The Federal Theatre Project: A Case Study (review)

438Comparative Drama Barry B. Witham. The Federal Theatre Project: A Case Study. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,2003.Pp.xii + 190. $60.00. In 1832William Dunlap,considered to beoneofthe mainprogenitors ofAmerican drama and theater, proposed in his History ofAmerican Theatre that the United States government undertake to establish a national theater as a means of ensuring both the continued health oftheatrical activity and the use of the stage for the inculcation of republican virtue. Although no one took Dunlap seriously enough at the time to demand the legislation necessary to create such a theater, a century later, with workers of all kinds desperate for employment during the Depression, somethinglike a national stage was established through the Federal Theatre Project division of the Works Progress Administration. Under the leadership of Vassar professor Hallie Flanagan, the FTP launched regional theaters and companies across the country, employed thousands of actors and other stage professionals who otherwise would have had no access to stage work, and inspired writers to create innovative, even politically radical entertainments that often cut to the heart ofwhat it meant to be a citizen of the United States. Ifthe FTP was not Dunlap's vision ofa national theater, it was not so far removed from it, either.Yet whether 1832 or 1935 is meant, political attitudes ,especiallytowardthe arts,made thefull realization ofsuch adream nearly impossible. As earlier scholars have stated,the Federal Theatre Project,that exuberant, controversial moment in the sun for a national stage, ran afoul of a hostile Congress, which cut short its brief life. Barry Witham in his new book tells a somewhat different story.The politics are still there,but deep in the background. Instead, Witham focuses almost the entire attention of his study on the situation in Seattle, the home to the Northwest regional branch of the FTP. Little noticed in more general studies ofthe Federal Theatre,Seattle offers forWitham a "case study" by which to examine the local circumstances that led both to success and failure at the regional level. Foregoing the comprehensive look, the authortakes a series ofsnapshots that overlap into a collage ofthe Seattle experience . The result is a richly detailed, behind-the-scenes peek into the weekly struggles of various divisions within the Seattle project: traveling shows, an African-American company, bureaucrats working at cross purposes. Drawing extensivelyon archival material,Witham exhumes memos, letters, and government forms in ordertotraceboth the individuals and thelocal forcesthat shaped the national theatrical experiment in one ofthe newest cities ofthe United States. After reading this book, one stands amazed that anything was ever staged at all. Still, there are great stories in every region ofFTP history, and Seattle is no exception. Witham traces, for instance, the early history ofa traveling unit that played variety shows at Civilian Conservation Corps camps that were then do- Reviews439 ing work in Northwest national parks and forests.With its first applicants, the FTP found itselfawash in actors ofdie old-time theater: vaudevillians, Gilbert and Sullivan veterans, minstrel show specialists. Glenn Hughes, the first and highly problematic director of the Seattle group, recognized that his vision of producing new plays could not immediately be done with actors from the old school; but the traveling variety shows delivered to CCC campersjust what was needed: easilyaccessible,rollicking,popularentertainmentofthe song and dance type. Witham includes journal entries ofthe companies, as they come to each camp, bunk with the people working there, eat in the dining hall, then put on a show for more or less appreciative audiences. In the days before television, in areas where films were unavailable, the FTP provided badly needed entertainment to a people hungry forsomething to lighten the burdens ofDepression life. Other chapters examine some of the topical plays and Living Newspapers mounted by Seattle. The play Power, for instance, staged nationally, had a particular resonance in Seattle because it was being supported by one of two rival power companies. Thus, as Witham tells it, the FTP served the interests of a public utility over aprivate one,suitingthe politics ofthe period.Another drama performed in Seattle, the notorious Spirochete, a play about syphilis, forced a public used to suppression of even the word for the disease to face up to its alarming prevalence...