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THOMAS WOLFE: DRAMATIST THE GREAT COMMERCIAL SUCCESS of Ketti Frings' play Look Homeward, Angel is a reminder that Wolfe's novel is not entirely composed of lyrical variations on the theme: ItOh lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again." Unsatisfactory as the play is, in comparison to the novel, it does emphasize the dramatic conflicts between Eliza, Old Man Gant, their bickering brood, and the boarders at My Old Kentucky Home. We recall that when Wolfe went to Harvard in 1920, his primary goal was George Pierce Baker's 47 Workshop. For about three years, Baker took him seriously as a potential dramatist, even writing to Wolfe's mother in 1923 that her son's career justified her financial help because of his talent for drama.1 Except for Wolfe's unwillingness to revise the overlong script, Welcome to Our City would probably have been produced by the New York Theatre Guild in 1924 or 1925. Wolfe's later career as a novelist led most readers to think of his ambition to write plays as a youthful blunder, a pathetic miscalculation of his ·abilities. His failure in drama, however, was relative, not absolute, and the training he got in trying dramatic forms contributed more than has been realized to the success of such scenes as the death of Ben, the quarrels between Bascom Hawke and his wife, Monk Webber's meeting with Esther Jack, and the famous party at her house. Wolfe's published plays (four one-acters and two full-length plays, Mannerhouse and Welcome to Our City)2 are the literary result of 1 The Letters of Thomas Wolfe, ed. Elizabeth Nowell (New York, 1956), p. 54. 2 "The Return of Buck Gavin," Carolina Folk-Plays, Second Series, ed. F. H. Koch (New York, 1924), pp. 31-44. Reprinted in Carolina Folk Plays, ed. F. H. Koch (New York, 1941), pp. 113-123; and in North Carolina Drama, ed. Richard Walser (Richmond, Va., 1956), pp. 93-102. "The Third Night," Carolina Playbook (September, 1938), pp. 70-75. Reprinted, Carolina Folk Plays (New York, 1941), pp. 125-143. "Deferred Payment," Carolina Magazine (June, 1919), pp. 139-153. "Concerning Honest Bob," Carolina Magazine (May, 1920), pp. 251-261. Mannerhouse (New York, 1948). An English edition appeared in 1950; a Swedish translation in 1949; a Danish translation in 1952; and a German translation in 1954, following presentation of a German stage version in 1953. "Welcome to Our City," Esquire, XLVIII (October, 1957), 58-83. According to Mr. Harold Hayes, Managing Editor of Esquire, Mr. Edward C. Aswell furnished the text for this printing of the play; Mr. Hayes knew of no plan to publish the play in book form after its appearance in Esquire. Omitted from my consideration of Wolfe's plays are: "The Streets of Durham, or Dirty Work at the Crossroads: A Tragedy in Three Muddy Acts," a Tar Heel 1 2 MODER.N DRAMA May eight formative years, roughly autumn of 1918 to autumn of 1926. The plays themselves are not neglected masterpieces, but when studied in relation to the theater of the early twenties and to Wolfe's whole career they have an importance that has not been fully recognized . They show first that 'Wolfe as a young man was deeply involved in the creative spirit that was revitalizing the American theater. They also emphasize that he was aware of social themes in his early period; the anti-fascist feeling of You Can't Go Home Again is a recurrence rather than a first awakening of social conscience. Finally, the plays show a willingness to experiment, a capacity to visualize, and a comic sense which tempered the lyrical side of his talent. In addition to Wolfe's published plays about three thousand pages of dramatic manuscript and typescript survive, most of it in the Wisdom Collection at Harvard. Besides manuscripts and drafts of the two full-length plays, there are complete and partial drafts of "The Mountains," produced by the 47 'Workshop in 1921. Several fragments of a play about "Professor Weldon" seem to derive from Wolfe's acquaintance with Professor Horace Williams, the Hegelian idealist whose classes so impressed Wolfe at Chapel Hill...

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