Sidney Howard and the Social Drama of the Twenties

SIDNEY HOWARD AND THE SOCIAL DRAMA OF THE TWENTIES UNDERLYING A GREAT PORTION of the American plays written after the turn of the twentieth century there is a social consciousness and a concern for realism that distinguishes a trend in American drama. At its beginning it was a dual and almost parallel movement, the most significant in late 19th century American drama: the development of a social comedy, and the Rise of Realism in the drama. Numerous plays began to caricature aspects of society and also to reflect the literary interest in realism. Later, after the shock resulting from the American production of Ibsen's Ghosts in 1889, Ibsenism lent a certain unifying force to these trends. But it was not until the 1920'S that social drama became a serious and dominant trend, part of a national growth in American drama which was reflected in the plays of Maxwell Anderson, Philip Barry, Paul Green, Rachael Crothers, Eugene O'Neill, S. N. Behrnan, Elmer Rice, and Sidney Howard. Of these dramatists, only Sidney Howard produced his most significant plays during the twenties. During this decade which is now remembered mainly for the work of the Provincetown Players and the plays of Eugene O'Neill, Sidney Howard emerged as the first major writer of social drama in a long line of development that leads from James A. Heme to Tennessee Williams. Writing a preface to Lucky Sam McCarver, Howard admitted that as a thinker he was neither profound nor original. In an age which makes every man his own "puffer" such modesty and honesty is refreshing in any writer, and one is perhaps tempted to be overly charitable in the face of such self-depreciation. But after some thought one must conclude that Sidney Howard was right. This does not mean, of course, that he was superficial or that he was a poor dramatist, but rather that his plays do not lend themselves to searching literary criticism. Generally, his plays do not emphasize intellectual depth or imaginative development, but they do suggest a potent new force for a movement in American drama. To this trend he added an artistic mastery which deserves a certain critical acclaim. The social drama of the twenties seems to have developed from several existing categories of early twentieth century drama, fused by the term social but vaguely distinguished as social comedy, social realism, and social melodrama-all of which showed the influence 256 1963 SIDNEY HOWARD 257 of Ibsenism. In 1890 Alfred Hennequin in "Characteristics of American Drama" (Arena, I [May, 1890], 700-709) maintained that French melodrama and English melodrama had combined to produce a new type of American play-the social melodrama. That such a social drama was not popular at this time, however, is made clear by the frightened and frigid reception given James A. Herne's Margaret Fleming and by declarations like Daniel Frohman's in "The Tendencies of the American Stage" (Cosmopolitan, XXXVIII [November, 1904J, 15-22) that American audiences looked for "vivacity and rapid sequence" in plays rather than the "food for thought" which the French and Germans preferred. Seven years after this comment, Clayton Hamilton, writing on "Melodrama, Old and New" (Bookman, XXXIII [May, 1911], 309-14), re-emphasized the same idea as he moaned the changes in modern melodrama. In the past he had enjoyed the melodrama of Augustin Daly, David Belasco, and Owen Davis-all vivid and violent, sweet and sentimental. Now Hamilton found "a new species of melodrama that is ashamed of itself" as it takes the form of "a serious study of contemporary social problems." With this fusion of comedy, realism, and melodrama, touched lightly by Ibsenism, social drama was being born in America. It was a slow process, but by the first decade of the twentieth century, attitudes and issues had become accepted materials for plays-social, political, economic, religious, or moral. Among the numerous writers of what must be called realistic social melodrama before World War I, one of the most successful was Eugene Walter whose drama, The Easiest Way, 1908, was a striking portrayal of a woman who was unable to overcome her own basic weakness and the temptations of society. Fine...