazel goes into labor, 111

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there’s no room for her in the hospital, so she has to give birth in the Whitaker apartment, attended by the octogenarian Doctor Bartell, “the only [doctor] left. All the others are in the army. If he could see, he’d be in the army, too.”26 Then Gene shows up unexpectedly on a brief leave, alternately kissing and fighting with Kitty, and a friend of his and his pregnant wife drop in for a visit as well. The tipsy maid is left shaking her head: “All these people in one apartment. It’s just like Harlem.”27 The play’s one serious thought about the war resonates with a theme we saw in the plays about Americans in combat: the need for the soldier to have something personal to fight for. When Irma questions the wisdom of young people having children at such a time, Sam says of the men facing the prospect of going off to war, “They’re twice as much in love with their wives as they would usually be, because they have half as much time. They’re trying to jam a whole lifetime of love into a couple of months. When you get a situation like that, you’re bound to get a lot of babies. [. . .] A baby gives them a stake in the future—Gives them something to fight for, and something to come back to.”28 Other comedies similarly focused on the chaos that ensued from gender reversal, overcrowding, the man shortage, and wartime pregnancy. In Vickie, by S. M. Herzig (22 September 1942), Vickie Roberts, the wife of an inventor working on a war project, gets caught up in the excitement of war work and joins the American Women’s Camp Service. She dons a uniform, learns first aid with some of the other neighborhood women, makes a lot of sandwiches (using her husband’s blueprints for wrappers), and becomes something of a godmother for two soldiers who are interested only in chasing young women. Count Me In, a musical by Walter Kerr and Leo Brady with music and lyrics by Ann Ronell (8 October 1942), depicted another household where everyone is committed to war work and the mapmaker father tries to get a false map into the hands of the Japanese. In Victory Belles, by Alice Gerstenberg (26 October 1943), an upper-class matron, concerned that her daughter won’t be able to find a husband, invites to her home officers from a nearby army base and maneuvers to force them to stay the night. J. C. Nugent wrote, directed, and starred in That Old Devil (5 June 1944), about an older gentleman who pretends to be the father of a pregnant war worker’s baby to spare her the scandal. Pregnancy figured large in playwrights’ presentations of the home front. This trope is perhaps connected to the pre–Pearl Harbor theme of 112

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questioning whether it is ethical to bring a child into such an uncertain world. In the more serious home-front plays, however, the birth of a child represents a vision of the future. This is most clear in Irwin Shaw’s Sons and Soldiers (4 May 1943), in which a pregnant woman is told that unless she has an abortion, there’s a 90 percent chance she will die in childbirth. She fantasizes about giving birth to her son and then another one and what they would be like as they grow up. The older son, on whom most of the play is focused, would be idealistic and unfocused, going through the turmoil typical of youth. He would have an affair with the promiscuous wife of the doctor who delivered him but eventually marry the girl next door. After learning that his younger brother has been killed, fighting with the British in France at the beginning of the war, he joins the RAF. As the play ends, the mother decides that it’s worth the risk to have a child, even though she may die and he may die young. She tells her husband and the doctor: “He never turned out the way I wanted him to, but finally that doesn’t seem to make much difference. [. . .] My son is six feet tall and has swum in the Atlantic Ocean and loved a woman to the point of murder. He’s brave and honorable and his friends can depend on him and he’s not afraid of dying and, finally, I approve of him. I’m not going with you. I’m going to have a son. And his name will be Andrew. And I’m going to have another son and his name will be Ernest.”29 Choosing to have the baby is an expression of faith in her son’s ability to change the future for the better. Elmer Rice’s A New Life (15 September 1943) explores a similar theme in a more realistic style. It is set in the maternity ward of a New York City hospital. Edith Charles Cleghorne, pregnant after a two-week romance capped by marriage to an army air forces pilot, has been admitted as her labor pains begin. Her husband Robert isn’t there because he was reported missing-in-action four months previously, but his parents, the wealthy and getting-wealthier-every-minute-thanks-to-defensecontracts Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Cleghorne, are there, and they’re already plotting to get custody of the baby. Just as Edith is taken off to the delivery room, Robert arrives—he was rescued from a Japanese-held island— and we are left to wonder if he will side with Edith or with his parents. The play presents some already familiar elements of home-front life. The maternity ward is overcrowded: a new expectant mother moves into a room as soon as its previous occupant is ready to go home with her baby. 113

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The head doctor seems to be the only one on the ward, and replacing regular nurses are many student nurses and volunteer nurses’ aides, another sign of the shortage of medical professionals due to the war. Edith is independent, a well-regarded radio performer. One of the reasons the Cleghornes don’t approve of her as a potential caretaker for their grandson is that she won’t give up her career. Edith and Robert also face a problem resulting from their hasty marriage: they don’t really know each other. As Edith explains, “When you’ve only had about two weeks of married life, and then haven’t seen your husband for nine months, you sort of have to start from scratch.”30 Complicating this already difficult process of reacquaintance is the problem of how to care for the baby, exacerbated by the pressure applied by the Cleghornes. The play makes clear that the conflict goes well beyond whether Martin, Edith and Robert’s baby, will be raised in the Cleghornes’ Arizona mansion or Edith’s New York City apartment. The Cleghornes want to raise him to take his place in the line of succession for Cleghorne Steel, to be socialized into his position of privilege, to make him, essentially, Samuel Cleghorne II. One of Edith’s friends, Gus, a communist who fought with the Loyalists in Spain and is now a merchant seaman, offers a negative take on Mr. Cleghorne: “If you can sell steel to Japan and foot the bill for America First meetings and make after-dinner speeches about how we ought to be fighting Russia instead of the Nazis—and still be a respected citizen with a pocketful of juicy war-contracts, why maybe you can get away with a little thing like a legalized kidnapping, too.”31 Gus’s implied message compares Mr. Cleghorne, antidemocratic and self-serving, with his son, a hero who has risked his life for his country. Gus ends by connecting little Martin to the future of the country: “It makes a hell of a lot of difference to me—and not only to me, but to thousands, maybe millions of guys, in different kinds of uniforms—whether you’re raising a kid that’s going to help make the things we’re supposed to be fighting for come true or a kid that’s just going to promote the old routine.”32 These two possibilities for the future are what’s at stake in how Martin is raised and who raises him. The title, A New Life, resonates in several ways and accounts for the play’s most controversial moment, the penultimate scene of act 1, which depicts Edith having her baby. The stage is in total darkness except for a spotlight on her face. The emphasis on the agony she’s going through, her 114

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feelings of helplessness, and her anger is important: it shows how difficult and painful it can be to create a new life of any kind.33 As the debate over the raising of Martin develops, both his parents come to recognize the way their recent experiences have changed them. They have, in effect, been reborn. Edith says to Robert during one of their fights, “I’ve been through loneliness and sadness and pain and they’ve made a different person of me.”34 Later, after an all-night drunken gabfest with Gus, Robert realizes that he changed while he was hiding out for four months on that island: “I’ve had a kind of a birth, too, or maybe a re-birth.” He realizes that the conclusions he came to while suffering on that island are similar to Edith’s: “There was no goddam sense to the whole thing—to what was happening to us and to millions of people everywhere, if we were all just going to go back to the same old world and wait for the whole thing to start over again.” Robert concludes: “I’ve got less than twenty-four hours left. It’s not long, but two people can make a lot of it— two new-born people, that is, who aren’t strangers to each other any more.”35 The play thus brings together the senses of birth that it’s been developing: the newborn Martin represents the future; Edith and Robert have, through their war experiences, been reborn into the kind of people who can share a vision of a new postwar world and do the hard, painful work to bring it into life. When Edith asks what he’ll say to his parents, Robert responds, “It’s not hard to know what to say, when you’re choosing between the dead past and the living future.”36 Husband-and-wife relations are also at the heart of Men to the Sea, by Herbert Kubly (3 October 1944). The primary setting is a boardinghouse near the Brooklyn Navy Yard where wives of sailors come from across the country to be near their husbands. The focus is on five wives of sailors on the destroyer Christabel and how they cope during the long months when their husbands are at sea and during their brief leaves. The five sailors are all members of the same gun crew, commanded by a natural leader like those we saw in some of the battlefield plays, the universally respected, philosophically profound Great Duckworth. It was the Great Duckworth who arranged for the wives all to live together, even the wife of a black sailor on his gun crew; when the proprietress initially refuses to rent to a black woman, the other wives form a united front, threatening to leave and forcing her to relent. The play explores the wives’ loyalty to their husbands while they are at sea. Hazel is having an affair with another sailor at 115

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the Navy Yard, justifying herself by imagining what her husband is up to: “I know Chauncey doesn’t keep his pants buttoned any more than he has to. So if he gets it why shouldn’t I?”37 Even Hazel, however, doesn’t approve of Julie, who isn’t loyal to the navy but has multiple affairs with servicemen from other countries; her nickname is “United Nations.”38 Bonnie, only sixteen and married so hastily she’s still a virgin, flirts with a variety of men but stops short of actually having sex. Hyacinth, the black wife, is absolutely faithful to her husband. The Great Duckworth is married to Christabel, rechristened by him after his ship, but theirs is no impromptu wartime marriage. They were childhood sweethearts, they have a baby, and they seem to be true soul mates, adoring each other. Just as the Great Duckworth is the understated moral leader of the sailors, Chris functions as the moral touchstone for the wives. The crisis in their relationship comes on Christmas Eve. At the end of act 2, while at the boardinghouse the wives and male guests celebrate, some of them with drink, flirtations, and stripping, we see the men of the Christabel under attack and the Great Duckworth killed by a strafing enemy plane. When act 3 begins, five months later, Chris, having been notified of her husband’s death, has been going out at night, picking up sailors, and bringing them back to her room. She says she is looking for Duckworth, but what seems to be at work is a form of transference wherein the memory of an absent loved one is applied to a new person. This transference is made easier when the new person has some resemblance to the loved one because of, for example, a sailor’s uniform.39 When the Christabel ’s sailors return home, one of the men tells Chris about the Great Duckworth’s death, his last words, and the message of forgiveness and undying love he sent. Chris says: “The Great Duckworth lives. I guess I’ve felt it all the time and I’ve hunted for him. I kept hunting and once I thought I found him when another boy kissed me like the Great Duckworth kissed me and said something about the stars in my eyes as he might have said. But it wasn’t and still I hunted. Now you bring him back to me, Reuben. He lives, he lives.”40 The other relationships are tense—Hazel is pregnant with another man’s child—but the spirit of the Great Duckworth, the words and wisdom he shared, helps bring healing to them all. Earlier we mentioned the effect of the war on young people. Absent fathers, mothers preoccupied with war work, the chance to work and earn 116

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money, the seeming irrelevance of school, and the presence in some parts of the country of thousands of servicemen looking for female companionship before shipping out created a context in which young people had to grow up too fast. With parents away, many young people had to take on a large share of the housework and the care of their younger siblings. Senator Claude Pepper’s 1943–44 Subcommittee on Wartime Health and Education heard testimony about “girls and boys between the ages of about six and thirteen or fourteen, many of whom were not only themselves latchkey children, but also caretakers, having the primary responsibility for their younger siblings—some less than a year old—for shifts of up to nine and ten hours.”41 Seeing their brothers and sisters and friends, not much older than they, joining the military or getting married made them feel envious and left out.42 Impatient with school, students dropped out; in 1943–44 school attendance fell by over one million.43 Concomitantly, the numbers of young people working rose dramatically; between 1940 and early 1944 the number of adolescents between fourteen and eighteen working full- or part-time rose from 900,000 to almost 3,000,000.44 In addition, juvenile delinquency rates rose across the country by 20 percent and by more in some localities; in San Diego the rates for boys rose by 55 percent and for girls by 355 percent.45 Though the boys’ offenses usually involved theft, violence, or vandalism, the girls’ offenses were often sexual delinquency. The historian Richard Lingeman explains: “With the girls, delinquency took the form of an aggressive promiscuity, and the lure was the glamor of a uniform. These ‘khaki-whacky’ teen-agers—some barely thirteen—were known as V (for Victory) girls. They hung around bus depots, train stations, drugstores or wherever soldiers and sailors on leave might congregate, flirted with the boys, and propositioned them for dates. They were amateurs for the most part, the price of their favors being a movie, a dance, a Coke or some stronger drink.”46 Such activities carried the officially sanctioned demand to support the troops to an alarming and dangerous extreme. Like the other home-front topics we’ve looked at, the plight of the young people inspired both comedy and serious drama. One of the most popular comedies was Janie, by Josephine Bentham and Herschel Williams (10 September 1942). Set in the Colburn family’s upper-middleclass home in the town of Hortonville, which is also home to a newly overpopulated army base and new defense plants, Janie looks humorously 117

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and affectionately at the war’s effects on an adolescent girl’s life. Janie Colburn is sixteen, pretty, popular, headstrong, and, like many teenage girls, deaf when it comes to the advice and commands of adults. For her, the war and the influx of soldiers at the base represent the chance to taste adult experiences. As the play begins, Janie’s father, Charles, has just returned from a long trip to Washington, D.C., trying to get a priority for a new printing press for his newspaper. His wife, Lucille, isn’t home because she’s a volunteer in the Motor Corps, a position that comes with a snappy uniform. He finds that his partner at the paper, John Van Brunt, is now living in his home because the local hotel, his previous residence, is overcrowded with military personnel. There is just enough distraction and confusion in the Colburn home that Janie can do pretty much as she likes, a fact that hits her parents with a bang when they see her photo in Life magazine illustrating the teen trend of blanket parties. The article explains: “The routine of the blanket party is comparatively simple. After the moonlit weenie roast—the [. . .] cuddle-cats and their High School Lochinvars spread their blankets around the flickering firelight and go into a clinch.”47 The situation is further complicated when an old friend of Lucille’s, a well-preserved southern belle named Thelma Lawrence, arrives in Hortonville with her son, Dick, a newly minted PFC, who’s been assigned to the local base. Lucille invites Thelma to stay chez Colburn, and Dick is a frequent visitor. Janie sees Dick as a dreamy older man, Dick sees Janie as easy pickings, and Janie’s boyfriend, Scooper, sees himself being cut out of the picture. Both Janie and Scooper suffer from the disappointment of not being quite old enough to really participate in the war. Scooper rightly diagnoses Janie: “You sit there pretending you’re old enough to be having dates with a lot of Army men.”48 But Scooper indulges in his own pretending, lying about his age when he tries to join the army air forces. Neither is satisfied with being a teenager and watching the war from the sidelines. Janie’s attempt to enter the adult world doesn’t go as planned. Trepidatious about being alone with Dick, Janie arranges for a couple of her high school friends to come to her house on Saturday night while the adults are at a dinner at the country club, and she asks Dick to invite a couple of his friends from camp. She buys some weenies and imagines an evening that is both fun and patriotic. Problems arise, however. Her little 118

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sister, Elsbeth, is decidedly in the way, so Janie asks Dick to take her to her grandmother’s to spend the night. Unexpectedly, Dick is gone almost the entire evening, and, when he returns, he reports that he turned Elsbeth over not to her grandmother, but to a man he knows whom he’s now unable to locate. More distressingly, word of the party has gotten around the base, with the result that two hundred soldiers have shown up at the Colburn house. They form an impromptu jazz band and they dance; they eat the weenies and everything else in the kitchen; they break into and empty Charles’s liquor cabinet. Still, these are not bad fellows, merely rambunctious. They are polite and pose no serious sexual threat to the girls. They also appreciate being in a place that reminds them of their premilitary life. One remarks: “Say, it’s a funny thing, but this room makes me think of my folks’ house. I don’t know why—the room is different, and the furniture’s different—but—somehow—”49 When parental retribution finally arrives, Janie’s defense is based in the soldiers’ sense of home: “But where those soldiers are going, they won’t be careering around, Father. And my point of view is—maybe some place where they’re going, they’re going to look back and say, ‘That was kind of a swell party we had that night in Hortonville.’ ”50 That defense, plus the fact that the stranger Elsbeth was left with and who brings her home right after Janie’s speech is just the man Charles needs to see to get his printing press, mollifies Charles, who sees that no real harm has been done. As the adults go into the dining room to talk printing presses, Scooper returns, having been rejected by the air force. Janie too has realized that her affection for Dick was “kind of like a dream you’d wake up from and know it never happened.”51 As the two dance to a new swing record, the audience sees that they are reconciled not just to each other but to their adolescence, content to grow up in their own good time. Another successful comedy, Kiss and Tell, by F. Hugh Herbert (18 March 1943), focused more intently than Janie on the social anxiety about teenage girls’ sexuality. Based on the Corliss Archer stories featured in Good Housekeeping, the play finds the teenage Corliss and her best friend and neighbor, Mildred Pringle, in hot water because their parents have discovered that they very successfully sold kisses for a Red Cross bazaar. (Corliss sold more because she offered a second kiss at half price.) Mrs. Archer later tells Mildred’s parents that seventeen-year-old Mildred is a bad influence on fifteen-year-old Corliss and “that with so many silly, 119

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uniform-crazy girls around these days—a great many of them turning into little tramps—I’d be just as happy if Corliss saw as little as possible of Mildred.”52 There is much name calling, the fathers engage in a fistfight, and the two families actually stop speaking to each other. The situation becomes more fraught when Corliss’s brother, Lenny, a lieutenant in the air corps, comes home on leave and convinces Mildred to elope, despite the feud between their families, because he is about to go overseas. Lenny and Mildred tell Corliss about the elopement but swear her to secrecy, because Mildred isn’t eighteen yet and the marriage could be annulled. After Lenny ships out for North Africa, Mildred discovers she is pregnant. In order to preserve Lenny and Mildred’s secret, Corliss pretends that she is the pregnant one and claims that her boyfriend, Dexter, is the father. Her parents want to take them away to get married, which pleases Corliss: “If I was married they couldn’t stop me making dates with soldiers.”53 All ends happily when Lenny becomes a hero by shooting down several planes, the truth of his marriage to Mildred is acknowledged, Corliss explains that she isn’t pregnant, and the families reconcile. Although Corliss flirts with adulthood, by the end of the play she, like Janie’s heroine, is content to remain an adolescent. Pick-Up Girl, by Elsa Shelley (3 May 1944), approaches many of the same problems as Janie and Kiss and Tell but not lightheartedly and without an ending that returns the characters to the status quo. Pick-Up Girl is set at a New York juvenile court hearing for Elizabeth Collins, a fifteenyear-old girl who was arrested after having been found in bed with a fortyseven-year-old man. The judge, stern but not unkindly, calls a series of witnesses in an effort to learn as much as he can about Elizabeth’s circumstances. Like some of the other characters we have seen, Elizabeth lacks parental supervision and guidance. Her father, who had been out of work since 1929, has finally gotten a job, but in a California shipyard, a whole continent away from his family. Her mother is a cook for a theatrical couple and, owing to the actors’ unorthodox schedule, rarely comes home before midnight. Because her parents are absent, a large share of the housework, including the care of her younger siblings, has fallen to Elizabeth. Peter, a young neighbor with a crush on Elizabeth, tries to explain her situation to the judge: “Betty was hungry for fun. Nobody supplied it to her so she grabbed it where she could. Maybe it wasn’t the right kind of fun—but a hungry person grabs what he can get.”54 Elizabeth began having the 120

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wrong kind of fun when she started attending parties at the home of her friend Ruby, another teenager whose mother works at night. The parties involved music, dancing, alcohol, and, sometimes, older men. One night, Ruby takes Elizabeth to Times Square, where they pick up two sailors, go to a hotel with them for drinks, then eventually go upstairs to a couple of rooms. Elizabeth becomes pregnant, but the sailor pays for her abortion. By the time she finds out that she has syphilis, he has shipped out. After showing us the depths Elizabeth has sunk to—including making herself available to the older man she was caught with—the play addresses the questions of the blame for her behavior and what to do with her. When the judge calls Elizabeth typical of the hundreds of juvenile delinquents he has seen, Peter once again rises to her defense: “I know what ‘delinquent’ means! A delinquent is one who—who fails to perform a duty. Well, then, Your Honor, why don’t you call the mothers and fathers delinquents? Or the teachers and the ministers?—Yes, sir, and even the law-makers! It’s adult delinquency.”55 The judge seems to agree. He decides to send Elizabeth to a reform school after her treatment for venereal disease, because, he thinks, “she’s still young enough to readjust her life—but she needs guidance.” When Mrs. Collins argues that she could provide guidance, the judge responds, “You haven’t done it in the past, Madame! And you’ve been her mother—for fifteen years. [.  .  .] You’re largely responsible for her present plight. [. . .] You cannot neglect and overwork an adolescent girl and expect her not to revolt.” When Mrs. Collins complains that the judge is making it seem as if everything was her fault, he says, “No, it’s not your fault alone. It’s the fault of all of us. [. . .] It’s our indifference, our greediness, that’s at fault. We don’t realize that the real natural wealth of the world is in children.”56 So in what was perhaps a surprise to the audience, Elizabeth is not returned to her family. At first she rebels against the judge’s decision, but when she learns that Peter still loves her, despite learning about what she’s done, she promises to go to reform school and make herself good enough for him. Many of the home-front plays we have discussed include as a plot element the hasty wartime marriage, the childhood sweethearts or impromptu pickups who, in the face of an immediately uncertain future, decide to get married. Other couples, faced with the same uncertainty, begin sexual relations without the benefit of a marriage ceremony. In either case, these 121

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relationships were symptomatic of larger societal trends. One was the sense that time was moving more quickly than in peacetime; couples didn’t have time for the courtesies of courting they might normally have pursued. Another was what one sociologist of the time called “schizoid morality—one moral code for peace time in the home community and another for wartime in a strange community.”57 A third trend subsumes the other two: the sense of carpe diem, that there is too little time, that a serviceman may never return home, that young people need to reach for life and pleasure and love while they have the opportunity. One historian explains, “The passion of affairs in wartime was heightened by the need to make the most of every hour, and inevitably, chastity was an early casualty.”58 Some plays used stories of wartime romance as a way of exploring these trends. On the Town, the first Broadway musical for the composer Leonard Bernstein, the lyricists and librettists Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and the choreographer Jerome Robbins (28 December 1944), represents the spirit of wartime carpe diem. It follows three battle-tested sailors, Gabey, Ozzie, and Chip, on their twenty-four-hour leave in New York City. The show is for the most part an over-the-top comedy, but the underlying tension that is generated by the sailors having to fight the clock is established in the famous opening number, “New York, New York,” and comically amplified in the subsequent dialogue when Chip announces the sightseeing itinerary for the day: “Now, I got our whole day figured out: 10:30 Bronx Park; 10:40 Statue of Liberty  .  .  .”59 The three are humorously reminiscent of the servicemen the New Yorker writer Robert M. Coates observed in Times Square in the early morning hours: “They were still looking for something they had missed, for an evening they had lost, and since they didn’t have many such evenings to waste, there was something almost desperate in their activity.”60 Chip and Ozzie quickly find sexually available women who become their dates for the day. Gabey, however, immediately falls for a photograph in the subway, Miss Turnstiles for June. Much of the show’s action is generated by Gabey’s search for Miss Turnstiles, and much of the conflict results from the difference between the ideal girl Gabey imagines (he thinks Miss Turnstiles must be a celebrity) and the real Ivy Smith, a girl struggling to be a performer by day and, to earn money for her lessons, a hootch dancer at Coney Island by night. The musical in effect becomes about fighting the clock. 122

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Cris Alexander, John Battles, and Adolph Green in On the Town (1944). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

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Can Gabey connect with Ivy before he has to be back on his ship at six o’clock the next morning? The conflict between dream and reality in the musical is also important. Gabey, a small-town boy, really believes that the Miss Turnstiles title is a great honor, and he believes that she is far above him socially. In the “Dream Coney Island” ballet, Gabey envisions the amusement park as a playground for the rich and famous. When Gabey arrives at the real Coney Island, he sees it’s nothing like that, and when he finally finds Ivy, she’s in the middle of her hootch dance. He’s momentarily angry that she’s not the girl he imagined but quickly merges his dream of Miss Turnstiles with the girl standing in front of him: “Ivy—Ivy—you’re beautiful—you’re wonderful.”61 A similar disjunction between dream and reality takes place on a larger scale. As Carol J. Oja argues, On the Town was unique in the way it was purposefully multiracially cast. African American ensemble members played roles of some authority, including policemen, and African American dancers were paired with white partners, a radical move at the time. More important, Ivy Smith, the All-American Miss Turnstiles, was originally played by the Japanese American Sono Osato, whose father couldn’t come to the opening night because he was interned by the U.S. government. The picture of New York onstage at the Adelphi Theatre was markedly different from the New York outside the theater doors, but it was the New York that the men fighting the war, men like Gabey, Ozzie, and Chip, aspired to. On the Town, in Oja’s words, “imagines an America of openminded inclusion, free of racial bias and boundaries.”62 A more realistic play, John Van Druten’s The Voice of the Turtle (8 December 1943), presents Sally Middleton, a New York actress, worrying about how sexual mores have changed with the war. Coming off an affair with a married producer, she tells her friend Olive: “Well, it’s not going to happen again. Sex, I mean. Not for a long, long time.”63 Together they wonder about the distance between traditional morality and current practice: sally: Well, do ordinary girls? I was raised to think they didn’t. Didn’t even want to. And what I want to know is—don’t they? They don’t in movies. Oh, I know that’s censorship . . . but . . . the people who go and see the movies . . . are they like that too? Or else don’t they notice that it’s all false? olive: I’ve wondered about that myself. 124

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sally: Even in Shakespeare, his heroines don’t. Ever. Juliet carries on like crazy about not. I don’t know whether what Mother and Father taught me was right, or true, or anything. Were you raised like that? olive: Oh, sure. And I wasn’t even legitimate. But Mama raised me just as strict as if I was.64

It’s no wonder Sally is confused. During the war, as one historian puts it, “the boundary between good girl and bad girl was drawn and redrawn.”65 Much of the rest of the play involves the sexual tension between Sally and Sergeant Bill Page. Bill was supposed to spend his weekend leave with Olive, but she dropped him when a lieutenant commander unexpectedly showed up. Sally feels responsible for Bill and so has dinner with him that Friday night and even lets him sleep on her daybed because she fears he won’t be able to find a hotel room. As they continue to spend time together, they discover that they really care for one another, but Sally is caught in the conflict between her confusion about her sex life and her awareness of the clock ticking down on Bill’s leave. She initially rejects his romantic overtures, saying, “I can’t go on doing it with every man I meet.” Eventually, however, she gives in to her physical desires, admitting, “There’s a beast in me, too,” and letting him into her bed.66 Before his leave is over on Sunday night, she lets him into her heart as well. Like The Voice of the Turtle, Those Endearing Young Charms, by Edward Chodorov (16 June 1943), affirms the rightness of the wartime romance. What’s different here is that the soldier in question, Lieutenant Hank Trosper, a navigator on a B-17, is much less charming and likeable than Sergeant Bill Page. Hank has had a privileged life: his family’s wealth comes from his father’s department store and has been able to buy him out of whatever trouble he gets into; he was the glamorous starting quarterback for his college team; he has had numerous affairs and has left a string of broken hearts behind him, one so broken that the young woman reportedly committed suicide. (Hank was played by Zachary Scott, anticipating the many cads he would later play in Hollywood.) Hank is cynical about everything. He claims not to know what he’s fighting for. He dismisses his father’s business, saying he won’t be a floor manager in the department store. He is candid about his manipulation of women, even 125

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while he’s manipulating them. Most important, he is realistic to the point of pessimistic about his chances of surviving the war. He says to a friend of his in the infantry, “You’ve got a ninety percent chance of mustering out. [. . .] The expectancy of a bomb crew is figured in minutes. You’re wasting your time appealing to my heart. I left it on the statistical chart in the War Office.”67 This casual acceptance of his chances of death connects both to his having nothing he cares about to return home for and to a fear, what he calls a “phobia with me—afraid of growing old.”68 This conviction that he won’t be coming back is the central trope that drives the action of the play and the characters. The infantry buddy introduces Hank into the New York City apartment home of Mrs. Brandt and her daughter, Helen. He immediately sets his sights on Helen as the woman he wants to spend his last two nights of leave with, his final conquest before going off to death. For her part, Helen falls for him hard, and, despite warnings from the buddy and from her mother, she decides to be with him, a decision motivated in part by how little time he has left before reporting back to duty. She tries to explain: “But I’ve only got— one day! Maybe if there wasn’t a war and he didn’t have to go away—But there is, and he does. And I’m in love with him—and I want to be with him every minute that I can.”69 We learn that Mrs. Brandt faced a similar decision during World War I: she received a proposal from a man she was deeply in love with, but she turned him down because she was afraid he might not come back. Later, after the war, he publicly proposed to a friend of hers by singing a traditional Irish song, “Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms.” The song promises love transcending time, that even when the beauty of youth has been betrayed by age, the beloved “wouldst still be ador’d as this moment thou art.” Strangely, Mrs. Brandt wants Helen to repeat her mistake. Hank and Helen are both keenly conscious of the brief time they’ll have together. The difference is that Helen thinks she’s found the love of her life, while Hank thinks he’s found a good time. As they are about to consummate their relationship, Helen says to Hank: “You’ll be very happy that you met me—before you left. I made up my mind that I’d take care of you—and think about you—and think about you—so hard—that you won’t get hurt—and you will come back—you will—you will—you’ll see—and then I’ll show you that I do love you—I really do.” Hank’s response to this testament of Helen’s love is an angry and dismissive: 126

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“You made up your mind to spoil my last night, didn’t you?”70 By the final scene, however, Hank is no longer as hard-boiled as he has tried to appear. With Helen in his hotel room, not only is he willing to concede that she loves him, but he admits that he loves her and even proposes that they marry in the hour he has before taking off for the West Coast. This is a twofold breakthrough for Hank. First, he accepts the possibility that he will return and, more important, that he has a future to return to. Second, in calling Mrs. Brandt so that she can hear him over the phone sing “Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms” to Helen, he is no longer afraid of growing old and accepts the passing of time not as something to be fought against, but as something to be cherished. We conclude this chapter by looking at a play that brings together many of the themes we’ve explored in the home-front plays and also introduces an idea that will become more important as the war nears its end. Tomorrow the World, by James Gow and Arnaud d’Usseau (14 April 1943), is set in the Midwest home of Professor Michael Frame, a chemist who’s doing secret experiments for the military. He lives with his spinster sister, Jessie, who runs the household, and his eight-year-old daughter, Pat, along with Frieda, a German cook and maid. He has a long-term romantic relationship with Leona Richards, who heads the progressive experimental grade school sponsored by Michael’s university. The play offers many familiar tropes. There is a sudden proposal as Michael explains to Leona: “We’re at war. We can’t afford the old luxury of a ‘maybe’ or a ‘perhaps’—or a long engagement.”71 There is a conflict between Jessie, a traditional homemaker, and Leona, a working woman. There is an espionage subplot as the university facilities manager, Fred Miller, who, we eventually learn, was a German-American Bund member, tries insistently to get into Michael’s lab. And there is Pat, who has an adult relationship with her father based in reason, trust, and friendship. While all these themes are important, the main focus of the play is on Emil Bruckner, the twelve-year-old son of Michael and Jessie’s sister and Karl Bruckner, a German philosopher who was denounced, imprisoned, and then killed by the Nazis. Through some kind of sketchily explained deal, Emil has been transported out of Germany to be with his remaining family. Michael is expecting Emil to be a miniature version of his liberal humanist father. What he confronts is made clear when Emil, 127

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Skippy Homeier and Edith Angold in Tomorrow the World (1943). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

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after changing out of his traveling clothes, comes down the staircase in full Hitler Youth regalia. He reveals that he has rejected his father for both ideological and personal reasons. He has memorized a little speech about why his father was a traitor: “In 1918 Karl Bruckner betrayed Germany on the home front. He fomented revolution. If it had not been for him and the Jewish Bolsheviks, Germany would have won the war. He was one of those who made Germany weak. He was responsible for the inflation and the communists.” He goes on to blame his father for the way he was treated: “Because of my father, they would never permit me to be trusted. I excelled in all endeavor, yet they would not make me captain of my troop, because my name was Bruckner.”72 Earlier, Leona had wondered about Emil’s Nazi training, “How much of the filthy stuff rubbed off on him.”73 Now, with the extent of his Nazi socialization clear and with Emil practically daring Michael to hit him, Michael responds: “In America, we don’t beat little boys. Nor do we torture them. We persuade them. That is our secret weapon.”74 The rest of the play explores exactly how effective this secret weapon is. Over the next ten days, Emil proves himself to be the personification of the popular-culture representation of a Nazi; he is a braggart, a bully, and a coward. He gets into fights at school, almost always with younger children. He kills the next-door neighbors’ dog. He vandalizes Michael’s portrait of Karl Bruckner. He scrawls on the sidewalk obscene graffiti about Leona after he is told she is Jewish. More insidiously, he attacks the weak spots of each of the adults, manipulating them. He sympathizes with Jessie over her feelings of being unappreciated and pushed aside in favor of Leona, and then he makes her a party to his crimes: he tells her he killed the dog for her (its barking kept her awake at night), and that he is striving to break up Michael and Leona because that’s what she wants. Just as Michael is ready to give up on him, he feigns interest in his father’s philosophy and pretends to start reading his books. He makes a deal with Michael to mow the lawn to earn money to repair the portrait he slashed. He is verbally aggressive with Leona, however, calling her “a Jewish whore,” and provoking her to slap him.75 So just as Michael is convinced that Emil is improving, Leona insists that he is incorrigible. When Michael suggests that she should be used to dealing with problem children, she responds: “But Emil isn’t just a case of maladjustment. He’s perfectly adjusted—but to a Nazi society! He’s been taught contempt for people who don’t use 129

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force. He’s been taught that Americans are soft. And sure enough, we’ve been soft with him. He’s found that he can push us around.”76 It seems that she is right: by the end of the scene, Michael and Leona’s engagement is off, just what Emil had been trying to accomplish. Pat ends up being responsible for Emil’s plans crashing down and for his redemption. Just as she’s finishing the preparations for her birthday party for Emil, Pat catches him stealing the key to Michael’s lab to give to Fred Miller. Emil hits her in the head with a large brass bookend, leaving her for dead, and runs away when his crime is discovered. He goes to Fred Miller for help, but Miller, unaware that Pat, although concussed, is alive and thus has told Michael what she saw, returns Emil to the Frame house, inadvertently incriminating himself. When Emil, frightened and desperate, threatens Pat, Michael snaps, strangling the boy almost to death. Michael now admits that Emil is irredeemable and is prepared to turn him over to the police, but Pat’s love proves him wrong. Leona tells Emil that not only had Pat planned his birthday party, but she had also paid some of her friends to come and for the presents they were to give him. Beyond that even, she has borrowed money from Leona to buy Emil the one present he really wanted, a “watch with seventeen jewels and an illuminated face.”77 Faced with evidence of her unearned love, he breaks down and, for the first time, cries. When Pat, head bandaged, comes downstairs and sees him, she marches up to him and says, “Emil Bruckner, you stink!” But when he offers to return the watch, she says: “Well, I certainly ought to take it back. But—no, you can keep it.”78 And when she finds out that Michael is planning on sending Emil away, she begs that he be allowed to stay. Pat’s unconditional love helps Emil remember his parents’ love and break through the lies he’d been taught. He concludes that his father must have been a great man, someone the Nazis were afraid of. The play ends with Emil staying and the cautious possibility that he may yet be redeemed. Tomorrow the World uses Emil’s story as a way to speculate about the end of the war and what happens then. At one point, Michael explains to Emil that Karl Bruckner believed that people are taught to be good or bad, and that social contexts and incentives determine which they will be. Michael, still optimistic at this point in the play, thinks that if Emil can be rehabilitated from his Nazi socialization, then the rest of Germany can be saved once Nazism is defeated. Later, after Michael has tried to 130

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strangle Emil, after he has lost his optimism, after he has been driven by a little boy to the Nazis’ level of violence, Leona reminds him of the stakes of their problem: “There are twelve million other children just like him in Germany. [. . .] If you and I can’t turn one little boy into a human being—then God help the world when this war is won, and we have to deal with twelve million of them!”79 The play shows us that while the war has been hard, the peace will be harder. Can we win the war without becoming like our enemies? Can we, rather, find ways to help our enemies to want to become like us? Tomorrow the World was not the first play to look ahead to the problems of the postwar world. Howard Koch and John Huston’s In Time to Come opened just weeks after Pearl Harbor and used Woodrow Wilson’s failures at the end of World War I as a warning about the need to create a lasting peace after the current conflict. And, as we saw, The Man with Blond Hair worried about rehabilitating a nation of defeated Nazis. As the end of the war neared and as the peace began, however, more and more plays started to address the challenges of the new world and the new America that would emerge after the victory. In the next chapter we will look at these plays and explore how they picture the effects of the war on individuals and U.S. society and how they imagine the world that might be.

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5

Anticipating the Postwar World Throughout this book, we have argued that the cultural narrative of the United States pulling together during the war, achieving a homogeneity of belief and aspiration, is a myth, a myth to a great extent created by the popular-culture media. In fact, social anxieties about the war and about what it was doing to the country permeated America. This is not to say that patriotic pulling together, personal and economic sacrifice, did not happen but that this love of country and support for the war effort were carried on side by side with questions, concerns, criticisms, and fear. One of the primary fears, especially as the war moved into its third year, was fear of the future. What would happen when the war was over? The American public demonstrated interesting divisions on the matters of war and peace. An early 1944 Gallup poll revealed that if the war were still being fought on election day, President Roosevelt would defeat the potential Republican nominee Thomas Dewey 51 percent to 32 percent, but if the war were over, Dewey would win 51 percent to 30 percent.1 The public seems to have trusted FDR to win the war but was ready to turn to the Republicans to lead on the many domestic issues that had been put on hold for the previous three years. Roosevelt also came under attack by such writers as the columnist Walter Lippmann and such public figures as Wendell Willkie for lacking a vision for the postwar world. So it might have seemed to those outside the White House, but far from lacking such a vision, FDR, according to the historian Joseph Lelyveld, was motivated in many of his calculations by his plan for a postwar organization, dominated by the major powers, which would police the peace.2 Dewey, who did indeed become FDR’s Republican challenger, generally shared the president’s vision for international cooperation after the war and supported the negotiations then under way at Dumbarton Oaks that would result in the plan for the United Nations. He was willing, however, to attack Roosevelt over the settlement of Poland’s eastern border, a sticky issue among the Big Three (FDR, Stalin, and Churchill), not just for 132

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what it meant to the Poles but also for what it said about Stalin’s ambitions for Eastern Europe. If the American people were concerned about the shape of the postwar world, they were even more concerned about local issues, in particular the homecoming of the U.S. serviceman. These concerns went two ways. Approximately 12 million men served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. They worried that they might end up unemployed, like thousands of servicemen after World War I. They worried too about the families they were returning to: Would parents, wives, and girlfriends be the same? Would they be able to fit back into these former relationships? On the other side, families worried about how much the war might have changed the servicemen. Would they be able to readjust to civilian life? In brief, the more certain the end of the war became, the more uncertain and fearful the postwar world seemed. The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Thomas L. Stokes wrote in 1946 of the sudden entry into peace: “Now that the tense excitement of sacrifice was over, like a high fever that subsides and leaves the body weak and exhausted, we discovered that getting well and getting readjusted loomed before us drearily. [. . .] For we are in a moment of history that may very well decide whether we are fit people to live in the world that we have created, or whether we are hellbent upon destroying ourselves and all the beautiful things we have fashioned.”3 A number of Broadway plays addressed in various ways the anxieties occasioned by the war’s conclusion. Their attitudes range from the optimistic to the negative as they turn their focus from our enemies and allies abroad and from Americans on the battlefields to the United States, wondering what sort of country we will have and what sort of people we will be once the war is behind us. Among the first plays to address the servicemen’s homecoming was Rose Franken’s Soldier’s Wife, which opened on 4 October 1944. It begins with Katherine Rogers learning that her husband, John, who has been serving with the army in the Pacific, is returning home that evening. As she and her sister Florence prepare the Manhattan apartment for his arrival, Kate establishes the play’s main theme when she says, “The coming back is almost as hard as the going away.” Florence then proposes the ideal that the characters will find themselves struggling with: “A man’s entitled to come back from the war and find his world the way he left it, and everyone in it.”4 133

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Frieda Inescort and Martha Scott in Soldier’s Wife (1944). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

John and Kate have both tried to maintain the dream of an unchanged life. In his letters John kept secret his stomach wound, which would result in his discharge. In her letters Kate kept secret the death of Florence’s husband, John’s good friend Phil, and her own serious illness. These secrets, however, are necessarily revealed upon John’s return, and Kate and John cannot ignore the biggest change to the household, the son he’s never seen, born nine months after he left. In its first scene the play makes clear that the characters can’t pretend that nothing has changed in their world. They will have to readjust to each other and learn to live in circumstances quite different from those they knew before the war. The war has changed both Kate and John in ways that make it difficult for them to reestablish their relationship, despite their obvious deep love for each other. John receives the initial blow to his masculine ego on that first night, when he sees that Kate has learned to rewire a lamp. He speaks for himself and his fellow soldiers: “We’re coming home to women 134

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who’ve gone through their own kind of hell and who can take it the same as we have. Suppose I don’t go back to fight. What do you need me for? The war’s made a man of you—”5 John is able to calm this insecurity temporarily but finds it harder to deal with Kate’s unexpected financial success. While in the hospital, John let a friend read Kate’s letters to him. The friend, the son of a publisher, thinks they should be published as a book. John sends them to the publisher, and before long Kate is on the best-seller list, being reviewed in the New York Times and profiled in Sunday supplements, spending her royalty checks, considering moving into a luxurious penthouse apartment, and being courted by Hollywood. John feels less and less a necessary part of Kate’s life. For her part, Kate needs to learn how to live with a husband changed by a war he can’t really let go of. John quickly realizes that not only has the world he’s returning to changed, but he’s changed as well. Kate sees that he enters the apartment “as if he didn’t belong.”6 He feels this way not only because his home has changed while he’s been gone but also because there’s a part of him that is still on the battlefield. Although honorably discharged because of his wound and happy to be back with Kate, he feels a deep guilt about no longer serving. As Kate understands it, his love for her is now tempered by his love for his men, whom he feels he’s betraying. Both characters have come through the war with something new in their lives that belongs just to him or just to her and can’t be shared. John, like the soldiers in Storm Operation, doesn’t think the experience of the war can be explained to those who stayed home. Soldier’s Wife suggests that the experience of those who stayed home can’t be explained to those who were away. Indeed, the inexpressibility of wartime experience is augmented by the characters’ being unwilling or unable to put their feelings into words. (In our experience this problematic relationship to feelings is not uncommon among those who lived through World War II; we often think that members of the Greatest Generation were also the Lousiest Communicators.) These problems with communication grow only more complicated as John learns he won’t be able to go back to the fighting and Kate gains more and more success from her book. Interestingly, both Kate and John are able to confide their feelings, their insecurities, their pride, and, above all, their love to other characters, but not to each other. John becomes increasingly hurt by Kate’s independence, feeling less than a man, but he refuses to say anything lest his weakness spoil 135

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her success. Kate is aware of what her success means for how they live— she’s imagining a house on the river big enough for a Newfoundland dog or a penthouse apartment with white carpeting—but she’s also aware that too much of a change in how they live is likely to drive John into himself and away from her. She explains to another character: When John joined up, I let him go. I had to. [. . .] And in the beginning it was like learning to live without any insides at all. Even after I knew the baby was coming, I was just as empty.— And then gradually, the emptiness turned into competence, and efficiency.—Like widowhood. A woman learns to be a widow, in war-time. Until, suddenly, her husband comes back from the grave.—And that’s going to happen all over the world when peace comes. And there are going to be heart-aches, and strangeness, because there’s going to be a lot of money and success and independence in women that there’s never been before.7 Kate resolves their problem and brings them back together by making her last great sacrifice of the war: she turns her back on a proposed newspaper column, radio show, and motion-picture deal and announces that they will have another baby. She dismisses it all by saying, “I don’t like to write.”8 Although he won’t say so directly, John recognizes what she is doing for him: “Oh Kate, you’re such a fool. And so wise, so terribly wise. You put your nickel in the slot and hit the jack-pot and all you want back is your nickel.”9 To mark the return to their prewar relationship, she even breaks the lamp she had previously fixed so that John can reclaim his electrical expertise. The one compromise: she still wants her house on the river (and the dog); they will start looking tomorrow. If John represents the many husbands who will come back from the war surprised by their newly independent wives, Kate represents the many wives who, willingly or unwillingly, will give up their independence in deference to their husbands. Several other plays addressed this same issue of changes in the returning serviceman and on the home front. Snafu, by Louis Solomon and Harold Buchman, opened three weeks after Soldier’s Wife (25 October 1944). In this comedy, a sixteen-year-old who had run away from home and joined the army two years previously is returned home when his true age is discovered while he is serving in the Pacific. His parents expect to 136

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see the high school student they knew; instead they encounter a worldly and battle-hardened man who does not fit back into his previous life. In Norman Krasna’s Dear Ruth (13 December 1944), a precocious adolescent girl, eager to help the war effort, sends love letters to an air force gunner stationed in Italy and signs the name of (and encloses a photograph of ) her older sister, Ruth. When the lieutenant comes home on leave, he expects to find the Ruth of the letters ready to marry him. Courtenay Savage’s Home Is the Hero (18 January 1945), like Soldier’s Wife, follows a returned soldier who has trouble adjusting to civilian life and his wife’s career. Alice in Arms, by Ladislaus Bush-Fekete, Mary Helen Fay, and Sidney Sheldon (31 January 1945), reverses genders by focusing on a discharged WAC who must choose among her hometown beau, her former superior officer, and a sergeant with whom she had a wartime affair. In Philip Barry’s Foolish Notion (13 March 1945), Tallulah Bankhead played a woman whose husband was reported missing in action, has been declared legally dead, but inconveniently reappears on the eve of her wedding to another man. Whereas most of these homecoming plays were comedies, Maxwell Anderson’s Truckline Cafe looked more seriously at how wartime experiences twisted lives and shattered relationships. Set in an all-night diner and motel on the California coastal highway, the play opened on 27 February 1946 and ran only thirteen performances, despite its playwright’s reputation, direction by a Group Theatre alumnus, Harold Clurman, and a cast that featured Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Kevin McCarthy. We think it is one of the most interesting and challenging plays of the war’s immediate aftermath. At the end of act 2, one of the characters asks, “When a war’s ended why doesn’t it end?”10 Like Soldier’s Wife, Truckline Cafe explores the ways the experience of the war, on the battlefront and the home front, has made it impossible for life to pick up where it left off before the war began. Time has moved on, and too much has changed. This idea is presented early in the play with the story of a British wing commander, now representing the British government at a Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach, who returned home on leave one weekend to find his house destroyed and his wife and daughters dead. Subplots like this one enhance and comment on the conflicts in the relationships that are the main focus of the play. The story of the 137

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secondary couple, Sage and Tory, is the more tragic. Sage (Brando) has returned from the Pacific filled with guilt, suspicion, and anger. He tells Tory that he spent two years looking east over the ocean longing for her. At one point, his homesickness was so great he let a buddy go on a patrol for him, and the buddy was killed. In addition to that guilt, he was tormented by the stories of a replacement soldier who bragged about the affair he had with a woman named Tory at a motel on the ocean. He’s now looking for the motel with Tory, knowing he’ll recognize the cabin from the descriptions. He explains all this to Hern, the wing commander who lost his family in Portsmouth, who asks: hern: Why do you want to do that?

sage: I don’t know. To see if she was the same girl. Maybe I’m wrong. But I want to know. hern: If I could have my wife back I wouldn’t ask any questions. sage: She’s dead?

hern: Yes. If she loves you, don’t ask questions. Just take her back. sage: No. I have to know.11

Tory is guilty and scared. She surreptitiously asks the motel staff not to recognize her. She’s quick to agree with everything Sage wants to do, though she too insistently urges him to leave this place. She makes it through the first night, when they sleep in the only available cabin, but when they have to move into another cabin the next night, Sage presumably recognizes it from the descriptions he heard. He shoots Tory, then carries her body into the surf before barricading himself at the end of the fishing pier. While the police are focused on the pier, Sage swims to shore and, soaked and cold, comes into the café for coffee before he gives himself up. He tries to explain himself to Anne, the night waitress: “If I hadn’t killed her, she’d be here now. It could be—almost as it was. Not quite, but pretty much.”12 That “almost as it was” is the problem Sage can’t get over. He wants Tory and their relationship to be the same as it was before he went overseas, but he, Tory, and the relationship have necessarily changed over the two years he was gone. His guilt over his buddy and her having 138

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Marlon Brando in Truckline Cafe (1946). Photo by Fred Fehl, Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

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sought love with another man make it impossible for him to love her as he did, to pick up where they left off before the war, but enough of him and enough of her haven’t changed that he still loves her. This is the contradiction that drives him mad. He can neither recover the past or nor accept the present. The couple that receives the play’s main focus are Anne, the waitress, and Mort. They were married, with a house in the east, before the war. After 1 September 1939, Mort joined the RAF, was shot down, and became a POW. (He met Hern in a camp.) After a massive escape attempt, all the captured prisoners were executed, and Anne assumed Mort was killed too. Like Christabel in Men to the Sea, she fell into depression, drink, and sex, becoming pregnant for the first time. Just after VE Day, she learned that Mort was alive. Her abortion, rather than preparing her for his return, made her feel degraded and changed. She fled to California, planning to hide from all she previously knew. For his part, Mort did indeed survive the escape but was forced into hiding for two years, during which time he met and fell in love with a Polish girl who had helped with the escape. She was captured and killed, but he has brought their baby daughter home with him and is looking for Anne so the three of them can resume their lives. Once Mort finds Anne in the diner, their discussions revolve around the same ideas. Mort insists that no one is at fault: “My God, everybody alive feels guilty of something.”13 They are not the people they were, but that shouldn’t prevent them from being together as the people they’ve become. For her part, Anne insists that they can’t rebuild their relationship because too much has changed. As she says over and over: “I’m not the girl you loved! I’m not the girl who loved you! All that will never come again. I destroyed it—it went down in ruins and flames.”14 It seems that Anne will never be convinced that there’s hope until her encounter with Sage, just before his surrender. It is only when, shortly thereafter, Mort charges, “You want things back the way they were—and if you can’t have them that way you’d rather have nothing,” that Anne realizes that she is fixated on the same conundrum that drove Sage mad.15 That realization nudges her toward forgiving herself, accepting Mort’s child, and moving back into the house in the east. The play ends with the suggestion of hope. Throughout the play, we’re told that Kip, the diner’s owner, keeps a book behind the counter to read when business is slow, a different book 140

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every day. Anne comes to think of the book as a predictor for the day ahead. Early on the book is James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, which she interprets as a comment on the fragmentation of the world’s sense-making narratives: “I looked into a book this morning in which the words all ran together, and their meanings shifted—and you didn’t know where you were. You had a feeling that the man couldn’t have set down a whole volume of wild typographical confusion. But there it was, and now I see that it did make sense. He was trying to say that the world’s like that—that nothing tracks, nothing goes together. And if the world’s crazy the books in it ought to be crazy, too.”16 The next day, the owner tries to explain his take on the new book he’s reading about the theory of relativity: “It’s just that you can’t reckon exactly how fast anything’s going—or where anything is—because there’s no fixed point—nothing’s standing still. Including you.”17 This idea is the one both Anne and Sage need to come to terms with: change is built into the nature of things, and relations among things need to be continually reworked to be understood. Kip’s last book, as Anne prepares to join Mort in his cabin and meet his baby, is The Road to Xanadu. Kip says: “Xanadu is a fabulous and romantic region, out of space, out of time. Like a future, or a poem—or a marriage.” When, dubious, she asks if it is durable, he responds: “It’s already outlasted most of the kingdoms of its century. Will that do for an omen?”18 The homecoming plays we’ve looked at so far all involve servicemen who return physically healthy and, with the exception of Sage in Truckline Cafe, mentally sound, but a few plays featured characters who come home psychologically wounded from their experiences during the war. Elsa Shelley’s Foxhole in the Parlor (23 May 1945) focuses on a returning soldier, Dennis Patterson (played by Montgomery Clift), who is suffering from what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but which during World War II was called combat fatigue.19 PTSD can develop in people who have experienced or witnessed traumatic events and is manifested in the reliving of the events through memories, dreams, or flashbacks; avoiding anything that can recall the events; disengagement from emotions and from other people; difficulty sleeping; anger; and inability to concentrate, among other symptoms.20 Before the war, Dennis was a concert pianist living in New York, much to the unhappiness of his hops-growing Oregon family, who want him home, helping 141

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on the farm. He went into the army as a band leader, but when his regiment was sent into combat, he served as a stretcher bearer. Knocked out by a shell blast, he began exhibiting signs of PTSD, particularly difficulty sleeping and dreams about the battle. He was given abreaction treatment, championed in real life by Roy Grinker and John Spiegel, in which patients were injected with sodium pentothal and encouraged to relive their trauma in the presence of therapists who could protect and nurture their egos.21 Dennis was sufficiently cured to return to combat (which was unusual: though 70 percent of Grinker and Spiegel’s patients were able to return to some kind of duty, only 2 percent were able to return to combat22), but after capture, a bloody escape, and seeing his best friend, Henry, horribly killed right before his eyes, Dennis broke down completely. He was brought back to the States for several months of treatment, and, as the play begins, just discharged, he arrives at his Manhattan townhouse. A neighbor reports his doctor’s words: “If we [Dennis’s family and friends] don’t mess things up for him, in time he’ll be just as well as he ever was.”23 Sadly, Dennis’s friends and family don’t know how to respond to Dennis’s symptoms. Dennis gets the shakes. He is easily startled by sudden, loud noises, such as phones ringing or church bells. He avoids crowded places like restaurants. He is emotionally distant from his family and longtime friends. He becomes irritated easily and is quick to anger, though his angry outbursts are short-lived. He seems to flash back to the source of his trauma, frequently calling other men by Henry’s name. Most important, he suffers from what we would now recognize as survivor’s guilt. He says: “I’m alive. I have an obligation—an obligation to see to it that the guys who were killed—that it wasn’t just a waste. I have to justify my life. I have to justify—Henry.”24 This sense of obligation results in one of his most overt symptoms: he is convinced that Henry gave him a message that will make a permanent peace possible, but, frustratingly, he can’t quite remember what it was. His neighbors, the Austens, are eager to help Dennis, but their efforts are ineffective. Ann tells him simply to forget about the war, as if that were so easy. Tom tries to mitigate his trauma by comparing it to his own experiences after the First World War, denying the uniqueness of Dennis’s experiences. Tom also reasons that by ignoring the symptoms of his trauma, he and Ann can make them disappear: “Listen, you’ve got to treat 142

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Dennis like a normal guy if you want him to be normal.”25 Taking the opposite approach is Dennis’s sister Kate, who, far from treating him like a normal guy, insists on his insanity. For her, his stay in the army mental hospital is just the excuse she needs to insist that he come home and take up the role that was planned for him on the hops farm. To this end, she exaggerates his symptoms, she goads him into angry outbursts, and she sees his every gesture toward a knife or a scissors as a threat. She represents the public’s anxiety about whether returning servicemen, having been taught to kill, will be violent civilians.26 Before she travels back to Oregon, she arranges for a doctor to have Dennis committed to an asylum and a lawyer to seize control of his assets. Dennis’s breakthrough comes with the announcement of Japan’s surrender. In the published edition the action of the play takes place just after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Like Dennis, many of the characters are concerned about how the peace will be maintained once the war is officially over, a concern that is triggered by memories of how few years after World War I a new war began and is intensified by the news of the destructive power of the A-bomb. Ann’s father, a former senator, has been attending the various conferences of the Big Three as well as the Dumbarton Oaks conference. Unlike Dennis, these other characters look at the issue with a realism that borders on cynicism: of course there will be future wars. Dennis, obsessed with spreading Henry’s message and acting on behalf of the soldiers who didn’t come home, insists that a true peace can be achieved, and he gives the senator a voluminous collection of newspaper clippings, verses from the Bible, and his own words that he hopes will inspire the peace delegates “to open the door . . . you are to invite God Almighty to enter and preside! And you are to make a covenant with God about keeping the peace!”27 Dennis refuses to make himself a normal life—to return to the piano or pursue a relationship with Vicki, the attractive model with whom he’s had a one-night stand—and, by extension, to overcome his trauma until his message is accepted and acted on. He is inspired to overcome his obsession by Vicki’s story of her childhood scraps with her brother; their mother didn’t wait for them to open the door, but opened it herself, walked through it, and stopped the fighting. Dennis’s epiphany is that God too doesn’t have to be invited in by the peace delegates; he will make himself a part of the proceedings in his own way and in his own 143

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time. Just as Dennis realizes this, news of the Japanese surrender comes over the radio. As church bells ring and car horns honk, Dennis begins playing his piano, and the implication is that he will travel with Vicki to her family’s farm in Michigan. Other plays featured a range of depictions of the effects of war trauma. In John Patrick’s The Hasty Heart (3 January 1945), set in a British military hospital in the Assam-Burma theater, the one American character, Yank, suffers from a severe stutter, a symptom of PTSD, but otherwise he seems cured and is about to be discharged to return home.28 In Luther Davis’s Kiss Them for Me (20 March 1945), three navy fliers who arrive in San Francisco for a brief leave resist any obligation— military, social, or familial—that will distract from the pleasures of alcohol, sex, and general irresponsibility. We soon see that they embrace this hedonism to mask the emotional dissonance generated in them by their war experiences. When the mask drops, we see men who are unable to connect in any conventional way with anyone who hasn’t shared their combat experiences. At one point the owner of a shipbuilding company tries to convince the men to come speak to his employees to boost their morale. When the fliers brush him off, he becomes insistent, asking why they can’t come by to tell a few anecdotes. Crewson, the group’s unofficial leader (played by Richard Widmark), finally responds: Something like this? On Guadalcanal, Japs bombing hell out of us every night. Us bombing hell out of them every day. I had a native boy who had sort of taken up with me. Ugly little cuss. Kind of acted as valet and gentleman’s gentleman. Slept on the floor of my tent. One night, bomb. He was blown to bits. Days pass, me too busy to take off clothes. Hot on Guadalcanal. Notice people avoiding me. Figure I must smell. Finally got chance undress and see what stinks. In my underwear is about two pounds of that kid. Liver, hair, eyes. Got a million of ’em. Little human touches of war.29 Attempting to deal with this kind of horror has made these men unable to act and be in the world of the home front. The only place they now feel at home is the battle zone, a place they hate but are eager to return to at the end of the play. In Robert Turney’s The Secret Room (7 November 144

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1945), the traumatized character is not a serviceman. Leda Ferroni, an Italian concert pianist, was forced into a brothel for German soldiers, where she was gang-raped, became pregnant, and was forced to carry the child to term, only to have it taken from her to be raised by the state. As the play begins, her psychiatrist, who thinks he has cured her trauma, takes her to the home of Susan and John Beverly, where she will help take care of the children and be treated by John, a psychiatrist and, for the duration, an army doctor. Talking to Leda before he leaves her with the Beverlys, the psychiatrist realizes that she is far from cured and is actually insane. Before he can tell anyone, Leda smothers him, a death everyone attributes to a heart attack. For the rest of the play, Leda tries to turn the children against their mother. Her next plan is to kill Susan. Although Leda is not a soldier, her trauma has its origins in wartime experience. The threat she poses, the violence that she brings into the ideal American home, plays on postwar anxieties. At least two other plays treated the serviceman’s homecoming as a disruptive event, but in a different way. In these cases the trauma is suffered by the home-front family because of the death of their serviceman. Harry Kleiner’s Skydrift (13 November 1945) and Ralph Nelson’s The Wind Is Ninety (21 June 1945) both depict the ghosts of departed servicemen (paratroopers whose transport was shot down in the former, an air corps captain in the latter) who manage to return to their families to help them understand how to go on living. The Wind Is Ninety was more successful and is the more interesting. Just before his family receives the telegram that will tell them he has died, Don, the pilot, materializes in the family’s backyard, accompanied by an unnamed World War I doughboy, whom we later find out is the Unknown Soldier. (In the original production the pair were played by Wendell Corey and Kirk Douglas.) Don is saddened to see the harmony of the family—his parents, wife, and two children— disrupted by the telegram and frustrated that he can’t communicate directly with them. He sees the danger in their choosing to remember him at various stages of his earlier life; he fears that if they become fixated on the past, on what they’ve lost, they will not be able to live happily in the future. Through the strength of his love, Don is eventually able to make some kind of mental connection with his wife as she tries to comfort their young son. He helps her understand the notion of a living memory, something the family can take into the future. He and his wife simultaneously 145

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explain what it’s like to be dead and looking back at your loved ones: “You know you will never leave them—as long as you know your image is in their hearts. Suddenly everything is at peace, and then you make them feel your love—guide them with it—and you live on, remembering them, and they remember how you lived and why you died.”30 We are reminded of something that Don’s father, a doctor, said near the beginning of the play, that life is a cycle of birth, illness, death, and birth. Life is not a one-way narrative that ends at the grave; one’s life goes on through all those who remember. These thoughts help Don’s family process their grief, unchain themselves from a lost past, and embrace the possibilities of the future. Two plays used the returning serviceman as a way to address home-front threats to democracy. In Woman Bites Dog, by Bella and Samuel Spewack (17 April 1946), a returning soldier, formerly a small-town newspaperman (played by Kirk Douglas) suckers the Southworth siblings, anti– New Dealers who own newspapers and plan to use them to gain political power for themselves, into believing that he’s come home to find that his rural midwestern hometown has turned communist. After one of the papers prints the totally fictitious story and the hoax is discovered, the soldier explains his motivation to the siblings by remembering reading their newspapers overseas: “Do you realize what you were saying to me? Here were the Krauts splashing hunks of hot lead in my general direction. And you were saying the enemy wasn’t in Berlin. The enemy was in Moscow. The enemy was in London. The enemy was—so help me—in Washington. You even tried to tell me I was fighting the wrong war. That’s very annoying to a man in a foxhole.”31 Unfortunately, as the play resolves its plots, the soldier’s (and the play’s) antifascist themes get lost. More interesting and more successful, Decision, by Edward Chodorov (2 February 1944), at first seems to raise familiar issues. The curtain rises on the home of the principal of a small city’s school, where his secretary is struggling with the overcrowding problem that has come with a sudden influx of families drawn to the local defense plant. She says to a visitor, “If you know a way to squeeze six thousand bodies into a space made for six hundred—speak right out!”32 Like many middle-class households, Principal Riggs’s has lost its longtime housekeeper to the defense plant. Riggs’s son, Tommy, has been wounded in Italy and is due back home on the day the play begins. Riggs and Tommy’s fiancée, Harriet, like the 146

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characters in Soldier’s Wife, worry how his war experiences will have changed Tommy, and they work to make sure that he’ll “find everything just as he left it.”33 What’s different here is that the focus is less on the problems faced by the returning soldier and more on the problems of the community he’s returning home to. The city’s political power is controlled by U.S. Senator Dufresne, who’s depicted as a radical anti–New Dealer, and Ed Masters, the editor of the local newspaper, ironically called the Free Press, in which he serves the senator’s agenda. This agenda is generated by a group of powerful, unseen men, as the owner of the local defense plant describes them: “The gentlemen for whom Dufresne speaks—he himself is only the employee of the boys who lay awake nights figuring ways to push back the clock. I’m an old line manufacturer myself and I’ve always believed in a man’s right to make a fair profit on his brains and his investment. But these people aren’t satisfied with that. They want the whole damned hog—head, hooves and heels.”34 The issue at the top of their agenda as the play begins is maintaining the race hierarchy. Dufresne and Masters are furious that the defense plant has begun hiring African Americans and are using the Free Press to stoke race hatred in the community. They have incited a riot between the white and black workers at the plant, a riot in which several people were killed.35 In response, a citizens’ group has been formed, made up of business owners and labor unions, whites and blacks, with the goal of improving race relations, maintaining the integration of the defense plant, and challenging the power of Dufresne and Masters. Riggs is the key player in this group: he’s the one person in town who is widely enough respected and trusted to hold the various factions together. Recognizing this, Dufresne and Masters know they have to bring Riggs down. They dig up a father who is willing to charge that several years previously Riggs had raped his daughter, a student in the school, and they play up the charge in the paper. Riggs is arrested, denied bail, and then, overnight, is found hanging in his cell, an apparent suicide but probably murdered. Just before he is arrested, Riggs tries to explain to Tommy why he is willing to give up so much for a cause in which he seems to have so little at stake: I respect the fundamental law of our country—justice and equality for all—and I believe you were fighting to preserve it. I think 147

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you will understand, son, when I saw it violated, every day, here before my eyes—I couldn’t resist doing my share in the battle against Dufresne and those who plan a Fascist-minded future for us. [. . .] I believe we are living, now, in the midst of a very real civil war—a war that must be decided before you come home for good—or you will come home to the ashes of the cause for which you fought.36 The play stresses this idea of the home front as a battle for the future of the country. The former housekeeper tells Tommy, “Your father don’t wear no uniform maybe—but he been fightin’ just the same—and with no gun.”37 Tommy, in shock after his father’s death, says: “These guys—Masters and Dufresne—they’re tougher customers than the Fritzes! On the level! You know if you can see a Fritz you can shoot him! But these guys walk around—own newspapers—get elected—shove a guy like Pop into jail—Where do they come in?”38 As the war enters its final stages, it’s these invisible fascists who pose the biggest threat to the United States. Tommy’s initial reaction to his father’s death is to get revenge on Dufresne and Masters. Then he resolves to run away from his hometown and never return. After members of the citizens’ group come to tell him that they intend to keep up the fight, however, he resolves to stay and help them. He will be the first of several soldiers in homecoming plays who discover that the principles they were fighting for abroad are threatened at home and that the war goes on even after they hang up their uniforms. Racial tension served as a subplot in Decision, but it became the central focus of several other important homecoming plays. The roles African Americans might play in the war effort was a fraught subject from the introduction of the draft through the fighting in Europe and the Pacific to demobilization. From the African American perspective, the question of how to participate in the war effort was necessarily articulated in terms of blacks’ historical subjugation, first as slaves, then as second-class citizens in a segregated society. As Kathleen M. German puts it: “One wonders why African Americans bothered to fight in any American conflict, given their historically marginalized place in American democracy. This conundrum is especially perplexing in the context of World War II, a war to free millions from tyranny. [.  .  .] Why did the African American 148

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community send thousands of men to fight for a democratic way of life in which they could not fully participate?”39 Nevertheless, when the draft was instituted in 1940, African Americans clamored for the opportunity for equal participation. Both German and Ronald R. Krebs explain these demands that blacks be drafted and allowed to fight in terms of a historical association between military service and citizenship. As Krebs explains, “Throughout U.S. history, black leaders have perceived a tight bond between military service and civil rights. [. . .] Whenever war beckoned, African Americans flocked to the armed forces, despite segregation and limited opportunities for promotion. During the conflict and afterward, they contended that their collective sacrifice must be repaid, that the country was obligated to grant them first-class citizenship.”40 Robert F. Jefferson quotes one black soldier as saying, “The Negro soldier is going to be militant because he is looking for something—he expects something better than the status quo when he gets home or the public will have a severe problem on its hands.”41 Thus, in 1940, when the draft was instituted but black draftees were rejected at much higher rates than whites, the Fight for the Right to Fight campaign was begun to call attention to segregation in the military. At that time, the marines refused all African Americans, the navy accepted them only as mess stewards and laborers, and the army segregated them; only the coast guard was integrated. Further, black army enlistees were sent to training camps in the South, where facilities and equipment were usually inferior and they were under the command of frequently bigoted white officers. Black servicemen were often the target of violence from the local populations, and, out of frustration, they sometimes responded with violence, including riots at a number of military bases.42 The United States’ entry into the war made these concerns about how African Americans would function in the military more urgent. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the influential Pittsburgh Courier, the most widely circulated black newspaper in the country, introduced the Double V campaign, which focused on victory over fascism abroad and victory over institutionalized racism at home. Both battles were long and hard. The military clung to its World War I–era beliefs in the inferiority of blacks as fighting men. President Roosevelt made only hesitant and toothless pronouncements about racial issues. Nevertheless, over the course of the war, as the need for manpower grew, some cracks in the military’s wall of 149

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segregation appeared. The marines began accepting some black volunteers, and the navy began assigning blacks to positions other than stewards. Some 700,000 African Americans served in the army, eventually in almost every capacity, though almost always in segregated units.43 Nevertheless, German notes that as the war went on and the number of blacks serving in the military rose, the number of blacks serving in combat fell.44 Most were still assigned to labor units, and myths about the African American’s inability to fight continued to circulate. Although a report by the Writers’ War Board, based on a Columbia University survey, concluded that the theater was the best of all media in presenting racial minorities positively, the African American experience tended to be only lightly represented in plays produced during the war.45 The only Broadway production to focus entirely on black characters was Carmen Jones (2 December 1943), Oscar Hammerstein II’s adaptation of Georges Bizet’s opera. Hammerstein sets the action of the first scene in a southern parachute factory where black women make the parachutes, black soldiers supervise their packing and transport, and black stevedores load them onto barges. As in real wartime America, the black characters are relegated to labor, though they sing about how their work is helping win the war. The routine is interrupted when a former stevedore, now a lieutenant and a pilot, arrives and is regarded with awe and some jealousy by the soldiers. It’s clear that his opportunity is a rare one. After this initial picture of wartime life, however, the Carmen plot takes over, and the war and blacks’ experience of it fade into the background. We will be looking at four interesting plays about the black experience of the war and of homecoming, but all of them, like Carmen Jones, were written by white authors. However well-intentioned these authors were, they were necessarily observing black experience, not living it, and their observations were doubtlessly skewed by their comparative position of privilege. This point was made even in 1946 by the New York Post reviewer Vernon Rice: “It is about time someone presented a play about the Negro problem written by a Negro. We have had several plays of late about the problem written by white people, some good, some bad, some indifferent. All of them sympathetic. And yet, those that I have seen, sympathetic though they are to the cause, have the same faults. The playwrights have been unable to get really deep into the Negroes’ souls and into their hearts and to express, in terms of characterizations, the great 150

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tragedy and conflict that must be theirs.”46 Nevertheless, there are four plays by white playwrights that dramatize racial struggles as manifested in the war years in compelling and challenging ways. The first play of the war years to focus on African American experience was South Pacific, not to be confused with the more famous Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of 1949. Written by Howard Rigsby and Dorothy Heyward, South Pacific opened on 29 December 1943 and ran only five performances, despite the leading performance of Canada Lee, an African American who was one of the great stage actors of his time. Reviewers were unanimous in admiring the play’s themes and in bemoaning the lack of skill with which they were dramatized. For example, Robert Garland of the New York Journal-American judged the play to be “as up-to-date as today’s front page. The trouble is, it isn’t as dramatic.”47 As the play begins, Sam Johnson, an African American merchant seaman, and the white, wounded U.S. Army Captain Dunlap, their ship having been torpedoed, are washed up on a small Japanese-held island near Bougainville. Sam blends in with the brown-skinned natives, and the Japanese, even though they know he’s an American, leave him alone because he is dark-skinned. Dunlap, on the other hand, has to hide out from the Japanese, and he is alarmed at how quickly Sam abjures his loyalty to him and, by extension, to his country. Sam gloats: “Now—You’re the wrong color. I always hankered to go to a place where there wouldn’t be any white men around to spoil my fun. Now, soon as the Japs get hold of you, I’m in that place.”48 Sam recounts the prejudice he faced in Georgia, where he was born, and New York, where he tried to be a prizefighter, and all he can recall is the unfair pushing around he received. When Dunlap presses on him the need for the United States to win the war, Sam replies, “I don’t give a damn who wins it. Just don’t try to drag me into it. That’s all I say. Don’t try to tell me I got to fight for something I never had—and never going to get.”49 Sam’s attitude represents the thinking of a significant part of the African American public. A 1944 opinion poll found that only 66 percent of black Americans (versus 89 percent of whites) felt the war had anything to do with them. Indeed, 18 percent of blacks thought they would be better off if Japan won the war.50 The play will test where Sam’s loyalties lie. The first test comes when U.S. forces attempt a landing on Bougainville. Dunlap and a native missionary take rifles to try to disable Japanese 151

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gun emplacements, but Sam refuses to go with them. The landing fails, and the captain and the missionary are killed. Sam, who had previously won the admiration of the natives, now finds himself shunned. The natives have suffered under the Japanese occupation and feel Sam should have supported the attempted landing. Later, the chief comes to Sam, offering redemption. He tells Sam that he knows he didn’t go with Dunlap only because he knew the time wasn’t right, and he listens while Sam tells him about the shipwreck and how Dunlap saved his life. The shelling begins anew, presaging another attempted landing, and this time Sam understands he has to go beyond playing a role to genuinely do the things that will earn him the admiration of the natives and, posthumously, Dunlap. He says: “A man can’t stand alone. Thought I was big enough for anything. But you got to be with somebody. Ain’t a man on God’s earth big enough to stand alone.”51 With that, he picks up a contraband rifle and goes after the gun emplacements, wedding himself to his country’s cause. He shouts: “Hey, Dunlap! I’m coming right along with you!”52 In the eight months after the end of the war, three strong and controversial plays depicting the homecoming of black servicemen opened on Broadway. The first was the most commercially successful. Deep Are the Roots, by Arnaud D’Usseau and James Gow, opened at the Fulton Theatre on 26 September 1945, received mostly positive reviews, and ran for 477 performances. D’Usseau and Gow had previously had success with Tomorrow the World, and, like that play, Deep Are the Roots explores the limits of American ideals, focusing on the point at which talk has to become action. The war is ending, and Brett Charles, a decorated black army lieutenant, winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, is returning to his home, the southern manor house of the retired senator Ellsworth Langdon, where his mother works as housekeeper and where he grew up alongside the senator’s younger daughter, Genevra. Genevra is excited—some might say inappropriately excited—about Brett’s homecoming. Her older sister, Alice, is more properly anticipatory: she has always been Brett’s mentor, having sent him to college; she has now arranged for him to enter a doctoral program in biochemistry at the University of Chicago. The senator, who, elderly and ailing, represents the Old South, is less enthusiastic at the prospect of Brett’s return. He grumbles that Brett has been “over in Europe killing white people. [. . .] What do you suppose that has done to his black soul?”53 When Brett finally arrives home, he makes clear that it wasn’t 152

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killing whites that changed him, but the treatment he received. He tells his mother: “The English liked us, Mama. [. . .] They don’t seem to mind that our skins are dark.”54 In short, the only whites in England who didn’t treat the blacks like human beings were white American servicemen. His mother is concerned about what Brett’s new attitude is going to lead him to do. She frets, “You’re like a pan of water waitin’ to boil.”55 As she fears, Brett proceeds to shake things up, giving hope to the black community and unsettling the whites. He acts on the promise he made to the men under his command: “You know what my main job in the Army was? It was to make my men believe they were fighting for a better world for themselves.”56 He makes a homecoming speech in which he says segregation is morally wrong. He dares to walk into the public library through the front door and request a book. He forgets to call a white man “sir” when addressing him. He rejects Alice’s graduate school plans for him, accepts the position of principal of the local black public school, and then immediately begins agitating for funds to build a new school. All this is enough for the senator to falsely accuse Brett of stealing a watch. He doesn’t know about a more serious charge: Brett has been seen walking by the river after dark with Genevra. The two have struggled with a repressed love, and although Genevra is willing to risk all for love, Brett knows the dangers. He tells her: “I’ve done just what they all expect us to do. I’ve come back and laid my eyes on a white woman.”57 It’s this more serious crime that impels Alice to betray Brett, turning him over to the sheriff for stealing the watch. Although Brett is beaten, jailed, and put on a train out of town, he escapes and returns to confront the family. The senator is unrepentant, wallowing in the hypocrisy of his family motto, honor above all. Genevra proposes to Brett, but after he convinces her that they could never be together in a racist society, she leaves to find her own place to be, outside the South. Alice, remorseful, appeals to Brett to let her work with him to build a better community. As the curtain falls, they have reached a tentative partnership. Deep Are the Roots dramatizes the historical tension between African Americans who feel their military service entitles them to a full share of the benefits of citizenship and the dominant whites who, in various ways, seek to preserve the prewar racial boundaries. The play’s white characters represent a range of attitudes toward the social transformation that the returning black servicemen promise or, depending on their point of view, threaten. 153

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Gordon Heath and Barbara Bel Geddes in Deep Are the Roots (1945). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

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Senator Langdon, as we noted earlier, represents the reactionary Old South, determined to maintain the white superiority and black subordination that have been in place since the days of slavery. Howard, Alice’s northern, liberal fiancé and thus an outsider, sees this more clearly than anyone else, and he tells Alice: “Whatever your father may once have been, today he’s the dying South. He’s decay; he’s age; he’s everything that’s corrupt and evil.”58 The Langdons’ cousin Roy Maxwell, a local politician with ambitions to run for Congress, straddles his community’s racial dilemma. He would prefer the old social order, but he recognizes that the changing world, accelerated by the war, needs to be accommodated. Roy is upset by the scandal of Brett’s walking into the library and requesting a book, but he is appalled and scared by the public reaction to his arrest. He complains to the senator: “I’m told he was beaten up while wearing his uniform. There are a lot of folks who don’t like that. And you know something? I’m one of them.”59 Finally, he admits the motivation for his willingness to try to negotiate a way into a postwar world of racial equality: “We make them hate us and they’re bound to want revenge.”60 He sees that clinging to the legacy of white dominance, as the senator desires, will lead to social apocalypse; better to recognize the necessity of change and then move slowly toward it. Genevra’s story is both tragic and hopeful. As a child, Genevra was neglected by her parents and older sister, so she was frequently thrown together with Brett, who was close to her in age. She came to see Brett as the smartest, most admirable person she knew. As a result, she has mostly escaped the racial prejudice that infects the rest of her family. She was shocked when Alice found the two acting out a scene from Othello and dragged Genevra off and told her Brett could no longer be her friend. Because of her unique perspective—her ability to see Brett as a human being, as someone worthy of respect and love—Genevra can see past the rhetoric and rationalizations of racism and perceive the hate that lies behind it. In one of the play’s notes of optimism, after Brett convinces Genevra that they can’t marry, that it’s impossible to live independently from the social world, with all its convictions about race, she decides to strike out on her own. She knows she can’t stay in the home that has made it impossible for her and Brett to be together, so she leaves with the apparent goal of making a society where they could be together. 155

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The most interesting character is Brett’s sponsor, Alice. Growing up mostly in Washington while the senator was in office and then going to college in the North, Alice developed a liberal social philosophy, at least liberal by her hometown’s standards. Cousin Roy makes it clear that he and most of their neighbors regard Alice as suspiciously progressive. Her progressivism is most manifest in her sponsoring of Brett. She perceives him as a superior black man, one who, with education and the right kind of advancement, can send a message to white society about racial equality. Although her support of Brett is praiseworthy, we see not far beneath the surface a disturbing maternalism, a sense that Brett is her creation. After Brett returns home, Alice becomes increasingly upset by his independence. She bristles when he won’t go along with her plans to send him to the University of Chicago. She thinks his being the principal of the black school isn’t good enough for him. She can’t understand why Brett went to the library without first asking her for a note to give to the librarian. She’s troubled when, after she tells Brett that he can’t go to an education conference in Atlanta, she finds a railroad ticket to Atlanta in his room. The sense of superiority implied in her attitude toward Brett explodes into overt racism when she finds out that Genevra walked with Brett alone, after dark. The ensuing dialogue reveals that Alice subscribes to her culture’s odious myths about the threat black men pose to white women. It’s at this point that she calls the sheriff to turn Brett in for stealing the watch. When Brett surreptitiously returns to the house, both he and Alice have seemingly changed. Shocked by Alice’s accusation and her refusal to let him defend himself, Brett realizes that their previous relationship was a lie. He says, “In your mind I’m still a slave.” He connects this revelation to the cause he fought for during the war: “My men were right. [. . .] They weren’t deceived by having an expensive education and a generous white friend. They had the satisfaction of hating—hating all white people.”61 Alice initially lashes out at Brett, slapping him and calling him names, and Brett threatens to kill her. Brett’s mother defuses the situation and pulls the first thread that will unravel Alice’s belief that love between blacks and whites is morally wrong. She reminds Alice of the double standard whereby powerful white men force themselves on young black women, and she hints that the senator did just that to her: “No, we ain’t good enough to claim a place among the chosen people. But we’re good 156

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enough to share the white man’s bed.”62 This speech is enough to make Alice doubt herself and to see herself in a new light. She says to Brett: “I tried to call you my equal, I was very nice to you, but I realize now that always in my heart I felt you were different. No, that’s wrong. I’ll try to tell it honestly. In my heart I felt you were inferior. [. . .] I don’t want to be that kind of person, Brett.”63 Brett at first rejects her and claims to hate all white people, but he reconsiders when Alice puts her discourse into practice. When Genevra announces that she will marry Brett, Alice must fight everything her culture has taught her in order to say, “It’s for you and Brett to decide. Yes, and whatever you decide, I shall try with all my strength to be your friend!”64 She follows this with a final rejection of her father and his devotion to the Old South. As the play ends, Brett says to her, “We’re on the same side,” then they defy southern etiquette and shake hands.65 The audience is left hopeful that they will be able to work together to make the society Brett and his men fought for a reality. Jeb, by Robert Ardrey, opened on 21 February 1946, at the Martin Beck Theatre, starring Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. It is in many ways similar to Deep Are the Roots. Jeb is a young black man who served with the army engineers in the Pacific. He earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart, and he lost a leg. As part of his training, he became an expert with an adding machine. Thus, when he returns home to his small town in Louisiana sugarcane country, he expects an office job in the sugar mill. When some other blacks express skepticism, he responds, “If an ignorant old colored boy like me could learn something, all this fighting, then I got faith and trust white folks, they learned something too.”66 The office manager, Mr. Devour, who is reminiscent of Cousin Roy in Deep Are the Roots, recognizes the danger in giving Jeb a white man’s job but also recognizes the inevitability of change. He says to a pigheaded banker: “We’ve kept the colored folks in their place for a million years—how? Because they didn’t know anything. Because we most carefully never let them learn. There’s been a war, Charlie. They took our boys away. Now they’re coming home. If you think Jeb’s the only colored boy that’s learning something, then you’re very wrong.—The world’s caught up with us, man. We’ll never keep them in their place the old way, never again.”67 After Devour tries to undermine Jeb’s confidence in his abilities, Jeb breaks into the timekeeper’s shack with his girlfriend, Libby, to practice on the adding machine. The drunken white timekeeper catches them there, learns 157

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that Jeb is after his job, and spreads the rumor that Jeb was there not with Libby, but with a white girl. A mob hunts Jeb down and beats him. In the last scene we see him in a bar in a northern city, unemployed, his aluminum leg mangled, and his head not quite right. Libby tracks him down there, hoping at last to marry him, but he tells her his plan is to go back home to make sure his younger siblings don’t have to “bow and scrape and take what the white folks leave them.”68 As in Deep Are the Roots, the returning black soldier is seen by both blacks and whites as shaking up the long-established social order. Jeb’s friend Julien comments, “Jeb get that timekeeper’s job there’s going to be some changes around this town.” Devour tries to explain to the banker, Bard, “He may be just another black boy this side of town, but north of the tracks he’s a hero.”69 These positions make clear that the preserving of boundaries that support institutionalized racism relates to the maintaining of a particular distribution of political and economic power, a power that the returning servicemen, particularized in Jeb, threaten to upset. The sugar economy is dominated by the bank and the mill owners. The upper-class whites, the so-called quality, dominate the wealth and the political power of the town, while the so-called white trash perform a certain kind of service labor and the blacks perform the hard manual labor. The antipathy between the white trash and the blacks keeps them focused on hating each other, not the families that really control the power. As Devour notes to Bard: “We all do it. We use the poor white trash to keep the niggers in their place, and we use the niggers to keep the white trash in their place. It’s a fine system, it’s a good system. We don’t have to pay the niggers any money, and we don’t have to pay the trash any money, and it ends up we don’t have any money to pay ourselves.”70 Jeb falls for this strategy, convinced until the end that the quality whites, Devour and the banker and the minister, will protect him from the mob, but when he seeks sanctuary in their church, he is thrown back outside to the men waiting to beat him. As in Deep Are the Roots, the most effective strategy to bring down a troublesome black man is to accuse him of being with a white woman. As Jeb tries desperately to deny that he had a white girl with him in the timekeeper’s shack, Devour connects it all to economics: “It’s all the same. It’s a way we have of talking, Jeb. When we say a nigra wants a white man’s girl, what we mean it’s a nigra wants a white man’s job.”71 Although the play tries to end with a note of optimism, Jeb 158

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resolving to go back to Louisiana to try to improve life for his siblings, the condition he is in, mentally vague and with a mangled aluminum leg, doesn’t offer the kind of hope we saw when Brett and Alice shook hands. Maxine Wood’s On Whitman Avenue opened at the Cort Theatre on 8 May 1946—the first anniversary of V-E Day. In some ways this play is more daring than the previous two because it doesn’t place its racism in the Deep South: it is set in a comfortable and prosperous suburb of a large northern city. As the action begins, Ed Tilden, a pharmacist (played by Will Geer), and his wife, Kate, have returned to their house on Whitman Avenue (named for the poet, but suspiciously close to whiteman) from a convention in Atlanta to discover that their daughter, Toni, a progressive high school student, has rented their upstairs rooms to a decorated Seabee and his family, the Bennetts; not only that, but the sailor is a friend of the daughter’s fiancé and saved his life on Peleliu; not only that, but they’re black. Like many industrial cities during the war, this one experienced a great population influx, including 100,000 African Americans. As the play begins, just after the end of the war, much of the city’s black housing has been torn down to make way for a new airport, and the rest of the housing into which blacks are allowed to move is already full to bursting. One newer housing project for blacks can accommodate two thousand families but has a waiting list of over ten thousand. For the rest of the housing available for blacks, in the city’s Angel’s Alley, the dominant real estate company charges exorbitant rents at the same time that it covertly enforces segregation. As in Jeb, powerful financial interests have a stake in maintaining racial boundaries. It was when Toni visited the Bennetts and saw the conditions they were living in, sharing a small apartment with another family, that she invited them to live in her parents’ house. Greeted with the fait accompli of the Bennetts as tenants, Ed and Kate’s values are tested. The Bennetts offer nothing to object to: David (played by Canada Lee, who was also one of the producers) is a war hero; Wini, his pregnant wife, is lovely and has a fine singing voice; Cora, David’s mother, works in a defense plant; Gramp loves to garden and eagerly cares for the lawn and plants; Owen, David’s little brother, makes model planes and loves baseball; they are neat, polite, and considerate. The only possible objection to their living in the neighborhood is that they are black. Kate is not overtly prejudiced—one gets the impression 159

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that she’s never really seen a black person up close before—but she is hyperconscious of what the neighbors will think, and when it becomes clear that they are not happy, she becomes more and more insistent that her husband make the Bennetts move. Ed is more torn. His values are progressive, like his daughter’s, but he’s never really had to put them to the test: he doesn’t like the idea of a black family in the neighborhood and in his house, but he can’t think of a logical reason why it shouldn’t be a good idea. As he gets to know the Bennetts, especially Gramp, who shares his passion for gardening, he becomes more and more certain that they ought to stay. The neighbors offer a variety of excuses for their desire that Ed evict the Bennetts. One housewife is from the South and imagines she understands what these people are really like. Another thinks David Bennett is a threat to her sixteen-year-old daughter’s virtue. One man worries about property values. Another, Walter Lund, the loudest bigot of them all, claims he is concerned about the Bennetts’ safety: there were race riots the previous year when a black family tried to move into a white neighborhood, and eighteen blacks were killed. One wife reveals the fear that lies beneath all the arguments: “Once you let down the bars, other families move in.”72 The neighbors begin with a semi-friendly meeting at the Tildens’ house, the upshot of which is that the Tildens will give the Bennetts a month to find another place to live. Even with this compromise, Ed can’t bring himself to tell the Bennetts they have to move: “I don’t know a nice way of saying you can fight for your country, but you can’t live in it.”73 As the days goes by, pressure on the Tildens and the Bennetts increases. While Ed, spurred on by Toni, tries to gather local support for letting the Bennetts stay indefinitely, Lund is circulating neighborhood covenants prohibiting the renting or sale of property to blacks and working to have the lease to Ed’s drugstore canceled. The neighborhood women snub Kate, and the neighborhood boys, including Toni’s little brother, Johnnie, harass Owen. An incident with the children leads Kate to suddenly snap. Johnnie and another boy chase Owen into the yard, where he picks up one of Gramp’s gardening knives to protect himself. When Toni and David attempt to wrest it away from him, Toni is slightly scraped. As David examines the wound, Kate shrieks, “Get your black hand off her!” Ed tries to control her, but she snarls, “I’ve had enough of your theories about their being like other people. They’re savages, that’s 160

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what they are! You saw your own daughter attacked by a nigger and you stood there. When she’s raped by that big ape, what will you do? Nothing! No, you have principles!”74 Kate’s revealing her deep-seated racism and the threat of losing the drugstore make it clear to both Ed and David that the Bennetts will have to move. On Whitman Avenue ends less optimistically than Deep Are the Roots and Jeb, owing primarily to its mixed message about the future. Toni, like Genevra, resolves that if she stays in her home the same disease that has infected her mother—the valuing of possessions over people and the fear of the neighbors’ criticism overwhelming her moral sense—will inevitably engulf her, and she thus leaves so that she may become, as Ed explains, “a decent human being.”75 This faith in the goodness of the young, however, is undercut by Johnnie’s character arc. When Johnnie meets Owen Bennett, about his own age, the two initially get on fine. They share interests in airplanes and baseball, and Johnnie admires the model planes Owen builds and his pitching. But then his white friends threaten to cut Johnnie out of their club if he continues associating with Owen, and they force him to show his loyalty by breaking a model plane Owen had been planning to enter in a contest. After that, the antagonism grows. Johnnie and his friends use every opportunity to goad Owen into fighting. And at the climax of the play, when the Bennetts are moving out, they beat Gramp when he tries to defend Owen, propelling him into a heart attack and sending him to the hospital. When his parents try to punish him, Johnnie scoffs at them: “You’re a coward, that’s what. You’ll let niggers walk all over you and not do a thing about it. That’s what Bernie’s Pop says, and he’s right!”76 In Johnnie we see the process by which a decent, innocent young person can easily be socialized into an ideology of racism. Taken together, these plays explore the practical implications of the war’s Double V campaign, dramatize the injustices of second-class citizenship, and point toward the very difficult struggles that lie ahead if American society is to be truly just and fair. Another less distinguished but nevertheless interesting set of plays explored the experience of being Jewish in wartime. Throughout this book, we have seen the ways American drama attacked the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews, beginning with the very first anti-Hitler play, Philipp’s 161

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adaptation of Weachter’s Kultur in September 1933, and continuing throughout the 1930s and the war years. Though the theater powerfully attacked Nazi anti-Semitism, it wasn’t until near the end of the war that playwrights began seriously exploring the depths of American antiSemitism. Anti-Semitism was pervasive in American political life in the years leading up to the war. In the 1920s widespread nativism, expressed most extremely by organizations like the resuscitated Ku Klux Klan and individuals such as the automobile titan Henry Ford, resulted in the immigration laws of 1921 and 1924. These laws established quotas for the number of immigrants who could enter the United States from each foreign country and were aimed to reduce the number of people—especially Jews—entering from central and southern Europe. The disastrous effects of these laws became evident after Hitler came to power, and Congress repeatedly refused to modify the quotas to give asylum to refugee Jews.77 In the 1930s, as the effects of the Depression cut deeper and deeper, a number of groups and demagogues sought to blame the Jews for the economic mess and international unrest. These groups and individuals included the German-American Bund, William Dudley Pelley’s Silver Shirts, the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin’s Social Justice movement, and the aviator and American hero Charles Lindbergh, who, representing America First, accused the Jews of trying to get the United States into the war in an infamous speech on 11 September 1941.78 This extremism inevitably percolated into the mainstream popular consciousness, resulting in oddly contradictory views in the public. After Kristallnacht, in November 1938, polls showed that 88 percent of Americans disapproved of the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. That same year, however, 67 percent of the public opposed the admission into the United States of refugees from Nazi oppression; in 1939 that number had risen to 83 percent. In 1938 and again the next year nearly half of the public agreed that U.S. Jews had too much power and influence, and 35 percent said that they “object” to Jews.79 Surprisingly, after the United States entered the war, polls showed anti-Semitism on the rise.80 Since the end of the war, historians have battled over President Roosevelt’s response to the refugee crisis, both before and after the extent of the Holocaust became known.81 Regardless of how much praise or blame we give Roose­ velt, the nation as a whole failed shamefully in its refusal to help Europe’s Jews, a failure that was rooted in overt and latent anti-Semitism. 162

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A theatrical event that attempted to be both an attack on German persecution of the Jews and a challenge to Americans to save the Jews of Europe was We Will Never Die. More a pageant than a play, We Will Never Die was the brainchild of Hillel Kook, a.k.a. Peter Bergson, a militant Jewish Palestinian who had previously attempted to raise a Jewish army to fight the Nazis. Under the banner of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, Bergson enlisted Ben Hecht, whom he had recruited to his cause in 1941, to write the script, Kurt Weill to compose the music, and Moss Hart to direct. It played two sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden on 9 March 1943 and then toured to Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago before offering a final performance at the Hollywood Bowl. (The Hollywood Bowl performance was in part broadcast over the radio.) In New York the cast was led by Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson, and in other cities such stars as Claude Rains, John Garfield, Edward Arnold, and Ralph Bellamy appeared. We Will Never Die aimed at its audiences’ emotions with size and spectacle. Actors stood in front of two forty-foot high tablets of the Ten Commandments. The traditional Yizkor service, which memorializes the dead, was interspersed with testimony about the European Jews who had already died. The actors intoned a list of Jews who made important contributions to civilization, starting with the Jewish patriarchs, moving on to scientists, philosophers, and artists, and concluding with the last dispatch sent by a Jewish American soldier from Corregidor. It ended with a dramatic reciting of the Kaddish by fifty elderly rabbis who had escaped from Europe. The pageant was a remembrance of the dead, a cry for vengeance, and a call for a Jewish homeland after the war.82 The two Jewish American homecoming plays work quite differently from the African American homecoming plays, in that they are more ambiguous in their presentation of anti-Semitism and more ambivalent in their conclusions. The first was Home of the Brave (27 December 1945), written by Arthur Laurents while he was in the army scripting weekly radio dramas to promote the war effort, although it might be more accurate to call it a preparing-for-homecoming play. The play’s frame takes place in an army hospital on an unnamed Pacific island, where a doctor is trying to solve the riddle of PFC Peter Coney, who has returned from a mission to a Japanese-held island with amnesia and paralyzed legs, for which there are no physiological explanations. The doctor uses amytal 163

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sodium (“truth serum”) to try to get Coney to reexperience the trauma that is presumably the cause of his problems. With the injection, the play flashes back to the mission to the island; Coney, his friend Finch, Major Robinson, Sergeant Mingo, and Corporal T. J. Everitt are to map out the island and thereby identify the most promising sites to build airstrips once the army invades. With their mapping almost completed, they are discovered by a Japanese sniper. They escape toward the beach in anticipation of their evacuation that evening, but Finch can’t find the map case. Left behind, he and Coney argue; then, just as the case is found, Finch is shot. He urges Coney to escape with the maps. Later, near the beach, Finch, having been tortured by the Japanese, manages to crawl back to the patrol before dying in Coney’s arms. At that moment, Coney finds himself unable to walk. Under the doctor’s probing, we learn that Coney’s paralysis has everything to do with his being Jewish—what others think of him and what he thinks of himself. T.J. represents crude anti-Semitism. T.J. frequently rides Coney, suggesting he’s lazy and cowardly. At a tense moment on the island, his antiSemitism becomes overt; he calls Coney “kike,” “Jew boy,” and “you lousy yellow Jew bastard.”83 T.J.’s hatred is easy to see, but Coney suspects the others of anti-Semitism as well, even his best buddy, Finch. When first being injected with the amytal sodium, Coney tells the doctor about Finch: “He’s a sweet kid. He doesn’t seem like the others only—only I wonder if he is.”84 Coney wonders if Finch hates Jews, even though all the outward evidence suggests not. Finch treasures a postwar plan for him and Coney to open a bar; he even tries to fix Coney up with his sister. Most important, when T.J. explodes into his vulgar, anti-Semitic fit, Finch steps forward and hits him, while Coney stays silent. So why does Coney suspect everyone, even Finch, of hating him? He tries to explain in a speech about childhood memories: “I had to get beat up a coupla more times before I learned that if you’re a Jew, you’re lice. You’re—you’re alone. You’re—you’re something—strange, different. (Suddenly furious.) Well, goddamnit, you make us different, you dirty bastards! What the hell do you want us to do?”85 Coney is convinced that he and all Jews have been Othered by the dominant culture, and so he has trouble imagining any Gentile seeing him as anything but different. Finch becomes the site of his confusion: Finch seems genuinely to like him (perhaps more than like him; the latent homoeroticism in their relationship, 164

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so obvious in the twenty-first century, went unremarked in 1945), yet underneath he may be like the others and see Jews as different, inferior, something to be despised. This confusion reaches a head when Coney and Finch are searching for the missing map case, worried that at any moment they will come under fire from the Japanese. They argue, and Finch, echoing T.J., says, “I’m not asking you to stay you lousy yellow—” and after a pause, finishes with “Jerk.”86 Coney jumps to the conclusion that he was about to say “Jew.” Just after speaking, Finch finds the map case and is shot. The (oversimplified) psychological cause of Coney’s paralysis lies in his reaction to Finch’s being shot. He eventually confesses to the doctor: “I knew he’d lied when—when he said he didn’t care. When he said people were people to him. I knew he lied. I knew he hated me because I was a Jew so—I was glad when he was shot.”87 His shame over this reaction and his guilt at abandoning Finch in the clearing—even though everyone agrees that leaving Finch and delivering the maps was the correct thing to do—result, first, in his being unable to walk—his mind’s way of keeping him from abandoning Finch again—and, second, in his amnesia—his mind’s way of blocking out a memory too painful to bear. The doctor’s treatment takes two approaches. The first is to convince Coney that his reaction to Finch’s being shot is a common one: “Peter, every soldier in this world who sees a buddy get shot has that one moment when he feels glad. [. . .] You’re the same as anybody else. You’re no different, son, no different at all.”88 Coney, however, can’t let go of the idea that he was glad because Finch had revealed his anti-Semitism, which leads to the doctor’s second approach, to persuade Coney that thinking of himself as being Other because he’s Jewish is his own fault: “Peter, this sensitivity has been like a disease to you. It was there before anything happened on that island. [. . .] Oh, it’s not your fault; the germ comes from the world we try to live in. And it’s spread by T.J. By people at home in our own country. But if you can cure yourself, you can help cure them and you’ve got to, Peter, you’ve got to!”89 The doctor implicates Coney in the anti-Semitism that others direct toward him. In the last scene, as Coney and Mingo, who lost an arm on the mapping mission, wait for the transportation that will take them home, the doctor’s treatment finally works. When T.J. makes another slighting remark about Jews, Coney strikes him, and afterward he feels he’s failed 165

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again, giving in to his sensitivity, seeing himself as Other when he should see himself as no different from anyone else. But when Mingo, attempting to calm him, mentions “all the times I’d stood right next to guys, seen ’em get shot and felt glad I was still alive,” Coney realizes that what the doctor said was true, that every soldier reacts as he reacted, that he is like Mingo, and that he is like everyone else.90 The play ends with Mingo offering to take Finch’s place as partner in the bar plan, and the two head off to their homecoming. Unlike the African American plays, which end with the chance of society being remade so that racial inequality might end, Home of the Brave ends with the one Jewish character learning that there are some people—certainly Finch and Mingo—who don’t see him as different and that he is like everybody else. Anti-Semitism as a social ill recedes into the background as Coney achieves self-acceptance. Opening four months after Home of the Brave, Don Appell’s This, Too, Shall Pass (30 April 1946) presented a similarly ambiguous picture of the sources and effects of anti-Semitism. Set in the midwestern home of a successful surgeon, the play begins with the homecoming of Buddy Alexander and his friend Mac Sorrell (played by Sam Wanamaker), with whom he served in the Pacific and who, at one point, saved his life. Mac has been exchanging V-mail for some time with Buddy’s sister, Janet. When they finally meet in person, their epistolary relationship quickly blooms into love and the decision to marry. Buddy’s mother, Martha, a leader of several local socially progressive organizations and up to this point a perfect hostess to Mac, becomes irrationally enraged at the thought of her daughter marrying a Jew, though it bothers no one else in the family. When Mac and Janet start to run away together, they somehow accidently run over Buddy, killing him. They nevertheless go on their way, presumably to build a more tolerant future. Martha’s anti-Semitism reminds us of Kate Tilden in On Whitman Avenue in that her liberal facade breaks down to reveal deep-seated prejudice, but unlike Kate’s, Martha’s prejudice seems disconnected from any historical or cultural roots. As in Home of the Brave, anti-Semitism is acknowledged as a problem, but how it has developed, the role it has played in American political life, the threat it offers to social life, and how it can be overcome are never addressed. We see the irony that Mac and Buddy come home to face the same kind of intolerance they were presumably fighting against overseas, but that irony is presented outside any context. 166

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The lack of such context was not a problem for another pageant-style production, A Flag Is Born (5 September 1946). Peter Bergson called on such veterans of We Will Never Die as the writer Ben Hecht, composer Kurt Weill, and star Paul Muni, along with the director Luther Adler, leading lady Celia Adler, and supporting actor Marlon Brando to present a fund-raiser for the American League for a Free Palestine. A Flag Is Born has more of a plot than We Will Never Die, but, like the latter, it also relies on emotional, highly elevated orations aimed to spur the audience into action. It also introduces fantasy sequences to help provide historical and cultural contexts. It begins with a narrator establishing the horrors of the Holocaust and then presents Tevya, taken from Sholem Aleichem’s famous stories (Muni), and Zelda (Adler), survivors of the Treblinka death camp, now rejecting the graveyard of Europe and making their way to Palestine. They are joined by another Treblinka survivor, David (Brando), more bitter and ready to accuse American and British Jews of failing the European Jews during the war. In the fantasy sequences Tevya is encouraged by the kings of the Hebrew Bible, Saul, David, and Solomon, and appears before the Council of the Mighty (a takeoff on the United Nations), where he debates the British representative on opening Palestine to the Jewish refugees. Tevya and Zelda die before they can reach Palestine, but David, inspired by three soldiers who speak of their commitment to fighting for their country, ends the play by crossing a bridge into the promised land. A Flag Is Born looks backward at the past and forward to the future, and it demands that its audiences place themselves on, as we might say today, the right side of history. The theater historian Albert Wertheim sums up: “With the abandonment of restraint common to agitprop drama, it lays bare, as no American drama had done before, the horrors of the Holocaust. It underscores as well the questionable silence of America and American Jews while their fellow Jews were being massacred in Europe. It lashes out in strongest terms against America’s ally, the British. In the face of postwar peacetime, it endorses new battles in Palestine. And it suggests that the Jewish religion be revised to become simply a background for the founding of a Jewish state.”91 A final set of three plays explores the challenges of the postwar world in broader strokes. They ask what kind of country the United States will be after the war is won, what form postwar democracy will take, and what 167

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the country’s relationship with the rest of the world will be. Burton Rascoe suggests how these questions are interrelated in his review of A Bell for Adano, which, he writes, “presents in a subtle and poignantly humorous way the greatest problem the Allied armies have to face in their dealings with the liberated countries, if this war, and our success in it, is to have any meaning. It is the problem of first learning, for ourselves, what democracy, freedom and justice mean. They are not merely principles but principles in action—in all things, big and little. Many Americans, who think they know what democracy is, don’t.”92 A Bell for Adano, adapted by Paul Osborn from John Hersey’s novel, opened on 6 December 1944, five months before the end of the war in Europe. It follows Major Victor Joppolo, the army civil affairs officer for the just-liberated Italian town of Adano, as he tries to help its people make the transition from war to peace. The play’s tension is between the army’s way of effecting this transition and Joppolo’s. The army’s way is summed up by Sergeant Borth, Joppolo’s M.P. aide: “Your job is to clean up the streets of this town, Major; get it in order.”93 The army’s way is expressed less succinctly in reams of paper with detailed instructions for every step of the occupation. Borth quips, “They must have thought we were invading Chicago.”94 Joppolo’s way is less structured, more nuanced, and much more idealistic. He doesn’t want the people to think of the Americans as just another occupier, coming along after the fascists and the Germans; he wants the Americans to be their friends and, more important, their teachers. His overarching goal is to teach the people of Adano how to live in a democracy. He tries to explain what he means by democracy to the officials he has appointed to several public positions: “One of the main things about a Democracy is that the men of the Government are no longer the masters of the people. They are the servants of the people, elected by the people, paid by the people with their taxes. Therefore you are now the servants of the people of Adano. I too am their servant.”95 To make clear the conflict between the army’s expectations and Joppolo’s grand experiment, the play shows us the major in a solitary moment dump the army instructions into the wastebasket. The tension between the army’s bureaucratic regulations and Joppolo’s self-defined mission to spread democracy is complicated by his gradual realization that the process of education goes both ways. If Joppolo wants the townspeople to respect what he values, he must learn to respect 168

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what they value. What they value is represented by the town bell, which had rung in the town for seven hundred years, until it was taken by Mussolini’s troops to provide metal for rifles. The importance of the bell is signaled by one citizen as he explains the town’s immediate needs in the aftermath of the invasion: “We have been bombed and bombed. For three days we have not had bread. The stink of the dead is very bad. Some people are sick because the drivers of the water carts have been afraid to get water for several days, because of the planes along the road. And our bell is gone.”96 To the townspeople, the bell is as vital as food and water. Initially, Joppolo doesn’t get it, dismissing the problem of the bell. He begins to take the bell more seriously, however, when Father Pensovecchio, the most respected man in the town, advocates for it: “You see, this bell was the center of the town. Even we in the churches depended on this bell more than on our own. At noon on the Sabbath, when all the bells in town rang at once, this bell rose above all the others and that was the one you listened to. The bell regulated and gave meaning to the life in this town.”97 Eventually, Joppolo merges the town’s values with his own by thinking of the bell as a Liberty Bell, and then he makes finding a replacement bell a priority, using all his military authority and diplomatic charm to wheedle one from a navy ship. The tension between the army’s and Joppolo’s vision for Adano comes to a head when an irritable general driving through the town is delayed by one of the mule-drawn carts that bring water and food into the town. (There’s a bypass around the town, but the general chose to ignore it.) In his anger, he orders his men to wreck the cart and shoot the mule. Ignoring objections, he then orders that no carts be allowed on the streets of Adano; the M.P.s set up guards at each end of the town’s main street to prevent them from entering. After two days, the people are hungry, and Joppolo has found no alternative method of getting food and water into the town. When three cart drivers plead with him, explaining how desperate the people are becoming, Joppolo countermands the general’s order. To his shocked aides he explains: “General Marvin has ruined everything we’ve done here! The town is dying——We’re not here to kill people!”98 The fallout over his decision is wide-reaching—Joppolo persuades the townspeople to like Americans, teaches them to embrace democracy, and even gets them a bell, but, when pig-headed General Marvin finds 169

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out about his order being countermanded, he is unceremoniously relieved of his command—and implies a troubled vision for the United States in the postwar world. Reprimanding some soldiers who have trashed the house in which they were bivouacked, making one Italian an enemy of the Americans, Joppolo explains: “Until there’s something stable in Europe, our armies will have to stay here—and there won’t be any plans put down on paper that’s going to guarantee whether we can lick this job. Only our men can guarantee it—only you and me and the rest of us here. And just as good as we can make things over here, that’s just how good they’ll be at home.”99 As if anticipating the reasoning behind the Marshall Plan, Joppolo connects the health of democracy in the world at large with the health of democracy in the United States. The play, however, concludes more confident about the future of democracy in Adano than its fate back home. As Joppolo quietly leaves Adano, reporting to Algiers for assignment, the new bell, what he envisioned as a Liberty Bell, tolls and tolls, continuing, according to the stage directions, even through the curtain calls, as the house lights come up, and while the audience leaves the theater. The ringing suggests that Adano will, like the original Liberty Bell, serve as an example to “proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.”100 With the exception of Joppolo, however, democracy in the United States is not well represented here. Its worst representative never appears onstage although his power is felt by all those who do: General Marvin. Unlike Joppolo, Marvin has no understanding of or empathy for the townspeople’s needs. Unlike Joppolo, Marvin uses his position of leadership to push himself forward at the expense of the men under him and the people he is there to liberate. Unlike Joppolo, Marvin embraces power for its own sake, using his authority to trump counterarguments and common sense. In short, Marvin is an ignorant, self-important, petty bully. In suggesting that America has too few Joppolos and far too many Marvins, the play leaves us worried that the postwar United States may also fall in love with its own power to the detriment of democracy around the world and even at home. Like A Bell for Adano, The Assassin, by Irwin Shaw (17 October 1945), places its examination of postwar American democracy in a foreign setting, French North Africa, just before and just after the Operation Torch landings of the British and U.S. forces in November 1942. The play is a fictionalized version of the events leading up to the assassination of 170

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Admiral Jean François Darlan, the minister of marine, minister of defense, and vice premier of the Vichy regime, as well as Marshal Pétain’s heir apparent. Although the United States had recruited a combination of de Gaullist Free French, royalists, communists, and military officers who wanted France to rejoin the war against Germany to support the landings, once they began, State Department and military officials left the rebels hanging while they negotiated with Darlan to order French forces not to resist. At this point confusion reigned: Had the landings taken place? Who was in charge? Who was an enemy and who an ally?101 The historian Peter Tompkins explains: “Darlan was playing a triple game: If the landings failed, he would have strengthened his position with the Germans for having opposed the Allies. [. . .] Were the Americans to succeed, Darlan’s stand would still help Vichy with the Germans by allowing the marshal to show that the French had actually resisted. Paradoxically, the more Darlan resisted the Americans, and the more he could command the obedience of the French, the greater would be his bargaining power with the Americans.”102 His eventual price for ordering French troops to cease fire was the retention of the Vichy military and political structure in North Africa and the removal from command of the rebel officers. This agreement, of course, was perceived by the rebels as a betrayal by the United States. Darlan was installed in power in North Africa, where he quickly strengthened the fascist secret police, jailed supporters of de Gaulle, instituted rigorous censorship of the press, and began assembling his own personal army. For the French of North Africa, little had changed from the preinvasion, Nazi-collaborating Vichy government. Less than two months after the invasion, on Christmas Eve, Darlan was assassinated by a young French royalist in league with the rebels. The action of The Assassin alternates between a café where members of the underground congregate and locations associated with the institutions of power: army headquarters, a luxurious villa, a prison cell. The members of the underground represent a variety of positions—Free French, communists, union members, a royalist, a Jewish couple who had published a newspaper in Paris before the German occupation—and as the play begins, they wait on the night of the invasion for their orders to move out and assist the landings. As they wait, however, the secret police arrive to arrest them and to force them to divulge the information about 171

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the landings. Of all people, Robert, the young, natty royalist, disarms them; they are held prisoner while the group goes out on its mission. Vauquin, the informal leader of the group (played by Karl Malden), announces as he leaves: “If they try anything, shoot them. You have nothing to worry about. By tomorrow noon their bosses will be in jail and by tomorrow night they will be ancient history. The old men are finished in French Africa.”103 The bosses, as it turns out, have the same fear. As the battle to resist the landings rages, three generals and Admiral Marcel Vespery (the Darlan figure) fret about how to respond and what will happen to them if the invasion succeeds. One moans, “Some of us’re liable to hang after tonight.”104 Vespery meets with Haynes, an American businessman of ambiguous authority, who assures him that the Americans will do business with him: “They have many things to consider. The fleet is under your command, if it’s under anybody’s command. There are elements in the United States who believe that de Gaulle is the leader of a red rabble. There are many people in the United States who believe that the rest of the world is always on the brink of revolution. . . . You will present the case of France with dignity, as one gentleman to another.”105 Although Vespery and the generals are arrested at the end of the scene, a few days later, as the rebels we met earlier are in their café enjoying a drink with some U.S. soldiers, they hear on the radio that Vespery has been named commander in chief of all French military forces and minister of all civilian affairs. Disappointed and betrayed, one rebel rants at a soldier about how he and his comrades risked their lives and killed other Frenchmen to support the landings, but now he says of the Americans: “You’re fascists. A different kind from the Germans, but fascists, just the same.”106 To punctuate his point, the secret police, the same policemen who came on the night of the landings and who were supposed to be ancient history by now, burst in and arrest all the rebels. The play then proceeds to contrast Vespery and the North African leadership with the rebels, implicitly asking to which group Americans would rather be likened. Vespery and the generals blithely discuss executing scores of rebels, and Vespery makes his plans for being the postwar leader of France. Paranoia is rampant among the leaders. Vespery and the generals distrust each other and everyone else and so spend much of their time spying on and plotting against each other. Thus Vespery’s death. 172

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One general, a royalist whose plans to have the pretender to the French throne put in power in North Africa are thwarted, recruits the arrested Robert to assassinate Vespery in a complicated plan that involves Robert’s being sneaked into a radio station while Vespery is broadcasting, his shooting the admiral, his being convicted and sentenced to death, and his secretly being flown to South Africa while another man is executed in his place. All but the last occur; Robert faces the firing squad. Robert’s price is the safe release of his friends from the café. This loyalty to his friends, despite their political disagreements, is the main difference between the café denizens and the military men. The rebels recognize their differences but know they need to work past them to accomplish the things they all desire. In an eloquent speech to a communist comrade, Vauquin argues that these differences can be a source of strength: I am not a Communist, I would not like to see Communism in France after the war. Still, I’ve trusted you with my life several times before, and I would do it, without hesitation, again. [. . .] The same goes for Gannerac. Also a Communist—but if I had an army to lead I would ask Gannerac to lead it. [. . .] The essential thing is quality. The quality of—well, let’s be grandiose—let’s call it the quality of a man’s soul. Politics change. We must trust the quality of a man, rather than the color of his politics. Today that’s our only hope. If you would only fight beside Communists, and I would only fight beside Left Republicans, and young [Robert] de Mauny would only fight beside Monarchists, France would be dead once and for all. But I believe that deep down, under all the differences, we are all good men and we can operate for good ends.107 The Assassin essentially asks its audience whether Vauquin’s or Vespery’s vision of the postwar world is the better one, which world would we prefer to live in, and thus what quality of soul we would cultivate in ourselves and in our country. Where A Bell for Adano and The Assassin test American values in foreign, war-torn settings, State of the Union is set firmly in the United States and asks explicitly what kind of country it’s going to be in the postwar 173

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Ralph Bellamy, Herbert Heyes, and Edith Atwater in State of the Union (1945). Photo by Vandamm Studio, © Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

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world. Winner of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, State of the Union, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, opened in the immediate aftermath of the war, 14 November 1945, and ran for 765 performances. The structure of its plot is the working out of a love triangle. Grant Matthews, an airplane manufacturer, is being wooed by a Republican kingmaker, Jim Conover, and the powerhouse newspaper publisher Kay Thorndyke to run for president. An upcoming tour of his plants across the country will provide an opportunity for him to give speeches, the reaction to which will gauge his chances of being elected. One problem: it’s an open secret that Grant is having an affair with Kay, while his estranged wife, Mary, lives in their Manhattan apartment with their two children. Conover suggests that Mary accompany Grant on his speaking tour to create the impression of wedded bliss. On the one hand, this plan works well; Grant and Mary actually start to fall in love again. On the other hand, Conover discovers that Mary holds Grant to a high moral standard. She encourages him to speak his mind, no matter whom he might offend, and to avoid the political promises and compromises that are necessary to win the support of party bigwigs and their blocs of voters. The contest between Mary and Kay is not just for Grant’s love but also for his political soul. Owing to this love-triangle plot, many audience members guessed that the play was based on the 1940 presidential run of Wendell Willkie, who, although accompanied on his campaign trips by his wife, Edith, was engaged in a long-term affair with Irita Van Doren, the editor of the New York Herald Tribune Book Review.108 Grant’s political philosophy, however, seems to have been drawn from the speeches of former vice president Henry A. Wallace.109 An ardent utopian and New Dealer, Wallace was Roosevelt’s first secretary of agriculture and was nominated for vice president in 1940 at FDR’s insistence and over the objections of many Democratic Party leaders. Perhaps his most important wartime speech was “The Price of Free World Victory,” delivered to the Free World Association on 8 May 1942, in which he famously defined the war as “a fight between a slave world and a free world” and declared the twentieth century to be “the century of the common man.”110 More relevant to State of the Union, however, is a series of three speeches he made on 4 February, 7 February, and 9 February 1944, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, respectively. In them he looks forward to the postwar economy 175

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and argues against the practice of scarcity economics, wherein production, employment, and wages are kept artificially low, and prices are kept artificially high. Instead, he calls for a managed economy in which big business, small business, labor, and agriculture work together for full production, expanding markets, and the general welfare. He asks specialinterest groups to look beyond their own demands and to think of the public as a whole: “As we face the future, the leaders of the great pressure groups must ask themselves continually, ‘Is my pressure group in its demands helping the general good? Is my corporation in its program doing what it can to bring about full employment? Or are we just trying to get a rake-off by obstructing full activity? Are we fighting for the biggest piece of the pie as it is, or are we also trying to increase the present size of the whole pie?’ ”111 Wallace’s vision for reconversion is a peacetime economy that will work much as the wartime economy worked and just as successfully. In State of the Union Wallace’s ideas are tested in the crucible of a political campaign. The tension in the play is between what Mary calls “amateur” voters and “professional” politicians.112 When Grant begins exploring the possibility of running for president, he expresses a Wallacelike concern that the unity of the war years needs to continue over into the peace: “I’m worried about what’s happening in this country. We’re splitting apart.”113 He expands on this idea later with Mary: “If I can make the people see the choice they’ve got to make—the choice between their own interests and the interests of the country as a whole—damn it, I think the American people are sound. I think they can be unselfish.”114 Offering the people this choice becomes the driving point of his speeches. At each stop, he chooses a special-interest group and challenges it to transcend its selfish priorities for the general welfare. The response to the speeches is generally strong. As act 2 opens, Grant and Mary enter a hotel suite in Detroit, basking in the glow of the response to his speech the previous evening in Wichita, in which he challenged labor. His pockets are stuffed with congratulatory telegrams, the press coverage has been positive, and the hotel lobby is filled with fans and supporters. Conover, however, isn’t a fan of the speech, which he fears may have lost the labor vote, nor is Spike MacManus, the newspaperman turned campaign manager who has lost control of his candidate. When Conover tries to talk Grant out of the speech he plans to give that night in Detroit, a speech that will give big 176

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business the same challenge he gave labor in Wichita, Mary insists, “People ought to know where he stands before they nominate him.” Conover responds with a lesson in realpolitik: “The people have damn little to say about the nomination. [. . .] You’re not nominated by the people—you’re nominated by the politicians! Why? Because the voters are too damned lazy to vote in the primaries!”115 The professional politicians scorn the amateur voters because they have abrogated their responsibility to be informed participants in the democratic process. Grant finds himself very much caught between his intoxication at the admiration of the people and the fear of having to make compromising commitments to the politicians. In Detroit, although Grant resists Conover’s attempts to get him to soften his speech, Kay arranges a secret meeting with him, after which he throws out his notes and speaks blandly and noncommittally about big business. In act 3 Conover has persuaded Mary to host a dinner party for some of the most powerful representatives of business, labor, agriculture, and the South; Kay, to Mary’s discomfort, also attends. Predictably, they all make the case for their own interests, arguing that the other groups are the ones who need to sacrifice. The new element here is Mrs. Draper, an expert on the ethnic vote, who encourages Grant, with Kay cheering her on, to play up to certain ethnicities and nationalities while stoking distrust and hatred for others. At one point she attacks the United States’ participation in the United Nations: “Since our so-called great minds have gotten us into the United Nations, we can’t overlook the political advantage it gives us. Remember, there are a lot of voters who are afraid of Russia!—And you’d be surprised how many people hate the British!”116 Grant tries to remain noncommittal to all the demands these lobbyists make on him, but as the evening wears on, it’s clearer and clearer that these people expect him, as Conover puts it, “to play ball.”117 The dinner party puts Mary in the middle, too. She genuinely wants to see Grant become president, but she also wants him to maintain his idealistic high ground and loudly calls him on it when he doesn’t. After dinner, Conover tries to persuade Mary that to help Grant become president and to help herself win him back from Kay, she needs to show her support for his compromises, not needle him. Mary tries gamely, but after the lobbyists leave, Conover makes the mistake of asking for her opinion, and she explodes: “I’ve sat here listening to you making plans for Grant 177

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to trade away the peace of the world to get a few votes! [. . .] Don’t you know what’s happened in the world? Are you willing to trust the people you brought here tonight with atomic power?”118 Contrary to Conover’s expectations, this outburst, especially the appeal to world peace, represents a tipping point for Grant; after Mary runs upstairs sobbing, he decides he can’t play ball and he can’t run for president: “I promised myself when I went into this that I’d appeal to the best in the American people. The only advice I’ve ever had from any of you was to appeal to their worst.” Speaking of an industrialist friend, he continues: “Sam and his type are dead! They want to go back to something they’ve had before. We’ve got to move on to something we’ve never had before.”119 He ends by insisting that everyone needs to be involved in the political process: “Mary, I’m not running for President. But that doesn’t mean I’m out of politics. Nobody can afford to be out of politics.” He proposes a second honeymoon to Mary, but only a brief one: “There is a big job ahead for all of us! Darling, you’re right about the future. We’ve got something great to work for!”120 In an interesting maneuver, State of the Union adopts the myth of wartime unity and sacrifice, which, as we have seen, represented the actual state of the nation less than it was a creation of the popular-culture media; the play treats it as real and then conjures up a nostalgia for it. By accepting the myth as real, the play is able to create a clear dividing line between the past and the future, the present being the moment in which a decision about the kind of future the country will have is to be made. Grant and Mary see the danger of this moment leading to a return to prewar divisions and selfishness. At the end of the play they encourage each other and, by extension, the audience to work toward the kind of future popular culture has imagined for us. If many of the war years’ plays called this myth into question and insisted on showing us the real divisions, prejudices, small-mindedness, and selfishness that existed in the United States during the war, State of the Union embraces the myth as a means of persuading its audiences that the postwar years can transcend the problems of the past and make the myth a reality. Taken together, the plays produced near and just after the end of the war spend little time celebrating the Allies’ victory. Rather, they look at the challenges that returning servicemen will face in trying to reestablish 178

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family relationships and trying to heal from psychological wounds. They look at the difficulties families will face when their servicemen don’t return home. They look at how those on the home front have had to remake their lives in ways that the returning servicemen will have trouble recognizing. They look at how old prejudices will create new social divisions as black and Jewish servicemen return home. They look at how selfish special interests, political naïveté, and sheer love of power may undermine the democratic cause for which the nation had fought the war. While much of the country’s popular culture was ringing victory bells, along Broadway many playwrights were sounding alarms.

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Conclusion American drama of the 1940s is frequently overlooked, especially in comparison with the plays of the surrounding decades. It’s not considered as groundbreaking or transformative as the drama of the 1920s, not as experimental or politically engaged as the drama of the 1930s, not as psychologically savvy or tragedy-tinged as the drama of the 1950s. Much of the theater of the war years was late in realizing that Hollywood film had cornered the market in realism as a style and thus conditioned its audiences’ expectations for how the world would be represented “realistically.” It would take a new generation of playwrights, just getting started in the 1940s—Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and William Inge among them—to loosen realism’s grip and critique rather than compliment film’s middlebrow audiences. Nevertheless, the World War II plays of the 1940s are important and not just for the gems among them. Taken together, they provide a sense of the rich and difficult experience of living in the United States during the war years. Further, they provide us with a way of understanding the complex ways U.S. popular culture functioned in relation to the war. Three-quarters of a century distant from the lived experience of the war, we can too easily dismiss the war era’s popular culture as mindless cheerleading or emotionally manipulative propaganda. Such popular-culture media as film, radio, comics, posters, and journalism certainly did tend to support the officially defined narratives about the war, and, generally, they did so willingly, although they were under various kinds of pressure to do so, pressure from the Office of War Information (OWI), the military, and other government and industry-based offices. This is not to say, however, that these media were legally required to disseminate the official narratives; indeed, in some cases they questioned or challenged them. The Chicago Tribune infamously reported that the United States had broken Japanese codes, a fact the navy wanted kept secret. Radio networks laughed off an OWI suggestion that they stop playing classical music by 180

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German composers. Some Hollywood films called into question many of the war’s narratives.1 As we have tried to show, however, the theater offers the widest range of commentary on the war’s official narratives, from confirming them with hearty flag-waving to subverting them with deepseated cynicism and everything in between. Seen through its plays, the wartime United States is a much more fraught, contradictory, dangerous, and, to our minds, interesting place than the popular-culture-influenced histories have led us to believe. It would be a mistake, however, to think that the war-era theater’s only value is as a window onto a particular historical moment, a moment that is now done and over and disconnected from our present situation. A New York Times opinion piece reminds us: “We tend to caricature and oversimplify the past, thus making the tensions and tumult of our own time seem uniquely difficult. But we do ourselves, and the past, a disservice by falling prey to the narcissism of the present.”2 This thought suggests why the study of America’s World War II plays is important. Yes, they give us a picture of the complexity of life experienced during the war years, but it’s not a picture held safely within its frame. Rather, it’s a picture that projects forward into our own time, helping us understand our own societal tensions, conflicts, and problems. The war era has much to say to us about the dangers of social divisions, the possibilities for the rise of authoritarian power, the limitations of nationalism, the need to recognize and celebrate diversity, the value of labor, the problems with capitalism, the benefits of subordinating the individual self to the common good. Thus, the theater written and produced in the years leading up to and during the war years can guide us in our own time by showing us that our problems are not unique to us; the nation has faced similar challenges before. Like Charleston in Thunder Rock, we too can learn from the successes and failures of the past and find hope in what might seem to be a time for despair.

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Acknowledgments We have been lucky, as we researched and wrote this book, to have the support of many, many people, some of whom we need to acknowledge here. At the University Press of Kentucky, we have enjoyed the guidance and assistance of Ashley Runyon, Victoria Robinson, Ann Twombly, Natalie O’Neal, Anne Dean Dotson, and Leila Salisbury. At Illinois State University, we have benefited from the advice, support, and general good wishes of Joseph Blaney, Rebecca Brown, Tony Crubaugh, Christopher De Santis, Sarah Dick, Ron Fortune, Deborah J. Fox, Tammy Hansen, Charles Harris, Victoria Harris, Rachel Hatch, M. Paul Holsinger, Tim Hunt, Chad Kahl, Jim Kalmbach, Kathleen Lonbom, Jean MacDonald, Gary Olson, Marla Reese-Weber, Greg Simpson, Roberta Seelinger Trites, Carrie Wieburg, Diane Zosky, and the staff of Milner Library. We have also drawn on the knowledge and goodwill of many other friends and colleagues: Patricia and Jim Bradley, Elizabeth DeCristofaro, Tod Engle, Kathleen German, Barbara Halas, Mike and Gayla Horn, Rosemary McGinn, Joseph Mendola, Bruce and Kathleen Parrish, Peter Paulino, Carol and Rich Plotkin, Alex Roe, Connie Tumminelli, David Vaughn, the participants in the World War II/Armed Conflict area of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, the staffs of the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Special Collections and University Archives, Wake Forest University. Finally, our families have been patient and good-natured in listening to us talk about this project for many years. We send our gratitude and love to Cathy McIntyre, Elizabeth McLaughlin, Tom McLaughlin, Marcia Parry, and Tom Parry. We also are grateful to our cat Claudia for being an entertaining, calming, and loving presence while we worked on this book.

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Appendix

Annotated List of War-Related Plays Produced in New York, 1933–1946 The following entries present production information and, usually, a plot summary. For those plays discussed in detail in the main text, we forgo the plot summary and direct the reader to the appropriate page numbers. For more complete production information, visit the Playbill Vault at playbill.com or the Internet Broadway Database at ibdb.com.

1933–1934 Kultur, by Theodore Weachter. Adapted from the German by Adolf Philipp. Directed by J. J. Vincent and Charles Coburn and produced by J. J. Vincent. With Charles Coburn. Opened 26 Sept. 1933, closed 1 Oct. 1933 (ten perf.). This was the first Broadway play to focus on the new regime in Germany. Professor Dr. Koerner, a well-known surgeon, is dismissed from his university position because his greatgrandfather was Jewish. When the rabidly anti-Semitic chancellor is seriously injured in an automobile accident, he insists on Dr. Koerner’s performing the needed surgery. The man chosen to donate blood for a transfusion is discovered, too late, to have Jewish blood as well. When the chancellor recovers, he has a much greater tolerance for Jews. Despite this, Koerner leaves with his family to teach at the Sorbonne in Paris. Birthright, by Richard Maibaum. Directed by Robert Rossen and produced by Irving Barrett and Robert Rossen. With Montagu Love, Don Beddoe, and Sylvia Field. Opened 21 Nov. 1933, closed 25 Nov. 1933 (seven perf.). Jakob Eisner, the patriarch of a Jewish family, watches as his family falls apart with the rise of Hitler. His daughter 185

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Clara’s engagement is broken off by her fiancé when he joins the Nazi troops. His grandson Willi joins the communists to fight Hitlerism, kills a Nazi who has come to arrest him, and is executed. The Drums Begin, by Howard Irving Young. Directed by George Abbott and produced by George Abbott and Philip Dunning. With Walter Abel, Judith Anderson, Kent Smith, and Lionel Stander. Opened 24 Nov. 1933, closed 1 Dec. 1933 (eleven perf.). During the filming of No More War, about the Great War in France, the actor Andre Roussel, who is starring in the French version, falls deeply in love with his leading lady, Valerie Latour, who is starring in both the French and German versions. When Andre learns that Valerie was a German spy during the war, he leaves her, and she condemns all men, especially those who promote war in order to make money. Meanwhile, preparation for another war begins. Peace on Earth, by George Sklar and Albert Maltz. Directed by Robert B. Sinclair and produced by the Theatre Union. With Robert Keith and Ethel Intropidi. Opened 29 Nov. 1933, closed 17 Mar. 1934 (126 perf.). Eighteen additional performances 31 Mar. 1934–17 Apr. 1934. An economics professor, Peter Owens, studies striking longshoremen who refuse to load munitions onto ships headed for countries at war. After his best friend is shot by the police while working with the strikers, Owens becomes more supportive of these men, is eventually arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, and is sentenced to be hanged. While in jail, as he thinks over his life, he hears martial music and men marching off to the war that he and the longshoremen fought against. The Shatter’d Lamp, by Leslie Reade. Directed and produced by Hyman Adler. With Guy Bates Post, Effie Shannon, and Owen Davis Jr. Opened 21 Mar. 1934, closed Apr. 1934 (thirty-seven perf.). Karl Opal, the son of a university professor, joins the storm troopers but is dismissed when they find out that his mother is a Jew. His fiancée leaves him, his mother kills herself, and storm troopers shoot his father. Ironically, after Professor Opal is killed, word comes from “The Leader” that because the professor’s oldest son was killed in World War I, the professor can keep his place in the university. Brooks Atkinson wrote of the play, which was originally produced in London: “It is impossible to view a play about Nazi terrorism dispassionately. These 186

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scenes of brutality and vicious fanaticism are founded on the facts of Germany in 1933. [. . .] Out of the anti-Semitism of Hitler’s Germany Mr. Reade has constructed a play that is terrifying because in a workmanlike manner it represents the truth.”1 Dimitroff: A Play of Mass Pressure, by Art Smith and Elia Kazan. Produced by the New Theatre Night. With J. Edward Bromberg. Opened and closed 3 June 1934 (one perf.). A dramatization of the Reichstag fire trial. See p. 11.

1934–1935 Judgment Day, by Elmer Rice. Directed and produced by Elmer Rice. With Josephine Victor, Walter N. Greaza, and Eric Wollencott. Opened 12 Sept. 1934, closed 1 Dec. 1934 (ninety-three perf.). A fictionalization of the Reichstag fire trial. See pp. 36–37. Inspired, like Dimitroff, by the trial of the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dmitrov, this play was successfully produced in London 2 June–11 Sept. 1937 (116 perf.) and revived there two years later, 11 Nov. 1939–27 Jan. 1940 (ninety perf.). Rain from Heaven, by S. N. Behrman. Directed by Philip Moeller and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Jane Cowl, Thurston Hall, and John Halliday. Opened 24 Dec. 1934, closed 16 Mar. 1935 (ninetynine perf.). A liberal London socialite’s guests include German and Russian émigrés and an American fascist. See pp. 47–48. Till the Day I Die, by Clifford Odets. Directed by Cheryl Crawford and produced by the Group Theatre. With Alexander Kirkland, Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, and Roman Bohnen. Opened 26 Mar. 1935, closed 1 July 1935 (136 perf.). This one-act play, done as a curtain raiser for the better-known Waiting for Lefty, also by Odets, depicts the Nazi persecution of communists. See p. 12. These two one-acts were later produced in several theaters in southern California. Early in the short run in Hollywood, the director Will Geer was kidnapped and beaten, “allegedly by Nazi sympathizers who objected to a slight to Hitler”:2 On May 20, the day before the plays were to open, a threatening note appeared at the theater. “Manager, you know what we do to 187

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the enemies of New Germany. If you open.” It was also accompanied by two crudely hand drawn skull-and-crossbones and a swastika. Nine days later, four men with German accents forced Geer into a car and kicked and beat him. They particularly objected, so they said, to a scene in the play that Geer just directed in which a character tore Hitler’s picture off the wall. They then dumped Geer half-conscious in the hills above Vine Street. He painfully and slowly made his way to Hollywood Receiving Hospital where he was treated for severe bruises of the head, chest, and back.3

1935–1936 If This Be Treason, by John Haynes Holmes and Reginald Lawrence. Directed by Harry Wagstaff Gribble and produced by the Theatre Guild. With McKay Morris, Arthur Hughes, and George Hiroshe. Opened 23 Sept. 1935, closed 26 Oct. 1935 (forty perf.). A new U.S. president is forced into war with Japan. See pp. 24–25. A Woman of Destiny, by Samuel Jesse Warshawsky. Directed by Edward Vail and produced by the Federal Theatre Project. With Alexandra Carlisle, Robert Harrison, and Frank Verigun. Opened 2 Mar. 1936, closed 1 Apr. 1936 (thirty-five perf.). An antiwar woman vice president inherits a war with Japan when the president suddenly dies. See pp. 25–26. Idiot’s Delight, by Robert E. Sherwood. Directed by Bretaigne Windust and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Sydney Greenstreet, and Richard Whorf. Opened 24 Mar. 1936, closed 30 Jan. 1937 (300 perf.). Travelers from various countries are forced to stay at a hotel in the Italian Alps because war is about to start. See pp. 26–29. Idiot’s Delight was named one of the Best Plays for the 1936–37 season by Burns Mantle and also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show was a success in London, where it ran 3 Mar.–3 Dec. 1938 (277 perf.), with Raymond Massey as Van, who was replaced in October by Lee Tracy. It was also made into a film in 1939 with Clark Gable, Norma Shearer, Edward Arnold, and Charles Coburn. Bitter Stream, by Victor Wolfson. Based on Fontamara, by Ignazio Silone. Directed by Jacob Ben-Ami and Charles Friedman and produced by the Theatre Union. With Albert Van Dekker, Frances Bavier, and 188

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Lee J. Cobb. Opened 30 Mar. 1936, closed May 1936 (sixty-one perf.). Berardo, the owner of small Italian farm, joins with other farmers to protest Il Duce’s order, which allows large farm owners to co-opt small farms and take their water. After being thrown in jail for protesting, Berardo is convinced to confess himself an agent of the underground to help the revolution. He agrees, even though he knows it will lead to his execution. Brooks Atkinson wrote: “The full news of ‘Bitter Stream’ must include the fact that government by terror is an absorbing topic. It can never happen here, they say ironically. ‘Bitter Stream’ [. . .] gives you a notion of what fascism is like when you live in the midst of it.”4 Prelude, by J. Edward Shugrue and John O’Shaughnessy. Directed by Worthington Miner and Walter Hart and produced by Alexander Yokel. With Robert Thomsen, Frank Tweddell, and Will Geer. Opened 18 Apr. 1936, closed 11 July 1936 (ninety-seven perf.). Three soldiers who were badly injured in World War I (one blind, one with no legs, and one with one arm) talk about their awful experiences at the front. In the background a radio plays patriotic music and broadcasts speeches of politicians calling for another war. This one-act play was the curtain raiser for Bury the Dead. Bury the Dead, by Irwin Shaw. Directed by Worthington Miner and Walter Hart and produced by Alexander Yokel. With John O’Shaughnessy, Robert Williams, and Robert Porterfield. Opened 18 Apr. 1936, closed 11 July 1936 (ninety-seven perf.). An antiwar play. See pp. 13–14. Snickering Horses, by Emjo Basshe. Directed by Maurice Clark and produced by the Federal Theatre Project. With Muni Diamond and Harry Golson. Opened 13 May 1936 and closed later that month (three perf.). In this one-act play a man is convinced to serve in the army in place of the owner of a meatpacking plant. The soldier loses both his arms at the front, and the meatpacking owner buys him artificial arms. All the while people sing patriotic songs, condemn slackers, and raise money for the war.

1936–1937 Ten Million Ghosts, by Sidney Kingsley. Directed and produced by Sidney Kingsley. With Orson Welles, Barbara O’Neil, and George 189

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Coulouris. Opened 23 Oct. 1936, closed 31 Oct. 1936 (eleven perf.). Madeleine De Kruif, the daughter of the owner of the largest munitions factory in France, falls in love with Andre, a poet, who becomes a flier during World War I. When Andre discovers that aviators on both sides are ordered to avoid bombing some munitions factories because De Kruif has a financial interest in them, he does a private bombing run to draw attention to this conspiracy. After he dies, Madeleine marries the world’s leading munitions salesman. The production drew attention to the connections between the play’s subject matter and the real makers of munitions, such as Basil Zaharoff and the Krupps, including information in the program and a screen that showed war headlines between scenes. It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis and John C. Moffitt. Directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by the Federal Theatre Project. With Seth Arnold, Helen Morrow, and John Adair. Opened 26 Oct. 1936, closed 1 Jan. 1937 (ninety-five perf.). Imagines a fascist takeover of the United States. See p. 17. Burns Mantle called it “the outstanding achievement of the Federal WPA theatre season.”5 Eighteen units of the Federal Theatre opened twenty-one productions of the play on the same day. MGM bought the play and planned to make a movie of it starring Lionel Barrymore, but pressure was put on the studio and the project was scuttled. Johnny Johnson, by Paul Green, with music by Kurt Weill. Directed by Lee Strasberg and produced by the Group Theatre. With Russell Collins, Luther Adler, Roman Bohnen, Morris Carnovsky, Lee J. Cobb, Jules ( John) Garfield, and Elia Kazan. Opened 19 Nov. 1936, closed 16 Jan. 1937 (sixty-eight perf.). Songs included “Democracy’s Call,” “Song of the Guns,” and “Hymn to Peace.” A naive pacifist goes off to fight in World War I. See p. 30. Red Harvest, by Walter Charles Roberts. Directed by Antoinette Perry and produced by Brock Pemberton. With Leona Powers, Frederic Tozere, and Carl Benton Reid. Opened 30 Mar. 1937, closed 10 Apr. 1937 (fifteen perf.). The Battle of Château-Thierry is presented through the eyes of a Red Cross nurse at the front who has to deal with patients with terrible injuries, hysterical nurses, and bungling officers, as well as a brilliant surgeon who has to learn to become a good battlefield doctor. 190

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Professor Mamlock, by Friedrich Wolf, translated from the German by Anne Bromberger. Directed by Harold Bolton and produced by the Jewish Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project. With Morris Strassberg, Edith Angold, and Frances Beck. Opened 13 Apr. 1937, closed 10 July 1938 (seventy-six perf.). Mamlock, a Jewish-German surgeon and World War I veteran, is persecuted by the Nazis. When they take his clinic away from him, he kills himself rather than fight back. See pp. 17–19.

1937–1938 To Quito and Back, by Ben Hecht. Directed by Philip Moeller and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Sylvia Sidney, Leslie Banks, and Joseph Buloff. Opened 6 Oct. 1937, closed 1 Dec. 1937 (forty-six perf.). In this comedy-drama an American novelist leaves his wife, goes to Ecuador with another woman, and supports a communist revolution. He eventually sacrifices himself on behalf of the communists as fascists take over the country. See pp. 55–56. I’d Rather Be Right, by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Directed by George S. Kaufman and produced by Sam H. Harris. With George M. Cohan, Taylor Holmes, Joy Hodges, and Austin Marshall. Opened 2 Nov. 1937, closed 9 July 1938 (290 perf.). Cohan returned to Broadway as a singing and dancing President Roosevelt. A young couple decide not to marry until the president balances the budget. Most of this musical comedy is the young woman’s dream—Roosevelt, his cabinet, and the Supreme Court all appear in Central Park during a Fourth of July concert to debate various issues, including unemployment and taxes. There are only oblique references to overseas conditions. One number from the show, “Off the Record,” was performed by James Cagney as Cohan in the film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), the lyrics having been rewritten to reflect the nation at war. The Ghost of Yankee Doodle, by Sidney Howard. Directed by John Cromwell and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Ethel Barrymore, Dudley Digges, Richard Carlson, and Frank Conroy. Opened 22 Nov. 1937, closed 1 Jan. 1938 (forty-eight perf.). A liberal family must choose between its principles and economic solvency when the 191

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world goes to war. See pp. 29–32. The production was well received for its “serious and sane discussion of timely problems,” as Burns Mantle noted, but “we as a people have been so eternally fed up with discussions of serious problems the last several years it is not easy to find satisfying entertainment in them any longer,” even with Ethel Barrymore in the lead.6 Pins and Needles, by Arthur Arent, Marc Blitzstein, Emanuel Eisenberg, David Gregory, Joseph Schrank, Arnold B. Horwitt, John La Touche, and Harold Rome, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome. Directed by Charles Friedman and produced by the Labor Stage for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. With Millie Weitz, Al Eben, and Sam Dratch. Opened 27 Nov. 1937, closed 22 June 1940 (1,108 perf.). A surprise hit, this pro-union, antifascist musical revue starring union workers was so popular that it ran for over two and a half years, eventually being renamed Pins and Needles 1939 and Pins and Needles 1940. See pp. 15–16. The revue was performed for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House in 1938. Hooray for What!, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.  Y. Harburg. Directed by Howard Lindsay and Vincente Minnelli, and produced by Lee and J. J. Shubert. With Ed Wynn, Robert Shafer, and Vivian Vance. Opened 1 Dec. 1937, closed 21 May 1938 (200 perf.). The popular comedian Ed Wynn played a horticulturist who invents a gas that kills insects and, to his surprise, humans. Delegates of the League of Nations pursue him because they want to use it for the next war. He escapes their clutches and saves the world. Songs include “Moanin’ in the Mornin,’ ” sung by Stephanie Stephanovich (Vance) and the Singing Spies. Siege, by Irwin Shaw. Directed by Chester Erskine and produced by Norman Bel Geddes. With Sheldon Leonard, Rose Hobart, and William Edmunds. Opened 8 Dec. 1937, closed 11 Dec. 1937 (six perf.). Spanish Loyalists are trapped in an ancient fort at the end of the Spanish civil war. Guiterra, a bullfighter, steals Teresa, the wife of Diaz, a pacifist, and later loses a leg when he leaves the compound to get food. When he becomes a coward and urges surrender, Diaz takes charge, shoots Guiterra, and leads a final assault. Censored, by Conrad Seiler and Max Marcin. Directed by Max Marcin and produced by A.  H. Woods, Ltd. With Frank Lovejoy, Percy 192

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Kilbride, Marian Shockley, and Carolyne Norton. Opened 26 Feb. 1938, closed 5 Mar. 1938 (nine perf.). A gangster produces a war play in order to “invest” his profits, but it’s raided by the police because it shows too much sex in back of the battle lines in France. A judge orders the play rewritten by a lady reformer, who ruins it. Reunion, by Ambrose Elwell Jr. Directed by Freeman Hammond and produced by Kenneth W. Robinson and Norman H. White Jr. With Andrew J. Fox Jr., Robert J. Lance, and Cleda Hallett. Opened and closed 11 Apr. 1938 (one perf.). A Harvard graduate, depressed because his wife has just died, visits Germany and is hired by the Nazis to perfect a poison gas. He eventually realizes that what he is doing is wrong, leaves Germany, and falls in love with the widow of one of his best friends at a college reunion. Escape This Night, by Robert Steiner and Harry Horner. Directed by Robert Steiner and produced by Robinson Smith. With Arnold Korff, Ellen Hall, Walter Coy, and Hume Cronyn. Opened 22 Apr. 1938, closed 30 Apr. 1938 (eleven perf.). A refugee author, who has damaging information about his country’s ruler, and his wife escape to the United States from a fascist country and are pursued to the New York Public Library. Fascist thugs shoot his wife and capture him, but he’s freed with the help of the police and a football player. There are some similarities to the film Quiet Please, Murder (1942), also set in the New York Public Library.

1938–1939 Kiss the Boys Good-bye, by Clare Boothe. Directed by Antoinette Perry and produced by Brock Pemberton. With John Alexander, Benay Venuta, Sheldon Leonard, Hugh Marlowe, Helen Claire, and Millard Mitchell. Opened 28 Sept. 1938, closed 20 May 1939 (286 perf.). A movie director chooses a southern belle for the lead in the film Kiss the Boys Good-bye and invites her to a weekend party to meet the producer, hoping it will become clear she has no talent so that his lover will be cast instead. This comedy mocked David O. Selznick’s nationwide search for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind and has little connection to world events except for references to the Ku Klux Klan, which the southern belle’s senator father belongs 193

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to, as the American version of fascism. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1938–39 season by Burns Mantle and turned into a film musical in 1941 with Don Ameche, Mary Martin, and Oscar Levant. Waltz in Goose Step, by Oliver H. P. Garrett. Directed by Arthur Hopkins and produced by Julien Chaqueneau. With Leo Chalzel, John Boruff, and Marjorie Dalton. Opened 1 Nov. 1938, closed 5 Nov. 1938 (seven perf.). A critical examination of Nazi anti-Semitism. Wertheim notes, “It goes further than any other American play of the 1930s in detailing the oppression of Jews by the Third Reich.”7 Leave It to Me!, by Bella and Sam Spewack, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Directed by Sam Spewack and produced by Vinton Freedley. With William Gaxton, Victor Moore, Sophie Tucker, Tamara, and Mary Martin. Opened 9 Nov. 1938, closed 15 July 1939 (291 perf.). Reopened 4 Sept. 1939, closed 16 Sept. 1939 (sixteen perf.). In this high-spirited musical comedy, Victor Moore becomes the unwilling ambassador to Russia. See pp. 75–76. Songs include “How Do You Spell Ambassador?,” “I’m Taking the Steps to Russia,” “From the U.S.A. to the U.S.S.R.,” and “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” which made Mary Martin a star and was later sung by her in the 1940 film Love Thy Neighbor. Good Hunting, by Nathanael West and Joseph Schrank. Directed by Jerome Mayer and produced by Jerome Mayer and Leonard Field. With Aubrey Mather, Estelle Winwood, Horace Sinclair, and George Tobias. Opened 21 Nov. 1938, closed 30 Nov. 1938 (two perf.). In this satire set during World War I, a British general wants the war to be run nicely, with no shoptalk before breakfast, and no firing of guns too early in the day. Glorious Morning, by Norman Macowan. Directed by Oscar Hammerstein II and produced by Oscar Hammerstein II and Michael Hillman. With Jeanne Dante, Lee Baker, and Frederic Tozere. Opened 26 Nov. 1938, closed 3 Dec. 1938 (nine perf.). After a young woman hears voices telling her that the government of her country should not deny God, she and her grandfather take this message to the people. Soldiers execute them and one hundred other Christians in a public square. This play was a big success in London, where it opened 26 May 1938, closed 4 Mar. 1939 (324 perf.). 194

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Lorelei, by Jacques Deval. Directed by Jacques Deval and produced by Richard Aldrich and Dennis King. With Philip Merivale, Doris Nolan, Dennis Hoey, Viola Roche, and Arnold Korff. Opened 29 Nov. 1938, closed 3 Dec. 1938 (seven perf.). A Nobel Prize–winning scientist escapes from and is lured back to Germany. See pp. 37–38. American Landscape, by Elmer Rice. Directed by Elmer Rice and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With Charles Waldron, Charles Dingle, Isobel Elsom, and George Macready. Opened 3 Dec. 1938, closed 7 Jan. 1939 (forty-three perf.). The members of an old New England family must face contemporary economic, social, and political realities. See pp. 53–54. The Gentle People, by Irwin Shaw. Directed by Harold Clurman and produced by the Group Theatre. With Franchot Tone, Roman Bohnen, Sam Jaffe, Sylvia Sidney, Lee J. Cobb, Elia Kazan, Karl Malden, and Martin Ritt. Opened 5 Jan. 1939, closed 6 May 1939 (141 perf.). Two fishermen are terrorized by a gangster. See pp. 50–52. Audiences admired the way that the gentle people of the title stood up to their oppressor, seeing it as analogous to the European situation. Made into the film Out of the Fog (1941) with Thomas Mitchell and John Qualen as the fishermen, John Garfield as the gangster, and Ida Lupino. The American Way, by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, with music by Oscar Levant. Directed by George S. Kaufman and produced by Sam H. Harris and Max Gordon. With Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, McKay Morris, and Ruth Weston. Opened 21 Jan. 1939, closed 10 June 1939 (164 perf.). Reopened 17 July 1939, closed 23 Sept. 1939 (eighty perf.), for a total of 244 performances. A German immigrant achieves success in the United States and dies defending it. See pp. 49–50. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1938–39 season by Burns Mantle. Close Quarters, by Gilbert Lennox. Adapted from Attentat, by W.  O. Somin. Directed by Leo Bulgakov and produced by Ann Seranne and Edmund L. Anderson. With Leo Chalzel and Elena Miramova. Opened 6 Mar. 1939, closed 31 Mar. 1939 (eight perf.). A tense, twocharacter play about a couple who suspect each other of the murder of the minister of the interior. When the wife confesses that she killed the minister because he seduced her and blackmailed her into reporting on her husband’s political activities, they kill themselves 195

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rather than face arrest. Opened in London 17 July 1935, closed 5 Oct. 1935 (ninety-three perf.). Carl Theodor Dreyer directed a film version, Två människor (Two People), in Sweden in 1945, when he lived there in exile from the Nazis. He disowned the final version after the premiere was badly received and had it withdrawn from distribution. First American Dictator, by Jor Marcy (Nathan Sherman) and Jacob A. Weiser. Directed by Humphrey Davis and produced by George Lewis. With Conrad Noles, John Culbertson, and Humphrey Davis. Opened 14 Mar. 1939, closed 31 Mar. 1939 (nine perf.). A play about Huey Long that charts his rise in Louisiana politics, his fight against impeachment while governor, his election as U.S. senator, and his eventual assassination. Tell My Story, by Richard Rohman. Directed by Marcel Strauss and produced by the Freeman Theatre Group. With Gordon Nelson, Robert H. Harris, and Lee Hillery. Opened and closed 15 Mar. 1939 (one perf.). A thinly disguised retelling of the story of Giacomo Matteotti, a socialist politician in Italy, who published a book denouncing fascism and fascist leaders, including Mussolini, and was later assassinated. Five men, including a member of the fascist secret police, were arrested for the murder, but the only three who were convicted were given amnesty by King Victor Emmanuel III. See p. 37. The Flashing Stream, by Charles Morgan. Directed by Peter Cresswell and produced by Victor Payne-Jennings. With Godfrey Tearle, Margaret Rawlings, Leo Genn, Anthony Ireland, and Felix Aylmer. Opened 10 Apr. 1939, closed 15 Apr. 1939 (eight perf.). Commander Edward Ferrers, a British navy mathematician, works on a secret formula for aerial torpedoes. When a close friend of his is killed in an unsuccessful test, his friend’s sister, a brilliant mathematician, replaces her brother and falls in love with Ferrers. She also helps discover the error that led to the unsuccessful tests. The show was produced successfully in London and most of the cast transferred to Broadway. It opened in London 1 Sept. 1938, closed 25 Feb. 1939 (201 perf.). No Time for Comedy, by S. N. Behrman. Directed by Guthrie McClintic and produced by Katharine Cornell and the Playwrights’ Company. With Katharine Cornell, Laurence Olivier, Margalo Gillmore, and John Williams. Opened 17 Apr. 1939, closed 30 Sept. 1939 (185 196

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perf.). A successful playwright decides that he no longer wants to write comedies for his actress-wife to star in because of the depressing state of the world. See pp. 62–63. The show was very successful in London, where it opened 27 Mar. 1941, closed 24 Jan. 1942 (348 perf.). It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1938–39 season by Burns Mantle and made into a movie in 1940 with James Stewart, Rosalind Russell, Genevieve Tobin, and Charles Ruggles. The Mother, by Karel Čapek, trans. by Miles Malleson and Paul Selver. Directed by Miles Malleson and produced by Victor Payne-Jennings and Kathleen Robinson. With Alla Nazimova, Reginald Bach, and Montgomery Clift. Opened 25 Apr. 1939, closed 27 Apr. 1939 (four perf.). A mother loses her sons to war. See pp. 33–35. This show was first produced in London, where it opened 2 Mar. 1939 and closed 29 Apr. 1939 (sixty-seven perf.). The Brown Danube, by Burnet Hershey. Directed by George Somnes and produced by Bonfils & Somnes. With Ernest Lawford, Jessie Royce Landis, Dean Jagger, and Eduard Franz. Opened 17 May 1939, closed 1 June 1939 (twenty-one perf.). A prince tries to escape Austria with his family, but they are caught by the Nazis and sent back to Vienna. The Nazi commander agrees to free the prince’s son if he can marry the prince’s daughter. Eventually the prince finds out that the commander’s mother was Jewish, and they are allowed to escape.

1939–1940 Yokel Boy, by Lew Brown, with music and lyrics by Lew Brown, Charles Tobias, and Sam H. Stept. Directed and produced by Lew Brown. With Buddy Ebsen, Judy Canova, Dixie Dunbar, and Phil Silvers. Opened 6 July 1939, closed 6 Jan. 1940 (208 perf.). Minor musical about a star-struck girl who goes to Hollywood and is followed by her boyfriend, who makes good as a dancing movie star. The only major connection to World War II is the first-act finale, “Uncle Sam’s Lullaby.” A movie of the same name, but with only a slight connection to the musical, was produced in 1942 with Albert Dekker, Joan Davis, and Eddie Foy Jr. Journey’s End, by R. C. Sherriff. Directed and produced by Leonard Sillman. With Colin Keith-Johnston, Reginald Mason, Victor Beecroft, 197

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Jack Merivale, and Hugh Rennie. Opened 18 Sept. 1939, closed 30 Sept. 1939 (sixteen perf.). A young British officer is ordered to the front lines, where he is killed shortly after his arrival. This drama was very successful when originally produced in London in 1928, running for two years. The original New York production opened 22 Mar. 1929 and closed 17 May 1930 (485 perf.). Margin for Error, by Clare Boothe. Directed by Otto Preminger and produced by Richard Aldrich and Richard Myers. With Otto Preminger, Sam Levene, and Bramwell Fletcher. Opened 3 Nov. 1939, closed 15 June 1940 (264 perf.). The first financially successful antiNazi play, Margin for Error is a comedic murder mystery set in a German consulate in New York City. See pp. 38–40. Sidney Whipple of the New York World-Telegram called it “the most enjoyable anti-Nazi play that has yet been devised by anyone. [. . .] The propaganda is a Dorothy Thompson column as it might have been written by Robert Benchley.”8 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1939–40 season by Burns Mantle and made into a 1943 film with Milton Berle and Preminger reprising his role as the consul. Thunder Rock, by Robert Ardrey. Directed by Elia Kazan and produced by the Group Theatre. With Luther Adler, Morris Carnovsky, Lee J. Cobb, Frances Farmer, Myron McCormick, and Roman Bohnen. Opened 14 Nov. 1939, closed 2 Dec. 1939 (twenty-three perf.). A disillusioned journalist seeks to escape from contemporary troubles by becoming a lighthouse keeper. See pp. 56–58. Although the play was the first recipient of the Sidney Howard Memorial Award by the Playwrights’ Company, it did not run long on Broadway; it was produced a little more successfully in London, running from 30 July to 9 Sept. 1940 (forty-eight perf.) and from 25 Feb. to 4 May 1941 (forty-six perf.). It was made into a film in Britain in 1942 with Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen, Lilli Palmer, and James Mason. The World We Make, by Sidney Kingsley. Directed and produced by Sidney Kingsley. With Margo, Herbert Rudley, and Tito Vuolo. Opened 20 Nov. 1939, closed 27 Jan. 1940 (eighty perf.). A young woman has a nervous breakdown and is consigned to a sanitarium, from which she escapes and finds love, work, and a purpose in life. She also becomes more aware of world conditions through radio broadcasts and the conversations of neighbors in the building where she lives. 198

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Based on the novel The Outward Room, by Millen Brand, the play received generally positive reviews, especially for Margo as the young woman and Herbert Rudley as her lover, a laundry worker who lets her live in his apartment. Critics praised Harry Horner’s sets, which included a working laundry and a tenement building. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1939–40 season by Burns Mantle. Key Largo, by Maxwell Anderson. Directed by Guthrie McClintic and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With Paul Muni, José Ferrer, Uta Hagen, and Frederic Tozere. Opened 27 Nov. 1939, closed 24 Feb. 1940 (105 perf.). A deserter from the Loyalists in Spain tries to help the family of one of the men he betrayed. See pp. 58–60. Key Largo was well received, especially for Muni’s performance as King McCloud, the disillusioned Loyalist. Some critics found the language too poetic, but in general they agreed with John Mason Brown that Anderson’s theme, that men “can rise superior to physical defeat and death,” was very moving.9 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1939–40 season by Burns Mantle and made into a film in 1948 with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, and Claire Trevor. The movie transforms the protagonist into a cynical and disillusioned World War II veteran who is able to help the family of his dead buddy fight back against gangsters. Foreigners, by Frederick Lonsdale. Directed by Reginald Bach and produced by Lee and J. J. Shubert. With Richard Ainley, Martha Scott, J. Malcolm Dunn, and George Macready. Opened 5 Dec. 1939, closed 9 Dec. 1939 (seven perf.). Bernstey is a Jew traveling on a tropical steamer with men from nine different countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, and Japan. The captain has to disarm the passengers because of all their arguments, so when the steamer is shipwrecked on an island, Bernstey grabs two of the guns and becomes dictator. Although a ship comes to their rescue, Bernstey and the lone female passenger decide to stay on the island. Kindred, by Paul Vincent Carroll. Directed and designed by Robert Edmond Jones and produced by Edward Choate and Arthur Shields. With Aline MacMahon, Wallace Ford, Barry Fitzgerald, and Arthur Shields. Opened 27 Dec. 1939, closed 6 Jan. 1940 (sixteen perf.). As in American Landscape, ghostly ancestors speak, encouraging the 199

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protagonist, an obscure painter, to sire a child to carry out his ideas, that artists rather than politicians should rule the world. The ghostly conversation is in the prologue, at the beginning of World War I, and the rest of the play is in the present; the artist’s son clashes with the politically active son of the woman his father loved but did not marry. Burns Mantle summed up: “The materialists had plunged the world into war for the second time in twenty-five years. It was time for the idealists and the creators of beauty to take over.”10 The Male Animal, by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent. Directed and produced by Herman Shumlin. With Elliott Nugent, Ruth Matteson, Leon Ames, Gene Tierney, and Don DeFore. Opened 9 Jan. 1940, closed 3 Aug. 1940 (243 perf.). University trustees threaten to fire an English professor for teaching a letter written by the anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and a college literary magazine denounces them as fascists for threatening free speech. The issues about academic freedom are only a part of this comedy in which football, drinking, and lovemaking are intertwined. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1939–40 season by Burns Mantle and made into a successful film in 1942 with Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson, and Don DeFore repeating his stage role. Geneva, by George Bernard Shaw. Directed by Maurice Colbourne and produced by Gilbert Miller. With Norah Howard, Barry Jones, Maurice Colbourne, and Jessica Tandy. Opened 30 Jan. 1940, closed 10 Feb. 1940 (fifteen perf.). An allegory in which criminal charges are filed at the court of International Justice in Geneva against various fascist dictators who are thinly disguised versions of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. The complainants include the British foreign secretary, an Anglican bishop, a German Jew, and a commissar of Soviet Russia. The reviews were mixed, although the trial scene in the last act was considered very powerful. It was highly successful in London, where it opened 22 Nov. 1938, closed 17 June 1939 (237 perf.). Because of its topical nature, Shaw sent rewrites to the producer during the show’s tour of Canada to take into account Germany’s invasions of other countries. Reunion in New York, conceived by Lothar Metzl and Werner Michel, with music mostly by André Singer and Werner Michel. Directed by Herbert Berghof and Ezra Stone and produced by the American 200

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Viennese Group. With Lotte Goslar, Vilma Kurer, and Henry Peever. Opened 22 Feb. 1940, closed 4 May 1940 (eighty-nine perf.). This revue is primarily a salute to the Austria that these refugee artists have left behind. The songs are mostly nostalgic, including “Dachau” and “Where Is My Homeland?,” a musical lament for Austria, Bohemia, and Poland. Another Sun, by Dorothy Thompson and Fritz Kortner. Directed by Fritz Kortner and produced by Cheryl Crawford. With Hans Jaray, Celeste Holm, Leo Bulgakov, Kate Warriner, and Herbert Rudley. Opened 23 Feb. 1940, closed 2 Mar. 1940 (eleven perf.). Some European refugees, including an elderly Russian actor, an Italian professor, and a famous married German theater couple, try to earn a living in New York City and are mostly unsuccessful because of their limited knowledge of English. The pregnant wife of an imprisoned German playwright arrives and gives birth after she hears about the death of her husband in a concentration camp. Reviewers seemed to want to like the play more than they did. The Burning Deck, by Andrew Rosenthal. Directed by Robert Milton and produced by Jack Small. With Russell Hardie, Dennis Hoey, Onslow Stevens, and Zita Johann. Opened 1 Mar. 1940, closed 2 Mar. 1940 (three perf.). A group of artists live in a Mediterranean island hotel and argue about art and life for three acts. “To make it all seem intensely up-to-date, the war is going on outside, but it has no very profound effect on the lives of the characters until a couple of deep booms are heard at the end of the next to last scene.”11 The Fifth Column, by Benjamin Glazer, adapted from a published play by Ernest Hemingway. Directed by Lee Strasberg and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Franchot Tone, Lee J. Cobb, Katherine Locke, Lenore Ulric, and Arnold Moss. Opened 6 Mar. 1940, closed 18 May 1940 (eighty-seven perf.). This production had a tempestuous history. Hemingway wrote the play and published it; Glazer rewrote it for the stage. Hemingway was not pleased with the result.12 The basic plot is the same: Philip Rawlings, an American journalist, works for the Loyalists during the Spanish civil war, helps capture some fascists, drinks a lot, and has sex with Dorothy, an American woman living in the same hotel. On Broadway, Dorothy (based on Hemingway’s wife Martha Gelhorn) is searching for her missing brother, who 201

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joined the Lincoln Brigade. When the hotel is bombed, Rawlings tries to provide comfort, but he ends up raping her. Although he feels repentant and wants to marry her, his colleague convinces him to stay and fight. The produced play makes clear why Rawlings is fighting for the Loyalists: “There never has been a fight involving human liberties that wasn’t everybody’s fight.”13 Most critics praised Tone as Rawlings and the realism of the scenes in the bombed-out hotel while complaining about the relationship between Rawlings and Dorothy. Critics compared it to What Price Glory and Key Largo. Richard Watts Jr., who had been in the same hotel in Madrid as Hemingway during the bombing, noted, “Not only has something of a heroic atmosphere been captured by the drama, but [also] something of the importance of a struggle, which, had it turned out differently, might conceivably have kept the present war from Europe’s doors.”14 In 2008 the Mint Theater in New York produced the play as Hemingway had intended it, to good reviews. A Passenger to Bali, by Ellis St. Joseph. Directed by John Huston and produced by Montgomery Ford. With Walter Huston, Colin KeithJohnston, William Harrigan, and Victor Beecroft. Opened 14 Mar. 1940, closed 16 Mar. 1940 (four perf.). Huston starred as the Rev. Mr. Walkes, a mysterious missionary who is “a dictator in search of a country.”15 Once he becomes a passenger on the tramp steamer Roundabout in Shanghai, he cannot debark because, owing to his notoriety, no country will accept him. He incites the men to destructive behavior and drunkenness and is shot by Captain English, who orders the ship abandoned, leaving Walkes on board. Critics praised Huston as the evil Walkes but found his allegorical nature confusing. One-Act Variety Theatre, 3 one-acts. “The Devil Is a Good Man,” by William Kozlenko. Directed by Stephen Moore and produced by Eugene Endrey. With Don Appell, Richard Barr, and Elaine Melchior. Opened 19 Mar. 1940, closed 24 Apr. 1940 (thirty-eight perf.). The third oneact was the only one with a World War II connection, as the Devil’s son goes to Earth, meets Hitler, and is arrested as a pickpocket. An International Incident, by Vincent Sheean. Directed and produced by Guthrie McClintic. With Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith, Josephine Hull, and Arthur Kennedy. Opened 2 Apr. 1940, closed 13 Apr. 1940 (fifteen perf.). An American novelist, who has been living abroad, 202

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returns to the United States to lecture in praise of England. A newspaperman takes her to a strike in Detroit, where she is hit by a policeman, an incident that helps her “understand America’s desire to keep out of Europe’s troubles.”16 This mild social comedy, by the first-time playwright and internationally known foreign correspondent Sheean, starred Barrymore, who was universally loved by the critics, but reviewers found the play disappointing; Sidney Whipple noted that Sheean strove “valiantly and without appreciable success to deliver a Message to America through his comedy.”17 There Shall Be No Night, by Robert E. Sherwood. Directed by Alfred Lunt and produced by the Playwrights’ Company and the Theatre Guild. With Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Richard Whorf, Sydney Greenstreet, Montgomery Clift, Elisabeth Fraser, and Thomas Gomez. Opened 29 Apr. 1940, closed 9 Aug. 1940 (115 perf.); reopened 9 Sept. 1940, closed 2 Nov. 1940 (sixty-six perf.), for a total of 181 performances. This well-received drama about the Russian invasion of Finland was called by Richard Watts Jr. “the first play of the second World War.”18 “In writing of the destruction by the Russians of a cultivated Finnish home, and in describing how a distinguished man of science, a Nobel Prize winner, loses his son, his charming New England wife, and his own life, after having been forced to abandon reason for a gun, . . . [Sherwood] has succeeded as no other dramatist heard from in this country has succeeded in dealing with the topical alarms and abiding implications of Europe’s fever chart.”19 Lunt received great praise as a doctor who has been seeking a cure for mental illness and sees the invasions of small countries as a sort of international mental illness. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, this play was rewritten as the Nazi invasion of Greece. There Shall Be No Night won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for 1940–41 and was named one of the Best Plays for the 1939–40 season by Burns Mantle. The Lunts starred in it in London, where it opened 15 Dec. 1943, closed 1 July 1944 (226 perf.).

1940–1941 Panama Hattie, by Herbert Fields and B. G. DeSylva, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Directed by Edgar MacGregor and produced 203

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by B. G. DeSylva. With Ethel Merman, James Dunn, Betty Hutton, Rags Ragland, Pat Harrington, Joan Carroll, and Arthur Treacher. Opened 30 Oct. 1940, closed 3 Jan. 1942 (501 perf.). This popular musical had a secondary plot about fifth columnists planning to blow up the Panama Canal. Their plans are foiled by Merman, a nightclub entertainer, and her pals from the navy. Notable songs include “Let’s Be Buddies” and “Make It Another Old-Fashioned, Please.” Made into a not very successful movie in 1942 with Ann Sothern, Red Skelton, Rags Ragland reprising his stage role, and some of the Cole Porter music. Delicate Story, by Ferenc Molnár, translated by Gilbert Miller. Directed by Gilbert Miller and produced by Gilbert Miller and Vinton Freedley. With Edna Best, John Craven, and Jay Fassett. Opened 4 Dec. 1940, closed 28 Dec. 1940 (twenty-nine perf.). A middle-aged married Swiss woman shows kindness in the form of free food to a young soldier who is taking his meals in the delicatessen that she and her husband own. She decides she’s in love with him, after learning he’s about to be deployed. She confesses her indiscretion to her tolerant husband and the soldier goes off to war. Critics praised Edna Best as the wife and thought the play charming but slight. Meet the People, by Ben Barzman, Sol Barzman, Mortimer Offner, Edward Eliscu, and others, with music by Jay Gorney and lyrics by Henry Myers and Edward Eliscu. Directed by Danny Dare and Mortimer Offner and produced by the Hollywood Theatre Alliance. With Jack Gilford, Doodles Weaver, Nanette Fabares (Fabray), Peggy Ryan, and Jack Albertson. Opened 25 Dec. 1940, closed 10 May 1941 (160 perf.). A revue from the West Coast on topical issues that included some references to current events, including Weaver impersonating President Roosevelt. Songs included “The Bill of Rights” and “American Plan.” A 1944 film borrowed only the title; it featured Lucille Ball as a former star trying to make a comeback by working in a war factory and performing during breaks. Flight to the West, by Elmer Rice. Directed by Elmer Rice and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With Betty Field, Arnold Moss, Paul Hernried (Henreid), Hugh Marlowe, Karl Malden, and Kevin McCarthy. Opened 30 Dec. 1940, closed 26 Apr. 1941 (136 perf.). Refugees, diplomats, businessmen, and spies are passengers on a 204

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Pan-American transatlantic clipper between Lisbon and New York. See pp. 60–62. The excellent performances, especially Hernried as the Nazi diplomat, made it a success. Sidney Whipple commented on its topicality, “compounded out of the writings of Dorothy Thompson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and William Allen White on the one hand and the Apocalypse of the Third Reich, Mein Kampf, on the other.”20 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1940–41 season by Burns Mantle. Tanyard Street, by Louis D’Alton. Directed by Arthur Shields and produced by Jack Kirkland. With Arthur Shields, Barry Fitzgerald, Margo, and Lloyd Gough. Opened 4 Feb. 1941, closed 23 Feb. 1941 (twenty-three perf.). An Irish idealist, who fought for Franco in Spain, returns home with both legs paralyzed. After he dreams that the Madonna tells him he’ll be cured, he wakes up able to walk and decides to become a priest, although his wife has to promise that she will be celibate in order for the church to accept him. This dour play was enlivened by Barry Fitzgerald as a hypochondriac. Liberty Jones, by Philip Barry, with music by Paul Bowles. Directed by John Houseman and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Nancy Coleman, John Beal, Martha Hodge, Tom Ewell, William Lynn, and Howard Freeman. Opened 5 Feb. 1941, closed 22 Feb. 1941 (twentytwo perf.). A fantastic allegory about the young and beautiful Liberty Jones, who is dying despite the luxurious care provided by her Uncle Sam. Drs. Education, Letters, Divinity, and Law are ineffectual and cannot help her. She is menaced by the unholy trinity of the Three Shirts from abroad (the Brown Shirt, the Black Shirt, and the Red Shirt), who claim they want to protect her but actually want to kidnap her. Commander Tom Smith, a young American hero, comes to her rescue and marries her. Smith and his pals Dick and Harry first try to appease the Shirts, then fight and kill them. Tom dies in the effort, but Liberty is now a strong woman with Dick and Harry by her side. Critics and audiences thought the spectacle of the play fascinating, and the settings and costumes by Raoul Pene du Bois exquisite, but they found the overall effect somewhat muddled. Louis Kronenberger noted: “I think it’s a fine idea to say ‘Go blast Fascism to hell and not back.’ [. . .] This isn’t the time to sugarcoat the bitterest pill our country has ever had to swallow.”21 205

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The Talley Method, by S. N. Behrman. Directed by Elmer Rice and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With Ina Claire, Philip Merivale, Ernst Deutsch, Claire Niesen, and Dean Harens. Opened 24 Feb. 1941, closed 12 Apr. 1941 (fifty-six perf.). Dr. Talley, a widowed surgeon, wants to control his life as he does his surgery. In this, as Louis Kronenberger pointed out, “he is meant to suggest the kind of mind that fosters the Fascist spirit.”22 His fiancée, Enid, becomes aware that his children resent him; his daughter is looking for meaning in the American Youth Congress and falling in love with an older refugee who kills himself because of wartime experiences. Enid leaves Dr. Talley and takes in his daughter, telling him that he will need to have a change of heart before they can reconnect. The critics admired Behrman’s literate writing; Richard Lockridge wrote that The Talley Method “may prove that Mr. Behrman has finally decided that this is, indeed no time for comedy.”23 The Trojan Women, by Euripides, translated by Gilbert Murray, prologue by Robert Turney, with music by Lehman Engel. Directed by Margaret Webster and produced by the Experimental Theatre. With Margaret Webster, Dame May Whitty, Walter Slezak, and Cameron Mitchell. Opened 15 Mar. 1941 for a limited run. The prologue linked the destruction of Troy by the Greeks to that of Rotterdam by the Nazis. My Fair Ladies, by Arthur L. Jarrett and Marcel Klauber. Directed by Albert Lewis and produced by Albert Lewis and Max Siegel. With Celeste Holm, Betty Furness, Herbert Yost, Russell Hardie, and Mary Sargent. Opened 23 Mar. 1941, closed 19 Apr. 1941 (thirtytwo perf.). Two American chorus girls, traveling under false passports, pretend to be titled British refugees who are pregnant war widows. They get invited to a house party in a New York suburb. Watch on the Rhine, by Lillian Hellman. Directed and produced by Herman Shumlin. With Lucile Watson, Paul Lukas, Mady Christians, George Coulouris, Anne (Ann) Blyth, and Eric Roberts. Opened 1 Apr. 1941, closed 21 Feb. 1942 (378 perf.). A privileged American family learns that Americans can’t stay isolated from world affairs. See pp. 40–44. The reviews were excellent and offered special praise for Paul Lukas as Kurt. Louis Kronenberger spoke for many critics when he said: “Watch on the Rhine is the real anti-Nazi play of our 206

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times—the play we have wanted, the play we have needed. It is an anti-Nazi play which differs from all the others as completely as it transcends them. It is a play about human beings, not their ideological ghosts; a play dedicated to the deeds they are called upon to perform, not the words they are moved to utter.”24 The play received the Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play of 1941 and was named one of the Best Plays for the 1940–41 season by Burns Mantle. It was produced successfully in London, where it opened 22 Apr. 1942, closed 4 Dec. 1943 (673 perf.), and was directed by Emlyn Williams. Bette Davis starred in the 1943 film with Paul Lukas, George Coulouris, Lucile Watson, and Eric Roberts re-creating their stage roles. The film was nominated for Outstanding Motion Picture, losing to Casablanca, and Lukas won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

1941–1942 The Wookey, by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan. Directed by Robert Sinclair and produced by Edgar Selwyn. With Edmund Gwenn, Carol Goodner, and Heather Angel. Opened 10 Sept. 1941, closed 3 Jan. 1942 (134 perf.). A London tugboat captain’s family suffers under the Blitz. See pp. 66–68. Richard Lockridge noted that the playwright “makes you feel some of the terror and gallantry which mingled a year ago this month in London’s ordeal by bomb.”25 Cuckoos on the Hearth, by Parker W. Fennelly. Directed by Antoinette Perry and produced by Brock Pemberton. With Margaret Callahan, Carleton Young, and Percy Kilbride. Opened 16 Sept. 1941, closed 3 Jan. 1942 (129 perf.). During a blizzard, a scientist is summoned to Washington, leaving his wife alone on an isolated Maine farm with a dim-witted cousin and an eccentric novelist, a character based on Alexander Woollcott. Three men, who turn out to be German spies, ask for refuge as an excuse to search for the scientist’s secret knockout gas formula. This comedy featured two second acts, in the first of which the wife is killed by a woman who quotes Omar Khayyam and has escaped from a prison for the criminally insane. At the end of this act, it’s explained that the novelist imagined this, and that theatergoers needed to return to see what really happened. The “real” 207

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Appendix

story is that the scientist comes home, helps the deputy sheriff capture the spies, and gives them the experimental gas, which puts them to sleep. A state trooper then exposes the “sheriff ” as a psychotic strangler. All the critics praised Kilbride as the slow-talking down east sheriff (and eventual killer), but otherwise this comedy–murder mystery received mixed reviews. Good Neighbor, by Jack Levin. Directed by Sinclair Lewis and produced by Sam Byrd. Opened and closed 21 Oct. 1941 (one perf.). With Anna Appel, Albert Vees, Edna Mae Harris, Sam Byrd, and Marcella Powers. Hannah Baron, a Jewish store owner, helps out the unfortunate in her neighborhood, giving them money sent to her by her sailor son. When he returns home and wants the money to get married, Hannah realizes she could get a reward by turning in a German boy who has supposedly committed murder. Instead she hides the boy in her store, and when a local vigilante group comes to lynch him, claiming he’s a Nazi, she stands up to them. Although they shoot her, the boy is saved, and her son gets money from her life insurance policy. The critics acknowledged that the author may have meant well, but he couldn’t write. Lewis stopped work on a novel to direct the play (he also invested $25,000 in it), and John Mason Brown quipped, “Please, Mr. Lewis, go back and finish that novel of yours.”26 Candle in the Wind, by Maxwell Anderson. Directed by Alfred Lunt and produced by the Theatre Guild and the Playwrights’ Company. With Helen Hayes, Louis Borrell, John Wengraf, Evelyn Varden, and Lotte Lenya. Opened 22 Oct. 1941, closed 10 Jan. 1942 (ninety-five perf.). An American actress in occupied Paris falls in love with a French naval officer, who is arrested by the Nazis. She bribes a guard to help him escape and faces down the commandant of the German prison camp on the grounds of Versailles. The play received praise for the direction, the settings by Jo Mielziner, and the acting. John Mason Brown remarked, “It is nothing more or less than that good old wartime favorite (choose your war) about how one valiant girl outwits the wicked enemy singlehanded and gets her lover out of a prison and through the lines.”27 The Land Is Bright, by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. Directed by George S. Kaufman and produced by Max Gordon. With Martha 208

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Sleeper, Phyllis Povah, Leon Ames, Arnold Moss, Diana Barrymore, Hugh Marlowe, and Dickie Van Patten. Opened 28 Oct. 1941, closed 2 Jan. 1942 (seventy-nine perf.). This extravagant three-generation saga focused on the Kincaid family between the 1890s and the current day. Lacey Kincaid is a self-made westerner who tries to buy his way into New York society and is killed at the end of the first act by a former partner he has wronged. In the second act, which takes place during Prohibition, his grandchildren feel entitled to their wealth; one granddaughter helps a gangster with his smuggling activities and brings about the death of her brother. The current generation of the third act becomes concerned about world events, especially after one of them is released from a concentration camp. One joins the military, another volunteers to become a dollar-a-year man in Washington, and a third suggests turning the mansion into a clubhouse for servicemen. Let’s Face It!, by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Directed by Edgar MacGregor and produced by Vinton Freedley. With Danny Kaye, Eve Arden, Benny Baker, Mary Jane Walsh, Edith Meiser, Vivian Vance, Sunnie O’Dea, and Nanette Fabray. Opened 29 Oct. 1941, closed 18 July 1942, and reopened 17 Aug. 1942, finally closed 20 Mar. 1943 (547 perf.). Three middleaged women are upset with their philandering husbands and decide to date three soldiers from a local army camp on Long Island, much to the dismay of the men’s girlfriends. See pp. 101–2. This musical comedy, based on the 1925 play The Cradle Snatchers, cemented the stardom of Danny Kaye. Songs include “Let’s Not Talk about Love,” “Farming,” “Jerry, My Soldier Boy,” “Ev’rything I Love,” and “Melody in Four F.” The musical was a big success; even the self-described sourpuss critic John Anderson claimed, “Here is the first thoroughly entertaining new show, with no ifs, ands, or buts attached.”28 The show was also a hit in London, where it opened 19 Nov. 1942, closed 12 June 1943 (349 perf.). A mediocre 1943 film version with Bob Hope and Betty Hutton, and with Eve Arden reprising her Broadway role, removed most of the Cole Porter songs. In the song “Put It There Pal,” in The Road to Utopia, Bing Crosby mocks Hope by reminding him of that film. Kaye performed “Melody in Four F” in the 1944 film Up in Arms. 209

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The Man with Blond Hair, by Norman Krasna. Directed by Norman Krasna and produced by Frank Ross. With Eleanor Lynn, Rex Williams, Dora Weissman, and James Gregory. Opened 4 Nov. 1941, closed 8 Nov. 1941 (seven perf.). An escaped German POW is sheltered by a Jewish woman in a New York City apartment. See pp. 45–47. Burns Mantle lamented the early closure of the play,29 but most reviewers found the quick change of heart of the Nazi hard to believe, comparing it to the similar change of heart of a guard in Candle in the Wind. Brooks Atkinson commented on this implausibility: “What Mr. Krasna seems to be saying is that no Nazi can resist the hospitality and good-will of Americans. [. . .] A little good food and the virtuous simplicity of Jewish life on the East Side undermine his morale. He concludes by asking his captors to help save the Nazis from themselves.”30 The Seventh Trumpet, by Charles Rann Kennedy. Directed by Charles Rann Kennedy and produced by Theater Associates. With Ian Maclaren, Peter Cushing, and Carmen Mathews. Opened 21 Nov. 1941, closed 29 Nov. 1941 (eleven perf.). The Blitz as setting for an allegory. See pp. 69–70. The title comes from the book of Revelation: when the seventh trumpet blows, God’s kingdom is at hand. Critics didn’t know what to make of this five-act static allegory. Louis Kronenberger spoke for most of the critics when he wrote, “However noble in aim, The Seventh Trumpet is utterly appalling in execution.”31 Hope for a Harvest, by Sophie Treadwell. Directed by Lester Vail and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Alan Reed, and Edith King. Opened 26 Nov. 1941, closed 27 Dec. 1941 (thirty-eight perf.). A widow tries to rejuvenate her family’s failing California farm. The play asks “what Americans should do to save not the world but itself.”32 See p. 55. Sons o’ Fun, by Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, and Hal Block, with music and lyrics by Jack Yellen and Sam E. Fain. Directed by Edward Duryea Dowling and Harry Kaufman and produced by the Shubert Brothers. With Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, Carmen Miranda, Ella Logan, and Joe Besser. Opened 1 Dec. 1941, closed 29 Aug. 1943 (742 perf.). This musical revue, a successor to Olsen and Johnson’s Hellzapoppin’, contained ghosts, burlesque gags, G-men, puppets, and lots of audience participation. The sketch “Induction Center” featured the comic Besser as a lisping rookie. Patriotic songs included “Thank You, North 210

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America” and “It’s a Mighty Fine Country We Have Here.” Most reviewers were overwhelmed by all the commotion, several of them noting that on opening night Al Smith, the former governor, was a good sport to be pulled from his seat by a chorine to dance. Golden Wings, by William Jay and Guy Bolton. Directed and produced by Robert Milton. With Lloyd Gough, Gordon Oliver, Fay Wray, and Signe Hasso. Opened 8 Dec. 1941, closed 12 Dec. 1941 (six perf.). Golden Wings unfortunately opened the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Many critics thought it was hard to take this romantic melodrama seriously when the United States was at war. It is set in a British service club, where two pilots feud over a woman. See pp. 70–71. Signe Hasso, as a Swedish flyer, received good reviews, but not enough to help the production. Letters to Lucerne, by Fritz Rotter and Allen Vincent. Directed by John Baird and produced by Dwight Deere Wiman. With Grete Mosheim, Katherine Alexander, Sonya Stokowski, Phyllis Avery, Nancy Wiman, Mary Barthelmess, and Faith Brook. Opened 23 Dec. 1941, closed 10 Jan. 1942 (twenty-three perf.). Schoolgirls in Switzerland are divided when their home countries go to war. See p. 45. Critics praised the performances, especially that of Mosheim, a Berlin refugee, as the young German woman. In an interesting bit of marketing, the other five girls were played by young women whose parents worked in the arts, including Sonya Stokowski, daughter of the conductor, and Mary Barthelmess, daughter of the actor Richard Barthelmess. Richard Watts Jr.’s review is typical: “There is much poignancy in this picture of the innocents of war sharing and carrying on its callous cruelty.”33 Burns Mantle felt that this play suffered from the same fate as The Man with Blond Hair since it “asked sympathy for a representative of the enemy.”34 He named it one of the Best Plays for the 1941–42 season. In Time to Come, by Howard Koch and John Huston. Directed and produced by Otto L. Preminger. With Richard Gaines, William Harrigan, Nedda Harrigan, Russell Collins, and House Jameson. Opened 28 Dec. 1941, closed 31 Jan. 1942 (forty perf.). The screenwriters for the film Sergeant York presented Woodrow Wilson and his attempts to create a lasting peace at the end of World War I. Wilson claims that “the League is the only hope we have to avoid wars in the future,” a sadly ironic statement in view of the recent attack on Pearl 211

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Harbor.35 All the major critics found the material timely, and Wilella Waldorf noted that the play “is designed to call attention to the fact that at the end of this war the world will again be faced with the business of creating a lasting peace. [. . . The play makes] very stimulating dramatic material now that we find ourselves involved in another war to make the world safe for Democracy.”36 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1941–42 season by Burns Mantle. The Lady Comes Across, by Fred Thompson and Dawn Powell, with music by Vernon Duke and lyrics by John La Touche. Directed by Romney Brent and Morrie Ryskind, with choreography by George Balanchine, and produced by George Hale. With Joe E. Lewis, Mischa Auer, Wynn Murray, Ruth Weston, Evelyn Wyckoff, and Gower Champion. Opened 9 Jan. 1942, closed 10 Jan. 1942 (three perf.). A woman dreams she’s been asked by the FBI to become a spy, and when she wakes up, she engages in some real counterespionage in a dress shop, helping find secret papers that are hidden in a girdle. Reviewers praised the performance of Joe E. Lewis, who sang “The H. V. Kaltenborn Blues” and “You Can’t Get the Merchandise” (because of defense priorities), and the dancing of Gower Champion and his partner, Jeanne Tyler, but they disliked the mugging of Mischa Auer and the choreography of George Balanchine, who “has done something special in the way of draining the joy out of musical stage dancing.”37 The Flowers of Virtue, by Marc Connelly. Directed by Marc Connelly and produced by Cheryl Crawford. With Isobel Elsom, Frank Craven, S. Thomas Gomez, and Vladimir Sokoloff. Opened 5 Feb. 1942, closed 7 Feb. 1942 (four perf.). Set in December 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, the play focuses on a dollar-a-year man who has gone to a small Mexican town to recover from a nervous breakdown caused by overwork. He works with the town liberal, an honest electrician, to prevent the power plant from being sabotaged and a fascist general from taking over. Sokoloff ’s performance as the Mexican fascist with a strange fascination for Calvin Coolidge was uniformly praised, although several reviewers found his accent odd. Of “V” We Sing, by Sam Locke, Mel Tolkin, and Al Geto, with songs by many artists. Directed by Perry Bruskin and produced by Alexander H. Cohen. With Phil Leeds, Betty Garrett, and Curt Conway. Opened 11 Feb. 1942, closed 25 Apr. 1942 (seventy-six perf.). This 212

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topical revue, with members of the American Youth Theatre, had some songs related to the war, including “Red, White and Blues,” “Victory Conga,” “Priorities,” “You’ve Got to Appease with a Strip Tease,” and “Of V We Sing.” Heart of a City, by Lesley Storm. Directed and produced by Gilbert Miller. With Gertrude Musgrove, Richard Ainley, Beverly Roberts, Lloyd Gough, and Dennis Hoey. Opened 12 Feb. 1942, closed 7 Mar. 1942 (twenty-eight perf.). The Windmill Theatre holds performances every night despite the Blitz. See pp. 68–69. Several reviewers compared it to The Wookey because it showed the British enduring under German attack. The story of the Windmill was also made into the Hollywood film Tonight and Every Night in 1945, with Rita Hayworth, Janet Blair, and Lee Bowman, and Mrs. Henderson Presents in 2005 with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins. Plan M, by James Edward Grant. Directed by Marion Gering and produced by Richard Aldrich and Richard Myers. With Len Doyle, Lumsden Hare, and Anne Burr. Opened 20 Feb. 1942, closed 23 Feb. 1942 (six perf.). This thriller focuses on a group of Nazis who kill the British chief of staff and replace him with a double to expedite the German invasion. See p. 74. Most of the reviews found the play melodramatic and obvious. Louis Kronenberger wrote, “The British War Office has taken a lot of beatings from all kinds of critics, but until now nobody has considered it so inefficient that three men could turn it upside down in daylight.”38 A Kiss for Cinderella, by James M. Barrie. Directed by Lee Strasberg and produced by Cheryl Crawford and Richard W. Krakauer. With Luise Rainer, Cecil Humphreys, and Ralph Forbes. Opened 10 Mar. 1942, closed 18 Apr. 1942 (forty-eight perf.). In the original 1916 hit production, which starred Maude Adams, a poor Cockney woman, Miss Thing, adopts several war orphans from the slums and dreams that she is Cinderella and that a kind policeman is her prince. The revival is set during the current war, Miss Thing becomes Viennese (because she was played by Rainer), and the war orphans include a Chinese child. The police officer briefly suspects she’s a German spy because of her accent but eventually falls in love with her. Most reviewers thought this production lacked the light touch required for this sentimental Barrie fantasy. 213

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Appendix

The Moon Is Down, by John Steinbeck. Directed by Chester Erskine and produced by Oscar Serlin. With Otto Kruger, Ralph Morgan, Whitford Kane, Leona Powers, Jane Seymour, Russell Collins, E. J. Ballantine, and William Eythe. Opened 7 Apr. 1942, closed 6 June 1942 (seventy-one perf.). A small town in an unnamed European country is betrayed by a quisling and occupied. See pp. 80–84. Some reviewers and audience members were uncomfortable with the enemies being portrayed as human beings. Brooks Atkinson praised it as showing the “fundamental truths about man’s unconquerable will to live without a master.”39 The novel of the same name by Steinbeck rose to the top of the best-seller list shortly before the play opened. The play ran successfully in London, where it opened 8 June 1943, closed 11 Sept. 1943 (112 perf.). It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1941–42 season by Burns Mantle and was made into a film in 1943 with Cedric Hardwicke, Henry Travers, Lee J. Cobb, and William Eythe repeating his stage role. Harlem Cavalcade, designed and staged by Ed Sullivan and Noble Sissle, and produced by Ed Sullivan. With Nobel Sissle, the Peters Sisters, Moke and Poke, Red and Curly, and Una Mae Carlisle. Opened 1 May 1942, closed 23 May 1942 (forty-nine perf.). This African American musical revue featured several war-related pieces, including a sketch with two air-raid wardens in a cemetery, another with a man trying to fill out a draft questionnaire, and Sissle ending the show with a patriotic number about the Unknown Soldier, who needs to come back to life to fight the enemy again. The Strings, My Lord, Are False, by Paul Vincent Carroll. Directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Edward Choate. With Walter Hampden, Constance Dowling, Ruth Gordon, Margot Grahame, Frances Bavier, and Hurd Hatfield. Opened 19 May 1942, closed 30 May 1942 (fifteen perf.). A Scottish canteen provides shelter during the Blitz. See p. 69. Critics considered the sentiments noble, but the execution, including direction by Elia Kazan, troubled.

1942–1943 Broken Journey, by Andrew Rosenthal. Directed by Arthur Hopkins and produced by Martin Burton. With Edith Atwater, Zita Johann, 214

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Warner Anderson, and Phyllis Povah. Opened 23 June 1942, closed 11 July 1942 (twenty-three perf.). Christina Landers and Dan Hardeen, war correspondents and radio commentators, come home from war-torn Europe to lecture about world events. Dan decides to stay in his hometown and marry his high school sweetheart, while Christina hears about the bombing at Pearl Harbor and leaves to follow the action. When Dan hears her broadcasting from Manila, he realizes that he has to return to the life of a foreign correspondent. Several critics noted that the main characters seemed like fictional versions of Dorothy Thompson and John Gunther. This Is the Army, by Irving Berlin and James McColl, music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Directed by Ezra Stone and produced by Uncle Sam for the benefit of the Army Emergency Relief Fund. With Ezra Stone, Fred Kelly, Hayden Rorke, Gary Merrill, Irving Berlin, Philip Truex, Gene Nelson, and Burl Ives. Opened 4 July 1942, closed 26 Sept. 1942 (113 perf.). This limited-run revue was enormously successful, earning over $3 million. Almost everyone in the show was a professional performer as well as in the military. Richard Watts Jr. wrote, “Because ‘This Is the Army’ does not try to capitalize on patriotism, it is one of the most truly patriotic works I have ever encountered.”40 Even George Jean Nathan, who liked very few shows connected with the war, wrote, “There hasn’t been a frankly designed patriotic spectacle that was in quieter and better taste.”41 Numbers included “What the Well Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear,” “The Army’s Made a Man Out of Me,” “This Is the Army,” and a new standard, “I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen.” Made into a film in 1943 with George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Joe Louis, and Irving Berlin. Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning/Talking to You, by William Sa­­royan. Directed and produced by William Saroyan. With Canada Lee, Lillian McGuinness, and Andrew Ratousheff. Opened 17 Aug. 1942, closed 22 Aug. 1942 (eight perf.). The second of the two one-acts, the allegorical Talking to You featured the well-received Canada Lee as a boxer who can’t hurt anyone whom he perceives is good. At the end he faces a midget dressed as a storm trooper and dies fighting him. Janie, by Josephine Bentham and Herschel Williams. Directed by Antoinette Perry and produced by Brock Pemberton. With Gwen 215

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Appendix

Anderson, Maurice Manson, Herbert Evers, Nancy Cushman, and Frank Amy. Opened 10 Sept. 1942, closed 16 Jan. 1944 (642 perf.). This pleasant comedy focuses on Janie, almost seventeen, and her friends, who want to do their bit for the boys in uniform. See pp. 117–19. Made into a film in 1944 with Joyce Reynolds, Edward Arnold, and Ann Harding; the 1946 film sequel, Janie Gets Married, had Joan Leslie in the title role. The Morning Star, by Emlyn Williams. Directed and produced by Guthrie McClintic. With Gregory Peck, Gladys Cooper, Wendy Barrie, and Rhys Williams. Opened 14 Sept. 1942, closed 3 Oct. 1942 (twenty-four perf.). This drama about a cynical doctor in wartime London was a big hit in the West End, where it starred the author, Emlyn Williams, and opened 1941, closed 12 Dec. 1942 (474 perf.). In New York, the play, with Gregory Peck taking over Williams’s role, received mixed reviews, as critics compared it to other Blitz plays. See p. 69. New Priorities of 1943, with ensemble music and lyrics by Lester Lee and Jerry Seelen. Directed by Jean Le Seyeux and produced by Clifford C. Fischer. With Harry Richman, Bert Wheeler, Carol Bruce, and Henny Youngman. Opened 15 Sept. 1942, closed 11 Oct. 1942 (fiftyfour perf.). A mediocre vaudeville show with a number in which chorus girls unconvincingly portrayed WAACs. The highlight of opening night was a young woman who appeared onstage dressed almost entirely in bouquets of war stamps. Youngman auctioned them off, until the last bouquet was purchased, after very spirited bidding, for $25,000, by the toy manufacturer turned munitions maker Louis Marx. Vickie, by S. M. Herzig. Directed by José Ferrer and Frank Mandel and produced by Frank Mandel. With José Ferrer, Uta Hagen, Taylor Holmes, Mildred Dunnock, Red Buttons, and Charles Halton. Opened 22 Sept. 1942, closed 31 Oct. 1942 (forty-eight perf.). Vickie Roberts, the wife of a war-machine inventor, gets caught up in the excitement of war work. See p. 112. The reviewers of this farce praised the performances, although they thought the situation preposterous. Strip for Action, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Directed by Bretaigne Windust and produced by Oscar Serlin, Howard Lindsay, and Russel Crouse. With Keenan Wynn, Eleanor Lynn, Joey Faye, Jean 216

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Carter, Bert Freed, Jack Albertson, and Wendell Corey. Opened 30 Sept. 1942, closed Jan. 2, 1943 (110 perf.). A burlesque comic is drafted and wants to put on a show for his army camp. See pp. 102–3. Louis Kronenberger wrote: “Strip for Action is rowdy enough in its way, but it’s all good clean dirt; and beyond the gags and the goofiness, there is something engagingly warm and invincibly goodnatured about it. In a funny way, it manages, in addition to everything else, to seem like a soldier show—the only good one, along with This Is the Army, that the theater so far has produced.”42 Let Freedom Sing, a musical revue by Sam Locke, with most of the music and lyrics by Harold Rome. Directed by Joseph Pevney and Robert H. Gordon and produced by the American Youth Theatre. With Mitzi Green, Berni Gould, Lee Sullivan, and Betty Garrett. Opened 5 Oct. 1942, closed 11 Oct. 1942 (eight perf.). The American Youth Theatre, an amateur group from Brooklyn who had had success with the Off-Broadway Of “V” We Sing the previous year, returned with a more polished, topical musical revue. The songs included “The Lady Is a WAAC,” “I Did It for Defense,” “Little Miss Victory Jones,” and “The House I Live In.” Wartime sketches featured WAACs, armchair war strategists, Washington politicians, and hoarders. “The House I Live In,” by Earl Robinson and Lewis Allen, was featured in a film short in 1945, starring Frank Sinatra, for which he received a special Oscar. The Eve of St. Mark, by Maxwell Anderson. Directed by Lem Ward and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With William Prince, Aline MacMahon, Mary Rolfe, James Monks, and Matt Crowley. Opened 7 Oct. 1942, closed 26 June 1943 (307 perf.). A small group of soldiers choose to sacrifice themselves in order to delay the Japanese attack on Bataan. See pp. 88–90. The play received excellent reviews; John Mason Brown called it “the most moving war play to have been produced here since Pearl Harbor,” and Wilella Waldorf noted that Anderson had “actually painted a picture of all America at war.”43 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1942–43 season by Burns Mantle and made into a movie in 1944 with William Eythe, Anne Baxter, Michael O’Shea, Vincent Price, and Ray Collins. Count Me In, by Walter Kerr and Leo Brady, with music and lyrics by Ann Ronell. Directed by Robert Ross and produced by Lee and 217

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J. J. Shubert and Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. With Charles Butterworth, Luella Gear, Hal Leroy, June Preisser, and Gower Champion. Opened 8 Oct. 1942, closed 21 Nov. 1942 (sixty-one perf.). Butterworth starred as a mapmaker whose family is involved in war work: his wife is a WAAC, his daughter serves as a messenger, and his two sons are an air-raid warden and a pilot. To get involved, he “cooks up a silly scheme for getting a false map to Japan showing the position of Shangri-La in the hope that the Imperial Military Staff will then make a drive on the spot and fall neatly into a trap.”44 He becomes a hero. Songs included “All-Out Bugle Call,” “On Leave for Love,” “On Manoeuvres with Mama,” and “Who Is General Staff,” sung and danced by Mr. Moto and the Rhythmaires. Without Love, by Philip Barry. Directed by Robert B. Sinclair, restaged by Arthur Hopkins (Sinclair had joined the army), and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Katharine Hepburn, Elliott Nugent, Audrey Christie, and Robert Shayne. Opened 10 Nov. 1942, closed 13 Feb. 1943 (113 perf.). Jamie Rowan, a depressed widow with a big house in Washington, D.C., moves back to her Virginia farm and hires Patrick Jamieson, an economist and diplomat, to be the caretaker. His diplomacy is aimed at encouraging the Irish to join the Allies. He and Jamie marry as a matter of convenience, fight when they realize they’re in love, and reconnect at the end, just before he goes on active service. Some critics found the political discussions about Ireland tedious, and when it was made into a film in 1945 with Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Keenan Wynn, the political angle was removed and Patrick became an inventor rather than a diplomat. The Skin of Our Teeth, by Thornton Wilder. Directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Michael Myerberg. With Tallulah Bankhead, Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Montgomery Clift, E. G. Marshall, and Frances Heflin. Opened 19 Nov. 1942, closed 25 Sept. 1943 (359 perf.). Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus are Mr. and Mrs. Everyperson, who, with their son, daughter, and maid, survive dinosaurs, ice ages, floods, diseases, and wars. The topic of human survival throughout the ages was serious, but the play is a comedy, for the issues are often met with satire and burlesque. The connection to the war is oblique, although many critics saw it as a positive statement about the resilience of the human race. Burton Rascoe said it was “the best play the war is likely 218

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to produce.”45 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1942–43 season by Burns Mantle and won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Yankee Point, by Gladys Hurlbut. Directed by John Cromwell and produced by Edward Choate and Marie Louise Elkins. With Edna Best, John Cromwell, and Elizabeth Patterson. Opened 23 Nov. 1942, closed 12 Dec. 1942 (twenty-four perf.). A Long Island family participates in the capture of German saboteurs on Long Island in 1941. See p. 108. Winter Soldiers, by Daniel Lewis James. Directed by Shepard Traube and produced by Erwin Piscator at the New School for Social Research. With Herbert Berghof, Mason Adams, and Ross Matthew. Opened 29 Nov. 1942, closed 20 Dec. 1942 (twenty-five perf.). Set in November 1941, during the main advance of the Germans against Moscow, Winter Soldiers shows how average people can fight back against the Nazis. Although never produced on Broadway because of the large cast, the Playwrights’ Company encouraged a staging. George Jean Nathan thought much more highly of this than The Moon Is Down, calling it “good, honest, full-fisted, intelligent war melodrama.”46 Burns Mantle named it one of the Best Plays for the 1942–43 season. Lifeline, by Norman Armstrong. Directed by Dudley Digges and produced by Gilbert Miller. With Dudley Digges, Rhys Williams, Whitford Kane, and Victor Beecroft. Opened 30 Nov. 1942, closed 5 Dec. 1942 (eight perf.). A British merchant ship taking fuel from Canada to England is separated from its convoy and attacked. See p. 74. The play ran in London before it came to New York; opened 2 July 1942, closed 12 Sept. 1942 (eight-five perf.). San Demetrio London, a 1943 British film, was based on the same incident. Flare Path, by Terence Rattigan. Directed by Margaret Webster and produced by Gilbert Miller. With Nancy Kelly, Arthur Margetson, and Alec Guinness. Opened 23 Dec. 1942, closed 2 Jan. 1943 (fourteen perf.). Set in a hotel near a British air force base, the play focuses on three men in the RAF and their wives. See pp. 71–74. Burns Mantle thought it nice that no one died for a change.47 The show did not find an audience in New York, although it ran for 680 performances in London, where it opened 13 Aug. 1942, closed 22 Jan. 1944. Proof thro’ the Night, by Allan R. Kenward. Directed by Allan R. Kenward and produced by Lee Shubert. With Ann Shoemaker, Florence Rice, 219

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Katherine Emery, and Carol Channing. Opened 25 Dec. 1942, closed 2 Jan. 1943 (eleven perf.). A dozen female nurses and volunteers work together in a bunker during the siege of Bataan. See. pp. 90–91. This all-woman play was originally produced on the West Coast to enthusiastic response and optioned for the movies before it opened on Broadway. Several critics described it as a female Journey’s End. Made into the 1943 film Cry “Havoc” with Margaret Sullavan, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell, Fay Bainter, and Marsha Hunt. Sweet Charity, by Irving Brecher and Manuel Seff. Directed by George Abbott and produced by Alfred Bloomingdale. With Viola Roache, Enid Markey, Mary Sargent, Augusta Dabney, and Whit Bissell. Opened 28 Dec. 1942, closed 2 Jan. 1943 (eight perf.). The ladies of the Friendly Hand Club want to raise funds to create a day care for the children of women war workers by holding a dance. As they try to raise money to pay for the band, they accidentally smoke marijuana left by a trumpeter. The reviews for this farce were not strong, although some of the critics enjoyed the marijuana-smoking scene, in which one of the clubwomen tries to crawl into a water cooler. The Russian People, by Konstantin Simonov, American adaptation by Clifford Odets. Directed by Harold Clurman and produced by the Theatre Guild. Opened 29 Dec. 1942, closed 31 Jan. 1943 (thirtynine perf.). With Leon Ames, Luther Adler, Victor Varconi, Elisabeth Fraser, Eleonora Mendelssohn, Herbert Berghof, and Eduard Franz. Set in a small, occupied town, the play shows how the Russian people fight back against the Nazis. See p. 77. The Soviet embassy generated a tremendous amount of publicity before the play opened, celebrating the young playwright, who was also a journalist. Most reviewers found the sentiments admirable, although some preferred the previous month’s Winter Soldiers. A production of this play with a translation by Gerald Shelley ran for sixty-nine performances in London, where it opened 10 June 1943, closed 7 Aug. 1943. The Doughgirls, by Joseph Fields. Directed by George S. Kaufman and produced by Max Gordon. With Virginia Field, Arleen Whelan, Doris Nolan, Arlene Francis, Natalie Schafer, Ethel Wilson, and King Calder. Opened 30 Dec. 1942, closed 29 July 1944 (671 perf.). In this boisterous housing comedy three women find themselves sharing a crowded hotel room in Washington, D.C., with men they 220

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are almost married to. See pp. 78–80. John Anderson wrote, “Mr. Fields gets most of his fun not out of the plight of his ladies so much as out of the Washington atmosphere, the huddle of politicians, officers, dollar a year men, and so on.”48 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1942–43 season by Burns Mantle and made into a 1944 film with Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith, Jane Wyman, and Eve Arden. Something for the Boys, by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Directed by Hassard Short and Herbert Fields and produced by Michael Todd. With Ethel Merman, Paula Laurence, Allen Jenkins, Betty Garrett, and Bill Callahan. Opened 7 Jan. 1943, closed 8 Jan. 1944 (422 perf.). Three cousins inherit a ranch near a Texas army base, which they turn into a boardinghouse for soldiers’ wives as well as a mini-factory that makes radio parts. A colonel, suspicious of what goes on in the house, declares it off limits. Cousin Blossom (Merman) saves the day when a plane that she and the commanding officer are on loses radio contact: because one of the fillings in her teeth serves as a radio receiver, she can hear instructions for the plane to land. Songs included “Hey, Good Lookin,’ ” “I’m in Love with a Soldier Boy,” and “He’s a Right Guy.” Louis Kronenberger wrote, “For the first time since Irving Berlin and the U.S. Army took over on the Fourth of July, the town has a real musical show.”49 The 1944 film was a tepid affair and starred Vivian Blaine, Michael O’Shea, Phil Silvers, Carmen Miranda, and Perry Como. Dark Eyes, by Elena Miramova in collaboration with Eugenie Leontovich. Directed and produced by Jed Harris. With Eugenie Leontovich, Elena Miramova, Ludmilla Toretzka, Minnie Dupree, Anne Burr, and Geza (Charles) Korvin. Opened 14 Jan. 1943, closed 31 July 1943 (230 perf.). Two penniless Russian actresses write a play about two Russian actresses in the hopes that someone will produce it and cast them in the parts. See p. 78. Wilella Waldorf spoke for the majority when she observed that this farce “manages somehow to catch the gallantry and proud spirit of the Russian character without waxing overly sentimental or playing too freely on the fact that America and Russia are now Allies and the Russians are apparently knocking the tar out of our mutual enemy in the Caucasus.”50 The Barber Had Two Sons, by Thomas Duggan and James Hogan. Directed by Melville Burke and produced by Jess Smith. With Blanche Yurka, 221

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Richard Powers, Tutta Rolf, and Walter Brooke. Opened 1 Feb. 1943, closed 20 Feb. 1943 (twenty-four perf.). In a small Norwegian village being overrun by Nazis, the title character is the mother of two sons: Christian, a Norwegian patriot, and Johann, an apolitical artist. The brothers fight over Karen, a young teacher who boards with them, and how to react to Nazi aggression. Some of the Norwegians aid the Nazis, including a musician turned quisling who helps with the invasion and is strangled by Christian, and Karen, who convinces Johann to betray the underground rebellion. The barber shoots Karen and turns Johann over to the Nazi authorities. Critics commented on the violent nature of the play, as Germans are killed onstage and off, including a Nazi officer whose throat is cut. Wilella Waldorf noted that this melodrama was “gory enough to suit the most violent murder addicts, besides mixing in a heavy dose of mother love, patriotism, brute force, love making and comic relief via the village drunkard.”51 Critics preferred The Moon Is Down. Counterattack, by Janet and Philip Stevenson, adapted from the Russian play Pobyeda by Ilya Vershinin and Mikhail Ruderman. Directed by Margaret Webster and produced by Lee Sabinson. With Morris Carnovsky, Barbara O’Neil, Martin Wolfson, Sam Wanamaker, Rudolph Anders, Karl Malden, and Richard Basehart. Opened 4 Feb. 1943, closed 17 Apr. 1943 (eighty-five perf.). Two Russian soldiers are trapped with a small group of Nazis in a cellar. See pp. 77–78. The reviews were mixed, though they included generally positive comments about the direction and performances. It was filmed as Counter-Attack in 1945, with Paul Muni, Marguerite Chapman, and Larry Parks. Ask My Friend Sandy, by Stanley Young. Directed and produced by Alfred De Liagre Jr. With Roland Young, Norman Lloyd, and Mary Sargent. Opened 4 Feb. 1943, closed 13 Feb. 1943 (twelve perf.). Sandy, an idealistic army private, convinces a wealthy publisher that money won’t have any value in the postwar world. The publisher gives away his fortune and becomes a taxi driver, and his wife leaves him to become a defense worker. Luckily, the publisher comes into another fortune because of the success of a book he writes on how to live on less money. The critics were happy that Roland Young had returned to the stage after five years in Hollywood but did not enjoy the play very much. 222

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This Rock, by Walter Livingston Faust. Directed and produced by Eddie Dowling. With Billie Burke, Nicholas Joy, Zachary Scott, and Jane Sterling. Opened 18 Feb. 1943, closed 20 Mar. 1943 (thirty-seven perf.). Twenty children from the London slums are billeted at the manor house of wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Stanley on the River Tyne. The children are sullen at first, but they bring life to the stuffy household. Some of the servants join the armed forces and the Stanleys’ daughter becomes a nurse. She also falls in love with the young man who brought the children from London, a bitter Cockney mechanic (Scott) who becomes a lieutenant in the RAF. The play was notable for the return of Billie Burke to Broadway after twelve years in Hollywood, but the critics were not enthusiastic. John Anderson represented the general critical opinion about the playwright: “His intentions are honorable and his sentiments amiable but his little picture of England during the blitz has about it a coy and cloying quality.”52 We Will Never Die, by Ben Hecht, with music by Kurt Weill. Directed by Moss Hart and produced by Billy Rose. Performed 9 Mar. 1943 at Madison Square Garden and subsequently toured, including a performance on July 21 at the Hollywood Bowl that was broadcast on NBC Radio and conducted by the film composer Franz Waxman. This pageant’s main goal was to raise public awareness of the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe. In New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles different Hollywood stars appeared as narrators. The show served as a memorial service for the European Jews who had already died, as well as a celebration of Jews throughout history. The emotion and activism connected with We Will Never Die led to the establishment of the War Refugee Board in January 1944. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has a short clip of the pageant on its website, and there is a longer clip on YouTube. Men in Shadow, by Mary Haley Bell. Directed by Roy Hargrave and produced by Max Gordon. With Roy Hargrave, Everett Sloane, Dean Harens, Michelette Burani, and Ernest Graves. Opened 10 Mar. 1943, closed 27 Mar. 1943 (twenty-one perf.). This bloody drama focuses on an American flier who has been assisting the French underground. They succeed in killing the local Gestapo official and plan to move on, when an American flier is brought to them with two 223

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broken legs. An RAF captain also appears, asking for aid, but when they discover that he is a German spy, they kill him in a very brutal fashion. They then escape, including the flier with the broken legs, through a trapdoor in the roof of the old mill where they have been hiding. The New York critics commented on the spectacular fights, including one in which a German is killed with a very audible snap of his backbone. Some complained that too much of the play was in French and German. Ward Morehouse wrote, “If you can take a little rough and tumble violence in your theater going and can relish the massacre of a few Nazis you’ll have quite an evening at the Morosco.”53 Men in Shadow was a hit in London, where it opened 3 Sept. 1942, closed 3 July 1943 (390 perf.). Kiss and Tell, by F. Hugh Herbert. Directed and produced by George Abbott. With Joan Caulfield, Jessie Royce Landis, Richard Widmark, Judith Parrish, Tommy Lewis, and Frances Bavier. Opened 18 Mar. 1943, closed 23 June 1945 (956 perf.). Based on the Corliss Archer stories featured in Good Housekeeping, the play finds teenager Corliss Archer in perpetual trouble. See pp. 119–20. Howard Barnes praised the play for never stressing “the patent sentimentalism of having soldiers and teen-age girls trying to make a deal with a desperate destiny.”54 This comedy was named one of the Best Plays for the 1942–43 season by Burns Mantle and became a film in 1945 with Shirley Temple starring as Corliss. There was also a sequel starring Temple, A Kiss for Corliss (1949), and a 1950s television show, Meet Corliss Archer. The Family, by Victor Wolfson. Directed by Bretaigne Windust and produced by Oscar Serlin. With Lucile Watson, Carol Goodner, and Arnold Korff. Opened 30 Mar. 1943, closed 3 Apr. 1943 (seven perf.). Set in Tientsin, China, in 1937, just before the Japanese invasion, the play focuses on an exiled White Russian family that runs a boardinghouse with many guests, mostly exiles. The boarders include a Russian scientist who writes impassioned letters to world leaders asking for peace, an alcoholic Englishwoman whose young son has died, a Russian fortune teller, five Japanese spies, and a Chinese lodger who keeps an eye on them. Lucile Watson received praise as Granny, the matriarch who holds the family together, but critics felt that the adaptation from the popular novel by Nina Fedorova was disappointing. 224

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Tomorrow the World, by James Gow and Arnaud d’Usseau. Directed by Elliott Nugent and produced by Theron Bamberger. With Ralph Bellamy, Shirley Booth, Skippy Homeier, and Joyce Van Patten. Opened 14 Apr. 1943, closed 17 June 1944 (500 perf.). A midwestern chemistry professor adopts his German nephew, who turns out to be a full-fledged Hitler Youth. See pp. 127–31. The play was very well received, especially the performances of the two children, Homeier and Van Patten. John Anderson noted that “the authors’ warning is that when Hitler is done for there will be 12,000,000 such mentally distorted children in Germany for the world to deal with before the Nazi infection is scoured out.”55 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1942–43 season by Burns Mantle and ran well in London, where it opened 30 Aug. 1944, closed 11 Aug. 1945 (398 perf.). Tomorrow the World was turned into a successful film in 1944 with Betty Field, Agnes Moorehead, Fredric March as the uncle, and Homeier repeating his performance as the young Nazi. Sons and Soldiers, by Irwin Shaw. Directed by Max Reinhardt and produced by Max Reinhardt, Norman Bel Geddes, and Richard Meyers. With Gregory Peck, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Stella Adler, Karl Malden, Herbert Rudley, Millard Mitchell, and Ted Donaldson. Opened 4 May 1943, closed 22 May 1943 (twenty-two perf.). A pregnant woman risks her health to bear sons who will serve in the war. See p. 113. The reviews were mixed; critics admired Geraldine Fitzgerald as the mother and Gregory Peck as the older son, but they were less happy with the conceit of its being mostly a dream. Otis Guernsey said Shaw “mixed his moments of straight comedy and high tragedy to form an accurate panorama of American life and a thoughtful evaluation of American ideals.”56 Three’s a Family, by Phoebe and Henry Ephron. Directed by Henry Ephron and produced by John Golden. With Robert Burton, Ruth Weston, and William Wadsworth. Opened 5 May 1943, closed 8 July 1944 (497 perf.). The Whittaker apartment in New York City is the setting for a housing comedy. See pp. 111–12. As the only doctor in the area who has not been drafted, William Wadsworth stole the show as a nearly blind and doddering octogenarian physician. The American Negro Theater did a production in New York in spring 1944, and it ran nine months in London, where it opened 21 Sept. 1944, closed 23 June 1945 (317 225

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Appendix

perf.). An amusing film adaptation, Three Is a Family, was produced in 1944 with Marjorie Reynolds, Charles Ruggles, Fay Bainter, Helen Broderick, Arthur Lake, John Philliber, and Hattie McDaniel.

1943–1944 Those Endearing Young Charms, by Edward Chodorov. Directed by Edward Chodorov and produced by Max Gordon. With Virginia Gilmore, Zachary Scott, and Blanche Sweet. Opened 16 June 1943, closed 7 Aug. 1943 (fifty-three perf.). A young woman and an air force lieutenant negotiate a carpe-diem romance. See pp. 125–27. The play was made into a film in 1945 with Robert Young, Laraine Day, and Ann Harding. The Army Play-by-Play. Produced by John Golden. A one-night fundraiser on 14 June 1943 was turned into a longer run open to the public, opened 2 Aug. 1943, closed 4 Sept. 1943 (forty perf.), with the proceeds going to the Army Emergency Relief Fund. These five oneacts were the winners of the Soldiers’ Playwriting Contest, which was judged by theater professionals including Elmer Rice, Russel Crouse, and John Golden. In “Where E’er We Go,” by John B. O’Dea, a soldier sells his sergeant an overcoat for ten dollars so that he can continue to gamble. The soldiers’ furlough is canceled and they find out they’ll be shipped to Alaska—with one soldier minus a coat. In “First Cousins,” by Kurt S. Kasznar, the author played one of a group of Americans captured by a German U-boat, captained by his German cousin. Kasznar’s character tricks the commander into thinking he’s an agent of the Reich so that he and his friends can be rescued. In “Button Your Lip,” by Irving Gaynor Neiman, new recruits gossip about sabotage and Dorothy Lamour. “Pack Up Your Troubles,” by Alfred D. Geto, features a soldier who discovers two Nazi saboteurs while sneaking into an army office after hours to call his expectant wife. “Mail Call,” by Ralph Nelson, is set in a bombed-out building where a soldier has been shot by his sergeant for running away from battle. After a package is delivered with a photo of the dead man’s family, the remaining soldiers sign a letter to his family saying that he was killed in action. Nelson later wrote The Wind Is Ninety, which was produced on Broadway in June 1945. 226

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Chauve-Souris of 1943, with music by Gleb Yellin and lyrics translated by Irving Florman. Directed by Michael Michon and produced by Leon Greanin. With Leon Greanin and Marusia Sava. Opened 12 Aug. 1943, closed 21 Aug. 1943 (twelve perf.). A new edition of the 1922 Russian musical revue, with topical additions, including the songs “The WAC and the Sniper,” “Hobo-Genius Chorus in 4F,” and “United Nations.” The general critical opinion was that the show did not need to be revived. A New Life, by Elmer Rice. Directed by Elmer Rice and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With Betty Field, George Lambert, Ann Thomas, Merle Maddern, and Walter N. Greaza. Opened 15 Sept. 1943, closed 13 Nov. 1943 (seventy perf.). A woman gives birth just as her missing-in-action husband returns home. See pp. 113–15. Land of Fame, by Albert and Mary Bein. Directed by Albert Bein and produced by Albert Bein and Frederick Fox. With Norman Rose, Beatrice Straight, Ed Begley, Richard Basehart, Royal Dana Tracy, and Stefan Schnabel. Opened 21 Sept. 1943, closed 25 Sept. 1943 (six perf.). A Greek guerrilla band sabotages so many trains and bridges in the summer of 1942 that the Nazis threaten to destroy a whole town if their leader does not turn himself in. When he does, he shoots a German general before he and his sweetheart are executed. Critics compared it unfavorably to The Moon Is Down and Men in Shadow. Stefan Schnabel, son of the pianist Artur Schnabel, received good reviews as a German archeologist turned soldier who regrets what the Nazis are doing to the glory that was Greece. All for All, by Norman Bruce, based on Give and Take by Aaron Hoffman. Directed by Harry Green and produced by A. L. Berman. With Jack Pearl and Harry Green. Opened 29 Sept. 1943, closed 11 Dec. 1943 (eighty-five perf.). This version of a 1923 comedy about capital and labor was updated to include references to the New Deal, war rationing, and the draft. Critics dismissed it as a dated vaudeville show, not surprising because it starred Pearl, who voiced Baron Munchausen on radio, and Green, a British music hall favorite. Slightly Married, by Aleen Leslie. Directed and produced by Melville Burke. With Patty Pope, Jimmie Smith, Leon Ames, Mona Barrie, and Scotty Beckett. Opened 25 Oct. 1943, closed 30 Oct. 1943 (eight perf.). Two seventeen-year-olds, Keith and Margaret, want to get 227

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Appendix

married, so they take out a marriage license and think that’s sufficient to consummate their relationship. After Keith, who has just lied about his age to join the army, leaves, Margaret realizes she’s pregnant (and unmarried). Her mother pretends to have the baby instead to save the family from scandal. Critics complained about yet another pregnancy problem play. Victory Belles, by Alice Gerstenberg. Directed and produced by Henry Adrian. With Mabel Taliaferro, Barbara Bennett, and Marie Gale. Opened 26 Oct. 1943, closed 22 Jan. 1944 (thirty-two perf.). The mother of a young woman reads that there won’t be enough men to go around after the war, so she invites soldiers from a nearby army camp to her home in an effort to get a husband for her daughter. She is aided by a much-married friend who compares their tracking of men to war work: “We’ve got uniforms. An evening gown’s a woman’s dress uniform, and her nightgown’s her fatigue uniform.”57 There is a secondary plot about the butler’s pretending to be from the FBI and accusing a colonel of spying so that all involved will be forced to stay overnight. Outrageous Fortune, by Rose Franken. Directed by Rose Franken and produced by William Brown Meloney. With Elsie Ferguson, Maria Ouspenskaya, Margalo Gillmore, Frederic Tozere, Eduard Franz, and Margaret Hamilton. Opened 3 Nov. 1943, closed 8 Jan. 1944 (seventy-seven perf.). A wealthy Jewish American family copes with world events, as well as marital and romantic difficulties. The matriarch is a reminder of the family’s beginnings in this country, and her son, a doctor, is passed over for an important position at a hospital because he’s Jewish. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943– 44 season by Burns Mantle. I’ll Take the High Road, by Lucille S. Prumbs. Directed by Sanford Meisner and produced by Clifford Hayman and Milton Berle. With Jeanne Cagney, Len Doyle, and Michael Strong. Opened 9 Nov. 1943, closed 13 Nov. 1943 (seven perf.). Judy Budd, a telephone operator at the Manson Aircraft Factory, is chosen as “Miss Average Girl” and asked to speak at the premiere of a movie celebrating the company’s owner. She overhears a phone call between her boss and a fascist wanted by the FBI and denounces both at the premiere. The men are arrested with the help of her liberal uncle and Corporal 228

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Charters, the star of the film, who then proposes to Judy. The reviews were in agreement that the author was not very knowledgeable about fascism or war factories. What’s Up?, by Alan Jay Lerner and Arthur Pierson, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Directed by George Balanchine and Robert H. Gordon and produced by Mark Warnow. With Jimmy Savo, Gloria Warren, and Claire Meade. Opened 11 Nov. 1943, closed 4 Jan. 1944 (sixty-three perf.). An East Indian potentate and his translator, while flying to a meeting in Washington on a U.S. army transport, crash in Virginia and wind up at a girls’ school, where they have to remain because of a measles quarantine. The soldiers and students spend their time singing and dancing. This musical was the first collaboration of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. A Connecticut Yankee, by Herbert Fields, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Directed by John C. Wilson and produced by Richard Rodgers. With Dick Foran, Vivienne Segal, and VeraEllen. Opened 17 Nov. 1943, closed 11 Mar. 1944 (135 perf.). This revival of Rodgers and Hart’s 1927 musical contains a new frame in which Martin is now Lt. Martin Barrett, USN, who is knocked out during his bachelor party and wakes up in long-ago Camelot. His friends become characters in an Arthurian munitions factory and perform “Ye Lunchtime Follies.” The best reviews were for the dancer Vera-Ellen and Segal, who played Morgan Le Fay in Camelot and introduced a new number, “To Keep My Love Alive.” Winged Victory, by Moss Hart, with music by David Rose. Directed by Moss Hart and produced by the U.S. Army Air Forces for the benefit of the Army Emergency Relief Fund. With Mark Daniels, Don Taylor, Dick Hogan, Barry Nelson, Edmond O’Brien, Alan Baxter, Whitner Bissell, Gary Merrill, George Reeves, Jerry Adler, Karl Malden, Peter Lind Hayes, Martin Ritt, Donald Beddoe, Red Buttons, Kevin McCarthy, Lee J. Cobb, John Forsythe, Ray Middleton, Olive Deering, Edward McMahon, and Alfred Cocozzu (Mario Lanza). Opened 20 Nov. 1943, closed 20 May 1944 (212 perf.). A celebration of the army air forces. See pp. 104–6. The show had over 200 performers, a choir and orchestra conducted by David Rose, and five revolving stages. Burton Rascoe’s is an example of the superlative 229

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response: “It is a thrilling spectacle, full of emotional drive. It is spinetingling and it wrenches your heart. It is earthy and glamorous, ribald and romantic, tragic and glorious, and it is instructive.” John Chapman wrote, “No matter how much you have read and how many radio fortune-tellers you have listened to, you will know more about this man’s and woman’s war after having seen this play.”58 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943–44 season by Burns Mantle and it also “toured widely, earning millions of dollars for the Army Emergency Relief Fund.”59 It was made into a movie in 1944 with some of the actors playing their stage roles, including Mark Daniels, Edmond O’Brien, Don Taylor, Lee J. Cobb, Red Buttons, Barry Nelson, Gary Merrill, Karl Malden, and Martin Ritt. Lovers and Friends, by Dodie Smith. Directed by Guthrie McClintic and produced by Katharine Cornell and John C. Wilson. With Katharine Cornell, Raymond Massey, Henry Daniell, and Carol Goodner. Opened 29 Nov. 1943, closed 22 Apr. 1944 (168 perf.). A British soldier marries an actress during WWI, but after the war and twelve years of marriage, he becomes infatuated with his secretary, who claims to be a left-wing political journalist. After he asks for a divorce, he realizes the secretary is a poseur and goes back to his wife. The play is framed by scenes in Regent’s Park, London, where the state of the world creates a context for the marital drama. In the epilogue, set in 1942, Stella, the ex-soldier’s wife, comments that she is “more interested in how we rebuild London than in if I can ever do the drawing room up.”60 Carmen Jones, by Oscar Hammerstein II, with music by Georges Bizet and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Directed by Hassard Short and Charles Friedman and produced by Billy Rose. With Muriel Smith/ Muriel Rahn, Luther Saxon/Napoleon Reed, Glenn Bryant, and Carlotta Franzell/Elton J. Warren. Opened 2 Dec. 1943, closed 10 Feb. 1945 (503 perf.). Joe, a military policeman at a parachute factory in the South, becomes fascinated by Carmen Jones, a flirtatious worker, and abandons his fiancée for her. He goes AWOL to follow Carmen to Chicago, where she has left him for the champion boxer Husky Miller. Joe finds Carmen on the night of the championship fight and kills her so that no one else can have her. This adaptation of Carmen received rave reviews and was revived for twenty-one 230

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performances later in 1945 and thirty-two performances in 1946. The musical was made into a film in 1954, with Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll, and Brock Peters. The World’s Full of Girls, by Nunnally Johnson, based on a novel by Thomas Bell. Directed and produced by Jed Harris. With Berry Kroeger, Virginia Gilmore, Charles Lang, Frances Heflin, and Harry Bellaver. Opened 6 Dec. 1943, closed 12 Dec. 1943 (nine perf.). A new marine visits Brooklyn to say good-bye to the Fletchers, a family he used to live with, whose members include a daughter in love with a young fascist and a daughter whose husband can’t pass a factory IQ test. His girlfriend argues with him because he won’t marry her before he goes overseas, but she decides to spend his last night with him anyway. Bellaver received good notices for his portrayal of a veteran of Guadalcanal who describes how a Japanese soldier bit off two of his fingers. The Voice of the Turtle, by John Van Druten. Directed by John Van Druten and produced by Alfred De Liagre Jr. With Margaret Sullavan, Elliott Nugent, and Audrey Christie. Opened 8 Dec. 1943, closed 3 Jan. 1948 (1,557 perf.). A young actress feels compelled to entertain a sergeant on leave for the weekend when her friend ditches him for a higher-ranking officer. See pp. 124–25. There are some somber moments, such as when the soldier comments, “You mustn’t ask a soldier what the war’s about,” but overall it’s a delightful romance, which was hailed by critics.61 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943–44 season by Burns Mantle, and a film was made in 1947 with Eleanor Parker, Ronald Reagan, and Eve Arden. Pillar to Post, by Rose Simon Kohn. Directed by Antoinette Perry and produced by Brock Pemberton, with the financing of Warner Bros. With Perry Wilson, Carl Gose, and Franklyn Fox. Opened 10 Dec. 1943, closed 1 Jan. 1944 (thirty-one perf.). A young cosmetics saleswoman convinces a lieutenant to pretend that they’re married so that she can stay at an auto court near an army base and sell cosmetics to soldiers’ wives. This predictable housing comedy was made into the film Pillow to Post in 1945 with Ida Lupino, Sydney Greenstreet, William Prince, and Stuart Erwin. South Pacific, by Howard Rigsby and Dorothy Heyward, with music by Paul Bowles. Directed by Lee Strasberg and produced by David 231

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Lowe. With Canada Lee, Wendell K. Phillips, and Wini Johnson. Opened 29 Dec. 1943, closed 1 Jan. 1944 (five perf.). An African American merchant sailor and a white army captain are stranded on a Japanese-held island. See pp. 151–52. Over Twenty-One, by Ruth Gordon. Directed by George S. Kaufman and produced by Max Gordon. With Ruth Gordon, Harvey Stephens, and Loring Smith. Opened 3 Jan. 1944, closed 8 July 1944 (221 perf.). The editor of a newspaper struggles to make it through aviation officers’ candidate school, while his wife rents a bungalow near the army base. The tension comes from the assumption, repeated by several characters in the play, that “the Army has proved that over twenty-one you don’t absorb any more.”62 Although his publisher tries to get him to return to the newspaper, he makes second lieutenant, his wife becomes editor of the paper, and the publisher joins the army. This was Ruth Gordon’s first play, and most reviewers jovially commented on her writing a play for herself. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943–44 season by Burns Mantle and made into a film in 1945 with Irene Dunne, Alexander Knox, and Charles Coburn. Storm Operation, by Maxwell Anderson. Directed by Michael Gordon and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With Myron McCormick, Millard Mitchell, Cy Howard, and Bramwell Fletcher. Opened 11 Jan. 1944, closed 29 Jan. 1944 (twenty-three perf.). Anderson traveled to North Africa to research this play about an American outfit that participates in the invasion of Oran and subsequent battles in Tunisia. The title was suggested by General Eisenhower. See pp. 91–93. There was praise for the interactions among the soldiers, including a first sergeant who has become the officer in charge, a stuffy British captain, and a double-talking technical sergeant who buys an Arab woman. The self-sacrifice of the soldiers, the “logic” of war, and the “situational sexual mores” brought a sense of the confused reality of North Africa and the war more generally to the stage.63 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943–44 season by Burns Mantle. Jackpot, by Guy Bolton, Sidney Sheldon, and Ben Roberts, with music and lyrics by Howard Dietz and Vernon Duke. Directed by Roy Hargrave and produced by Vinton Freedley. With Allan Jones, Jerry 232

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Lester, Benny Baker, Nanette Fabray, Mary Wickes, and Betty Garrett. Opened 13 Jan. 1944, closed 11 Mar. 1944 (sixty-nine perf.). A defense worker puts herself up as the prize in a bond-selling rally, and three marines all win her. The men argue about what to do; the handsome one, who is the best singer, gets the date. Songs include “I Kissed My Girl Goodbye,” “My Top Sergeant,” and “Nobody Ever Pins Me Up.” Decision, by Edward Chodorov. Directed by Edward Chodorov and produced by Edward Choate. With Raymond Greenleaf, Gwen Anderson, and Larry Hugo. Opened 2 Feb. 1944, closed 17 June 1944 (160 perf.). This play depicts the danger of homegrown fascism. See pp. 146–48. Lewis Nichols commented that it is “a sincere study of the fight against fascism in this country, and his actors act it to the hilt. Between them they take it out of the category of pamphlet and make of it a real evening in the theatre.”64 Decision was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943–44 season by Burns Mantle. Thank You, Svoboda, by H. S. Kraft. Directed by H.  S. Kraft and Moe Hack and produced by Milton Baron. From the novel You Can’t Do That to Svoboda, by John Pen. With Sam Jaffe, Arnold Korff, John McGovern, and Whitford Kane. Opened 1 Mar. 1944, closed 4 Mar. 1944 (six perf.). Svoboda, an illiterate Czech handyman, is accused of sabotage by the occupying Germans. Despite his innocence, he is sent to a concentration camp but later released as harmless. When he returns to his village, he discovers that the Germans have stolen his savings, so he decides to sabotage a bridge. Jacobowsky and the Colonel, by S. N. Behrman, based on a play by Franz Werfel. Directed by Elia Kazan and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Oscar Karlweis, Louis Calhern, Annabella, and J. Edward Bromberg. Opened 14 Mar. 1944, closed 10 Mar. 1945 (417 perf.). A charming, stateless Polish Jew teams up with a Polish cavalry officer in order to escape the Nazis. See pp. 84–86. The reviews praised Karlweis and Calhern but complained that the ending, in which the colonel and Jacobowsky sail for England with secret papers, leaving behind Marianne, while the colonel’s aide plays “La Marseillaise,” was melodramatic. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943– 44 season by Burns Mantle and made into the film Me and the Colonel in 1958, with Danny Kaye and Curd Jürgens, and the musical The 233

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Appendix

Grand Tour in 1979, with Joel Grey and Ron Holgate, with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. Follow the Girls, by Guy Bolton and Eddie Davis, with music and lyrics by Dan Shapiro, Milton Pascal, and Phil Charig. Directed by Harry Delmar and produced by David J. Wolper. With Gertrude Niesen, Irina Barinova, and Jackie Gleason. Opened 8 Apr. 1944, closed 18 May 1946 (888 perf.). A burlesque queen opens a servicemen’s canteen on Long Island. Gleason played a 4-F civilian who keeps sneaking into the club to see the stripper he loves. The show ran for over two years, even though the mildly pleasant reviews said that neither the plot nor the music was memorable. The musical had a good run in London, where it opened 25 Oct. 1945, closed 22 Feb. 1947 (575 perf.). The Searching Wind, by Lillian Hellman. Directed and produced by Herman Shumlin. With Cornelia Otis Skinner, Dennis King, Dudley Digges, Montgomery Clift, and Barbara O’Neil. Opened 12 Apr. 1944, closed 20 Jan. 1945 (318 perf.). A crisis within an American ambassador’s family occurs when their son returns home, wounded in action in Italy. The son finds out that while he was fighting, his parents partied with European businessmen doing business with the Nazis. The characters are shown in three flashbacks where fascism became ascendant: Rome 1922, when Mussolini came to power; Berlin 1923, during a Jewish pogrom; and Paris 1938, at the time of the Munich appeasement. The son’s shame at his parents socializing with fascists while people were dying overseas reflects Hellman’s anger at her own country for not taking a stand against fascism earlier.65 Critics praised the play as an indictment against appeasement and unthinking tolerance of fascism. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943–44 season by Burns Mantle and made into a movie in 1946 with Robert Young, Sylvia Sidney, Ann Richards, and Dudley Digges reprising his stage role. Pick-Up Girl, by Elsa Shelley. Directed by Roy Hargrave and produced by Michael Todd’s staff. With William Harrigan, Pamela Rivers, and Doro Merande. Opened 3 May 1944, closed 21 Oct. 1944 (198 perf.). The play takes place in juvenile court and tries to account for the promiscuous sexual behavior of fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Collins. See pp. 120–21. Reviewers praised the research and reportorial 234

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skills of the author; the critic Burton Rascoe celebrated it as “an education in charity and humanity and it carries a bright gleam of hope in the pressing problem of juvenile delinquency.”66 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1943–44 season by Burns Mantle and made into the British film Too Young to Love in 1960. Hickory Stick, by Frederick Stephani and Murray Burnett. Directed by J.  B. Daniels and produced by Marjorie Ewing and Marie Louise Elkins. With Steve Cochran, Richard Basehart, Vito Christi, and Lawrence Fletcher. Opened 8 May 1944, closed 13 May 1944 (eight perf.). James Kirkland, a Guadalcanal vet, becomes a teacher in a tough urban high school that his dead buddy’s brother Tony attends. Tony becomes Kirkland’s champion and seemingly in Kirkland’s defense kills a morose student who reads Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and hates his parents. Critics drew comparisons between this and Pick-Up Girl for the perspectives on juvenile delinquency, as well as Tomorrow the World for the portrayal of a psychopathic youngster. Career Angel, by Gerard M. Murray. Directed by Don Appell and produced by Andrew Billings and Joseph Dicks. With Glenn Anders, Whitford Kane, Donald Foster, Ronald Telfer, and Mason Adams. Originally done as a semiprofessional production by the Blackfriars Guild, Nov. 1943. Opened 23 May 1944, closed 10 June 1944 (twenty-two perf.). The boys at a Catholic orphanage foil a German sabotage plot. See pp. 108–9. Critics generally enjoyed the amateur production more. That Old Devil, by J. C. Nugent. Directed by J. C. Nugent and produced by Lodewick Vroom. With J. C. Nugent, Luella Gear, Agnes Doyle, and Matt Briggs. Opened 5 June 1944, closed 17 June 1944 (sixteen perf.). Jim Blair, a dull, middle-aged man, befriends Lila, a pregnant British war worker. He pretends to be the father of her child, and because of the scandal, the women in town find him much more attractive. Eventually Lila’s husband, a color-blind newspaper reporter, admits he’s been hiding their marriage because he thought he would lose his commission. However, he’s accepted into a special camouflage unit where color blindness is an asset. At the end Jim’s wife announces that she’s having a baby too. The critics thought that there were too many plays finding humor in unexpected pregnancy, comparing it to Kiss and Tell and Three’s a Family. 235

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Appendix

1944–1945 For Keeps, by F. Hugh Herbert. Directed and produced by Gilbert Miller. With Patricia Kirkland, Frank Conroy, Julie Warren, and Donald Murphy. Opened 14 June 1944, closed 8 July 1944 (twenty-nine perf.). Nancy, a fifteen-year-old girl, is the daughter of divorced parents and tries to act much more sophisticated than she actually is. She falls in love with a 4-F defense worker, but when he discovers her true age, they decide to put the romance on hold. This play was less successful than Herbert’s previous play, Kiss and Tell, despite the fine work of Patricia Kirkland as Nancy. Wilella Waldorf noted that it was “sort of upper-class ‘Pick-Up Girl’ ” without the seamy consequences.67 Love on Leave, by A. B. Shiffrin. Directed by Eugene S. Bryden and produced by Charles Stewart and Martin Goodman. With Rosemary Rice, Stanley Bell, Millard Mitchell, and Bert Freed. Opened 20 June 1944, closed 24 June 1944 (seven perf.). A fifteen-year-old girl who wants to be an actress goes to Times Square with an older friend. They meet two sailors, but because it’s more comedy than drama, nothing serious happens, although the girl accuses the sailor of getting her drunk and raping her. Her father, a famous child psychiatrist, sends for a doctor who clears the sailor of any wrongdoing. Critics hated this play because it dealt lightly with juvenile delinquency and because it “propounds the curious theorem that wayward girls are merely trying to become good actresses; that sailors on leave wish nothing more than to educate them properly.”68 Catherine Was Great, by Mae West. Directed by Roy Hargrave and produced by Michael Todd. With Mae West, Philip Huston, and Charles K. Gerard. Opened 2 Aug. 1944, closed 13 Jan. 1945 (191 perf.). In a prologue, soldiers in a USO recreation room talk about history, specifically Catherine the Great. The rest of the show is pseudohistorical drama. The reviews were weak, but because of Mae West’s reputation and the lavish production values, it ran half a season. Good Morning Corporal, by Milton Herbert Gropper and Joseph Shalleck. Directed and produced by William B. Friedlander. With Charita Bauer, Joel Marson, Russell Hardie, and Lionel Wilson. Opened 8 Aug. 1944, closed 18 Aug. 1944 (thirteen perf.). Dottie Carson, a service-mad girl, does everything she can for the war effort. Burton 236

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Rascoe described her as “patriotism-crazy. She has written 1000 letters to men overseas telling each of them she holds him in her arms at night while he fights for her; she works in a defense plant by day (dropping by the blood bank mornings to donate a pint of her blood); [. . .] she contributes her husbands’ allotments to the Army and Navy relief funds; she ‘keeps up the morale of the fighting men’ by going to gin mills with them every night; and she has married, seriatim, a marine, a sailor and an army corporal—all three of them while they were drunk. The first two have been reported dead. [. . .] The marine shows up alive in the first act and the sailor in the third,” while she is in bed with the soldier.69 Critics found the show in very bad taste. Lower North, by Martin Bidwell. Directed by David Burton and produced by Max J. Jelin. With Arthur Hunnicutt, Rusty Lane, Dort Clark, and Paul Ford. Opened 25 Aug. 1944, closed 2 Sept. 1944 (eleven perf.). This comedy-drama focuses on men at a California training station for quartermaster candidates. The cast consists of a variety of types familiar from war plays and movies—the sailor whose wife is pregnant and who wants to go AWOL to be with her, the Texan who misses his horse, the serious law student, the orphan, the sailor whose brother is in the air corps overseas, and so on. The Day Will Come, by Leo Birinski. Directed by Lee Elmore and produced by Harry Green. With Harry Green, Brandon Peters, and Arthur Vinton. Opened 7 Sept. 1944, closed 23 Sept. 1944 (twenty perf.). Green, a Yiddish comedian, both produced and starred in this semifantastical tale of Avrum Dovid, an old Jewish man who is the only person left in his Russian village after his neighbors burn their homes and flee from the advancing German army. Avrum has an ancient copy of the prophecies of Nostradamus that some German generals want to use to convince Hitler that invading the U.S.S.R. in the wintertime is a bad idea. The generals set up a meeting between Hitler and Avrum, and although Hitler orders Avrum killed by a firing squad, and he is shot at, he doesn’t die. As the snow falls, Hitler sees one last vision of him. Reviews were mixed, depending on the reviewer’s penchant for melodrama and the fantastic. While the Sun Shines, by Terence Rattigan. Directed by George S. Kaufman and produced by Max Gordon. With Melville Cooper, Anne Burr, Lewis Howard, and Stanley Bell. Opened 19 Sept. 1944, closed 237

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Appendix

21 Oct. 1944 (thirty-nine perf.). The wealthy Earl of Harpenden, an ordinary sailor, is engaged to Lady Elizabeth, but his marriage plans are complicated by two lieutenants, one French and one American, who both make a play for her. Melville Cooper received special praise for his bumbling, gambling duke. The play was a huge success in London, where it opened 24 Dec. 1943, closed 7 Sept. 1946 (1,153 perf.). Men to the Sea, by Herbert Kubly. Directed by Eddie Dowling and produced by Dave Wolper. With Toni Gilman, Randolph Echols, Maggie Gould, Susana Garnett, Joyce Mathews, and Mildred Smith. Opened 3 Oct. 1944, closed 21 Oct. 1944 (twenty-three perf.). This controversial drama focuses on five women whose husbands are all in the navy. See pp. 115–16. The play was censored in its out-of-town tryouts because of the sexual situations and the language. Soldier’s Wife, by Rose Franken. Directed by Rose Franken and produced by William Brown Meloney. With Martha Scott, Myron McCormick, Glenn Anders, and Frieda Inescort. Opened 4 Oct. 1944, closed 12 May 1945 (253 perf.). Husband and wife have trouble readjusting to one another after he returns from the war. See pp. 133–36. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1944–45 season by Burns Mantle. John Chapman astutely commented, “Men coming home from the war will find changes even in their wives—because the wives, having learned how to live practically as widows for so long, will have found a new strength and independence in themselves.”70 The Miracle of the Warsaw Ghetto, by Harry Leivick. Produced (in Yiddish) by Joseph Green and Jacob Ben-Ami at the New Jewish Folk Theater and starring Jacob Ben-Ami. Opened 10 Oct. 1944 (ran twenty weeks). This is one of several Yiddish plays that ran Off Broadway and had a war focus. In the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943, a devout young Jew learns that his family has been killed by the Nazis and resolves to join the fight against fascism after his girlfriend is killed while on a mission for the underground. Snafu, by Louis Solomon and Harold Buchman. Directed and produced by George Abbott. With Billy Redfield, Russell Hardie, and Elspeth Eric. Opened 25 Oct. 1944, closed 10 Mar. 1945 (158 perf.). A sixteen-year-old boy who has served for two years in the South Pacific is sent back home when his parents complain to authorities that he’s 238

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underage. He brings home a bloody Japanese flag and a shrunken head for presents and is resentful that he’s being treated like a typical teenager after his experiences. Although it is mostly a comedy, there are some astute comments about the readjusting serviceman. A colonel says: “There has been a lot of careless talk about what these boys will be like when they get back. Some people warn us that because our soldiers have been trained to kill, that they will come back tough—and dangerous. [.  .  .] Of course, his life in the army has changed him—but not only to be a destructive force. [. . .] Instead of worrying about the problem of the ‘readjusted soldier,’ perhaps there ought to be more thought given to the problem of the ‘readjusted citizen.’ ”71 The reviews in general were good, especially for Billy Redfield as the young soldier. A film version was produced in 1945 with Robert Benchley, Vera Vague, and Conrad Janis as the young soldier. In Bed We Cry, by Ilka Chase. Directed and produced by John C. Wilson. With Ilka Chase, Frederic Tozere, and Paul McGrath. Opened 14 Nov. 1944, closed 23 Dec. 1944 (forty-seven perf.). A beauty product magnate leaves her hardworking scientist husband for a fascinating refugee, but when her husband is killed in North Africa, she drops the cad for her sensible male business partner. Ilka Chase took her best-selling novel and turned it into a play starring herself. Critics were unanimous in praising the smart costumes and accessories. The Streets Are Guarded, by Laurence Stallings. Directed by John Haggott and produced by John C. Wilson. With Phil Brown, George Matthews, Robertson White, Len Doyle, and Jeanne Cagney. Opened 20 Nov. 1944, closed 9 Dec. 1944 (twenty-four perf.). A possibly supernatural marine lands on a small island and rescues half a dozen air force and navy men plus a Dutch nurse from the Japanese. See pp. 93–94. Some felt the play was too “mystical and obscure.” Robert Garland was flummoxed by it: “I wouldn’t say it’s a good play. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad one. But I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. [. . .] Those men in uniform up on the stage were so right, so real, so damned American.”72 A Bell for Adano, by Paul Osborn, based on the novel by John Hersey. Directed by H. C. Potter and produced by Leland Hayward. With Fredric March, Margo, Everett Sloane, Alexander Granach, and Tito 239

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Appendix

Vuolo. Opened 6 Dec. 1944, closed 27 Oct. 1945 (296 perf.). American Major Joppolo, a civil affairs officer for the Allied Military Government, tries to bring democracy to a liberated Italian town. See pp. 168–70. John Chapman called it “the best war play of this season and last season, too. It isn’t a war play, though, at that. It is at least a postwar play and perhaps a peace play, for it tells very simply and quietly a bit of what happens to an infinitesimal part of a nation after the war has torn through it and left it behind.”73 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1944–45 season by Burns Mantle and made into a movie in 1945 with John Hodiak, William Bendix, Harry Morgan, and Gene Tierney. Dear Ruth, by Norman Krasna. Directed by Moss Hart and produced by Joseph M. Hyman and Bernard Hart. With Virginia Gilmore, John Dall, Phyllis Povah, Howard Smith, and Lenore Lonergan. Opened 13 Dec. 1944, closed 27 July 1946 (680 perf.). Miriam, a fifteen-yearold girl, writes to a soldier overseas under the name of her older sister, Ruth. Miriam is sophisticated for her age and writes romantically but also about the war, the obligations of civilians, and how the next generation will deal with the peace. Trouble ensues when Bill, the soldier, shows up on their doorstep the same day that Ruth becomes engaged. Although initially resistant to Bill, Ruth plays along so that his brief time home will be pleasant, eventually falling in love and eloping with him. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1944–45 season by Burns Mantle and made into a film in 1947 with Joan Caulfield, William Holden, Mona Freeman, and Edward Arnold. Sophie, by George Ross and Rose C. Feld, based on the Sophie Halenczik stories by Rose Feld. Directed by Michael Gordon and produced by Meyer Davis and George Ross. With Katina Paxinou, Will Geer, and Donald Buka. Opened 25 Dec. 1944, closed 31 Dec. 1944 (nine perf.). Sophie, a naturalized Czech immigrant, is disapproved of by her neighbors because she’s a foreigner. Her other troubles include a soldier son who has made a young woman pregnant without marrying her and her brother, who says he wants to grow food for the war effort, but really wants to live on Sophie’s generosity. Most critics considered the play reminiscent of I Remember Mama. Sing Out, Sweet Land!, by Walter Kerr. Directed by Leon Leonidoff and Walter Kerr and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Alfred Drake, 240

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Burl Ives, and Bibi Osterwald. Opened 27 Dec. 1944, closed 24 Mar. 1945 (102 perf.). This musical revue traced the history of America through its folk music, starting in Puritan New England and ending on an American aircraft carrier. Most of the praise was reserved for Drake and Ives. On the Town, by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Directed by George Abbott, musical numbers and choreography by Jerome Robbins, and produced by Oliver Smith and Paul Feigay. With John Battles, Cris Alexander, Adolph Green, Nancy Walker, Betty Comden, and Sono Osato. Opened 28 Dec. 1944, closed 2 Feb. 1946 (462 perf.). Three sailors have leave in New York City for twenty-four hours. See pp. 122–24. The reviews were quite good, especially for Nancy Walker as a man-hungry cab driver, Comden and Green as an impulsive couple, the Coney Island sequence designed by Oliver Smith, and Robbins’s choreography. Comden received a Theatre World Award for her performance in the 1944–45 season. Made into a film in 1949 with Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Vera-Ellen, Jules Munshin, and little of the Bernstein music. The Hasty Heart, by John Patrick. Directed by Bretaigne Windust and produced by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. With Richard Basehart, Anne Burr, and John Lund. Opened 3 Jan. 1945, closed 30 June 1945 (207 perf.). A dour, proud Scottish soldier is sent to a convalescent ward in the Assam-Burma theater, where he refuses friendship and pity. After he finds out he’s dying, he decides to spend his few remaining weeks with these people who have become his friends and bought him his first kilt. The reviews especially praised Basehart as the Scot. Wilella Waldorf wrote that it “is the best play yet to come out of this war. Probably this is because it is not, strictly speaking, a play about war, but a play about people who just happen to be involved in a war.”74 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1944–45 season by Burns Mantle, and John Lund received a Theatre World Award. The show did well in London, where it opened 30 Aug. 1945, closed 27 July 1946 (380 perf.). Made into a film in 1949 with Ronald Reagan, Patricia Neal, and Richard Todd as the Scot. A Lady Says Yes, by Clayton Ashley, with music by Fred Spielman and Arthur Gershwin, lyrics by Stanley Adams. No director listed in 241

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Appendix

program, produced by J. J. Shubert. With Carole Landis, Sue Ryan, Christine Ayres, and Jacqueline Susann. Opened 10 Jan. 1945, closed 25 Mar. 1945 (eighty-seven perf.). An army lieutenant undergoes an operation on his nose, doubts his masculinity, and dreams he’s in 1545 Venice. Carole Landis made her Broadway debut as the lieutenant’s nurse and his Venetian courtesan. Home Is the Hero, by Courtenay Savage. Produced by the Blackfriars Guild. With Virginia Dwyer and Harold Heagy. Opened 18 Jan. 1945 (twenty-three perf.). A soldier returns home and has trouble adjusting to civilian life and his wife’s career. Critics compared it to Soldier’s Wife, noting that it was more serious, but very talky. Not the same as the 1954 play. Alice in Arms (original title A Star in the Window) by Ladislaus BushFekete, Mary Helen Fay, and Sidney Sheldon. Directed by Jack Daniels and produced by Edward Choate and Marie Louise Elkins. With Peggy Conklin, Kirk Douglas, and Roger Clark. Opened 31 Jan. 1945, closed 3 Feb. 1945 (five perf.). A WAC, home in Pennsylvania after a medical discharge, has to choose from among her hometown beau, her former colonel, and an army sergeant whom she met during the Normandy campaign. She confesses her affair to her fiancé, who forgives her, but then the sergeant visits her hometown, and she elopes with him. Hope for the Best, by William McCleery. Directed by Marc Connelly and produced by Jean Dalrymple and Marc Connelly. With Franchot Tone, Jane Wyatt, Joan Wetmore, and Leo Bulgakov. Opened 7 Feb. 1945, closed 19 May 1945 (117 perf.). A syndicated columnist, who writes about the joys of simple living, wants to write about world affairs instead. Among those discouraging him are his publisher and his fiancée, herself a syndicated political columnist, and encouraging him are a female factory worker, his former professor, and his army sergeant brother. This variation on No Time for Comedy ran well because of its stars, Tone and Wyatt. Foolish Notion, by Philip Barry. Directed by John C. Wilson and produced by the Theatre Guild. With Tallulah Bankhead, Henry Hull, Donald Cook, Aubrey Mather, and Mildred Dunnock. Opened 13 Mar. 1945, closed 9 June 1945 (104 perf.). A serviceman, previously reported dead, returns home and causes complications for his wife, 242

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who is about to remarry. The reviews were uneven, but Tallulah Bankhead, an audience and critic favorite, received a lot of praise. Kiss Them for Me, by Luther Davis. Directed by Herman Shumlin and produced by John Moses and Mark Hanna. With Richard Widmark, Richard Davis, Dennis King Jr., and Judy Holliday. Opened 20 Mar. 1945, closed 23 June 1945 (110 perf.). The disturbing novel Shore Leave, by Frederic Wakeman, about South Pacific flyers on leave in San Francisco, was made into this comedy-drama about men drinking and looking for women, primarily to dull the pain of what they’ve experienced overseas. See p. 144. Burton Rascoe felt that it avoided “the goo and glory stuff about the ennobling virtue of getting killed,” which was seen in The Eve of St. Mark, and that it directed appropriate criticism against “many manifestations of what some civilians call patriotism (meaning their own profitable brand of it).”75 Richard Davis and Judy Holliday received Theatre World Awards. Made into a lackluster movie in 1957 with Cary Grant, Jayne Mansfield, Leif Erickson, and Ray Walston. Lady in Danger, by Max Afford and Alexander Kirkland. Directed by Clarence Derwent and produced by Pat Allen and Dan Fisher. With Helen Claire, Alexander Kirkland, Vickie Cummings, and Clarence Derwent. Opened 29 Mar. 1945, closed 7 Apr. 1945 (twelve perf.). The wife of a newspaper reporter, who has been fired for accusing a high-ranking government official of Nazi sympathies, decides to earn money by writing a murder mystery. She soon comes face to face with a real murder—the corpse of the official’s chauffeur is in her closet with terrible scratches on his face. She is arrested for murder, but her husband and his journalist pal discover a large fascist organization, and the official himself is killed in the same manner, by a cat whose claws were dipped in poison. She is rescued at the end, just as she is about to be killed by a psychiatrist who is part of the fifth column. Produced much more successfully in Australia. A Place of Our Own, by Elliott Nugent. Directed by Elliott Nugent and produced by John Golden in association with Elliott Nugent and Robert Montgomery. With John Archer, Robert Keith, Jeanne Cagney, Mercedes McCambridge, and J.  C. Nugent. Opened 2 Apr. 1945, closed 7 Apr. 1945 (eight perf.). A returning WWI soldier is given a newspaper to run by his father-in-law but disappoints him by having too liberal an editorial policy. His father-in-law wants to 243

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Appendix

defeat the League of Nations and make the country isolationist again. The play provided commentary on the problems at the end of the last war, in the hope that they wouldn’t be repeated. Star-Spangled Family, by B. Harrison Orkow. Directed by William Castle and produced by Philip A. Waxman and Joseph Kipness. With Frances Reid, Jean Adair, and Edward Nugent. Opened 10 Apr. 1945, closed 13 Apr. 1945 (five perf.). The widow of a highly decorated war hero marries a doctor who did not serve overseas. Her former motherin-law doesn’t approve of the match and poisons her grandson’s mind against his new stepfather. Common Ground, by Edward Chodorov. Directed by Edward Chodorov and produced by Edward Choate. With Luther Adler, Paul McGrath, Philip Loeb, Joseph Vitale, Mary Healy, Donald Murphy, and Nancy Noland. Opened 25 Apr. 1945, closed 23 June 1945 (sixty-nine perf.). Five USO entertainers are captured by Nazis after their plane goes down near Naples. See pp. 95–98. Foxhole in the Parlor, by Elsa Shelley. Directed by John Haggott and produced by Harry Bloomfield. With Montgomery Clift, Flora Campbell, Russell Hardie, Grace Coppin, Raymond Greenleaf, and Ann Lincoln. Opened 23 May 1945, closed 30 June 1945 (forty-five perf.). Montgomery Clift received excellent reviews for his portrayal of a soldier and former concert pianist who returns home with a case of shell shock. See pp. 141–44.

1945–1946 The Private Life of the Master Race, by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Eric Russell Bentley. Directed by Berthold Viertel and produced by the Theater of All Nations at City College. With Albert Basserman, Clarence Derwent, and Elaine Stritch. Opened 12 June 1945 (six perf.). Nine German soldiers on their way to the front recall aspects of the rise of national socialism, such as anti-Semitism, political persecution, and concentration camps. The Wind Is Ninety, by Ralph Nelson. Directed by Albert de Courville and produced by Lee and J. J. Shubert. With Wendell Corey, Kirk Douglas, Blanche Yurka, Bert Lytell, Frances Reid, Joyce Van Patten, and Dickie Van Patten. Opened 21 June 1945, closed 22 Sept. 1945 (108 perf.). The 244

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spirit of Captain Don Ritchie, a pilot who has recently been shot down over Germany, accompanied by the ghost of a soldier from World War I, visits his family to try to soften the blow of hearing about his death. See pp. 145–46. Critics found the show very moving, especially Wendell Corey as Ritchie and Kirk Douglas as his spectral guide. Wendell Corey received a Theatre World Award for his performance. Produced on television by Kraft Theatre in 1948 and in 1950, with George Reeves. The Ryan Girl, by Edmund Goulding. Directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Lee and J. J. Shubert. With June Havoc, Edmund Lowe, Doris Dalton, and Una O’Connor. Opened 24 Sept. 1945, closed 3 Nov. 1945 (forty-eight perf.). June Havoc played Venetia Ryan, an ex-Follies girl, who married a gangster when she was sixteen and bore a child that she gave away to another Follies girl, who married a millionaire and brought up the boy. Her son wins the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the gangster hopes to trade on this so that he won’t be caught and executed, but the Ryan girl kills him rather than let her son know who his real father is. You Touched Me!, by Tennessee Williams and Donald Windham. Directed and produced by Guthrie McClintic. With Edmund Gwenn, Montgomery Clift, Catherine Willard, and Marianne Stewart. Opened 25 Sept. 1945, closed 5 Jan. 1946 (109 perf.). This romantic comedy centers on the family of an unhappily retired sea captain who has moved to the English countryside with his spinster sister and his daughter, Matilda. Hadrian, an RAF pilot who was a charity boy unofficially adopted by the captain, visits and encourages Matilda, a delicate teenager, to become an independent woman. Matilda and her aunt want the world to return to the quiet past, whereas Hadrian says that he has been fighting a “war to create a world that can live without war.”76 This play opened six months after The Glass Menagerie; there was special praise for Gwenn’s performance. Deep Are the Roots, by Arnaud d’Usseau and James Gow. Directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and George Heller. With Charles Waldron, Carol Goodner, Lloyd Gough, Barbara Bel Geddes, and Gordon Heath. Opened 26 Sept. 1945, closed 16 Nov. 1946 (477 perf.). An African American war hero makes waves upon returning to his southern home. See pp. 152–57. By the authors of 245

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Appendix

Tomorrow the World, this play was praised by Burns Mantle as being “the first of the newer war plays to deal with the problem faced by colored heroes of World War II when they try again to take up life in their home communities on the same level they had laid it down when they were drafted.”77 The reviews were very strong, especially for Bel Geddes as the younger daughter, who received a Theatre World Award for her performance, and Heath as the lieutenant. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1945–46 season by Burns Mantle. The Assassin, by Irwin Shaw. Directed by Martin Gabel and produced by Carly Wharton and Martin Gabel in association with Alfred Bloomingdale. With Frank Sundstrom, Lesley Woods, Harold Huber, and Karl Malden. Opened 17 Oct. 1945, closed 27 Oct. 1945 (thirteen perf.). This melodrama was a fictionalized version of the assassination of Admiral Jean François Darlan in North Africa. See pp. 170–73. Seven Mirrors, by the students of Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, and edited by Emmet Lavery. Directed by Dennis Gurney and produced by the Blackfriars Guild. Opened 25 Oct. 1945 (twenty-three perf.). This Off-Broadway production had seven scenes in which seven variations of Holy Mary show how women can help with men’s affairs in wartime. These include Polish women beating up the Nazi enemy in Warsaw, American women being encouraged to join the armed forces rather than stay home, and German women realizing that they shouldn’t kill friendly American troops. Among the performers was Geraldine Page. The Secret Room, by Robert Turney. Directed by Moss Hart and produced by Joseph M. Hyman and Bernard Hart. With Frances Dee, Reed Brown Jr., Eleonora Mendelssohn, Grace Coppin, and Juanita Hall. Opened 7 Nov. 1945, closed 24 Nov. 1945 (twenty-one perf.). An Italian concert pianist who was taken prisoner by the Nazis, sent to Dachau as a prostitute, gang-raped, and forced to bear the child, who was then taken away from her, is brought to the United States to be treated for extreme depression and becomes a psychopath. See pp. 144–45. The Rugged Path, by Robert E. Sherwood. Directed by Garson Kanin and produced by the Playwrights’ Company. With Spencer Tracy, Martha Sleeper, and Clinton Sundberg. Opened 10 Nov. 1945, closed 19 Jan. 1946 (eighty-one perf.). Tracy starred as a foreign correspondent who joins a band of American and Filipino guerillas. See p. 94. Though 246

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the play raised some serious questions about the war and a person’s place in it, the result was not a timely one; Louis Kronenberger noted, “It is a sort of Remembrance of Things Just Past—a refresher course on the issues and activities of the War Years.”78 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1945–46 season by Burns Mantle. Skydrift, by Harry Kleiner. Directed by Roy Hargrave and produced by Rita Hassan. With Alfred Ryder, Olive Deering, and Eli Wallach. Opened 13 Nov. 1945, closed 17 Nov. 1945 (seven perf.). A transport bomber is shot down and crashes in the South Pacific. The crew and the paratroopers all die, but their ghosts visit the people who were closest to them—mostly to encourage them to recover from their grief and get on with life. The dead crew chief (Wallach) returns to haunt his wife, who he believed was unfaithful to him. Reviewers compared the play to The Wind Is Ninety. State of the Union, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. Directed by Bretaigne Windust and produced by Leland Hayward. With Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Hussey, Myron McCormick, Minor Watson, and Kay Johnson. Opened 14 Nov. 1945, closed 13 Sept. 1947 (765 perf.). A millionaire airplane manufacturer is encouraged by a Republican Party boss to run for president. See pp. 173–78. Critics commented on the serious undertones of this comedy; Louis Kronenberger wrote, “State of the Union is asking us also to work for world understanding and peace, and not to make a farce of the United Nations by stirring up international hatreds.”79 It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1945–46 season by Burns Mantle, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1946, and made into a film in 1948 with Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Angela Lansbury, and Van Johnson. A Sound of Hunting, by Harry Brown. Directed by Anthony Brown and produced by Irving L. Jacobs. With Sam Levene, Frank Lovejoy, and Burton (Burt) Lancaster. Opened 20 Nov. 1945, closed 28 Dec. 1945 (twenty-three perf.). A squad of GIs in the Italian town of Cassino don’t want to be relieved from the front line without rescuing one of their group who has been separated from the others while on patrol. See pp. 94–95. The reviews for first-time playwright Harry Brown were good, especially for the dialogue and humor in portraying real soldiers. John Mason Brown, in his review, which was later republished as the introduction to the published version, called it “the best 247

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Appendix

war play America has so far produced” since What Price Glory.80 Burt Lancaster received a Theatre World Award for his performance. It was made into the film Eight Iron Men in 1952 with Bonar Colleano, Lee Marvin, and Richard Kiley. The French Touch, by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov. Directed by René Clair and produced by Herbert H. Harris. With Brian Aherne, Arlene Francis, John Wengraf, and Jacqueline Dalya. Opened 8 Dec. 1945, closed 5 Jan. 1946 (thirty-three perf.). A Parisian actor is enlisted by the Nazi minister of culture to write a play that will demonstrate how well the French and Germans get along. See pp. 86–87. Critics remarked on its extravagant theatricality. Home of the Brave, by Arthur Laurents. Directed by Michael Gordon and produced by Lee Sabinson. With Joseph Pevney, Alan Baxter, Russell Hardie, Eduard Franz, and Kendall Clark. Opened 27 Dec. 1945, closed 23 Feb. 1946 (sixty-nine perf.). An army psychiatrist at a Pacific base works with Coney, a Jewish soldier who can’t remember what caused his paralysis. During treatment, the soldier comes to realize that he has survivor’s guilt because the Japanese killed a friend of his while they were on patrol. Coney also suspects that his friend, at a crucial moment, may have almost revealed some anti-Semitic feelings. See pp. 163–66. It was named one of the Best Plays for the 1945–46 season by Burns Mantle. The critics praised its treatment of soldiers who are emotionally as well as physically affected by the war and for its exploration of anti-Semitism. The play was made into a movie in 1949 with James Edwards, Jeff Corey, and Lloyd Bridges, but in this case the soldier is a black serviceman enduring racial slurs. Jeb, by Robert Ardrey. Directed by Herman Shumlin and produced by Herman Shumlin in association with David Merrick. With Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Opened 21 Feb. 1946, closed 28 Feb. 1946 (nine perf.). Jeb Turner, an African American veteran who lost a leg in the war, comes home to Louisiana and hopes to get a job running an adding machine at a local mill. See pp. 157–59. Ossie Davis received excellent reviews for his performance as Jeb. Truckline Cafe, by Maxwell Anderson. Directed by Harold Clurman and produced by Harold Clurman and Elia Kazan in association with the Playwrights’ Company. With Virginia Gilmore, Richard Waring, Marlon Brando, Kevin McCarthy, David Manners, Karl Malden, and Irene 248

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Dailey. Opened 27 Feb. 1946, closed 9 Mar. 1946 (thirteen perf.). Set in a truck stop between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the play shows the problems of servicemen trying to reintegrate themselves into society. See pp. 137–41. All the major reviewers savaged the play. Anderson and the producers took out a large ad in the papers to protest the bad reviews, but the controversy was not enough to keep the play running. Marlon Brando received a Theatre World Award for his performance. Woman Bites Dog, by Bella and Samuel Spewack. Directed by Coby Ruskin and produced by Kermit Bloomgarden. With Taylor Holmes, Ann Shoemaker, Kirk Douglas, Royal Beal, Frank Lovejoy, Mercedes McCambridge, and E.  G. Marshall. Opened 17 Apr. 1946, closed 20 Apr. 1946 (five perf.). This broad satire about ultraconservative newspaper publishers did well out of town but received tepid reviews in New York and closed quickly. See p. 146. Call Me Mister, by Arnold Auerbach and Arnold B. Horwitt, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome. Directed by Robert H. Gordon and produced by Melvyn Douglas and Herman Levin. With Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin, Bill Callahan, and Lawrence Winters. Opened 18 Apr. 1946, closed 10 Jan. 1948 (734 perf.). This well-received musical revue focuses on soldiers mustering out of the service and returning to civilian life. Songs included “Surplus Blues,” “The Red Ball Express,” “The Face on the Dime,” “South America, Take It Away,” and “A Home of Our Own.” Most of the sketches deal with elements of postwar life, including the hilarious “Welcome Home,” in which a family, who have all read the latest magazine articles about soldiers, treat their normal vet like a psycho. Other sketches spoof modern army red tape by showing what Paul Revere would have had to do to requisition a horse to ride to Boston and how the ordinary soldier is jealous of members of the air force because they are portrayed as much more heroic in the movies. The biographies in the program listed wartime service or alternative service during the war for the performers and staff. Bill Callahan received a Theatre World Award for his performance. Made into a movie in 1951 with Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Danny Thomas, Dale Robertson, and Bobby Short singing “Goin’ Home Train.” The film bore little resemblance to the revue. This, Too, Shall Pass, by Don Appell. Directed by Don Appell and produced by Richard Krakeur and David Shay. With Ralph Morgan, 249

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Appendix

Kathryn Givney, Sam Wanamaker, Jan Sterling, and Walter Starkey. Opened 30 Apr. 1946, closed 22 June 1946 (sixty-three perf.). A veteran’s sister falls in love with his Jewish buddy, fueling anti-Semitism in her family. See p. 166. On Whitman Avenue, by Maxine Wood. Directed by Margo Jones and produced by Canada Lee and Mark Marvin. With Canada Lee, Will Geer, Ernestine Barrier, and Perry Wilson. Opened 8 May 1946, closed 14 Sept. 1946 (150 perf.). A white liberal family rents out half of their home to a black veteran and his family. See pp. 159–61. Howard Barnes summed up the dramatic issue: “The hostile reactions of most of the white folk, including the wife of the right-thinking landlord, are neatly matched by the resentment of the Negro war hero and his clan when they find that people of their color can die for their country, but have a devil of a time finding a place to live in it.”81

1946–1947 A Flag Is Born, by Ben Hecht, with music by Kurt Weill. Directed by Luther Adler and produced by Jules J. Leventhal for the American League for a Free Palestine. With Paul Muni, Celia Adler, Marlon Brando, and Quentin Reynolds. Opened 5 Sept. 1946, closed 14 Dec. 1946 (120 perf.). Primarily a pageant, A Flag Is Born makes the case for a homeland for Jews through a presentation of their history as a persecuted people. See p. 167. The show raised nearly a million dollars.

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Notes 1. Popular Culture, Broadway, and World War II 1. For information on the German-American Bund and the rally, see Bernstein, Swastika Nation, prologue and ch. 22; Cypkin, “Nazi Oratory in America”; Goldstein, Helluva Town, ch. 24; Kurth, American Cassandra, 287–89; MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, ch. 2; Sanders, Dorothy Thompson, 229–31; Van Ells, “Americans for Hitler.” 2. Woodruff, Necessity of Theater, 18. 3. For background on Confessions of a Nazi Spy, see Karr, “The Dark Truth and the Silver Screen”; for more on Hollywood’s pre–Pearl Harbor films, see McLaughlin and Parry, We’ll Always Have the Movies, ch. 1. 4. Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda, 54. 5. On home-front upheavals during the war years, see Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?; and Jeffries, Wartime America. 6. Before Pearl Harbor and during the war years, there was great disagreement among and within the various administrative offices charged with formulating propaganda policy about how closely to hew to the truth. See Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda, ch. 1, and Laurie, The Propaganda Warriors, ch. 5. 7. Bernays, Propaganda, 101. 8. Bernays, quoted in Tye, The Father of Spin, 40. 9. Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, 215. 10. There have been many important studies of the Hollywood film during World War II: see Koppes and Black, Hollywood Goes to War; Fyne, The Hollywood Propaganda of World War II; Dick, The Star-Spangled Screen; Shull and Wilt, Hollywood War Films; and McLaughlin and Parry, We’ll Always Have the Movies. On radio’s contribution to the war effort, see Braverman, To Hasten the Homecoming, ch. 3; Wertheim, Staging the War, ch. 4; and Blue, Words at War. For journalism, see Reporting World War II: Part One and Part Two; and, especially on news photography, see Roeder, The Censored War, ch. 1. On war-era music, see Smith, God Bless America; and Jones, The Songs That Fought the War. On cartoons’ and comics’ treatment of the war, see Minear, Dr. Seuss Goes to War; Husband, Cartoons of World War II; and Goodnow and Kimble, The 10 Cent War. 11. Wertheim, Staging the War, the only other major study of theater during World War II, argues that theater did function like these other media, that the plays of the time worked together to offer a coherent message about the war. He writes of 251

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Notes to Pages 6–13

the pre–Pearl Harbor plays that, despite their differences in style and technique, “the playwrights are groping for the right dramatic formula that would propel the audience from their seats and into action” (33). After Pearl Harbor, playwrights “turned to the new task of helping the public understand better the causes for which lives were being sacrificed, the dangerous nature of the enemy, the heroism of the troops at the front, the excellence of American military know-how, and the impact of the war on the lives of those at home” (55). See especially his ch. 1 and 2. As will become clear, we see something different going on; the plays of the time, far from working together to create a single narrative about the war, offered a lively dialogue of diverse views. 12. Houchin, Censorship of the American Theatre, 154–62, reports that the main pressure put on the theater came from the House Un-American Activities Committee, always on the lookout for communist influence, and local morality watchdogs, and these pressures both predate and postdate the war. 13. Gassner, “Foreword: Politics and Theatre,” ix–x. 14. Williams, Stage Left, 33. Williams, who under his birth name, Harold Jacobson, was a member of the Workers Laboratory Theatre, is responding here to Morgan Y. Himelstein’s Drama Was a Weapon, a cold-war era study of political theater in the 1930s, which sees communists behind every politically conscious play, as well as in the wings, the orchestra pit, and the fly space. This is not to say that Communist Party members were not working in the 1930s theater or that the party did not see the theater as an important means of promulgating their beliefs; however, the numbers of communists and their influence were exaggerated at the time (see Quinn, Furious Improvisation, ch. 15, 16, and 17) and subsequently in some histories (see Himelstein). Hyman, Staging Strikes, 33–34, also stresses that the various workers’ theaters were “not uniform in their political affiliation.” Goldstein, The Political Stage, ch. 7, similarly argues that, despite pressure on theater companies from such organs as the New Masses and Daily Worker to toe the party line, most playwrights and directors pursued their own, generally liberal or leftist political beliefs. 15. Quoted in Williams, Stage Left, 11. 16. Waldau, Vintage Years of the Theatre Guild, 344. 17. See ibid. and Goldstein, The Political Stage, ch. 5 and 11, for histories of the Guild during the 1930s. 18. Smith, Real Life Drama, 3. 19. Ibid., 272. 20. For histories of the Group, see Clurman, The Fervent Years; Goldstein, The Political Stage, ch. 4 and 10; and Smith, Real Life Drama. 21. Hyman, Staging Strikes, 2. 22. Franko, The Work of Dance, 24. 23. Williams, Stage Left, 43. 24. Odets, Waiting for Lefty, 52. 25. Odets, Till the Day I Die, 73. 26. Ibid., 11. 27. Shaw, Bury the Dead, 5. 252

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Notes to Pages 13–29

28. Ibid., 23. 29. Ibid., 24. 30. Ibid., 29. 31. Ibid., 41. 32. Butler, War Is a Racket, esp. ch. 2 and 3. 33. Hyman, Staging Strikes, 92; Prideaux, “Tailor-Made Hit of the 30’s,” 30–31. 34. Prideaux, “Tailor-Made Hit of the 30’s,” 36. For more on the workers’ theater of the 1930s, see Goldstein, The Political Stage, ch. 2, 7, and 8. 35. Flanagan quoted in Williams, Stage Left, 222–23. 36. Williams, Stage Left, 223. 37. Lewis and Moffitt, It Can’t Happen Here, 2–3-41. 38. For histories of the Federal Theatre Project, see Buttitta and Witham, Uncle Sam Presents; Goldstein, The Political Stage, ch. 9; and Quinn, Furious Improvisation. 39. Williams, Stage Left, 232. 40. Quoted in Waldau, Vintage Years of the Theatre Guild, 279. 41. Moore, The Economics of the American Theater, 44; McLaughlin, Broadway and Hollywood, 147. 42. Mantle, The Best Plays of 1941–42, 391–455. 43. Goldstein, The Political Stage, 391; Moore, The Economics of the American Theater, 11. 44. For Bourdieu’s theorization of cultural capital, see “The Forms of Capital” and Distinction.

2. Before Pearl Harbor 1. Roosevelt quoted in Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 187. 2. For more on these various positions, see Doenecke, The Battle against Intervention. 3. On these demagogues and profascist groups, see MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, ch. 2. 4. Holmes and Lawrence, If This Be Treason, 68, 69. 5. Ibid., vii. 6. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 14. 7. Ibid., 38–39. 8. Ibid., 40. 9. Ibid., 47–48. 10. See Anderson, Imagined Communities. 11. Sherwood, Idiot’s Delight, 107–8. 12. Ibid., 80. 13. Ibid., 43. 14. Ibid., 42. 15. Ibid., 60–61. 16. Ibid., 170. 253

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Notes to Pages 29–45

17. Howard, The Ghost of Yankee Doodle, x. 18. Ibid., 35, 36. 19. Ibid., 37. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 104. 22. Ibid., 87–88. 23. Ibid., 152, 153. 24. Ibid., 140. 25. Ibid., 156. 26. Reportedly, the pointedness of the musical’s satire was significantly blunted during the show’s out-of-town tryout: “Gone by the time the show reached New York was the taut, hard-driving book, much of Agnes de Mille’s antiwar ballet, and a number of the original leads” (Bordman, American Musical Theatre, 507). In that sense, Hooray for What! was a more comfortable theatergoing experience for a typical middle-class Broadway audience than Pins and Needles. 27. Green and Weill, Johnny Johnson, 140. 28. Čapek, The Mother, 43. 29. Ibid., 68. 30. Ibid., 56–57. 31. Ibid., 88. 32. Waldorf, “Lew Brown Returns.” 33. Rice, Judgment Day, 195–96. 34. Deval, Lorelei, 2–5. 35. Himelstein, Drama Was a Weapon, 210. 36. In fact, the German government was embarrassed by the Bund’s activities in the United States, and by the end of the 1930s, it insisted that there be no official connection between the German consulates and the Bund. See Bernstein, Swastika Nation, ch. 19. 37. Boothe, Margin for Error, 32. 38. Ibid., 83. 39. Ibid., 84. 40. Hellman, Watch on the Rhine, 231. 41. Ibid., 249. 42. Ibid., 260. 43. Ibid., 251. 44. Ibid., 261. 45. Ibid., 279. 46. Ibid., 292. 47. Ibid., 297. 48. Ibid., 301. 49. Rotter and Vincent, Letters to Lucerne, 104. 50. A few German POWs being held in Canada did manage to escape and cross the Saint Lawrence River into the United States, at that time neutral. See Strausbaugh, Victory City, 215–17. 254

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Notes to Pages 46–58

51. Krasna, The Man with Blond Hair, 1–2-27. 52. Ibid., 2–24. 53. Ibid., 3–26. 54. Behrman, Rain from Heaven, 224. 55. Ibid., 224, 226. 56. Ibid., 203–4. 57. Ibid., 204–5. 58. Ibid., 239. 59. Bach, Dazzler, 179. 60. Kaufman and Hart, The American Way, 381, 388. 61. Ibid., 397, 399. 62. Ibid., 403. 63. Shaw, The Gentle People, 15, 23. 64. Ibid., 34. 65. Ibid., 72. 66. Ibid., 61. 67. Ibid., 72. 68. Rice, American Landscape, ix. 69. Ibid., 29, 39. 70. Ibid., 37, 108. 71. The German-American Bund operated a number of camps around the country, most notably Camp Siegfried, outside Yaphank, Long Island, and Camp Nordland, outside Andover, N.J. These camps provided a combination of relaxation and indoctrination, the latter especially aimed at young people. Summer weekends, with the arrival of out-of-towners, bands, speeches, and the ubiquitous presence of the Bund’s uniformed security force, the OD, proved disruptive to the permanent residents of the nearby towns, and several communities, especially Grafton, Wis., and Southbury, Conn., sought legal means to shut down the camps. See Van Ells, “Americans for Hitler,” 47–48; and Bernstein, Swastika Nation, ch. 8 and 9. 72. Rice, American Landscape, 100. 73. Ibid., 114. 74. Ibid., 93. 75. Ibid., 142. 76. Hecht, To Quito and Back, 185. 77. Ardrey, Thunder Rock, 19. 78. Ibid., 17. 79. Ibid., 19. 80. Ibid., 20–21. 81. Ibid., 21. 82. Ibid., 20, 23. 83. Ibid., 36. 84. Ibid., 58. 85. Ibid., 59. 255

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Notes to Pages 58–69

86. Ibid., 66. As the Group rehearsed the play for its Broadway opening, there was a great deal of discussion and reworking of the ending and what kind of message it should send. When it opened, the final act included a sequence in which Charleston converses with Streeter’s ghost and makes a strong anti-interventionist speech. This sequence was removed for the play’s successful London run and its subsequent published versions. See Goldstein, The Political Stage, 330–31, and Wertheim, Staging the War, 45–47. 87. Anderson, Key Largo, 22. Like many of Anderson’s plays, Key Largo contains large sections written in verse. 88. Ibid., 21. 89. Ibid., 118. 90. Rice, Flight to the West, 53. 91. Ibid., 55. 92. Ibid., 56–57. 93. Ibid., 136. 94. Behrman, No Time for Comedy, 35–36. 95. Ibid., 103–4, 105.

3. Overseas 1. Wilson, “‘South Pacific,’ Drama of War.” 2. See Kersaudy, Norway 1940, for a scathing assessment of Britain’s inept diplomatic and military missions in Norway. 3. Interestingly, the animosity went both ways: an early 1941 public opinion poll in Britain ranked the United States dead last among non-Axis countries. See Olson, Citizens of London, 11–12. 4. Olson, Those Angry Days, 49–51, xix, 128, 136, 160, 193; Dunn, 1940, 67. 5. Olson, Those Angry Days, 51–52, 116; and Hemming, Agents of Influence. 6. See Olson, Citizens of London, ch. 2, on the influence of Morrow’s broadcasts. 7. Olson, Those Angry Days, 267. 8. Cull, quoted ibid., 194. 9. Olson, Citizens of London, 93; Dear and Foot, Oxford Companion to World War II, 138–40. 10. Brennan, The Wookey, 77–78. 11. Ibid., 93. 12. Ibid., 245–46. 13. The Windmill and its remarkable record were also the subject of the 1945 film Tonight and Every Night as well as the 2005 film Mrs. Henderson Presents. The theater, now called the Windmill International, a “gentlemen’s club” featuring “exotic” dancing, is located on Great Windmill Street, near Piccadilly Circus. 14. Storm, Heart of a City, 39. 15. Ibid., 38. 16. Waldorf, “‘The Strings, My Lord, Are False’ Opens at the Mansfield.” 256

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Notes to Pages 70–87

17. Lockridge, “‘Golden Wings.’” 18. Jay and Bolton, Golden Wings, 1–24, 1–25. 19. Flare Path was revived quite successfully at the Theatre Royal in London in 2011 as part of the celebration of Rattigan’s one hundredth birthday. Trevor Nunn directed, and Sienna Miller starred as Patricia. 20. Rattigan, Flare Path, 16. 21. Ibid., 59. 22. Ibid., 78. 23. Ibid., 68–69. 24. Ibid., 70. 25. Ibid., 81. 26. Ibid., 86. 27. Ibid., 70. 28. Hitler and Stalin: The Murder Men and Their Plot to Rape the World, 3. 29. Lelyveld, His Final Battle, 33. 30. Wapshott, The Sphinx, 313, 321; Kaiser, No End Save Victory, 260–61. 31. Lindbergh, quoted in Dunn, 1940, 61. 32. Truman, quoted in Wapshott, The Sphinx, 313. 33. James, Winter Soldiers, 2–5-38. 34. Fields, The Doughgirls, 59. 35. Ibid., 169. 36. Ibid., 152. 37. Ibid., 204. 38. Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down, 4. 39. See Pratt, Imperial Eyes, especially ch. 1. In the early stages of writing The Moon Is Down, Steinbeck had planned to set the action in a small American town that had been invaded, to show how Americans would react and what they could do. See Simmonds, John Steinbeck: The War Years, 97. 40. Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down, 79. 41. Ibid., 20. 42. Ibid., 43. 43. Ibid., 62–63. 44. Nathan, quoted in Simmonds, John Steinbeck: The War Years, 150; see also Benson, “Through a Political Glass, Darkly,” 53–54. 45. Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down, 58. 46. Shull and Wilt, Hollywood War Films, 212. 47. Werfel and Behrman, Jacobowsky and the Colonel, 46. 48. Ibid., 5. 49. Ibid., 143. 50. Ibid., 137. 51. Fields and Chodorov, The French Touch, 20. 52. Ibid., 21. 53. Ibid., 43. 257

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Notes to Pages 87–100

54. Ibid., 53–54. 55. Anderson, The Eve of St. Mark, 29. 56. Ibid., 84. 57. Ibid., 77. Anderson is employing poetic license: U.S. troops on Bataan surrendered on 9 April. 58. Ibid., 91–92. 59. Ibid., 106. 60. Ibid., 107. 61. Kenward, Cry Havoc [Proof thro’ the Night], 29–30. 62. Ibid., 81. 63. Ibid., 82. 64. Ibid., 19. 65. Anderson, Storm Operation, 34. 66. Ibid., 72. 67. Ibid., 92. 68. Ibid., 112. 69. Ibid., 125. 70. Ibid., 88. 71. Anderson visited North Africa in May and June 1943. The War Department sponsored his tour in exchange for his agreement to grant the department approval of any resulting script. See Shivers, Maxwell Anderson, 62–63. 72. Stallings, The Streets Are Guarded, 1–2-30. 73. Ibid., 2–2-23. 74. Ibid., 2–1-14. 75. Sherwood, The Rugged Path, 338. 76. Brown, A Sound of Hunting, 146. 77. Ibid., 120. 78. Seventeen USO performers were killed overseas during the war. See Goldstein, Helluva Town, 148. 79. Chodorov, Common Ground, 39. 80. Ibid., 52. 81. Ibid., 48. 82. Ibid., 31. 83. Ibid., 46. 84. Ibid., 78. 85. Ibid., 56, 57. 86. Ibid., 77.

4. The Home Front 1. For a debunking of this myth and an analysis of the “politics of sacrifice,” see Leff, “The Politics of Sacrifice.” 2. Nevins, “How We Felt about the War,” 7–8. 258

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Notes to Pages 100–114

3. For more on the draft, see Dickson, The Rise of the G. I. Army; Dunn, 1940, ch. 12; Kaiser, No End Save Victory, 83–88, 246–55; Oxford, “The Draft.” 4. Kaye performs the number in his 1944 film Up in Arms. 5. Lindsay and Crouse, Strip for Action, 21. 6. Ibid., 248. 7. For background on This Is the Army, see Bergreen, As Thousands Cheer, ch. 16. 8. Berlin, Complete Lyrics, 363. 9. For background on Winged Victory, see Bach, Dazzler, ch. 18. 10. Hart, Winged Victory, 40, 43. 11. Ibid., 55. 12. Ibid., 126. 13. Ibid., 192. 14. Ibid., 148. 15. This trope of the army air forces as a sort of extended family is used in Hollywood films as well. See McLaughlin and Parry, We’ll Always Have the Movies, 75–77. 16. For espionage themes in Hollywood films, see ibid., 35–41, 49–54. 17. See MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, ch. 7 and 8. 18. See ibid., 131–33, and Rachlis, They Came to Kill, for the story of the German saboteurs. The 1943 film They Came to Blow Up America (20th Century–Fox, directed by Edward Ludwig) was inspired by the Nazi saboteurs. The film featured George Sanders as an FBI man who is the son of German immigrants. He joins the German-American Bund and is recruited to go to Germany and train for a sabotage mission in the United States. On his return to the United States, Sanders turns in his fellow collaborators and exposes a German friend of his father’s who is working with the Nazis. 19. Rascoe, “Longacre Offers ‘Yankee Point.’ ” 20. Murray, Career Angel, 21. 21. Ibid., 44. 22. Jeffries, Wartime America, 69, 71; Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, 69. 23. For more on wartime migrations and their effects, see Jeffries, Wartime America, ch. 4; Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, ch. 3; and Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” ch. 4. 24. Meyer, quoted in Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, 88. See also Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” ch. 5. 25. Ephron and Ephron, Three’s a Family, 12. 26. Ibid., 60. 27. Ibid., 98. 28. Ibid., 55. 29. Shaw, Sons and Soldiers, 154. 30. Rice, A New Life, 2–1-5. 31. Ibid., 2–3-39–40. 259

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Notes to Pages 114–127

32. Ibid., 2–3-42. 33. Some reviewers were made particularly uncomfortable by this scene. See, for example, Kronenberger, “A Visit from a Lame Stork,” and Chapman, “With Wife’s Help,” 280. 34. Rice, A New Life, 2–3-48. 35. Ibid., 3–2-14, 15. 36. Ibid., 3–2-16. 37. Kubly, Men to the Sea, 1–1-9. 38. Ibid., 1–1-5. 39. See Andersen and Berk, “The Social-Cognitive Model of Transference.” 40. Kubly, Men to the Sea, 3–2-95. 41. Tuttle, “Daddy’s Gone to War,” 73. 42. Wolf and Black, “What Happened to the Young People,” 78. 43. Howell, Soldiers of the Pen, 103. 44. Wolf and Black, “What Happened to the Young People,” 79. 45. Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, 90; Jeffries, Wartime America, 91. 46. Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, 90–91. See also Yellin, Our Mothers’ War, 316–17, and Leder, Thanks for the Memories, 39–41. 47. Bentham and Williams, Janie, 15. 48. Ibid., 42. 49. Ibid., 78. 50. Ibid., 111. 51. Ibid., 116. 52. Herbert, Kiss and Tell, 44. 53. Ibid., 76. 54. Shelley, Pick-Up Girl, 335. 55. Ibid., 344–45. 56. Ibid., 346, 347. 57. Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, 93. 58. Leder, Thanks for the Memories, xiv. 59. Bernstein, Comden, and Green, On the Town, 11. 60. Coates, “Big Night,” 59. 61. Bernstein, Comden, and Green, On the Town, 82. 62. Oja, Bernstein Meets Broadway, 85. 63. Van Druten, The Voice of the Turtle, 18. 64. Ibid., 18–19. 65. Leder, Thanks for the Memories, 33. 66. Van Druten, The Voice of the Turtle, 102, 111. 67. Chodorov, Those Endearing Young Charms, 61. 68. Ibid., 72. 69. Ibid., 51. 70. Ibid., 73. 260

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Notes to Pages 127–146

71. Gow and d’Usseau, Tomorrow the World, 1–11–12. 72. Ibid., 1–27. 73. Ibid., 1–20. 74. Ibid., 1–28. 75. Ibid., 2–18. 76. Ibid., 2–20. 77. Ibid., 2–7. 78. Ibid., 3–13, 14. 79. Ibid., 3–12.

5. Anticipating the Postwar World 1. Lelyveld, His Final Battle, 9. 2. See ibid., esp. ch. 2. 3. Stokes, Foreword, v–vi. 4. Franken, Soldier’s Wife, 15, 16. 5. Ibid., 45. 6. Ibid., 27. 7. Ibid., 149–50. 8. Ibid., 162. 9. Ibid., 163. 10. Anderson, Truckline Cafe, 2–35. 11. Ibid., 1–39. 12. Ibid., 3–19. 13. Ibid., 2–25. 14. Ibid., 2–24. 15. Ibid., 3–23. 16. Ibid., 2–29. 17. Ibid., 3–5. 18. Ibid., 3–26. 19. See Pols, “The Tunisian Campaign,” for a brief history of PTSD and a detailed examination of how it was treated during World War II. 20. Langer, “Combat Trauma,” 51–52. 21. Pols, “The Tunisian Campaign,” 316. 22. Ibid. 23. Shelley, Foxhole in the Parlor, 35. 24. Ibid., 24. 25. Ibid., 59. 26. See Fearing, “Warriors Return.” 27. Shelley, Foxhole in the Parlor, 54. 28. Pols, “The Tunisian Campaign,” 315. 29. Davis, Kiss Them for Me, 1–23–24. 30. Nelson, The Wind Is Ninety, 78. 261

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Notes to Pages 146–158

31. Spewack and Spewack, Woman Bites Dog, 101. 32. Chodorov, Decision, 9. 33. Ibid., 21. 34. Ibid., 76. 35. Race-motivated violence among defense plant workers was, sadly, not uncommon. See Brandt, Harlem at War, 142–43. 36. Chodorov, Decision, 63–64. 37. Ibid., 58. 38. Ibid., 72. 39. German, Promises of Citizenship, 8–9. 40. Krebs, Fighting for Rights, 116; see also German, Promises of Citizenship, ch. 2. 41. Jefferson, Fighting for Hope, 2. 42. See Brandt, Harlem at War, ch. 7; German, Promises of Citizenship, ch. 6 and 143–46; and Jefferson, Fighting for Hope, 35–59. 43. Brandt, Harlem at War, 220. 44. German, Promises of Citizenship, 165. 45. Howell, Soldiers of the Pen, 127. 46. Rice, “Robert Ardrey’s ‘Jeb.’ ” 47. Garland, “Canada Lee Has Leading Role.” 48. Rigsby and Heyward, South Pacific, 1–12. 49. Ibid., 1–13. 50. German, Promises of Citizenship, 126; Brandt, Harlem at War, 92–94. 51. Rigsby and Heyward, South Pacific, 3–2-26. 52. Ibid., 3–2-29. 53. D’Usseau and Gow, Deep Are the Roots, 18. 54. Ibid., 32. Brett’s account accords generally with the experience of black GIs in Britain during the war. See Smith, When Jim Crow Met John Bull. 55. D’Usseau and Gow, Deep Are the Roots, 32. 56. Ibid., 38. 57. Ibid., 46. 58. Ibid., 67. 59. Ibid., 78. 60. Ibid., 79. 61. Ibid., 85, 90. 62. Ibid., 86. 63. Ibid., 89. 64. Ibid., 92. 65. Ibid., 94. 66. Ardrey, Jeb, 111. 67. Ibid., 134. 68. Ibid., 167. 69. Ibid., 129, 131. 70. Ibid., 133–34. 262

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Notes to Pages 158–172

71. Ibid., 149. 72. Wood, On Whitman Avenue, 36. 73. Ibid., 56. 74. Ibid., 62–63. 75. Ibid., 77. 76. Ibid., 76. 77. See Belth, A Promise to Keep, 68–72, 75–86, 87–96, 155–63. 78. See ibid., 123–45; Brinkley, Voices of Protest; Dunn, 1940, 301–3; MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, ch. 2; Marcus, Father Coughlin; Olson, Those Angry Days, ch. 24; Warren, Radio Priest. 79. Belth, A Promise to Keep, 142, 156; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, 108, 116, 146; Strausbaugh, Victory City, 35. 80. Belth, A Promise to Keep, 150. 81. The extremes are represented by Penkower, The Jews Were Expendable, which argues that the United States ignored the Holocaust out of political expediency, and Rosen, Saving the Jews, which paints FDR as a hero. See also Belth, A Promise to Keep, ch. 6; Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews; and Lelyveld, His Final Battle. 82. See Breitman and Lichtman, FDR and the Jews, 217–18; Hoffman, Ben Hecht, 128–57; and Wertheim, Staging the War, 91–95. 83. Laurents, Home of the Brave, 50. 84. Ibid., 35. 85. Ibid., 51–52. 86. Ibid., 55. 87. Ibid., 77. 88. Ibid., 85. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid., 95. 91. Wertheim, Staging the War, 279. See also Hoffman, Ben Hecht, 169–73. 92. Rascoe, “‘A Bell for Adano’ Beautiful and Touching.” 93. Osborn, A Bell for Adano, 6. 94. Ibid., 10. 95. Ibid., 24. 96. Ibid., 9. 97. Ibid., 15. 98. Ibid., 37. 99. Ibid., 69. 100. Ibid., 32. 101. See Tompkins, The Murder of Admiral Darlan, esp. part 2. 102. Ibid., 104–5. 103. Shaw, The Assassin, 35. 104. Ibid., 41. 105. Ibid., 49. 263

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Notes to Pages 172–202

106. Ibid., 59. 107. Ibid., 105. 108. For more on Willkie’s relationship with Van Doren and his 1940 presidential campaign, see Lewis, The Improbable Wendell Willkie, 120–24 and ch. 7. 109. Interestingly, Frank Capra’s 1948 film version of the play, in which Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play Grant and Mary, brings Willkie back to the foreground in Grant’s final speech, which advocates for a Willkie-style one-world future. By this time, Wallace was associated with the fledgling Progressive Party and his ideas were doubtlessly too controversial for communist-wary Hollywood. For more on Wallace and his Progressive Party presidential run, see Devine, Henry Wallace’s 1948 Presidential Campaign. 110. Wallace, Democracy Reborn, 190, 193. 111. Ibid., 32. 112. Lindsay and Crouse, State of the Union, 170. 113. Ibid., 9. 114. Ibid., 64. 115. Ibid., 130–31. 116. Ibid., 208. 117. Ibid., 221. 118. Ibid., 217–18. 119. Ibid., 220, 223. 120. Ibid., 224, 226.

Conclusion 1. See Costello, The Pacific War, 308–9; Carlson, Stanley Johnston’s Blunder; McLaughlin and Parry, We’ll Always Have the Movies, ch. 7. 2. Meacham and McGraw, “The Music of American Politics.”

Appendix 1. Atkinson, review of The Shatter’d Lamp. 2. Scheuer, “The Season in Southern California,” 28. 3. Blue, Words at War, 56–57. 4. Atkinson, review of Bitter Stream. 5. Mantle, “The Season in New York,” in The Best Plays of 1936–37, 4. 6. Mantle, “The Season in New York,” in The Best Plays of 1937–38, 9. 7. Wertheim, Staging the War, 10. 8. Whipple, “Margin for Error Opens at Plymouth.” 9. Brown, “Paul Muni Appears in Maxwell Anderson’s Play.” 10. Mantle, “‘Kindred’ Is a Poet’s Plea for Idealism.” 11. Waldorf, “‘The Burning Deck’ New Play.” 12. McGrath, “Hemingway, Your Letter Has Arrived.” 13. Glazer, The Fifth Column, 3–3. 264

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Notes to Pages 202–225

14. Watts, “Madrid.” 15. Lockridge, “‘A Passenger to Bali.’” 16. Brown, “Ethel Barrymore.” 17. Whipple, “International Incident.” 18. Watts, “Men in War.” 19. Brown, “‘There Shall Be No Night’ Opens with Lunts.” 20. Whipple, “Flight to the West New Propaganda Play.” 21. Kronenberger, “Liberty Rises.” 22. Kronenberger, “‘Talley Method,’ Drama with Ina Claire and Philip Merivale.” 23. Lockridge, “S. N. Behrman’s ‘The Talley Method.’ ” 24. Kronenberger, “ ‘ Watch on the Rhine.’ ” 25. Lockridge, “ ‘ The Wookey,’ a Moving War Play.” 26. Brown, “Sinclair Lewis.” 27. Brown, “Miss Hayes.” 28. Anderson, “ ‘Let’s Face It’ Opens.” 29. Mantle, “The Season in New York,” in The Best Plays of 1941–42, 6. 30. Atkinson, “The Play in Review: ‘The Man with Blond Hair.’ ” 31. Kronenberger, “  ‘Seventh Trumpet.’ ” 32. Anderson, “ ‘Hope for a Harvest.’ ” 33. Watts, “Letters of Hate.” 34. Mantle, “The Season in New York,” in The Best Plays of 1941–42, 8. 35. Koch and Huston, In Time to Come, 589. 36. Waldorf, “ ‘In Time to Come.’ ” 37. Atkinson, “The Play in Review: ‘The Lady Comes Across.’ ” 38. Kronenberger, “Nazi Invasion.” 39. Atkinson, “The Play in Review: ‘The Moon Is Down.’ ” 40. Watts, “Historic Event.” 41. Nathan, review of This Is the Army, 26. 42. Kronenberger, “Lindsay & Crouse.” 43. Brown, “The Eve of St. Mark”; Waldorf, “Maxwell Anderson’s War Play.” 44. Anderson, “All-American Musical Comedy.” 45. Rascoe, “The Skin of Our Teeth.” 46. Nathan, review of Winter Soldiers,” 154. 47. Mantle, “ ‘Flare Path’ Helps Out.” 48. Anderson, “ ‘Doughgirls’ Opens.” 49. Kronenberger, “Merman Returns.” 50. Waldorf, “Jed Harris Returns.” 51. Waldorf, “ ‘ The Barber Had Two Sons.’ ” 52. Anderson, “Billie Burke.” 53. Morehouse, “Max Gordon.” 54. Barnes, “War Farce.” 55. Anderson, “Ralph Bellamy.” 265

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Notes to Pages 225–250

56. Guernsey, “American Crusade.” 57. Gerstenberg, Victory Belles, 2–3. 58. Rascoe, “Winged Victory”; Chapman, “ ‘ Winged Victory’ a Triumph for the Army.” 59. Bordman, quoted in Wertheim, Staging the War, 140. 60. Smith, Lovers and Friends, 144–45. 61. Van Druten, The Voice of the Turtle, 40. 62. Gordon, Over Twenty-One, 11. 63. Wertheim, Staging the War, 62. 64. Nichols, “The Play in Review: ‘Decision.’ ” 65. Wertheim, Staging the War, 83. 66. Rascoe, “See Pick-Up Girl.” 67. Waldorf, “ ‘For Keeps’ a Slight but Touching Study.” 68. Barnes, “Delinquent.” 69. Rascoe, “Good Morning, Corporal Libels Soldier Morals.” 70. Chapman, “ ‘Soldier’s Wife’ a Delightful Little Comedy.” 71. Solomon and Buchman, Snafu, 3–12. 72. Nichols, “Mr. Stallings”; Garland, “  ‘Streets Are Guarded’ at Miller’s Theatre.” 73. Chapman, “Fredric March.” 74. Waldorf, “ ‘ The Hasty Heart.’ ” 75. Rascoe, “ ‘Kiss Them for Me.’ ” 76. Williams and Windham, You Touched Me!, 31. 77. Mantle, “The Season in New York,” in Best Plays of 1945–46, 6. 78. Kronenberger, “More a Maze.” 79. Kronenberger, “Very Good News.” 80. Brown, introduction to A Sound of Hunting, viii. 81. Barnes, “Rocky Street.”

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280

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Index Abbott, George, 186, 220, 224, 238, 241 Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning/ Talking to You, 215 Adams, Mason, 219, 235 Adams, Stanley, 241 Adler, Celia, 167, 250 Adler, Luther, 167, 190, 198, 220, 244, 250 Afford, Max, 109, 243 African Americans, 17, 19, 103, 124, 148–61, 214, 231–32, 245–46, 248, 250 Ainley, Richard, 199, 213 Albertson, Jack, 204, 217 Aldrich, Richard, 195, 198, 213 Alice in Arms, 137, 242 All for All, 227 American fascism, 2, 17, 49–51, 63, 147–48, 193–94, 233 America First, 23, 35, 76, 114, 162 American Landscape, 19, 53–54, 195, 199 American Way, The, 2, 49–50, 105, 195 Ames, Leon, 200, 209, 220, 227 Anders, Glenn, 235, 238 Anderson, Benedict, 27 Anderson, John, 209, 221, 223, 225 Anderson, Maxwell, 9, 19, 44, 58, 88, 91, 93, 137, 199, 208, 217, 232, 248 Another Sun, 38, 201 anti-Semitism, 162–66, 186–87, 194, 244, 248, 249–50 Appel, Don, 166, 202, 235, 249 Arden, Eve, 209, 221, 231 Ardrey, Robert, 56, 157, 198, 248 Arent, Arthur, 15, 192 Arlen, Harold, 32, 192 Armstrong, Norman, 74, 219

Army Emergency Relief Fund, 103, 105, 215, 226, 229 Army Play-by-Play, The, 106, 226 Arnold, Edward, 163, 188, 216, 240 Ashley, Clayton, 241 Ask My Friend Sandy, 222 Assassin, The, 170–73, 246 Atkinson, Brooks, 186, 189, 210, 214 Auerbach, Arnold, 107, 249 Bach, Reginald, 197, 199 Baker, Benny, 209, 233 Balanchine, George, 212, 229 Bankhead, Tallulah, 137, 218, 242–43 Barber Had Two Sons, The, 84, 221–22 Barnes, Howard, 224, 250 Barrie, James M., 213 Barry, Philip, 19, 54, 137, 205, 218, 242 Barrymore, Ethel, 29, 191–92, 202 Barzman, Ben and Sol, 204 Basehart, Richard, 222, 227, 235, 241 Basshe, Emjo, 32, 189 Bataan, 88–91, 93, 217, 219–20 Bavier, Frances, 188, 214, 224 Baxter, Alan, 229, 248 Beddoe, Don, 185, 229 Beecroft, Victor, 197, 202, 219 Behrman, S. N., 19, 47–48, 62, 63, 84, 187, 196, 206, 233 Bein, Albert and Mary, 84, 227 Bel Geddes, Norman, 192, 225 Bellamy, Ralph, 163, 225, 247 Bell for Adano, A, 168–70, 173, 239–40 Bell, Mary Haley, 223 Bell, Stanley, 236, 237 Ben-Ami, Jacob, 188, 238 Bentham, Josephine, 117, 215 Berghof, Herbert, 200, 219, 220 281

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Index Bergson, Peter, 163, 167 Berlin, Irving, 103, 105, 215 Bernstein, Leonard, 122, 241 Best, Edna, 204, 219 Bidwell, Martin, 106, 237 Birinski, Leo, 237 Birthright, 3, 36, 185 Bissell, Whit, 220, 229 Bitter Stream, 36, 188–89 Blitz, 65–70, 207, 210, 213, 214, 216, 223 Blitzstein, Mark, 15, 192 Block, Hal, 106, 210 Bloomgarden, Kermit, 245, 249 Bloomingdale, Alfred, 220, 246 Bohnen, Roman, 187, 190, 195, 198 Bolton, Guy, 70, 211, 232, 234 Boothe, Clare, 38, 48, 193, 198 Bourdieu, Pierre, 21 Bowles, Paul, 205, 231 Brady, Leo, 112, 217 Brando, Marlon, 137–39, 167, 248, 249, 250 Brecher, Irving, 220 Brecht, Bertolt, 244 Brennan, Frederick Hazlitt, 66, 207 Broken Journey, 214–15 Bromberg, J. Edward, 187, 233 Brown, Harry, 94, 247 Brown, John Mason, 199, 208, 217, 247–48 Brown, Lew, 197 Brown Danube, The, 38, 80, 197 Bruce, Norman, 227 Buchman, Harold, 136, 238 Bulgakov, Leo, 195, 201, 242 Burke, Billie, 69, 223 Burke, Melville, 221, 227 Burnett, Murray, 235 Burning Deck, The, 201 Burr, Anne, 213, 221, 237, 241 Bury the Dead, 13–14, 24, 26, 29, 32, 63, 189 Bush-Fekete, Ladislaus, 137, 242 Buttons, Red, 104, 216, 229, 230 Cagney, Jeanne, 228, 239, 243 Callahan, Bill, 221, 249

Call Me Mister, 107, 249 Candle in the Wind, 20, 44–45, 208, 210 Čapek, Karel, 9, 33, 197 Career Angel, 108–9, 235 Carmen Jones, 150, 230–31 Carnovsky, Morris, 190, 198, 222 Carroll, Paul Vincent, 69, 199, 214 Catherine Was Great, 236 Caulfield, Joan, 224, 240 Censored, 192–93 Chalzel, Leo, 194, 195 Champion, Gower, 212, 218 Chapman, John, 230, 238, 240 Charig, Phil, 234 Chase, Ilka, 239 Chauve-Soris of 1943, 78, 227 Choate, Edward, 199, 214, 219, 233, 242, 244 Chodorov, Edward, 95, 125, 146, 226, 233, 244 Chodorov, Jerome, 86, 248 Christie, Audrey, 218, 231 Claire, Helen, 193, 243 Clift, Montgomery, 34, 141, 197, 203, 218, 234, 244, 245 Close Quarters, 195–96 Clurman, Harold, 9, 137, 195, 220, 248 Cobb, Lee J., 104, 187, 189, 190, 195, 198, 201, 214, 229, 230 Coburn, Charles, 185, 188, 232 Collins, Russell, 190, 211, 214 Comden, Betty, 122, 241 Common Ground, 95–98, 244 Communist Party, 7, 8, 10, 12 Connecticut Yankee, A, 229 Connelly, Marc, 212, 242 Conroy, Frank, 191, 236 Coppin, Grace, 244, 246 Corey, Wendell, 145, 217, 244–45 Cornell, Katharine, 62, 196, 230 Coughlin, Father Charles, 7, 24, 162 Coulouris, George, 189–90, 206–7 Counterattack, 77–78, 222 Count Me In, 112, 217–18 Crawford, Cheryl, 9, 187, 201, 212, 213 Cromwell, John, 191, 219 282

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Index Crouse, Russel, 32, 102, 175, 192, 216, 226, 241, 247 Cuckoos on the Hearth, 109, 207–8 D’Alton, Louis, 205 Dark Eyes, 78, 221 Davis, Eddie, 234 Davis, Luther, 144, 243 Davis, Ossie, 157, 248 Day Will Come, The, 80, 237 Dear Ruth, 137, 240 Decision, 6, 146–47, 148, 233 Deep Are the Roots, 152–57, 158, 161, 245–46 Deering, Olive, 229, 247 Dee, Ruby, 157, 248 Dekker, Albert (Van), 188, 197 De Liagre, Alfred, Jr., 222, 231 Delicate Story, 204 Derwent, Clarence, 243, 244 De Sylva, B. G., 203–4 Deval, Jacques, 37, 195 “Devil Is a Good Man, The” 202 Dietz, Howard, 232 Digges, Dudley, 29, 191, 219, 234 Dimitroff, 11, 13, 14, 36, 187 Doughgirls, The, 78–80, 111, 220–21 Douglas, Kirk, 145, 146, 242, 244–45, 249 Dowling, Eddie, 223, 238 Doyle, Len, 213, 228, 239 Drums Begin, The, 186 Duggan, Thomas, 84, 221 Duke, Vernon, 109, 212, 232 Dunnock, Mildred, 216, 242 d’Usseau, Arnaud, 127, 152, 225, 245 Eisenberg, Emanuel, 15, 192 Eldridge, Florence, 195, 210, 218 Eliscu, Edward, 204 Elkins, Marie Louise, 219, 235, 242 Elsom, Isobel, 195, 212 Elwell, Ambrose, Jr., 193 Ephron, Phoebe and Henry, 111, 225 Erskine, Chester, 192, 214 Escape This Night, 37, 193 Eve of St. Mark, The, 88–90, 91, 92, 217, 243 Eythe, William, 214, 217

Fabray, Nanette, 204, 209, 233 Family, The, 80, 224 Faust, Walter Livingston, 69, 223 Fay, Mary Helen, 137, 242 Federal Theatre Project, 16–19, 25, 32, 47, 188, 189, 190, 191 Feld, Rose C., 240 Fennelly, Parker W., 109, 207 Ferber, Edna, 55, 208 Ferrer, José, 59, 199, 216 Field, Betty, 204, 225, 227 Fields, Dorothy, 101, 106, 209, 221 Fields, Herbert, 101, 106, 203, 209, 221, 229 Fields, Joseph, 78, 86, 220, 248 Fifth Column, The, 201–2 fifth columnists, 107, 201–2, 204, 243 Fine, Sylvia, 101 First American Dictator, 196 Fitzgerald, Barry, 199, 205 Flag Is Born, A, 167, 250 Flare Path, 71–74, 219 Flashing Stream, The, 196 Fletcher, Bramwell, 198, 232 Flight to the West, 20, 60–62, 204–5 Florman, Irving, 227 Flowers of Virtue, The, 212 Follow the Girls, 234 Fontanne, Lynne, 9, 26, 188, 203 Foolish Notion, 137, 242–43 Foreigners, 199 For Keeps, 236 Forsythe, John, 104, 229 Foxhole in the Parlor, 141–44, 244 Francis, Arlene, 79, 220, 248 Franken, Rose, 133, 228, 238 Franz, Eduard, 197, 220, 228, 248 Fraser, Elisabeth, 203, 220 Freed, Bert, 217, 236 Freedley, Vinton, 194, 204, 209, 232 French Touch, The, 80, 86–87, 248 Friedman, Charles, 188, 192, 230 Garfield, John, 163, 190, 195 Garland, Robert, 151, 239 Garrett, Betty, 212, 217, 221, 233, 241, 249

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Index Garrett, Oliver H. P., 194 Gear, Luella, 218, 235 Geer, Will, 159, 187–88, 189, 240, 250 Geneva, 200 Gentle People, The, 2, 50–52, 63, 195 German-American Bund, 1, 24, 39–40, 127, 162, 254n36, 255n71 Germany, 3, 7, 12, 14, 23, 24, 64–66, 75, 76, 107–9, 219; Nazi ideology, 12–13, 18–19, 36, 37–40, 44–47, 60, 96, 127–29; plays about, 18–19, 37–38, 39–40, 44, 127–29, 185, 186–87, 193, 198 Gershwin, Arthur, 241 Gerstenberg, Alice, 112, 228 Geto, Al, 212, 226 Ghost of Yankee Doodle, The, 29–32, 33, 191–92 Gillmore, Margalo, 196, 228 Gilmore, Virginia, 226, 231, 240, 248 Glazer, Benjamin, 201 Glorious Morning, 194 Golden, John, 225, 226, 243 Golden Wings, 70–71, 211 Gomez, Thomas, 203, 212 Good Hunting, 194 Good Morning, Corporal, 236–37 Good Neighbor, 208 Goodner, Carol, 207, 224, 230, 245 Gordon, Max, 195, 208, 220, 223, 226, 232, 237 Gordon, Michael, 232, 240, 248 Gordon, Robert H., 217, 229, 249 Gordon, Ruth, 214, 232 Gorney, Jay, 204 Gough, Lloyd, 205, 211, 213, 245 Goulding, Edmund, 245 Gow, James, 127, 152, 225, 245 Grant, James Edward, 74, 213 Great Britain, 23, 24, 64–75, 80, 88 Great Depression, 6, 7, 16–17, 49–50, 52, 53, 55, 60, 63, 162 Greaza, Walter N., 187, 227 Green, Adolph, 122, 241 Green, Harry, 227, 237 Green, Paul, 9, 33, 190 Greenleaf, Raymond, 233, 244

Greenstreet, Sydney, 26, 188, 203, 231 Gregory, David, 15, 192 Gropper, Milton Herbert, 236 Group Theatre, 7, 9–10, 11–12, 19, 33, 50, 56, 137 plays produced by, 187, 190, 195, 198 Guinness, Alec, 71, 219 Gwenn, Edmund, 66, 207, 245 Hagen, Uta, 58, 199, 216 Haggott, John, 239, 244 Hammerstein, Oscar, II, 150, 151, 194, 230 Harburg, E. Y., 32, 192 Hardie, Russell, 201, 206, 236, 238, 244, 248 Harens, Dean, 206, 223 Hargrave, Roy, 223, 232, 234, 236, 247 Harlem Cavalcade, 214 Harrigan, William, 202, 211, 234 Harris, Jed, 221, 231 Harris, Sam H., 191, 195 Hart, Bernard, 240, 246 Hart, Lorenz, 191, 229 Hart, Moss, 49, 104, 163, 191, 195, 223, 229, 240, 246 Hart, Walter, 189 Hasty Heart, The, 144, 241 Hayes, Helen, 44, 208 Hayward, Leland, 239, 247 Heart of a City, 68–69, 213 Hecht, Ben, 55, 163, 167, 191, 223, 250 Heflin, Frances, 218, 231 Hellman, Lillian, 40, 206, 234 Hemingway, Ernest, 201–2 Hepburn, Katharine, 218, 247, 264n109 Herbert, F. Hugh, 119, 224, 236 Hershey, Burnet, 38, 197 Herzig, S. M., 112, 216 Heyward, Dorothy, 151, 231 Hickory Stick, 235 Hoey, Dennis, 195, 201, 213 Hogan, James, 84, 221 Holm, Celeste, 201, 206 Holmes, John Haynes, 24, 25, 188 Holmes, Taylor, 191, 216, 249 Home Is the Hero, 137, 242 284

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Index Home of the Brave, 163–66, 248 Hooray for What!, 32, 192, 254n26 Hope for a Harvest, 55, 210 Hope for the Best, 242 Hopkins, Arthur, 194, 214, 218 Horner, Harry, 37, 193, 199 Horwitt, Arnold B., 107, 192, 249 Houseman, John, 19, 205 Howard, Sidney, 9, 19, 29, 191 Hurlbut, Gladys, 108, 219 Huston, John, 131, 202, 211 Hutton, Betty, 204, 209 Hyman, Joseph M., 240, 246 Idiot’s Delight, 26–29, 32, 63, 188 I’d Rather Be Right, 191 If This Be Treason, 24–25, 188 I’ll Take the High Road, 228–29 In Bed We Cry, 239 International Incident, An, 202–3 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), 14–15, 192 In Time to Come, 131, 211–12 Italy, 7, 14, 23, 36, 37, 94, 168, 188–89, 196, 239–40, 247–48 It Can’t Happen Here, 17–18, 47, 190 Ives, Burl, 215, 240 Jackpot, 232–33 Jacobowsky and the Colonel, 84–86, 233–34 Jaffe, Sam, 195, 233 James, Daniel Lewis, 77, 219 Janie, 6, 117–19, 120, 215–16 Jarrett, Arthur L., 206 Jay, William, 70, 211 Jeb, 157–59, 161, 248 Jews, 3, 17–19, 36, 38–40, 45–47, 48, 61, 69, 84, 96, 129, 161–67; plays about, 185, 191, 194, 197, 208, 210, 223, 228, 233–34, 237, 238, 248, 250 Johann, Zita, 201, 214 Johnny Johnson, 33, 190 Johnson, Chic, 106, 210, 218 Johnson, Nunnally, 231 Journey’s End, 197–98, 220 Judgment Day, 3, 36–37, 187

juvenile delinquency, 99, 117, 120–21, 234–35, 236 Kane, Whitford, 214, 219, 233, 235 Kasznar, Kurt, 226 Kaufman, George S., 49, 55, 79, 105, 191, 195, 208, 220, 232, 237 Kaye, Danny, 101–2, 209, 233 Kazan, Elia, 11, 187, 190, 195, 198, 214, 218, 233, 245, 248 Keith-Johnston, Colin, 197, 202 Keith, Robert, 186, 243 Kennedy, Charles Rann, 69–70, 210 Kenward, Allan R., 90, 219 Kerr, Walter, 112, 217, 240 Key Largo, 20, 58–60, 199, 202 Kilbride, Percy, 192–93, 207–8 Kindred, 199–200 King, Dennis, 195, 234 Kingsley, Sidney, 32, 189, 198 Kirkland, Alexander, 109, 187, 243 Kiss and Tell, 119–20, 224, 235, 236 Kiss for Cinderella, A, 213 Kiss the Boys Good-bye, 2, 48–49, 193–94 Kiss Them for Me, 144, 243 Klauber, Marcel, 206 Kleiner, Harry, 145, 247 Koch, Howard, 131, 211 Kohn, Rose Simon, 231 Korff, Arnold, 193, 195, 224, 233 Kortner, Fritz, 38, 201 Kozlenko, William, 202 Kraft, H. S., 84, 233 Krasna, Norman, 45, 137, 210, 240 Kronenberger, Louis, 205, 206, 210, 213, 217, 221, 247 Kubly, Herbert, 115, 238 Ku Klux Klan, 2, 24, 49, 162, 193–94 Kultur, 3, 36, 162, 185 labor theater, 10–11, 14–16, 24, 76, 192 Lady Comes Across, The, 109, 212 Lady in Danger, 109, 243 Lady Says Yes, A, 241–42 Land Is Bright, The, 55, 208–9 Landis, Jessie Royce, 197, 224 Land of Fame, 84, 227 285

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Index Lanza, Mario, 104, 229 La Touche, John, 109, 192, 212 Laurents, Arthur, 163, 248 Lawrence, Reginald, 24, 188 Leave It to Me!, 2, 75–76, 194 Lee, Canada, 151, 159, 215, 232, 250 Lee, Lester, 216 Leivick, Harry, 238 Lennox, Gilbert, 195 Leonard, Sheldon, 192, 193 Leontovich, Eugenie, 78, 221 Lerner, Alan Jay, 229 Leslie, Aleen, 227 Let Freedom Sing, 217 Let’s Face It!, 101–2, 103, 104, 106, 209 Letters to Lucerne, 45, 211 Levant, Oscar, 194, 195 Levene, Sam, 38, 198, 247 Levin, Jack, 208 Lewis, Sinclair, 17, 47, 190, 208 Liberty Jones, 54–55, 205 Liebman, Max, 101 Lifeline, 74, 219 Lindbergh, Charles, 23–24, 76, 162 Lindsay, Howard, 32, 102, 175, 192, 216, 241, 247 Little Theater Movement, 8, 19, 21 Locke, Sam, 212, 217 Lockridge, Richard, 70, 206, 207 Loewe, Frederick, 229 Lonsdale, Frederick, 199 Lorelei, 37–38, 195 Lovejoy, Frank, 192, 247, 249 Love on Leave, 236 Lovers and Friends, 230 Lower North,106, 237 Lukas, Paul, 42, 206–7 Lunt, Alfred, 9, 26, 188, 203, 208 Lynn, Eleanor, 210, 216 MacGregor, Edgar, 203, 209 MacMahon, Aline, 199, 217 Macowan, Norman, 194 Macready, George, 195, 199 Maibaum, Richard, 3, 36, 185 Malden, Karl, 104, 137, 172, 195, 204, 222, 225, 229, 230, 246, 248

Male Animal, The, 49, 200 Maltz, Albert, 186 Mantle, Burns, 190, 192, 200, 210, 211, 219, 246 Man with Blond Hair, The, 45–47, 131, 210, 211 March, Fredric, 49, 195, 210, 218, 225, 239 Marcin, Max, 192 Marcy, Jor (Nathan Sherman), 196 Margin for Error, 38–40, 44, 198 Margo, 198–99, 205, 239 Marlowe, Hugh, 193, 204, 209 Marshall, E. G., 218, 249 Martin, Mary, 194 Massey, Raymond, 188, 230 Mather, Aubrey, 194, 242 McCambridge, Mercedes, 243, 249 McCarthy, Kevin, 137, 204, 229, 248 McCleery, William, 242 McClintic, Guthrie, 196, 199, 202, 216, 230, 245 McColl, James, 103, 215 McCormick, Myron, 198, 232, 238, 247 McGrath, Paul, 239, 244 Meet the People, 204 Meloney, William Brown, 228, 238 Mendelssohn, Eleonora, 220, 246 Men in Shadow, 223–24, 227 Men to the Sea, 115–16, 140, 238 Merivale, Philip, 195, 206 Merman, Ethel, 204, 221 Merrill, Gary, 215, 229, 230 Metzl, Lothar, 200 Michel, Werner, 200 Miller, Gilbert, 200, 204, 213, 219, 236 Milton, Robert, 201, 211 Miner, Worthington, 189 Miracle of the Warsaw Ghetto, The, 238 Miramova, Elena, 78, 195, 221 Miranda, Carmen, 210, 221 Mitchell, Millard, 193, 225, 232, 236 Moeller, Philip, 187, 191 Moffitt, John C., 17, 190 Molnár, Ferenc, 9, 204 Moon Is Down, The, 6, 80–84, 214, 219, 222, 227, 257n39 286

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Index Moore, Victor, 75, 194 Morehouse, Ward, 224 Morgan, Charles, 196 Morgan, Ralph, 214, 249 Morning Star, The, 69, 216 Morris, McKay, 188, 195 Moss, Arnold, 201, 204, 209 Mother, The, 33–35, 197 Muni, Paul, 58, 163, 167, 199, 222, 250 Munshin, Jules, 241, 249 Murphy, Donald, 236, 244 Murray, Gerard M., 108, 235 Myers, Henry, 204 My Fair Ladies, 206 Nathan, George Jean, 83, 215, 219 Neiman, Irving Gaynor, 226 Nelson, Ralph, 145, 226, 244 New Life, A, 113–15, 227 New Priorities of 1943, 216 Nolan, Doris, 195, 220 North Africa, 91–93, 170–73, 232, 246 Norway, 65, 80–81, 84, 221–22 No Time for Comedy, 62–63, 196–97, 242 Nugent, Elliott, 49, 200, 218, 225, 231, 243 Nugent, J. C., 112, 235, 243 O’Brien, Edmond, 104, 229, 230 O’Dea, John B., 226 Odets, Clifford, 11, 77, 187, 220 Office of War Information (OWI), 6, 94, 180–81 Offner, Mortimer, 204 Of “V ” We Sing, 212–13 Olivier, Laurence, 62, 196 Olsen, Ole, 106, 210, 218 O’Neil, Barbara, 189, 222, 234 O’Neill, Eugene, 8, 9, 19 On the Town, 122–24, 241 On Whitman Avenue, 159–61, 166, 250 Orkow, B. Harrison, 244 Osato, Sono, 124, 241 Osborn, Paul, 168, 239 O’Shaughnessy, John, 32, 189 Outrageous Fortune, 228 Over Twenty-One, 232

pacifism, 14, 24–25, 33, 60–61, 190 Panama Hattie, 203–4 Pascal, Milton, 234 Passenger to Bali, A, 202 Patrick, John, 144, 241 Pavlichenko, Lyudmila, 78–79 Payne-Jennings, Victor, 196, 197 Peace on Earth, 186 Peck, Gregory, 69, 216, 225 Pemberton, Brock, 190, 193, 207, 215, 231 Perry, Antoinette, 190, 193, 207, 215, 231 Pevney, Joseph, 217, 248 Philipp, Adolf, 3, 185 Pick-Up Girl, 6, 120–21, 234–35 Pierson, Arthur, 229 Pillar to Post, 231 Pins and Needles, 2, 15–16, 192 Place of Our Own, A, 243–44 Plan M, 74, 213 Playwrights’ Company, 19, 77, 195, 196, 199, 203, 204, 206, 208, 217, 219, 227, 232, 246, 248 popular culture and World War II, 3–6, 22, 23, 64, 75–76, 80, 88, 99–101, 107, 129, 132, 178–79, 180–81 Porter, Cole, 2, 75, 101, 106, 194, 203–4, 209, 221 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 141–43, 144, 163, 248 Povah, Phyllis, 209, 215, 240 Powell, Dawn, 109, 212 Powers, Leona, 190, 214 Pratt, Mary Louise, 81 Prelude, 32–33, 189 Preminger, Otto, 38–39, 198, 211 Prince, William, 217, 231 Private Life of the Master Race, The, 244 Professor Mamlock, 17–19, 36, 191 Proof thro’ the Night, 88, 90–91, 92, 219–20 Prumbs, Lucille S., 228 racism, 17, 149–61, 245–46, 248, 250 Rain from Heaven, 47–48, 50, 63, 187 Rascoe, Burton, 108, 168, 218–19, 229–30, 235, 243 Rattigan, Terence, 71, 219, 237 287

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Index Reade, Leslie, 3, 36, 186 Red Harvest, 33, 190 Reeves, George, 104, 229, 245 Reid, Frances, 244 Reunion, 193 Reunion in New York, 200–201 Rice, Elmer, 3, 9, 19, 36, 53, 60, 113, 187, 195, 204, 206, 226, 227 Rice, Vernon, 150 Rigsby, Howard, 151, 231 Ritt, Martin, 195, 229, 230 Robbins, Jerome, 122, 241 Roberts, Ben, 232 Roberts, Walter Charles, 33, 190 Robinson, Edward G., 163, 199 Rodgers, Richard, 151, 191, 229 Rohman, Richard, 37, 196 Rome, Harold, 15, 106–7, 192, 217, 249 Ronell, Ann, 112, 217 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 16, 23, 76, 107, 132, 149, 162, 191, 192, 205 Rose, Billy, 223, 230 Rose, David, 229 Rosenthal, Andrew, 201, 214 Ross, George, 240 Rotter, Fritz, 45, 211 Rudley, Herbert, 198–99, 201, 225 Rugged Path, The, 94, 246–47 Russia. See Soviet Union Russian People, The, 77, 220 Ryan Girl, The, 245 Sabinson, Lee, 222, 248 Sargent, Mary, 206, 220, 222 Saroyan, William, 215 Savage, Courtenay, 137, 242 Schrank, Joseph, 192, 194 Scott, Martha, 199, 238 Scott, Zachary, 125, 223, 226 Searching Wind, The, 234 Secret Room, The, 144–45, 246 Seelen, Jerry, 216 Seff, Manuel, 220 Seiler, Conrad, 192 Serlin, Oscar, 214, 216, 224 Seven Mirrors, 246 Seventh Trumpet, 69–70, 210

Shalleck, Joseph, 236 Shapiro, Dan, 234 Shatter’d Lamp, The, 3, 36, 186–87 Shaw, George Bernard, 19, 200 Shaw, Irwin, 13, 50, 63, 113, 170, 189, 192, 195, 225, 246 Sheean, Vincent, 202–3 Sheldon, Sidney, 137, 232, 242 Shelley, Elsa, 120, 141, 234, 244 Sherwood, Robert E., 9, 19, 26, 63, 75, 94, 188, 203, 246 Shields, Arthur, 199, 205 Shiffrin, A. B., 236 Shoemaker, Ann, 219, 249 Short, Hassard, 221, 230 Shubert, Lee and J. J., 192, 199, 210, 217–18, 244, 245; Lee, 219; J. J., 242 Shugrue, J. Edward, 32, 189 Shumlin, Herman, 19, 40, 200, 206, 234, 243, 248 Sidney, Sylvia, 2, 191, 195, 234 Siege, 192 Silvers, Phil, 197, 221 Simonov, Konstantin, 77, 220 Sinclair, Robert B., 186, 218 Sing Out, Sweet Land!, 240–41 Sissle, Noble, 214 Skin of Our Teeth, The, 218–19 Sklar, George, 186 Skydrift, 145, 247 Slightly Married, 227–28 Sloane, Everett, 233, 239 Smith, Art, 11, 187 Smith, Dodie, 230 Smith, Kent, 186, 202 Snafu, 136–37, 238–39 Snickering Horses, 32, 189 Soldier’s Wife, 133–36, 137, 147, 238, 242 Solomon, Louis, 136, 238 Something for the Boys, 106, 221 Sons and Soldiers, 113, 225 Sons o’ Fun, 106, 210–11 Sophie, 240 Sound of Hunting, A, 94–95, 247–48 South Pacific, 151–52, 231–32 Soviet Union, 75–80, 132–33, 203, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224 288

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Index Tierney, Gene, 200, 240 Till the Day I Die, 12–13, 14, 36, 44, 187–88 Todd, Michael, 221, 234, 236 Tolkin, Mel, 212 Tomorrow the World, 6, 127–31, 225, 235, 246 Tone, Franchot, 2, 195, 201, 242 To Quito and Back, 55–56, 59, 191 Tozere, Frederic, 190, 194, 199, 228, 239 Tracy, Spencer, 94, 218, 246, 247, 264n109 Treadwell, Sophie, 55, 210 Trojan Women, The, 206 Truckline Cafe, 137–41, 248–49 Tucker, Sophie, 75, 194 Turney, Robert, 144, 206, 246

Spanish civil war, 42, 56, 58, 62, 114, 192, 199, 201–2, 205 Spewack, Bella and Sam, 75, 146, 194, 249 Spielman, Fred, 241 Stallings, Laurence, 93, 239 Star-Spangled Family, 244 State of the Union, 173–78, 247, 264n109 Steinbeck, John, 80, 214 Steiner, Robert, 37, 193 Stephani, Frederick, 235 Stevenson, Janet and Philip, 77, 222 St. Joseph, Ellis, 202 Stone, Ezra, 200, 215 Storm, Lesley, 68, 213 Storm Operation, 91–93, 94, 95, 135, 232 Strasberg, Lee, 9, 190, 201, 213, 231 Streets Are Guarded, The, 93–94, 95, 239 Strings, My Lord, Are False, The, 69, 214 Strip for Action, 102–3, 106, 216–17 Sullavan, Margaret, 220, 231 Sullivan, Ed, 214 Sweet Charity, 220 Talley Method, The, 206 Tanyard Street, 205 Tell My Story, 37, 196 Ten Million Ghosts, 32, 189–90 Thank You, Svoboda, 84, 233 That Old Devil, 112, 235 Theatre Guild, 8–9, 10, 19, 20, 24, 26, 29, 77, 187, 188, 191, 201, 203, 205, 208, 210, 218, 220, 233, 240, 242 Theatre Union, 11, 186, 188 There Shall Be No Night, 63, 75, 203 This Is the Army, 6, 103–4, 105, 107, 215, 217 This Rock, 69, 223 This, Too, Shall Pass, 166, 249–50 Thompson, Dorothy, 38, 60, 198, 201, 205, 215 Thompson, Fred, 109, 212 Those Endearing Young Charms, 125–27, 226 Three’s a Family, 111–12, 225–26, 235 Thunder Rock, 56–58, 59, 181, 198, 256n86 Thurber, James, 49, 200

Vance, Vivian, 192, 209 Van Druten, John, 124, 231 Van Patten, Dickie, 209, 244–45 Van Patten, Joyce, 225, 244 Vera-Ellen, 229, 241 Vickie, 112, 216 Victory Belles, 112, 228 Vincent, Allen, 45, 211 Voice of the Turtle, The, 124–25, 231 Vuolo, Tito, 198, 239–40 Waiting for Lefty, 11–12, 187 Waldorf, Wilella, 69, 212, 217, 221, 222, 236, 241 Waldron, Charles, 195, 245 Waltz in Goose Step, 194 Wanamaker, Sam, 166, 222, 250 Warshawsky, Samuel Jesse, 25, 188 Watch on the Rhine, 40–44, 53, 206–7 Watson, Lucile, 206–7, 224 Watts, Richard, Jr., 202, 203, 211, 215 Weachter, Theodore, 3, 162, 185 Webster, Margaret, 206, 219, 222 Weill, Kurt, 33, 163, 167, 190, 223, 250 Weiser, Jacob A., 196 Welles, Orson, 19, 32, 189 Wengraf, John, 208, 248 West, Mae, 236 West, Nathanael, 194

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Index Weston, Ruth, 195, 212, 225 We Will Never Die, 163, 167, 223 What’s Up?, 229 While the Sun Shines, 237–38 Whipple, Sidney, 198, 203, 205 Whorf, Richard, 188, 203 Widmark, Richard, 144, 224, 243 Wilder, Thornton, 218 Williams, Emlyn, 69, 207, 216 Williams, Herschel, 117, 215 Williams, Rhys, 216, 219 Williams, Tennessee, 180, 245 Wilson, Earl, 64 Wilson, John C., 229, 230, 239, 242 Wilson, Perry, 231, 250 Windham, Donald, 245 Wind Is Ninety, The, 145–46, 226, 244–45, 247 Windust, Bretaigne, 188, 216, 224, 241, 247 Winged Victory, 6, 104–6, 229–30 Winter Soldiers, 77, 219, 220 Without Love, 218 Wolf, Friedrich, 17, 191

Wolfson, Victor, 36, 188, 224 Wolper, David J., 234, 238 Woman Bites Dog, 146, 249 Woman of Destiny, A, 25–26, 188 Wood, Maxine, 159, 250 Wookey, The, 66–68, 207, 213 World War I, 8, 14, 18, 23, 24, 29, 32–33, 49, 65, 70, 84, 93, 131 plays about, 186, 189, 190, 192–93, 194, 197–98, 211–12 World’s Full of Girls, The, 231 World We Make, The, 198–99 Wray, Fay, 70, 211 Wynn, Ed, 32, 192 Wynn, Keenan, 216, 218 Yankee Point, 108, 109, 219 Yellin, Gleb, 227 Yokel, Alexander, 189 Yokel Boy, 35, 197 Young, Howard Irving, 186 Young, Stanley, 222 You Touched Me!, 245 Yurka, Blanche, 221, 244

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