The American Stage: Writing on Theater from Washington Irving to Tony Kushner, Senelick Lawrence

Observers from Washington Irving and Fanny Trollope to Walt Whitman and Mark Twain evoke the world of the nineteenth-century playhouse in all its raucous vitality. Henry James confesses his early enthusiasm for playgoing; Willa Cather reviews provincial productions of Uncle Toms Cabin and Antony and Cleopatra. The increasing diversity and ambition of the American theater is reflected in Hutchins Hapgoods account of New Yorks Yiddish theaters at the turn of the century, Carl Van Vechtens review of the Sicilian actress Mimi Aguglia, Alain Lockes comments on the emerging African-American theater in the 1920s, and Ezra Pounds response to James Joyces play Exiles and theatrical modernism. Enthusiasts for the New Stagecraft, such as Lee Simonson and Djuna Barnes, are matched by champions of pop culture such as Gilbert Seldes and Fred Allen. S. J. Perelman lampoons Clifford Odets; Edmund Wilson acclaims Minskys Burlesque; Harold Clurman explains Stanislavskis Method; Gore Vidal dissects the compromises of commercial playwriting. A host of playwrights--among them Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, David Mamet, and Tony Kushner--are joined by such renowned critics as Stark Young, George Jean Nathan, Brooks Atkinson, and Eric Bentley.