Best American Plays 3 [antikvár]

PREFACE This anthology is the latest volume of a series that represents the modern American theatre up to the mid-century mark, the season of 1950-51. Along with three previously published volumes, this book should furnish the reader with a chronicle since 1916 and with representative plays. The reader of this series of "Best Plays" now has available for study or edification no less than seventy-nine plays. Although the "Best" in the title remains questionable, it is a trademark that can no longer be altered; and although more than a few of the plays will not endure strict scrutiny and will certainly not outlast marble, they are part of the record. They should enable us to form an objective estimate of the American drama. These books are not intended to flatter American playwriting but to represent it. If our aim is to know our theatre, it would be a mistake to limit ourselves to masterpieces, even if enough of these could be found to give us an anthology. "A large mind cannot limit itself to what it loves," says Santayana. The content of the present volume is confined to the period after World War II, which coincides with the second half of the decade of the nineteen-forties. Since the previous volume ended with the Broadway season of 1945-46, somé overlapping is caused by the inclusion of State of the TJnion, from that season. State of the Union, however, provides a springboard for the present chronicle. It expresses our democratic ideals as affirmed by the war that was concluded in 1945 and jeopardized once more during the peace that followed. The other plays in this volume illustrate the period's achievements and trends. Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, the most important new writers, are represented by their major efforts. These are supplemented with work by the newcomers William Inge and Carson McCullers, whose Come Bac\, Little Sheba and The Member of the Wedding supplied the most creative writing after the advent of Miller and Williams. Alsó new to the Broadway theatre were the authors of Medea and Billy Budd. And since there is no law forbidding older playwrights from contributing what they can, O'Neill is represented with the one new play that he allowed to be produced on Broadway, Maxwell Anderson with the last of his Elizabethan verse dramas, Sidney Kingsley with his latest realistic morál investigations, Lillian Hellman with another of her dramatic indictments, van Druten with one of his literate comedies, and F. Hugh Herbert with the last and best of his excursions into the field of Broadway entertainment. My inventory would have been longer if last-minute calculations had not necessitated the elimination of a few other plays, to which reference will be made elsewhere. Nevertheless, the seventeen examples of contemporary playwriting here salvaged should comprise a useful compilation. Our theatre is shown producing new playwrights and drawing upon the resources of their elders, recording the experience of the last war and its aftermath, pondering immediate and generál venties, experimenting soniewhat with problems of dramatic form and style, working in earnest, and alsó turning a handspring or two, for which I daresay no apologies are needed. A more detailed account and somé assessment of this activity follow.