Stages of Engagement. Edited by Joshua E. Polster. Routledge Press: New York, NY, 2016. Pp. 241.
Joshua Polster’s Stages of Engagement features eight essays that examine the relationship between United States society, culture and politics in order to demonstrate how the first half of the twentieth century was marked by numerous perceptions and representations of various cultural groups, ethnicities, and peoples associated with the U.S. during a time of exploding imperialism. The work exposes political and social agendas that were presented on stage that formulated or reaffirmed racial and cultural stereotypes, perceptions and ideas prominent in the U.S. during the time period of 1898 – 1949. Though the work leans toward a negative portrayal of the “American spirit” of the period, it does unearth numerous coincidences, prejudices, and ‘gazes’ of a time when the U.S. was forming post-Reconstruction ideas as well as embracing its role as an emerging global superpower. Polster succeeds by balancing his discussion of American Imperialism with little-known facts regarding incidents surrounding theatrical and dramaturgical events of the half-century.
The text is divided into four parts, each of which explores the theatre of the period through a different social construct. Part one, “Colonialism,” includes Polster’s “Setting the Stage: Performing War and Empire for the New U.S. Century,” that deals with U.S. world relations post-Spanish-American war (particularly U.S./Cuban relations) and analyzes the dramatic works spawned by the numerous events between the U.S. and Cuba as well as Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain. The essay addresses works in both America and Cuba that explored their co-relations, including plays, vaudeville sketches, poetry, film, reenactments and other forms such as teatro bufo, a Cuban form similar to commedia dell’arte. Finally, the essay covers dramatic representations influenced by the Phillipine-American War of 1899-1902, including the Broadway production Floradora. Featuring a young Phillipino woman in the central role, Floradora celebrated the fact that the islands had been taken as a U.S. territory after the Phillipine Revolution.
Part two, “Religion, Race, and Ethnicity,” includes two essays. The first, again from Polster, is entitled “The Pan American Exposition and Tragedy Onstage” and deals with the 1901 Buffalo Exposition. Exhibits featured “colonial conquests” of the U.S., alongside those of America’s indigenous and African populations. But according to Polster, many cultures – particularly those of African or Asian descent – were somewhat relegated to “lesser” parts of the exhibition as the focus of the event was to display the “spirit of the new world.” Polster asserts that the Exhibition clearly showed that the new world was in “white hands” (48). The chapter also details the unfortunate assassination of America’s twenty-fifth President William McKinley on the grounds of the Exhibition at the Temple of Music and the ramifications it had regarding U.S. trade and expansion overseas.
The second essay of part two, written by Stuart J. Hecht, is entitled “Controlling and Defining Jewish Identity on the Early Twentieth-Century American Stage.” The essay examines the growth and rise of the New York Jewish community and the corresponding growth of theatre written and performed by Jews. The early Yiddish theatres of New York are discussed as are a number of important performers like Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker, David Warfield and Fannie Brice. The contributions of Jewish writers such as Elmer Rice, Lillian Hellman and Moss Hart are considered as well as the Gershwins, whose Lady, Be Good introduced a “modern, urbane, fast-moving Jewish sensibility to Broadway” (96). Finally the productions of the Marx Brothers are analyzed by Hecht as the classic embodiment of contemporary Jewish humor. Their constant clashes with the stiff WASP matron, always played to perfection by Margaret Dumont, displayed the battle for non-conformity, individuality and the rights of the “ethnic outsider” to preserve their sense of self.
Part Three, “Gender and Sexuality,” features two essays: “Gendered Spaces: Law and Justice in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles” by Polster, as well as a companion essay written by Susan C.W. Abbotson entitled “Mae West and Wales Padlock Law.” Both essays provide commentary on the challenging status of women during this era but approach the topic in very different ways. Polster’s essay details (somewhat laboriously) the trial on which Glaspell’s play Trifles was based – the Margaret Hossack case in which many emerging women’s issues, such as suffrage, jury inclusion, and marriage relations were explored. Perhaps the most important point made by the essay is that, with Trifles, Glaspell had attempted to create an ideal female spectator – one who would be a “better informed and active public citizen” (123). Polster notes that Glaspell sought to define and break down the male gaze and to create a more inclusive environment for the female citizenry of the U.S.A.
Abbotson’s essay analyzes the emergence of greater sexuality, particularly associated with female performers, on the American stage. She also details the emergence of homosexual culture, the fad for drag balls and the eventual Wales Padlock Law (1927) that would forbid homosexual depictions on stage. Spurred by works such as Scholom Asch’s The God of Vengeance (1923) and Edouard Bourdet’s The Captive (1926), both of which suggested lesbian relationships, the Wales Padlock Law made it possible for officials to close down productions that involved sexual relationships deemed deviant or inappropriate. Certainly there was no greater offender in the collective minds of city officials than Mae West, whose Sex (1926), The Drag (1927) and Pleasure Man (1928) dealt with themes of homosexuality, prostitution, crime, drugs and other “offbeat sexual practices” (quoted by Abbotson, 154). Abbotson’s essay illuminates an era of groundbreaking sexuality on the American Stage.
Finally, part four, “Economic Systems and Systems of Government” consists of a trio of essays. The editor’s “A New Approach to Revolution: Artef and Hirsch Leckert in the Third Period,” considers the rise of numerous Communist theatre companies in the U.S.A but primarily Artef or the Arbeter Teater Farfband, a New York-based Yiddish Theatre company with open ties to the Communist Party. Given the shortage of Communist playwrights in the U.S.A. the company chose to import the Soviet play Hirsch Leckert (1929), and Polster’s essay provides keen insight into the social and political implications of the work that described United States capitalism as being in its “third period” – the period which, according to Josef Stalin, would witness its demise. The second essay, provided by James Fischer, “The Rise of Fascism and Diversionary, Anti-War and Interventionist Theatre,” explores theatre and film from the mid 1930’s. Focusing on five key dramatists – Robert E. Sherwood, Irwin Shaw, Thornton Wilder, Lillian Hellman and Tennessee Williams, Fisher’s essay looks into dramas that commented on post-World War I society and the impending rise of fascism. The essay includes sub-sections that effectively analyze thematic elements from each of the playwrights. The final essay of part four, again by Polster, is entitled “SALESMAN and the 1930’s Theatres of Social Protest,” which deals primarily with Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) and Clifford Odet’s Waiting for Lefty (1935) and other plays of the two decades that provided critical inquiry into the capitalist system in America. Considering major “leftist” theatre companies of the time, such as the Theatre Union, The Group Theatre and parts of the Federal Theatre Project, the essay details how many of these major works refused to bow down to the commercial Broadway theatre and instead managed to find resonance with American audiences on the Great White Way.
The work chronicles an important half century of American theatre history and also reveals a number of cultural, social and political perspectives drawn from various sources that clearly define the first half of the Twentieth Century as one of the most formative in the nation’s history. Stages of Engagement and its companion text, The Routledge Anthology of Drama 1898 – 1949 would serve as excellent text resources for courses in American Drama or for continued exploration of this topic by researchers.
Steve Earnest
Coastal Carolina University
