Two Restorations

 

 “CONSERVATORS SHINE NEW LIGHT ON IRREPLACEABLE ART”
by Jared Bowen

[This segment was broadcast on PBS NewsHour [now PBS News Hour] on 26 December 2014.  A series of paintings created by Mark Rothko for Harvard University was thought irreparably damaged by years of sun exposure and removed from view.  Thirty-five years later, the paintings have returned, thanks to art historians and curators using digital projection, which offers viewers the appearance of restoration for works too fragile to touch. The segment was produced by Boston’s WGBH.] 

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: an art restoration breakthrough.

An international team of art historians and curators have developed a new technique to restore works of art without ever touching them. It’s being used for the first time on a Mark Rothko mural.

Jared Bowen from WGBH in Boston has this report.

JARED BOWEN: Even in 1960, it was a coup, when Harvard University landed Mark Rothko [1903-70; born in Dvinsk, Russian Empire, now part of Latvia] to paint a series of murals for its new penthouse dining room. Rothko was already considered one of the country’s greatest artist[s], and this was to be among his biggest commissions.

NARAYAN KHANDEKAR, Senior Conservation Scientist, Harvard Art Museums: He really wanted you to be up close and surrounded by his work so that you could feel the — feel the painting.

JARED BOWEN: Rothko paint[ed] panels to envelop the space. They and the studies and sketches he produced in planning them are now on view in the newly renovated Harvard Art Museum’s first special exhibition [16 November 2014-26 July 2015, Special Exhibitions Gallery].

They were robustly read [red?], says curator Mary Schneider Enriquez.

MARY SCHNEIDER ENRIQUEZ, Associate Curator, Harvard Art Museum: He had been focusing on these kind[s] of purples and crimson, as we like to say, of course, at Harvard. [Harvard’s school color is crimson and it is also the university’s frequent nickname.]

The ground of crimson or purple is then set off with these extraordinary contrasts of this red that is just incredible. As you look at any of his paintings, the play of color and contrast blending and then working against and with each other has always been essential to his work.

JARED BOWEN: The panels were officially installed in 1964, but were in steep competition with the room’s Harvard Yard views. The penthouse shades were rarely drawn and the light-sensitive murals suffered substantial damage.

NARAYAN KHANDEKAR: As the sun would traverse the sky, the paintings became faded, and in an uneven way because of the geometry of the room, so some parts were shadowed. Some parts received more sunlight. The paintings changed. And so what started off as a unified whole slowly drifted apart.

JARED BOWEN: By 1979, Harvard realized the murals were irreparably damaged and removed them from their dining room perch. And the series, one of only three ever painted by Rothko, was placed into storage and, aside from a few exhibitions, had largely disappeared from public view and memory.

MARY SCHNEIDER ENRIQUEZ: It’s been an extremely sad thing that this extraordinary work of art has not been included in the art history of Rothko. So it’s been a real priority for all of us to bring these works back to our — back to a place in which we can study them and recognize the achievement in th[ese] extraordinary paintings.

JARED BOWEN: Thirty-five years after removal, Rothko’s murals are once again on view, hung in the same configuration in a room with the same dimensions and against walls painted the same olive mustard Rothko himself chose.

MARY SCHNEIDER ENRIQUEZ: This really brings them back and puts them in the middle of his entire history in a major way.

JARED BOWEN: But they had to be hung without touching the canvasses, says conservation scientist Narayan Khandekar. It turns out Rothko mixed his own paint, which inadvertently left the canvases overly susceptible to ruin and far too fragile for physical touch-ups. [See my post “Conserving Modern Art,” 11 December 2018, on Rick On Theater.]

NARAYAN KHANDEKAR: Rothko used this binding medium, glue-size, which is — gives a very porous surface. And if you put any kind of isolating varnish over that, it would saturate the paint. It would change the color relationships. Everything that we do as a conservation approach also has to be reversible.

JARED BOWEN: How to restore the Rothkos to their original glory without ever touching them? To achieve that, Harvard collaborated with art historians and conservation teams from MIT and the University of Basel in Switzerland. They devised a software program that replicates Rothko’s original paintings pixel by pixel, color by color.

NARAYAN KHANDEKAR: We were able to have access to an alternate panel that had been shipped up to Cambridge, but not installed, and which had unfaded sections on it, and were able to use those to make the final adjustments on the digital image of what the paintings looked like.

JARED BOWEN: The digital recreation is projected with nonthreatening low light onto the canvas.

NARAYAN KHANDEKAR: It’s about 2.07 million pixels. So, we have to calculate the color and the intensity for each of these pixels and then shine it in exactly the right spot.

The color that’s on the painting, plus the compensation image, gives the viewer the impression of what the paintings looked like in 1964. We’re very, very confident that we’re as close as can be for this project.

JARED BOWEN: The technology is a game-changer, museum officials say, but it also raises questions about whether conservation in the digital age fundamentally changes the art. Rothko’s color is back, but no longer by his own hand.

MARY SCHNEIDER ENRIQUEZ: One of the key questions is, where is the line between what is the original work of art and the art that has the projection system on it? I mean, have we changed what he has done? No, we haven’t changed his canvases.

JARED BOWEN: But they have changed the possibility that damaged masterpieces the world over can once again see the light of day with the elaborately configured light of a projector.

I’m Jared Bowen for the “NewsHour” in Boston.

[Jared Bowen is the Host and Executive Arts Editor at public media company GBH.  (GBH is the trade name of the WGBH Educational Foundation, a public broadcasting group based in Boston, Massachusetts, and some of its public media outlets)  

[He is host of the daily radio program/podcast The Culture Show, is a regular guest host on Boston Public Radio, and a special correspondent for the PBS NewsHour.  He’s also the moderator of the sold-out Boston Speakers Series at Symphony Hall.]

*  *  *  *
“HITCHCOCK’S FASCINATION WITH DANCE”
by Sarah Kaufman 

[Sarah Kaufman’s report on the restoration of Hitchcock’s first known directorial work on a feature film ran in the Washington Post on 4 August 2013 (sec. E [“Arts”]).]

Of Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic obsessions, the moving body is one of the most remarkable. He lingered on bodies in motion with a choreographer’s eye to show us panic, passion and the fragile nature of sanity. Now, in a newly restored version of Hitchcock’s first film, a 1925 silent movie called “The Pleasure Garden,” we can see the roots of that fascination. It all started with dancers.

“The Pleasure Garden,” which will be screened Sunday [4 August 2013] at the National Gallery of Art, is a tale of greed, betrayal and murder centered on a pair of chorus girls. One remains a backup dancer but the other becomes a star, because she shows more leg. Their friendship frays as Jill [Carmelita Geraghty (1901-66)], the starlet, throws off her fiance to be a prince’s mistress, while hard-working, naive Patsy [Virginia Valli (1896-1968)] marries a schemer with loose morals and a looser grip on reality.

The action sweeps from London to Lake Como and on to Dakar, where Patsy finds herself in a battle for her life that had me holding my breath. I think I was gasping. And I was just watching a press screener on my computer, with no music. (The National Gallery will have live accompaniment [a new score was commissioned for the restoration by British composer Daniel Patrick Cohen (b. 1988)].)

Hitchcock [1899-1980], master of suspense — even in the infancy of his career.

On top of that, he delivers the sisterly camaraderie, ephemeral glamour, drudgery and creepiness of London’s nightclub scene — and the strong backbone surviving in it demands, as seen in the film’s plucky heroine — with verve and a surprising depth of insight.

“What every chorus girl knows,” reads one of the inter-titles, and next we see a dancer elbow-deep in soapsuds, washing her tights.

Yet it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the British filmmaker had a soft spot for dancers. Think of his nonverbal finesse, his precise and fluid way of blocking scenes and isolating gestures, as in a work of dance-theater. He put his actors in motion with a kinetic charge that was simple, direct and emotionally powerful — Cary Grant running for his life in “North by Northwest” [1959], and earlier in the film, striding down a hall in a way that told us what kind of man he was. And recall the dizzying grace of Grant and Ingrid Bergman’s slow-dance kiss in “Notorious” [1946] as the camera swirls around them.

“The Pleasure Garden” was restored by the British Film Institute National Archive in a three-year project to refurbish the nine silent Hitchcock movies that still exist. Produced between 1925 and 1929, they suffered varying degrees of damage over the years. Now cleaned and pieced back to near-original form, the films have been on an international tour. “The Hitchcock 9” has been presented here by the AFI Silver Theatre [Silver Spring, Maryland] and the National Gallery. “The Pleasure Garden” is last in the series.

Of the nine, “The Pleasure Garden” has a double significance. It proves, astonishingly, that the seeds of many Hitchcockisms were planted at the start: his love of motion, but also his fondness for voyeurism, staircases, binoculars, ominous beverages and dirty jokes. Here, right off the bat, Hitchcock is Hitchcock, almost fully formed. At 26.

The very fact that we can marvel at the director’s early ease is a result of “The Pleasure Garden’s” second point of interest: This film was in the worst shape, and is now the crowning glory of the restoration project.

It is “the standout example of how restoration can affect the viewing of the film,” Kieron Webb, the BFI’s film conservation manager, said in a recent phone interview. The film had previously been known only in incomplete copies, with what appeared to be two different versions in circulation, Webb said, and both were missing footage. With the restoration, an extra 20 minutes was added. Missing bits of one section were found on a Dutch print; a lost scene was added from an original nitrate print preserved at Southern Methodist University [University Park, Texas]. The tints and tones were corrected to better match the setting and mood. Finally, the film was cleaned of dirt and mold, and scratches and tears were digitally repaired.

If you see “The Pleasure Garden,” though, you won’t be thinking about the hundreds of hours technicians spent sprucing it up. You’ll be making mental notes of the symbols and images that Hitchcock returned to later in his career. The film opens with a snaking line of dancers clattering down a spiral staircase (“Vertigo” [1958] alert!) into the bowels of the theater, taking us down to an underworld where it’s not artistry that counts, but how much skin you show.

Hitchcock may have been thinking of [Edgar] Degas [French Impressionist painter and sculptor; 1834-1917], whose top-hatted dandies peering at ballerinas didn’t have art on their minds either. The next scene is like something out of a Degas painting: A long tracking shot takes us across a row of finely dressed gentlemen in the audience leering at the dancers with predatory enthusiasm. One gent is peering through binoculars, and we see, “Rear Window”-style [1954], exactly the extent of the flesh he’s ogling.

At one point, Patsy is having tea, and the camera zooms in on her cup, where a couple of tea leaves are floating. It calls to mind that eerie glass of milk, glowing supernaturally in Cary Grant’s hand as he carried it up to Joan Fontaine in “Suspicion” [1941], and the frame-filling shot of the coffee cup that is poisoning Bergman in “Notorious.”

But what’s so special about the tea? Webb explains it’s a Britishism that would have resonated with audiences at the time. The leaves represent “an omen about a stranger approaching,” he said, and at that moment Patsy meets the handsome villain who will talk her into marrying him.

Thanks to the BFI’s restoration, we’re treated to a sly little shot pertaining to that marriage that had been lost. It was discovered at SMU, and it offers a telling bit of Hitchcock’s humor. Remember, this is a man who liked to punctuate a love scene with a bawdy punch line — the train entering a tunnel after a kiss in “North by Northwest,” fireworks exploding after a cuddle in “To Catch a Thief” [1955]. So as the pretty young dancer wakes up from her wedding night, beaming, the director gives us a close-up of a bitten apple.

Not subtle, but then again, kid Hitchcock was scarcely out of his teens.

[Sarah Kaufman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, author, journalist, and educator.  For more than 30 years, she has focused on the union of art and everyday living.  As the chief dance critic and senior arts writer of the Washington Post from 1996-2022, she wrote about the performing arts, pop culture, sports, science and personal expression.

[Kaufman’s work has been featured on national radio and television, including NBC News, CNBC, the PBS NewsHour, and On Point with Tom Ashbrook.  

[The screenplay for The Pleasure Garden was written by Eliot Stannard (1888-1944), based on the 1925 novel of the same name by Oliver Sandys (pseudonym of Marguerite Florence Laura Jarvis; 1886-1964).  The movie was a British-German production, shot in Italy and Germany in 1925.  It was released briefly in the United Kingdom in 1926, but withdrawn and rereleased officially in 1927, becoming a huge hit.

[The restored Pleasure Garden, with the new score, has not been released on video due to a lack of funding to record it adequately.  Available DVD releases contain a poor quality and badly edited version of the film, and there are bootlegged copies on the market as well.  As of 2021, The Pleasure Garden has become the first Hitchcock film to enter the public domain.

[“The Hitchcock 9” restoration was started in 2012 and took three years to complete.  The other eight films were: Blackmail (1929), Champagne (1928), Downhill (1927), Easy Virtue (1927), The Farmer’s Wife (1927), The Lodger (1927), The Manxman (1929), and The Ring (1927).]

The Federal Theatre Project (1935-1939)

 

[Though short-lived, the Federal Theatre Project was the largest effort by the United States Government to produce theatrical events.  It was an effort of the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945; 32nd President of the United States: 1933-45) to provide work for unemployed theater professionals during the Great Depression (1929-41) which followed the stock market crash of 24 October 1929, “Black Thursday.”

[The Federal Theatre Project was one of five arts-related projects, called Federal Project Number One, established under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during Roosevelt’s first term (4 March 1933-20 January 1937).  

[The WPA was created by executive order on 6 May 1935.  The five arts divisions were the Federal Music Project (FMP; established 6 May 1935), the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP; established, 27 August 1935), the Federal Theatre Project (FTP; established 27 August 1935), the Federal Art Project (FAP; established, 29 August 1935), and the Historical Records Survey (HRS; established as program of the FWP, 16 November 1935 – independent section of Federal One, 15 October 1936).

[While the primary aim of the FTP was the reemployment of theater workers on public relief rolls, including actors, directors, playwrights, designers, vaudeville artists, and stage technicians, it was also the hope that the project would result in the establishment of theater so vital to community life that it would continue to function as a “national theater” after the FTP program was completed. 

[This goal was never realized, although several attempts have been made since the New Deal era to create an “American National Theatre” in the United States.  The last attempt was probably Roger Stevens’s (1910-98) foray at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., of which he was founding Chairman, 1961-88.  With Peter Sellars (b. 1957) at the helm, the ANT lasted one ignominious season in 1985-86.

[(Back in 2016, in “Zelda Fichandler, Valiant Striver in the Arena,” posted on Rick On Theater in “Zelda Fichandler (1924-2016), Part 2” [20 October 2024], actor and teacher Andrew Weems [1961-2019] proposed redesignating our regional theaters collectively as our national theater.)

[I have just published a post called “America’s Culture War—Now at Your Local Theater” (25 October) which includes “America’s War on Theater” by Daniel Blank, the review of a new book by James Shapiro (The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War) that tells the story of the FTP as the target of anti-theater Americans.  That post gave me the impulse to post a history of the New Deal agency that produced Orson Welles’s Voodoo Macbeth, the Living Newspapers, Sinclair Lewis’s It Can't Happen Here, The Swing Mikado, Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, Dorothy and DuBose Heyward’s Porgy, plus dance dramas, foreign-language productions, and theater-oriented radio broadcasts.]

The 1929 stock market crash actually began in September when the prices of shares dropped precipitously on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and ended in the middle of November.  This launched the worst financial crisis in U.S.—and, indeed, world—history.

On 24 October 1929, known as Black Thursday, investors sold off a record number of shares, setting off a panic on Wall Street leading to a historic drop in the market’s value of 9%.  Over the next five days, culminating on 29 October, dubbed Black Tuesday, of a total loss of market value of another 25%. 

The reasons for the panic and the historic loss of market value are irrelevant here, and have been a subject of debate, analysis, and re-analysis by economists and financial historians for almost 100 years.  The upshot was, however, that the following Depression resulted in an estimated rate of unemployment of almost 25% at its height.  About 13 million Americans became unemployed out of a population, according to the 1930 census, of just under 123 million. 

President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964; 31st President of the United States: 1929-33) was widely blamed for an insufficient and inadequate response to the crisis and on election day, 8 November 1932, he was swept out of office in a landslide.  Roosevelt’s mandated economic recovery plan, on which he’d campaigned, the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief and recovery.

Major programs and agencies of Roosevelt’s New Deal included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was the parent agency of the FTP.  Reforms were initiated in banking and finance, business and manufacturing, labor relations, the economy, and Wall Street.  By the end of Roosevelt’s first term, unemployment fell by two-thirds.

(The recovery from the Depression was ultimately accomplished by the huge surge in federal spending in the build-up for the U.S. entry into World War II.  Once the government began its wartime manufacture and purchase of military equipment and materiel, the New Deal recovery programs ended.  That, however, didn’t occur until years after the FTP was disbanded.)

The WPA, headed by FDR’s trusted adviser Harry Hopkins (1890-1946), provided paid employment to the jobless during the Great Depression while upgrading the country’s public infrastructure, such as parks, schools, roads, bridges, airports and railway stations, housing, public buildings like post offices, and the like.  

Though most of the jobs were in construction and went to unskilled or low-skilled workers, the New Deal, as already noted, also found work for artists.  This was under the auspices of Federal Project Number One—known as Federal One or just Fed One. 

Those public buildings, for instance, were decorated with murals and painted ceilings, and statuary depicting national and local history, culture, and lore.  Those artworks, by the Federal Art Project, can still be seen today in the post offices and other public facilities from the WPA period (1935-43) that still stand.

The Historical Records Survey, which started as a section of the Federal Writers’ Project, employed many interviewers to collect the life stories of former slaves in the South.  These narratives are of immense importance to American history.  (Playwright, scholar, and English professor James de Jongh [1942-2023] drew the text for his 1978 play, Do Lord Remember Me, from the WPA slave narratives.  See “Two Theater Personages of Note: James de Jongh (1942-2023),” 12 June 2023.)

Theater and music groups toured throughout the United States and gave more than 225,000 performances.  I’ll be discussing the Federal Theatre Project in more detail shortly, but a word or two more about the Federal Music Project.

The employees of the FMP, along with the thousands of concerts they performed, taught music classes, offered training for music teachers, and hosted music festivals.  More interestingly, they researched and collected traditional American music and folk songs from around the country, including the music of black Americans, Latinés, and Creole-speakers.  These songs were also put on records to preserve what would otherwise have been lost.  (The recordings are in the Library of Congress, as are the unpublished slave-narrative manuscripts.)

The FTP is arguably one of the best known of the five Fed One divisions, along, perhaps, with the FAP—largely, I suspect, because the evidence of its work is still visible around the country.  (The post office in downtown San Antonio, Texas, near the Alamo, is, itself, a tourist stop because of the murals depicting Texas history in its entrance lobby.)  As we shall also see, FTP was also the WPA’s most controversial and provocative program.

WPA administrator Harry Hopkins knew a young Vassar College teacher who was an avid student of contemporary theater and was developing some ideas about experimental theater.  Her name was Hallie Flanagan (1889-1969) and she had already been appointed the director of the actors’ group of George Pierce Baker’s (1866-1935) renowned 47 Workshop dramatic production studio at Harvard College.  Flanagan was a student at Radcliffe, the women’s college of Harvard University, but Baker’s theater courses were open to students at both institutions.  (The appointment to the director’s position was made by Baker, himself.)

In 1924, Flanagan was hired to direct the division of speech in the English department at Vassar in Poughkeepsie, New York.  (There was no theater program, so all drama courses and activities were conducted in the English department.)  In 1926, however, Flanagan left Vassar when she became the first woman to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

For 14 months in 1926-27, Flanagan traveled around Europe to study the theater practices on the Continent.  While doing so, she met some of the most influential figures in modern theater including John Galsworthy (English novelist and playwright; 1867-1933), Konstantin Stanislavsky (Russian actor, director, teacher, and theorist; 1863-1938), Edward Gordon Craig (English actor, director, and scenic designer; 1872-1966), and Lady Gregory (Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist, and theater manager; 1852-1932).  Later, she wrote Shifting Scenes of the Modern European Theater (1928) based on her experiences.

When she returned to Vassar in 1927, Flanagan launched the Vassar Experimental Theatre, where she introduced the new ideas she picked up in Europe.  Her first production at the new theater was Anton Chekhov’s The Marriage Proposal, which took place on the evening of 12 November 1927.  Chekhov (1860-1904) was, by the 1920s, a staple of American theater, and the “experimental” element in Flanagan’s production came not from its text but from Flanagan’s staging.  The company performed the 1890 one-act play three times: first, in a Realistic style; next, in an Expressionist style; and last, in a Constructivist style.

(Constructivism is an early 20th-century—that is, 1920s-’30s—Russian movement in art and architecture, as well as stage design, characterized by the creation of nonrepresentational geometric objects using industrial materials.  The theatrical metaphor was that the stage set was a “machine for acting” rather than a Realistic, or even Expressionistic representation of an actual place.  In constructivistic acting and movement, the body is used so as to approximate a machine or an automaton.  Meyerhold’s “biomechanics” [note below] are a manifestation of Constructivism.)

In the second version, played closer to tragedy, the actors were masked, and in the third the actors were all dressed in work suits in a playground, tossing a ball between them.  The third version sounds a lot like the biomechanics exercises of Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940), the Russian and Soviet theater director, actor, and theatrical experimentalist, but the second iteration of the play is reminiscent of the work of Russian actor, director, teacher, and theorist Michael Chekhov (1891-1955), nephew of Anton and director, at the time of Flanagan’s trip to Europe, which included Russia, of the Second Moscow Art Theater.

We know that Flanagan met Stanislavsky, the father of modern Western acting and the founder and director of the Moscow Art Theater.  Stanislavsky and MAT were world-renowned for their interpretations of Chekhov’s plays, famously in a Realistic style, and she might have met Meyerhold as well.  

It seems likely, though, that she’d have also met Michael Chekhov, whose acting and directing were the talk of the Moscow and Saint Petersburg theater scene, especially after his groundbreaking Expressionistic Hamlet which had premièred in 1924.  (See “Michael Chekhov” on this blog [2, 5, and 8 November 2019], especially Part 2.)  

(In MAT practice, plays that have been successful remained in the repertoire for years and were frequently revived.  It’s possible that performances of Michael Chekhov’s Hamlet were on the MAT 2 stage when Flanagan was in Moscow.)

Chekhov, however, was under serious political attack by the government of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953; General Secretary of the Communist Party: 1922-52; Chairman of the Council of Ministers: 1941-53) by 1926.  He and his wife left Moscow ahead of an expected arrest warrant in July 1928.  They stayed in Germany until 1931, when they moved to Paris.  After a brief sojourn in Lithuania and Latvia, he set up a school in England in 1936, and then, with the advent of World War II in Europe looming, he decamped with his school and many of his students for the United States in 1938.  (The war broke out in Europe on 1 September 1939.)

In 1931, Flanagan attracted national attention for mounting Can You Hear Their Voices? A Play of Our Time, a play she co-adapted from the short story, published in the American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA New Masses, “Can You Make Out Their Voices” (6.10 [March 1931]) by Whittaker Chambers (1901-61).  (If the writer’s name looks familiar, that may be because he’s the former Soviet spy who later defected and informed on the espionage cell that included Alger Hiss [1904-96], who was subpoenaed to testify before HUAC in 1948 and was ultimately convicted of perjury.)

Can You Hear Their Voices? a 70-minute one-act, premièred at Vassar on 2 May 1931.  (It ran Off-Off-Broadway June 3-27, 2010 in a production by the Peculiar Works Project in what Variety dubbed “A Pop-Up Space”: “a nondescript storefront space wedged between the toes of the overbearing NYU footprint in Noho” [2 Great Jones Street, at Broadway].  Reviewer Marilyn Stasio asserted in Variety that “it foreshadowed the Living Newspaper productions that defined Flanagan’s political agenda as head of the Federal Theater Project.  As it was during the Depression, the raw material is dynamite” (“Can You Hear Their Voices?” 7 June 2010).

As recorded in Wikipedia, the February 1932 issue of the Vassar Miscellany News, then the semi-weekly student paper, stated that after the unknown play premièred the previous May, “the fame of this propaganda play has spread not only throughout America, but over Europe and into Russia, China, and Japan” (“Vassar Drama Arouses World-wide Interest,” 16.26 [24 February 1932]).

New Masses reviewed the play in June 1931 (Frances Strauss, “Vassar College Presents A Play,” vol. 7, no. 1), then proceeded to advertise the play’s availability in book form in the June, July, and August 1931 issues, reporting requests for the rights from parties from all around the globe.

In September 1935, WPA head Hopkins, who knew Flanagan from Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa) when they were both undergraduates—Flanagan was class of ’11; Hopkins, class of ’12—and had read her 1928 book, asked Flanagan to lead the Federal Theatre Project.

Of course, FTP was controversial from the start as soon as Flanagan’s appointment was announced, given her apparent left-leaning political preferences.  (I say “apparent” because in the ’20s and ’30s, an attraction to Russian theater innovations, from Constructivism to Meyerhold and Michael Chekhov, as well as an affinity for European experimentalism, which would include the Epic Theater techniques of Bertold Brecht—another commie!—would have been de rigueur for a committed theater-maker.)

But, as James Shapiro, author of The Playbook (see “America’s Culture War—Now at Your Local Theater,” referenced in the introduction above), points out, “anti-theatricalism” is part of America’s political make-up, especially on the right.  Theater, for some reason, is always suspect to a certain segment of our population; it’s an off-shoot of American anti-intellectualism.

Marry that to Hallie Flanagan’s résumé and you’ve got a stink bomb ready to go off.  It eventually did.

Meanwhile, the FTP provided a pretty wide variety of programs, in part because under its heading came also dance and radio.  I’m going to focus on the theater, but here’s a run-down of some of the other FTP programs.

The Federal Dance Project (also sometimes called the Federal Dance Theatre) was a short-lived unit of the FTP.  Formed in January 1936, it was originally a semi-autonomous component of the Federal Theatre Project, but lobbying by New York City dancers, under the leadership of Helen Tamiris (choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher; 1905-66), led to the creation of a separate dance unit, the Federal Dance Project. 

The FDP employed professional dancers, choreographers, musicians, designers, and technicians, and set before them the task of producing socially relevant dance pieces for the American people, in particular, audiences that had not previously had access to the theater.  Alongside Tamiris, choreographers affiliated with the project included Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), Charles Weidman (1901-75), Ruth Page (1899-1991), and Katherine Dunham (1909-2006).

When funding cutbacks hit the Federal Theatre Project, the FDP was absorbed back into the theater project in October 1937.  Dance productions continued, however, under the aegis of the Federal Theatre Project, until further political controversy led to the dismantling of the FTP in 1939.

The first production was Monde in the summer of 1936, described as a “dance drama” and a “jazz ballet,” inspired by a poem by Walt Whitman (1819-92) and focused on bringing diverse groups together.  Another production that year was Young Tramps, a play about young, unemployed men who took to the road.  Both productions showcased experimental elements, combining modern dance, special costumes, and changes of scenes and props.

One of its notable productions was How Long, Brethren? (May 1937-January 1938), choreographed by Helen Tamiris, that set dances to Black protest songs.  The show was performed by an all-white cast, and inspired a protest after one of its performances. 

In the 1930s and ’40s, radio drama was a popular form of theater across the country.  It’s pretty much died out here, though abroad there are still broadcasts of radio plays—and there are occasionally radio dramas performed in the U.S. as well. 

Like all other fields of endeavor, the Great Depression destroyed the employment opportunities for actors who worked in radio.  It was a specialty until, in the 1950s, television ate away the audience for radio plays.  So, during the Depression, the WPA became the producer of radio drama and other radio programs in order to reemploy the radio performers who’d lost their jobs.

Radio broadcasting became the concern of the Federal Theatre of the Air, a division of the Federal Theatre Project.  It began weekly broadcasts on 15 March 1936, and for three years, according to Wikipedia, the Federal Theatre of the Air presented an average of 3,000 programs annually on commercial stations and networks.  The major programs originated in New York, but radio divisions were also established in 11 states.

The Federal Theatre of the Air presented a wide range of programs, such as plays specifically written for radio (Contemporary Theatre, presenting plays by modern authors), docudramas, dramatized works of prose fiction (Repertory Theatre of the Air, which presented literary classics), as well as plays originally written for the stage (Ibsen's Plays, presenting performances of the 12 major plays), including musical theater, and opera (Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera, which broadcast the complete works performed by Federal Theatre actors and recordings by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company).

There were also programs for children, such as Once Upon a Time, and informational programs on health and safety, art, music, and history. 

The Federal Theatre Project established five regional centers in New York City, Boston (Northeast), Chicago (Midwest), Los Angeles (West), and New Orleans (South).  New York was sort of the headquarters and many, even most, of the productions started there.  New York City, after all, was then, as it is now, the center of theater in the United States: the talent is there in large numbers and the facilities, rehearsal studios, and theaters are there.

Productions would rehearse in New York, then première there.  Then they’d go out on tour.  Projects would also be initiated in any one of the regional centers (which, readers may notice, are all “theater towns”) and tour from there. 

Stage productions fell into several categories: new plays (including the Living Newspapers, plus plays like It Can't Happen Here); classical plays; plays formerly produced on Broadway (Paul Green’s Hymn to the Rising Sun); modern foreign plays (Leonid Andreyev’s The Sabine Women); stock plays (Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones); children’s plays (Mother Goose Goes to Town and Mother Goose on the Loose); revues and musical comedies; vaudeville; dance productions (Candide, from Voltaire); Early Americana; American pageants; puppet and marionette plays.  

Capitalizing on the FTP’s national network and inherent diversity of artists, the Federal Theatre established specific chapters dedicated to showcasing and celebrating the work of previously under-represented artists.  These included the French Theatre in Los Angeles, the German Theater in New York City, and the Negro Theatre Unit which had several chapters across the country, with its largest office in New York City.  The FTP set up 17 so-called Negro Theatre Units (NTU) in cities throughout the United States.

By the project’s conclusion, 22 American cities had served as headquarters for black theater units.  The New York Negro Theatre Unit was the most well known.  The two sections of the New York City NTU presented some 30 plays.  The third production was the most popular: the Voodoo Macbeth (1936), as it came to be called.  Director Orson Welles adapted Shakespeare’s play set on a mythical island suggesting the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe (1767-1820; King of Haiti: 1811-20).

The New York Negro Theatre Unit also oversaw the African American Dance Unit featuring Nigerian artists displaced by the Ethiopian Crisis (a dispute between Italy and Ethiopia in 1935 that escalated, ultimately resulting in Italy’s annexing Ethiopia in 1936).  These projects employed over 1,000 black actors and directors.

The Federal Theatre Project was distinguished for its focus on racial injustice.  Flanagan expressly ordered her subordinates to follow the WPA policy against racial prejudice.  Flanagan took action several times against FTP staffers who acted out of racial prejudice against black artists.  The FTP overtly sought out relationships with the African American community.

Flanagan’s crusade for equality eventually became a sticking point for the Dies Committee (i.e., HUAC; Dies was chairman of the predecessor to HUAC, 1938-44), which pulled funding for the Federal Theater Project, arguing that “racial equality forms a vital part of the Communist dictatorship and practices.”

It was not feasible to operate Federal Theatre Project companies in towns where only a few theater professionals were on relief rolls.  In order to serve a wide geographic area, however, FTP projects toured in rural areas and small towns.  FTP tours ranged widely within their regions and companies covered a number of sections of the country where residents saw theatrical productions infrequently.

Many of the notable artists of the time participated in the Federal Theatre Project, including Susan Glaspell (playwright; 1875-1948) who served as Midwest bureau director.  (Glaspell won the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Alison's House.)   The legacy of the Federal Theatre Project can also be found in beginning the careers of a new generation of theater artists. Arthur Miller (playwright; 1915-2005), Orson Welles (stage and film director; 1915–85), John Houseman (actor and producer; 1902-88), Martin Ritt (director, producer, and actor; 1914-90), Elia Kazan (film and theater director, producer, and screenwriter; 1909-2003), Joseph Losey (movie director; 1909-84), Marc Blitzstein (composer, lyricist, and librettist; 1903-64), and Abe Feder (lighting designer; 1908-97) are among those who became established, in part, through their work in the Federal Theatre.

The Federal Theatre Project employed around 12,700 people at some point between 1935 and 1939.  It had projects in 40 cities, the most of which went to New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—the three largest cities in the country. 

During its nearly four years of operation, 30 million people attended FTP productions in more than 200 theaters nationwide, many of which had been closed.  The FTP also produced events in parks, schools, churches, clubs, factories, hospitals, and closed-off streets.  It produced an approximate total of 1,200 shows, not including its radio programs.

The FTP was created to employ and train people, not to generate revenue, so 65% of its productions were presented free of charge; the rest charged 25¢, 50¢, or 75¢ (the equivalent today of about $5.50-16.40).  The total cost of the Federal Theatre Project was $46 million (about $1.04 billion in 2024).

In May 1938, Congress convened the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC).  The committee first targeted the Works Progress Administration (WPA) overall for investigation, and soon the Federal Theatre Project specifically.  Texas conservative Democrat Martin Dies, Jr. (1900-72; Member of Congress: 1931-45; 1953-59), spearheaded the committee.  

Hallie Flanagan’s character and motives were attacked both by the Dies committee and by disgruntled FTP members called as witnesses.  Federal Theatre Project productions were branded as propaganda for communism.  Flanagan responded that they were in fact propaganda for democracy since they utilized constitutional freedoms to point out America’s most pressing problems.  Against a background of Hitler’s march on Europe, Congress slashed relief funding as America’s focus turned toward war.

(Hitler had reincorporated the Saarland into Germany in March 1935 and remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936; he assisted Francisco Franco [1892-1975] in the Spanish Civil War [1936-39] from its start in July 1936; the Anschluss with Austria was accomplished in March 1938; Germany annexed the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in October 1938.)

Federal Project Number One, the parent agency for the five arts projects, ended in 1939 when, under pressure from Congress, the theater project was cancelled and the other projects were required to rely on state funding and local sponsorship.  Congress cut federal funding completely as of 30 June 1939, immediately putting 8,000 people out of work across the country.

[Theater professionals from around the country protested the demise of the Federal Theatre Project.  Despite the furor over communist infiltration of the WPA, in the end it wasn’t anticommunism that felled the FTP, but the view in Congress that the average American saw no value in spending tax dollars to aid performers and encourage the arts. 

[Flanagan’s anti-racist stance and her willingness, even eagerness, to engage with social issues really set the conservatives in Congress and certain corners of the press off, however.  The money was just the excuse—it gave them cover.

[Federal funding for the arts was controversial in Roosevelt’s New Deal, although the budget for the Project amounted to less than 1% of the WPA’s total allocation.  If readers will scan my 11-part post on “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” (5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, and 30 November, and 3, 13, 16, and 19 December 2023), you’ll see that the situation is still just as fraught and dire.  And if that’s not recent enough for you, check out “‘When the Arts Become a Partisan Issue, We All Lose’” by Cristina Pla-Guzman, in “America's Culture War—Now at Your Local Theater” (link above).]

America's Culture War—Now at Your Local Theater

 
“WHEN THE ARTS BECOME A PARTISAN ISSUE,
WE ALL LOSE”
by Cristina Pla-Guzman

[Cristina Pla-Guzman’s “When the Arts Become a Partisan Issue, We All Lose” was posted on American Theatre’s website on 20 August 2024.  It didn’t appear in the magazine’s print edition.] 

Gov. Ron DeSantis’s veto of all arts and cultural funding in Florida is a crushing blow—and an opportunity to organize.

In June, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis [b. 1978; Republican Governor of Florida: 2019-Present] vetoed $32 million allocated for arts and cultural grants. It is a significant financial blow to arts nonprofits across the state. Each year, organizations are required to submit annual applications for vetting to Florida’s Division of Arts & Culture (FDAC [part of the Florida Department of State whose mission is to support and promote arts and culture in the state]) and could qualify for up to $150,000 in grants. This year, the FDAC recommended about $77 million toward 864 grants, but lawmakers approved $32 million. That was the earthquake, but then the aftershock happened when DeSantis vetoed arts funding altogether [on 12 June 2024]. 

[According to the Palm Beach Daily News, “On June 12, DeSantis vetoed all $32 million in arts and culture grants from a budget of $117 billion. His message included self-serving statements about ‘insulating Florida from malign actions of the Chinese Communist Party’ and much back-patting about spending less money than last year, but nothing about why such a small part (less than .03%) of the budget should be subject to elimination.”]

Jennifer Jones, president and CEO of the Florida Cultural Alliance (FCA [not-for-profit arts advocacy organization]), provides a critical perspective on the situation. Established in 1985, the FCA is a key advocate for arts and culture funding in the state. The organization works to ensure that grants from the FDAC are sustained and effectively distributed. Jones notes that the $32 million cut has a broader economic impact than might initially be evident. Among the cultural entities affected by the veto are zoos, botanical gardens, community theatres, and professional opera companies. Each of these organizations plays a unique role in Florida’s cultural ecosystem. For instance, Pérez Art Museum Miami, the city’s premier art museum, lost $70,500 in funding. Further, many grants serve as matching funds, essential for securing additional financial support from other sources. Losing state funding can result in a multiplied financial shortfall, where a $1 reduction in state support can translate into a $2 or more loss when considering the leveraged impact on other funding sources. 

Many fear this move is a reflection of broader political trends that threaten cultural expression in Florida. Yet the fight for the arts in Florida is far from over. 

Already Tight

For organizations that were already struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, like City Theatre in Miami, the funding cut translates into operational challenges and potential reductions in programming. Said artistic director Margaret Ledford, “We’re dealing wit h a shortfall in our current fiscal year, which will likely force us to cut back on free programming and possibly let go of staff.” This sentiment is echoed across the sector, where organizations are bracing for the financial strain of diminished resources.

Miami New Drama, operating from the historic Colony Theatre on Miami Beach, faces its own set of challenges. Said artistic director Michel Hausmann, “We had already prepared for a 50 percent cut in funding, which was tough enough. But the veto, which meant losing an additional $75,000, really complicates things for us. This amount represents significant portions of our budget, including the salary of a staff member or a third of our education budget.”

[The founder of Miami New Drama is Moisés Kaufman, founding artistic director of the Tectonic Theatre Project, who often showcases his works at MND. He did so with Here There Are Blueberries, his 2018 documentary play, and MND features prominently throughout my five-part post on that play, published on 26 and 29 May, and 1, 4, and 7 June 2024.]

While the veto did not directly affect Juggerknot Theatre Company, known for its immersive productions that celebrate Miami’s diverse neighborhoods, the loss represents a significant challenge for the tiny but mighty theatre company, which had applied for a 2025-26 grant in the next cycle. Due to the current situation, Tanya Bravo, Juggerknot Theatre Company’s founder and executive director, described the moment as one of uncertainty.

[Immersive theater is a theatrical experience that involves the audience as active participants, rather than passive spectators. It’s a sensory experience that blurs the line between reality and performance, and encourages audiences to have strong emotional and physical responses. It’s site-specific and participatory, and often interactive, non-linear, and technologically experimental. A discussion of the form can be found on Howlround.]

“I don’t know if I’m going to get that funding,” Bravo said, “and I need to prepare myself to find that funding somewhere else.”

Planning ahead has always been complicated for nonprofit theatres, because the business model makes future viability dependent on a lot of undependable circumstances. This problem has been even more pronounced in the last few years, with increases in production costs and decreases in revenue from ticket sales and subscriptions. This isn’t just a Florida issue, it’s a national one. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from June 2023 to June 2024, wages and salaries in the private sector rose by 4.6 percent, while benefit costs increased by 3.5 percent. Coupled with an overall inflation rate of 3 percent, which affects the cost of everything from lumber to lights, these rising costs create an extra strain on already lean theatre budgets. This economic pressure forces theatres to make tough decisions, often at the expense of programming and community outreach.

What’s more, every dollar spent on the arts generates approximately nine dollars in local economic activity. Reducing arts funding impacts not only the theatres but also local businesses that benefit from the influx of patrons, such as restaurants and hotels, which in turn affects jobs at supporting small businesses. Miami Beach, for example, benefits from the presence of world-class cultural institutions, which make the city a more attractive place to live and work. By cutting funding for the arts, the state risks undermining its appeal to potential residents and businesses.

“This isn’t just about the intrinsic value of the arts; it’s about economic growth and quality of life,” Hausmann said.

Indeed, according to a study from Americans for the Arts [nonprofit organization whose primary focus is advancing the arts in the U.S.], in collaboration with the state FDAC and Citizens for Florida Arts Inc. [charitable organization that works with the Florida Division of Arts and Culture to advance the arts in the state], the state’s arts and cultural industry generates $5.7 billion in economic activity a year, including $2.9 billion by nonprofit arts and culture organizations, and supports more than 91,000 full-time jobs.

Political Motivations

The veto comes against a backdrop of broader political trends in Florida, including anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. DeSantis publicly justified the veto in a press conference by singling out the four annual fringe festivals that take place in Fort Myers, Tampa, Sarasota, and Orlando, as promoting “sexual” content that was an “inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars.” It’s worth noting that while these fringe festivals do include some adult content, it is always accompanied by warnings and age restrictions. Some observers interpret the funding cut as part of a larger pattern of political extremism. 

“Florida is a guinea pig politically on what could happen nationally,” Bravo said. “We have to pay attention to this and spread the word, because it does feel like we are being silenced in a way.”

[At a press conference on 27 June, however, DeSantis offered this explanation for the veto: “‘We didn't have control over how it was being given,’ DeSantis said of the individual grant awards, during a Thursday appearance in Polk County. ‘So you're having your tax dollars being given in grants to things like the [Orlando] Fringe Festival, which is like a sexual festival where they're doing all this stuff.

[“‘How many of you think your tax dollars should go to fund that? Not very many people would do that,’ he added, explaining for the first time the veto which occurred more than two weeks ago, but which continues to roil Florida's cultural community.”

[The Fringe, the longest-running theater festival in the United States, features shows that sometimes include drag performances or racy adult content.]

In an open letter to DeSantis, leaders from Orlando and Tampa Fringe are asking him to reconsider his veto, further stating they would rather not be included in this year’s budget if that means that funding can be reinstated to other organizations.

To further understand the political climate around the cuts, American Theatre emailed dozens of members of the Florida State House, the Governor’s office, and the Lt. Governor’s office [Jeanette Núñez (b. 1972; Republican Lieutenant Governor of Florida: 2019-Present)] for more information. We received only one reply, from State Representative Vicki Lopez [b. 1958; Republican Member of the Florida House of Representatives: 2022-Present], who said, “While the legislature has indeed shown its support for the arts, a governor’s veto can only be reversed through a veto override. We have made our concerns known to the leadership, but they are the only ones who can call a special session to override vetoes, and they have not signaled a willingness to do so.” Rep. Lopez explained how, as a member of the subcommittees for Pre-K-12 and Infrastructure & Tourism Appropriations, she understands the significant impact that arts and culture have on both education and the economy. “The arts are not just a cultural enrichment but a fundamental pillar for the educational and economic vitality of our communities.”

Social Consequences

Artists are custodians of local heritage, offering both a reflection of and a contribution to a community’s identity. These funding cuts threaten not just the survival of arts organizations, but also the lives of individual artists who already experience financial instability. This instability is exacerbated by the high cost of living in places like Miami, which further strains emerging artists already struggling to make ends meet. 

Andie Arthur, executive director of the South Florida Theatre League [alliance of theatrical organizations and professionals started in 1993, dedicated to nurturing, promoting, and advocating for the growth and prestige of the South Florida theatre industry], highlighted a growing trend of talent drain. “Theatres are accustomed to overcoming adversity, but can we really create sustainable careers in such an unstable environment?” Arthur asks. “We’re seeing a lot of local talent feeling they need to relocate to other states where the environment is more supportive of their careers.”

Beyond the economic impact, City Theatre’s Ledford underscored the emotional and social consequences of these funding cuts.

“The arts are a crucial part of our community’s emotional health,” she said. She mentioned that arts experiences foster empathy and community connection, values that are increasingly vital in today’s polarized environment. The decision to cut funding, she argued, aligns with broader political trends that marginalize and undermine cultural institutions, especially those that challenge prevailing norms.

The Path Forward

Despite the setbacks, there is a palpable sense of resilience among Florida’s cultural leaders. Jones said she was hopeful that this crisis will galvanize community support and advocacy, creating a catalyst for new forms of collaboration and advocacy.

The FCA is not only engaging in grassroots advocacy but also exploring “grass-tops” strategies. These involve leveraging the influence of donors and community leaders who have a stake in the arts and can advocate for renewed support at higher levels of government. The goal is to foster a dialogue that reinforces the value of arts funding and its critical role in enhancing quality of life.

In short, Florida arts leaders are mobilizing to address the funding cuts. “We’re calling on people to speak out, write letters, and advocate for the importance of arts funding,” said Ledford. Ledford encourages both artists and audiences to engage with their legislators and community leaders to emphasize the vital role of the arts in society.

Perhaps DeSantis’s veto will prompt a reevaluation of how arts funding is approached. Jones said she envisions a future where arts funding is recognized not just as a discretionary expenditure but as an essential investment in community health and vibrancy. She advocates for a model where funding is not only stable, but also responsive to the diverse needs of Florida’s cultural landscape.

In the face of adversity, artists have always shown an incredible capacity for renewal and innovation. Through collective action, solidarity, and a renewed commitment to their mission, leaders at Florida’s cultural organizations will continue to fight for their place in the community. As Bravo aptly put it, “We have to continue to tell stories, and our stories are about the people in Miami—they should not be silenced.”

[Cristina Pla-Guzman (she/her) is a nationally recognized, award-winning teaching artist, director, performer, and writer based in Miami.  Pla-Guzman is featured significantly in “Tomorrow’s Tamoras and Titanias: How to Heal the High School Space” by Gabriela Furtado Coutinho, posted on Rick On Theater in “Theater Education & Training, Part 3,” 9 October 2024.

[Even occasional readers of Rick On Theater will know that support for the arts and the inclusion of the arts in education, both as a practical experience and as a subject for academic study, are among my most strongly-held principles.  I have written on the subject many times on this blog and have posted the views of others who share my position. 

[I won’t make a list of the posts on ROT that treat this topic—the list would be too long—instead, I will quote from a letter that George Washington (yes, that George Washington) wrote in 1796 when he made a large endowment to what was then Liberty Hall Academy (and would become my alma mater, Washington and Lee University): “To promote Literature in this rising Empire, and to encourage the Arts, have ever been among the warmest wishes of my heart.”] 

*  *  *  *
“AMERICA’S WAR ON THEATER”
by Daniel Blank 

[“America’s War on Theater” by Daniel Blank was published on the Los Angeles Review of Books website on 22 July 2024.  LARB styles itself as “a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and disseminating rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts.”  The LABR website officially débuted in April 2012 and a print edition premièred in May 2013.]

Daniel Blank reviews James Shapiro’s “The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War.”

The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture by James Shapiro. Penguin, 2024. 384 pages.

Hostility to theater has been a virulent feature of American life since before the country was founded. In 1774, the First Continental Congress passed the Articles of Association, which aimed to restrict trade with Britain. But the Articles also discouraged “every species of extravagance and dissipation,” which included stage plays among “other expensive diversions and entertainments” like horse racing and cockfighting. The consequences were real: playhouses sat empty, and acting companies toured abroad. This was an early attempt, though hardly the last, to ban theater in the soon-to-be United States—the result of a centuries-old prejudice that has never completely faded from our cultural discourse. Anti-theatrical efforts are not historical blips; they’re an American tradition.

[The Articles of Association, formally known as the Continental Association, was an agreement among the American colonies adopted on 2 October 1774. It called for a trade boycott against British merchants by the colonies specifically to force Parliament to repeal the Intolerable Acts (sometimes called the Insufferable or Coercive Acts), enacted in 1774 as retaliation for the Boston Tea Party (16 December 1773) and strongly opposed by the colonies.

[The trade ban was not only against the importation or consumption of goods from Britain, but also threatened an exportation ban on products from the colonies to Britain if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed. Among the measures for enduring the scarcity of goods was a regimen of frugality and austerity that discouraged most forms of entertainment, including, as Blank implies, theatrical performances.]

James Shapiro’s The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War (2024), a brilliant and absorbing account of the 20th-century effort to establish something like a national theater in the United States, doesn’t go back quite as far as the Revolutionary Era. Between 1935 and 1939, a New Deal work relief program, the Federal Theatre Project [FTP; 1935-39], staged over a thousand productions nationwide, reaching an estimated audience of 30 million people. It was an astonishing undertaking, one whose impetus can be difficult to grasp from a 21st-century perspective. “It was the product,” Shapiro writes, “of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic and deserving of its support.” That moment turned out to be brief, and the Federal Theatre was short-lived. Its inevitable demise was the result of a sustained effort by a group of lawmakers who were determined to end funding for a program they saw to be “spreading a dangerously progressive as well as a racially integrated vision of America.”

[James Shapiro (b. 1955) is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. “James Shapiro’s Shakespeare” by Kirk Woodward, which discusses four of his earlier books (Oberammergau [2000], A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare [2005], Contested Will [2010], and The Year of Lear [2015]) was posted on ROT on 17 November 2020. There are also two articles by Shapiro on other ROT posts: “Shakespeare in Modern English?” (from the New York Times) in “Play On! 36 Playwrights Translate Shakespeare,” 31 January 2016, and “‘The Theater of War,’ by Bryan Doerries,” a review by James Shapiro from the New York Times in “Theater of War, Part 1,” 22 June 2024.    

[The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945; 32nd President of the United States: 1933-45) between 1933 and 1938 to rescue the U.S. from the Great Depression. One of the programs was the Works Progress Administration (WPA; 1935-43), an agency that employed millions of jobless to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, among other infrastructure works. One of the projects was the employment of unemployed artists of all fields—painting and sculpture, writing, theater, dance, and music—to make art for public consumption. Out of this, among other projects, came the FTP.]

One of those lawmakers was Martin Dies Jr. [1900-72], a racist [Democratic] congressman from Texas [1931-45] who quickly emerges as the villain in Shapiro’s story. Ambitious and undaunted, Dies “saw which way the political winds were blowing” and set sail in that direction, eventually finding himself at the helm of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities ([HUAC; 1938-75] laying the groundwork for Joe McCarthy’s [1908-57; Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, 1947-57] crusade a decade and a half later). The Federal Theatre proved an easy target, and casting its productions as “un-American” and “Communist” earned Dies national attention. He sought to make a name for himself and to shut down the relief program: by 1939, he had succeeded on both counts. A disappointed President Franklin D. Roosevelt reluctantly signed off on the Federal Theatre’s termination, and it soon faded into obscurity. (Its materials—playbooks, programs, and other theatrical ephemera—were unceremoniously deposited in an airplane hangar in Maryland, where they remained unnoticed until the 1970s.)

In Shapiro’s persuasive account, Dies established a “playbook” (a term that, as Shapiro’s epigraph points out, has a theatrical resonance) that set the stage for some of the same right-wing strategies still in use today. These include making the debate about what is American and what isn’t; identifying and attacking vulnerable groups and organizations; employing intimidating and threatening, even violent, rhetoric; and using the press to disseminate dubious, headline-grabbing claims. Shapiro’s focus is specific—a single federal initiative that existed for only a brief time—and in this sense, the book is reminiscent of some of his Shakespeare scholarship, particularly the award-winning 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005) and its follow-up, The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 (2015). This approach allows Shapiro to illuminate, in archivally rich detail, not only the attacks on the Federal Theatre but also its productions and the people behind them. This is an important, much-needed study whose relevance to our current culture wars is uncomfortably apparent from the first page. But it’s also worth noting that efforts to suppress theater were nothing new in the 1930s, even if Dies was remarkably percipient in his tactics. The Federal Theatre’s closure is just one episode in the United States’ long and troubling history of anti-theatricalism.

¤

The Playbook opens on a contentious congressional hearing [before HUAC] in December 1938. Here we meet Hallie Flanagan [1889-1969], the Vassar College professor [“Director of English Speech”] who had been tapped to lead the Federal Theatre a few years earlier, defending the enterprise—and theater itself—with phenomenal poise and determination. Dies and his colleagues grilled her on the question of whether the Federal Theatre was promoting propaganda, apparently unaware that, as Flanagan explained, most theater is in some sense “propagandistic”: it questions the status quo and comments on societal norms and practices. If anything, these productions were “propaganda for democracy,” and as Shapiro points out, “the overwhelming majority” of the Federal Theatre’s productions “were unobjectionable.” But the committee’s concern was those few controversial plays that were more piercing in their social commentary. The fact that Flanagan had spent time as a Guggenheim Fellow [14 months in 1926-27] studying theater in Europe (including the Soviet Union)—a tradition she found to be “intellectually rigorous” and “committed to education and propaganda”—didn’t help her cause.

In theory, the purpose of the hearing was to discuss the Federal Theatre’s activities and, at perhaps a deeper level, the question of whether drama can ever be completely neutral or apolitical. But instead, it became an opportunity for grandstanding, a forum for Dies and his colleagues to attack the country’s “enemies” and “the spiritual lethargy and moral indifference” that allegedly threatened it. Everything about this congressional scene seems painfully familiar: the characters, the setting, the script. Some of the lines Shapiro quotes could easily have been spoken in the current congressional session. (As I began reading The Playbook, for instance, Marjorie Taylor Greene [b. 1974; U.S. Representative from Georgia: 2020-Present] was refusing to call Anthony Fauci “doctor” and stating that he should be imprisoned as he testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.) That the Dies committee’s interrogation of Hallie Flanagan seems so immediate speaks partly to Shapiro’s gifts as a storyteller, but also to the state of American government in 2024.

In addition to the moral tenor of Dies’s attack, there was also a financial aspect: whether taxpayers should have to pay for theatrical productions that advocate a social message (although one gets the sense that Dies wouldn’t have been any happier had they been entirely dispassionate). This is a common refrain of anti-theatricalists: that theater is costly and wasteful, and that the money—especially when drawn from the government’s purse—could be better spent elsewhere. Why allocate relief funds to actors to perform a play, the committee wondered, when you could give it to them to perform a tangible service? Why build a theater when you could build a highway? Flanagan reminded the committee that the entire Federal Theatre Project had only “amounted to [. . .] the cost of building one battleship.” It’s a common rebuttal even today, though its effect may be limited: when the New York City arts budget was recently in danger of being slashed—a decision that, thankfully, was narrowly averted—one New York Times editorial observed that these programs could be supported “for the price of a police helicopter” (their police department’s budget authorized the purchase of two).

[Cuts across the board in the New York City budget for Fiscal Year 2025, including additional cuts to arts and cultural programs on top of FY 2024 reductions, were announced in January 2024. After pleas from arts organizations and cultural leaders in the city, much of the threatened reductions was restored in June.]

Again, though, in these sorts of discussions, logical reasoning usually takes a backseat to uninformed showboating. The Dies committee aimed to paint a very specific kind of picture for their fellow legislators and the American people, rooted less in fact than in ideology. This presents another axiom of anti-theatrical movements: opponents tend to know very little about the theater they’re attacking. None of the committee members, Shapiro observes, “had ever seen a Federal Theatre production.” Nor did they have much knowledge of theater more broadly: one of the committee members, Joe Starnes of Alabama [1895-1962; Democratic U.S. Representative: 1935-45], became an object of ridicule when he unwittingly asked if [William] Shakespeare’s [1564-1616] contemporary Christopher Marlowe [1564?-93] was a communist. The Dies committee wanted to gut a program they knew almost nothing about. It seems telling that the committee’s 124-page report did not mention a single play.

¤

The sheer popularity of theater in 19th and early-20th-century America can be difficult to fathom. In The Playbook’s second chapter, we encounter a young Willa Cather [novelist; 1873-1947], who at the turn of the century was a theater critic in Lincoln, Nebraska [for the Nebraska State Journal and the Lincoln Courier in 1894, while she was a student at the University of Nebraska]. Despite being a rural state with a population just above a million [New York City’s population was over half again as much at this time], Nebraska boasted over 50 playhouses in 1890: during a particular week in Lincoln in the spring of 1894, Cather was able to see and review five separate theatrical productions. The metrics alone are staggering. Shapiro estimates that as many as a quarter of the adult-aged population in Lincoln saw a play that week—“a theatergoing intensity,” he claims, “not seen since London in Shakespeare’s day.” “[P]laygoing,” Shapiro concludes, “was a national pastime.”

That popularity would wane in the decades that followed, due in large part to the arrival of motion pictures. Lamenting what had been lost, Cather remarked in the late 1920s that only live theater “can make us forget who we are and where we are,” while films “do not make us feel anything more than interest or curiosity or astonishment.” In a sense, the Federal Theatre’s success recaptured what had been so magical about American theater just a generation earlier: the Omaha World-Herald proclaimed that it “filled [. . .] the gap that was made when the movies took over.” But popularity is a double-edged sword: from ancient Greece to the Shakespearean stage, successful theatrical traditions have almost always met with hostility. To be sure, the Dies committee was more successful than many previous anti-theatrical efforts throughout history. But it also attests to just how vibrant the Federal Theatre—and the spirit of American theater it reclaimed—was.

The Playbook’s central chapters each focus on a single Federal Theatre show, including a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that premiered in April 1936. It was staged in Harlem by one of the “Negro Units,” which had been established across the country “to support Black actors and playwrights.” Set in 19th-century Haiti, with a cast of 137, this incredibly innovative production—which became known as the “Voodoo Macbeth”—was also the Federal Theatre’s biggest hit. This was especially clear on opening night when a marching band made its way through Harlem behind a banner that read “Macbeth by William Shakespeare,” and a crowd of more than 10,000 people gathered outside Harlem’s Lafayette Theatre; a preview performance a few nights earlier had drawn 3,000. The Lafayette’s capacity was about 1,200. [The show ran 9 April-20 June 1936 at the Lafayette before moving to the Adelphi on Broadway.]

None of that success prevented certain journalists from writing about the production in negative, racist terms. (Here and elsewhere, Shapiro does not shy away from these accounts, opting instead to give a full picture of the atmosphere surrounding the Federal Theatre and the obstacles it faced.) Nor did it stop the director, a 20-year-old Orson Welles [1915-85], from taking full credit: his working script was titled “Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Negro Version, Conceived, Arranged, Staged by Orson Welles”; in later years, he would recall the production without even mentioning its lead actors, Jack Carter [c. 1902-67] and Edna Thomas [1885-1974], or the many other cast and creative team members responsible for its success. But the Harlem Macbeth was nonetheless a great triumph for the Federal Theatre, and its popularity undeniable. After transferring to Broadway [Adelphi Theatre, 7-18 July 1936], it traveled the country for three months with a company of 180 people—“the largest Shakespeare production,” notes Shapiro, “to ever tour America.”

It is easy to see why Dies and his like-minded cohort found the Federal Theatre’s productions so threatening. It wasn’t just that they promoted a more liberal, inclusive vision of the United States than Dies was comfortable with. It was also that they were drawing huge crowds across the country—and their message was spreading.

¤

One of the most striking aspects of The Playbook—at least to a reader who, like me, is deeply interested in amateur theater—is how many people involved in the Federal Theatre Project were not theater professionals. To some degree, this was by design: the Federal Theatre’s intention, after all, was to put people back to work, often regardless of the credits on their résumés. But it is nevertheless surprising that its leadership also drew from amateur backgrounds. The majority of Hallie Flanagan’s theatrical experience came from her time at Vassar, where she was involved in campus productions and designed a program around “Experimental Theatre.” This notion of experimentation undoubtedly shaped her vision of what the stage should be, and it helps us to conceptualize the Federal Theatre as a whole: for the majority of productions, a polished Broadway show was neither the goal nor the outcome. They even sometimes came across as a bit ragtag: in one instance, Flanagan stepped in at the last minute to help build a set and locate props, as if she were helping to salvage a student play.

Much more than professionalism, the goal of the Federal Theatre was to be relatable to its audience members and to make them reflect on important social and political issues. Relevance was key—especially for those who may never have been in a theater before, or not for many years—and to make productions relevant, they had to be adaptable. In the summer of 1936, the Federal Theatre signed a deal with Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951] to produce a theatrical version of his chilling novel It Can’t Happen Here (1935), which warned about the destruction of democracy and the rise of fascism. [Fascists or right-wing totalitarians Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was Duce (‘Leader’) of Italy in 1922-43, António Salazar (1889-1970) was Chefe (‘Boss’) of Portugal in 1932-68, Engelbert Dolfuss (1892-1934) was Chancellor of Austria in 1932-34, Adolf Hitler (1899-1945) was Führer (‘Leader’) of Germany in 1933-45, and Francisco Franco (1892-1975) was Caudillo (‘Leader’) of Spain in 1936-75.] The book had originally been slated to be turned into a film by MGM, but the script—which did not hold back in its depictions of “concentration camps, the burning of the books, the invasion of homes”—was ultimately deemed too “politically inflammatory.” The goal was to have the play open simultaneously in different cities across the country, demonstrating that, “like a film, a play could open on the same day everywhere.” This plan proved to be overly ambitious, and productions were canceled, for various reasons, in New Orleans, Kansas City, and Brooklyn. For those that went forward, however, the individual directors had been encouraged to “bring the play to a close in a way that worked best locally.” The ending in Cincinnati, Tacoma, and Seattle was different from the ending in Omaha, which was different from the ending in San Francisco. Part of having a “national” theater was recognizing that the play would speak differently to different parts of the nation.

[The stage version of It Can't Happen Here was written by Sinclair Lewis and John C. Moffitt. It premiered on 27 October 1936, in 21 U.S. theaters in 17 states simultaneously, in productions sponsored by the Federal Theater Project.]

The situation was similar with a play called One Third of a Nation [1938]. Its subject was the dangerous, substandard living conditions in New York City: the play both began and ended with a tenement fire. But housing issues were not the same everywhere, and once again, regional productions were encouraged to adapt the play for local audiences. During a two-month run in Philadelphia, Shapiro explains, “the focus was changed from White to Black slum dwellers, and the survivor of the tragic tenement disaster in the opening scenes is a Black woman rather than a Jewish man.” The primary public concern in Philadelphia was construction quality rather than fire, so the “disaster” at the beginning of the play was changed to a building collapse. As was often the case, the Federal Theatre’s art channeled reality, making it more immediate for those on and off the stage. Shapiro quotes from Arthur Jarvis Jr., who notes that “some cast members lived in the very conditions condemned by the drama and could bring their personal experiences to each performance.”

[The quotations from Arthur Jarvis, Jr., to which Blank refers above seem to correspond to Arthur R. Jarvis, Jr., the author of "Cultural Nationalism in an Urban Setting: the Philadelphia Experience with Federal Project Number One of the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1943," a 1995 dissertation for a Ph.D. in history at Pennsylvania State University. 

[The dissertation’s “Abstract” states that “written guidelines [for FTP programs] forced participants to probe the city's [i.e., Philadelphia] heritage for useful material. This resulted in local scenes being recreated by the artists [and] at least one theatrical presentation directly influenced by the city's outdated housing code . . . .” 

[Jarvis continues, “Although art, theatre, writing, and music projects all operated in Philadelphia, they had varying degrees of success due to the city's cultural climate.” He concludes the summary, “This thesis explores how the projects influenced the city and how project success was affected by Philadelphia institutions.” (It seems that Jarivs’s actual words cited by Shapiro were taken from an article Jarvis published in a scholarly journal: “The Living Newspaper in Philadelphia, 1938-1939,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies [Pennsylvania State U., University Park] 61.3 [July 1994]).] 

Not all of the Federal Theatre’s productions were successful. A play called Liberty Deferred [1938], which confronted the horrors of racism throughout American history, met with intense resistance and was never staged—an emblem of the Federal Theatre’s failure to live up to its ideals. And when the Federal Theatre sold the film rights to One Third of a Nation [1939], it was turned into a sanitized, whitewashed version that heavily diluted the play’s biting message about the need for government intervention in the housing emergency. The project’s ultimate failure, of course, came at the hands of the Dies committee. But in its attempt to establish a national theater—one that had a broad reach, spanning racial and class divides and speaking to both local and nationwide concerns—the Federal Theatre came closer than anything has before or since.

[One Third of a Nation and Liberty Deferred were both Living Newspaper productions, created by the FTP’s Living Newspaper Units, transforming current events from the page to the stage by creating plays with scenes that dramatized newspaper articles.

[Living Newspapers were nonfiction—realistic, current, relevant—and the topics were always recent. The Living Newspapers frequently dramatized social issues of the day and often implicitly or explicitly urged social action, so controversy over their politics contributed to the disbanding of the FTP in 1939.]

¤

We don’t need to look too hard to see the Dies committee’s legacy. In a brief epilogue, Shapiro points to present-day efforts to suppress the arts, from House Republicans’ attempts to defund the National Endowment for the Arts [see “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” (5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, and 30 November; 3, 13, 16, and 19 December 2023)] to attacks on student theatrical productions in high schools across the country. As I was writing this review, it was reported that Florida governor and erstwhile presidential candidate Ron DeSantis decided without explanation to veto all grants for arts organizations [see above]; it is no coincidence that he has championed book bans and education mandates that have led to the removal of Shakespeare from school libraries and classrooms.

What, then, is the path forward? It is at least encouraging that, if anti-theatricalism is an American tradition, so too is resistance to it. It was none other than George Washington who, despite the ban on theater, sanctioned a series of performances by army officers at Valley Forge in the spring of 1778, intended to boost morale and rally the cause; Joseph Addison’s [English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician; 1672-1719] Cato [1712; premièred, 1713], apparently one of Washington’s favorite plays, depicted liberty’s victory over tyranny. Washington was fighting against Britain, but he also took a stand against one of the Articles of Association’s oppressive restrictions. The colonists followed his lead: when Congress doubled down on its anti-theatrical stance a few months later, several states refused to support their position. 

[Cato is a dramatization of the last days of the Roman Senator Marcus Porcius Cato (“Cato the Younger”; 95-46 BCE), who, for Addison, served as an exemplar of republican virtue and opposition to tyranny. The patrician Cato, a follower of Stoicism, joined the senatorial opposition to Caesar.

[George Washington (1732-99; Commander in Chief of the Continental Army: 1775-83; First President of the United States: 1789-97) shared Addison's enthusiasm for Cato's self-sacrificing republican virtue, and frequently quoted from Addison's play. Washington identified with Cato, the self-disciplined patriot prepared to give his life for the cause of liberty. At the end of the hard winter of 1777 at Valley Forge, Washington defied a congressional ban on theatrical productions (enacted in 1774 to discourage “extravagance and dissipation”) and entertained his men with a production of Cato.]

The Playbook is a timely reminder both of the power of theater and of the vehement antipathy it can generate. In establishing one of his main themes, Shapiro stresses in the book’s preface that “the health of democracy and theater, twin-born in ancient Greece, has always been mutually dependent.” But the third sibling in this story is anti-theatricalism, which usually arises when theatrical traditions flourish in healthy democracies. It would be easy to view the Federal Theatre’s demise as more or less unique, an isolated incident from which today’s conservative lawmakers continue to draw inspiration. But it would be more accurate to view the story of American anti-theatricalism as a continuous tradition that never really went away and perhaps never will.

[Daniel Blank was an assistant professor of English at Durham University in the United Kingdom and is now the Managing Director of Public Programs at the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation in Pennsylvania.  His articles on Shakespeare and early modern drama have been published in journals including Renaissance Quarterly, The Review of English Studies, and Renaissance Studies.  His first book, Shakespeare and University Drama in Early Modern England, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.  Before coming to Durham, he received his PhD from Princeton University and spent three years in the Harvard Society of Fellows.]