Maxwell Anderson's Rules of Playwriting and Their Application to His Plays.

234 Pages·2017·8.24 MB·English

by  Randall John Buchanan

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LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School
1964
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Randall John Buchanan
Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
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(1964). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 927.
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BUCHANAN, Randall John, 1930-
MAXWELL ANDERSON'S RULES OF PLAYWRIT—
ING AND THEIR APPLICATION TO HIS PLAYS.
Louisiana State University, Ph.D., 1964
Speech—Theater
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
MAXWELL ANDERSON'S RULES OF
PLAYWRITING AND THEIR APPLICATION
TO HIS PLATS
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
The Department of Speech
by
Randall John Buchanan
B.A., Brigham Young University, 1954
M.A., Brigham Young University, 1958
January, 1964
V
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
To all who helped in any way, great or small, in the realization
of this dissertation, this writer expresses his gratitude. He espe­
cially acknowledges the aid of Mrs. Ella Mae Bonnell in the final
preparation of the dissertation, the help tendered by Miss Lou Ellen
Ballard and Dr. Marlon G. Michael, and particuls .y he wishes to
express gratitude for the patient guidance of Dr. Claude L. Shaver.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENT........................................ ii
ABSTRACT............................................... iv
INTRODUCTION..................... - ..................... vii
I
Anderson's Theories of Playwriting .* ........... . 1
II
The Plays of the 1920's . . . . . . . . . . ......... 36
III
The Verse Dramas of the 1930's........................ 64
IV
The Prose Dramas of the 1930's and Early 1940's . . . 110
V
The Plays of the Late 1940's and the 1950's . . . . . 150
CONCLUSION............................................... 196
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................... 208
APPENDIX................................................. 212
VITA......................................................217
ill
ABSTRACT
Maxwell Anderson was for over twenty five years one of America's
most important dramatists. He wrote over forty plays that range in
style from poetic tragedy to musical comedy, the majority being at
least partially successful. Anderson was one of the most successful
writers of tragedy that the American stage has produced thus far, and
he was the first American playwright to make verse popular on the
American stage. The question arises as to the formulae that he may
have employed in order to achieve such a record of success in an ex­
tremely difficult profession.
Prom 1935 to 1947 Anderson wrote a series of essays that contain
his rules for dramatic composition. This study aims to distill from
the essays those rules and then apply them to Anderson’s own plays.
Chapter I examines the essays and lists the rules found. In Chapter
II the plays of the 1920's are examined in the light of those rules.
Chapter III treats the verse plays of 1930-1940. Chapter IV deals
with the prose plays of the late 1930's and early 1940's, and Chapter
V discusses the plays of the late 1940's and those of the 1950's.
From this semi-chronological method it has been determined that
Anderson began to be consistent in his play construction by the be­
ginning of the 1930's. By 1935 Anderson had discovered and was
using all of the rules for dramatic composition that are found in
his essays.
iv
Anderson, himself, felt that the success that attended his works
during the early years of his playwriting career was largely acciden­
tal. Consequently his rules for writing plays were then constructed
out of his expressed necessity for some surer formulae than mere acci­
dent or intuition.
Prior to 1930 Anderson’s plays follow some of the rules but ignore
many of them. This includes the plays he wrote himself and those he
wrote in collaboration with others. Anderson's two original plays of
the 1920's, Saturday's Children and Gypsy, follow his rules more close­
ly than do his collaborations and the one dramatization.
The decade of the 1930's saw the greatest number of Anderson's
9
plays being produced, more than twelve. This decade also saw the most
careful observance of the rules apparently as they were discovered.
The observance of the rules was done imaginatively in most cases.
Some of the most successful of Anderson's plays were written and pro­
duced in the 1930's.
In the 1940's the number of plays Anderson wrote fell off con­
siderably. There were six full length plays and one dramatization.
There is evidence of a marked tendency toward propagandizing in these
plays. This is quite natural, however, since the early 1940's were
the years of World War II. In the main Anderson followed his rules
In this decade, but with less imagination in a few cases and with
several deviations.
v
The 1950's saw only two original plays by Anderson and one drama­
tization. Neither of the original plays was successful nor do they
consistently and Imaginatively follow his rules.
In this examination It has been determined that when Andersoa
followed his rules with Imagination and with a fair amount of con­
sistency the plays were usually successful. When he ignored his
rules, either through apparent ignorance, as Is the case with plays
written prior to 1935, or when he deliberately broke the more im­
portant rules, as seems to be the case with the plays of the late
1940's and the 1950's, the plays were not successful. In fact the
failure was usually quite rapid and In at least one case quite
bitter. Therefore, Anderson's rules were valid for himself and
may be valid for others.
vi
INTRODUCTION
In the American theatre In the first half of the twentieth
century one playwright in the number of plays written and produced
stands out from the group. That man is Maxwell Anderson, who wrote
approximately forty plays and radio scripts that include such varied
j,
forms as musical comedy, domestic comedy, historical drama, fantasy
and poetic tragedy. In volume of work alone Anderson stands above
most of his contemporaries, and in variety both of subject matter and
dramatic form he has few if any peers. Anderson was one of the most
successful writers of tragedy that the American stage has produced
thus far, and he was the first American playwright to make verse popu­
lar on the American stage. More than thirty of his plays have been
presented on Broadway. Many of the most successful, both with the
public and with the critics, were verse tragedies. In the light of
these accomplishments, it is entirely fitting that studies of Anderson
and his works should be undertaken.
Maxwell Anderson was bom December IS, 1888, in Atlantic,
Pennsylvania. He was the son of a Baptist minister and as a result
of his father's moving from one pastorate to another Anderson lived
successively in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, and North Dakota. He re­
ceived his early education wherever he happened to be. Anderson was
vii
graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1911.^ After teach­
ing in public school for a time he Joined the faculty of Stanford
University, where he was an instructor in English. He received his
Master's degree from Stanford In 1914. He then taught at Whittier
College in Whittier, California. After Anderson left Whittier he was
on the editorial staff of the San Francisco Call Bulletin and Chronicle
He was next a contributor to the New Republic and was regularly employ­
ed first on the Globe and then on the World newspapers in New York City
It was while working on the World that Anderson became acquainted
with Laurence Stallings, with whom he collaborated on his first suc­
cessful play, What Price Glory? in 1924. Later he collaborated with
Stallings on two other plays, First Flight and The Buccaneer, both pro­
duced in 1925.3 The success of What Price Glory? enabled Anderson to
leave journalism and devote his entire time to the theatre, for which
he continued to write with few interruptions until his death in 1959.
What Price Glory? had been preceded by Anderson's first play,
White Desert, written in verse and produced in 1923. In the 1920's
Anderson also dramatized Jim Tully's novel Beggars of Life and called
it Outside Looking In. In addition he wrote four other plays: Satur­
day's, Children, a domestic comedy; Gvpsv. a type of domestic tragedy;
^Barrett H. Clark, Maxwell Anderson: The Man and his Plays
(New York: Samuel French, 1933), p. 6.
^Ibid., pp. 6-7
^ibid., p. 7.
viii