America drama William Dunlap Plan: Introduction 3

Chapter 1. Drama in the United States
2.1 American Drama Examples
The three most important figures of American Drama are Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams.
Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953)
Eugene O’Neill was the United States’ first important playwright and the recipient of the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature.
His works were generally tragedies that explored themes of disillusionment and despair in the lives of people in a variety of socio-economic positions. O’Neill used vernacular language in his plays to reflect how people really spoke and was the first writer to legitimize the literary merit of drama.
His most important works include The Hairy Ape (1922), The Iceman Cometh (1939), and A Long Day’s Journey into Night (1941).
Arthur Miller (1915–2005)
Arthur Miller was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright. Like O’Neill, Miller was known for his complex and tragic depiction of inner emotions as well as disillusionment with American society and the American dream.
His most important works include Death of a Salesman (1949) and The Crucible (1953).
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
American playwright Tennessee Williams was well known for his dramas that tackled controversial subjects, such as violence and sexuality, that were largely taboo at the time.
His most important works include The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).
Other Key Works
Some other important works of American drama include:
A Raisin in the Sun (1959) by Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? (1962) by Edward Albee (1928-2016)
Fences (1985) by August Wilson (1945-2005)
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes (1991) by Tony Kushner (1956-present).
Features of American Drama
Much like American literature in general, American drama is such a diverse field that it can be difficult to identify common features. However, much of American drama deals with current issues, critiques social norms, and relies on in-depth character studies to drive the action.
Much of American drama, from the twentieth century to today, deals with the experience of the common man. The lives of the poor, the working class, or those on the fringes of society are often dramatized, and many works show how the lives of the characters are impacted by society and current events.
Many works are also intensely psychological, relying on in-depth, complex character studies to convey the inner experiences of the plays’ protagonists.
Many American dramas contain critiques of social norms, including disillusionment with the American Dream, unrealistic expectations of the American family, and the realities of classism and racism in the United States.
American Drama - Key takeaways
Until the twentieth century, drama in the United States existed primarily for popular entertainment and had no real literary merit.
Early forms of theatre in the United States included melodrama and comic minstrel shows.
Nobel Prize winner Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953) was the first significant American playwright who helped American drama become recognized as a serious literary form.
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) and Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) were contemporaries of O’Neill, and the three remain among the most important American playwrights.
American drama explores many important themes, including social critiques, struggles of the common man, and the failings of society.
William Dunlap (February 19, 1766 – September 28, 1839) was a pioneer of American theater. He was a producer, playwright, and actor, as well as a historian. He managed two of New York City's earliest and most prominent theaters, the John Street Theatre (from 1796 to 1798) and the Park Theatre (from 1798 to 1805). He was also an artist, despite losing an eye in childhood.
George Washington, painted in 1783 by William Dunlap during Washington's stay at Rockingham He was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the son of an army officer wounded at the Battle of Quebec in 1759. In 1783, he painted a portrait of George Washington, while staying at Rockingham in Rocky Hill. The painting is now owned by the United States Senate. He later studied art under Benjamin West in London.[1] Another teacher was Abraham Delanoy, with whom he had a handful of lessons in New York.[2] After returning to America in 1787, he worked exclusively in the theater for 18 years, resuming painting out of economic necessity in 1805. By 1817, he was a full-time painter⁴.
In his lifetime, he produced more than sixty plays, most of which were adaptations or translations from French or German works. A few were original: these were based on American themes and had American characters. However, he is best known for his encyclopedic three-volume History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, which was published in 1834, and which is now an invaluable source of information about artists, collecting, and artistic life generally in the colonial and federal periods.
His plays include:
The Father (1789)
Andre'’ (1798)
The Stranger (1798)
The Italian Father (1799)
False Shame (1799)
The Virgin of the Sun (1800)
The Glory of Columbia, Her Yeomanry (1803)
Memoirs of George Frederick Cooke (1813)
A Trip to Niagara (1828)
In 1825, Dunlap was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design, and taught at its school. He published his History of the American Theater in two volumes in 1832.
Pioneer Dramatist. Often considered the father of American theater, William Dunlap was a theater manager and the first American professional playwright, dominating the American stage at the end of the eighteenth century with patriotic plays on American subjects. He was also a talented painter and historian, and he dabbled in novel writing.
Early Life. Dunlap was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the son of a retired British officer. His father remained loyal to Britain during the American Revolution, and in 1777, as a Loyalist refugee, he moved the family to British-occupied New York. In 1784 Dunlap traveled to England planning to study under painter Benjamin West. Once there, however, Dunlap never enrolled at West’s academy and dissipated much of his time on frivolous amusements. As a result, his father demanded that his son return to the United States in 1787. When he reached home Dunlap devoted his attention to theater and wrote his first play, The Modest Soldier, by the end of the year. This effort did not reach the stage, but two years later two of his plays, The Father and Darby’s Return, were successfully produced in New York City⁵.
André. During the 1790s Dunlap developed a growing belief in the nation’s cultural potential. Through his plays he sought to foster and contribute to America’s artistic and literary advancement. Dunlap also believed that drama had an important social function: “What engine is more powerful than the theatre? No arts can be made more effectual for the promotion of good than the dramatic and the histrionic. They unite music, poetry, painting, and eloquence. The engine is powerful for good or ill—it is for society to choose.” Dunlap’s best-known play is André (1798), based on the capture and execution of Major John André as a British spy during the Revolutionary War. Rather than simplistically glorifying the Revolution, André depicts the moral complexities of this event. While depicting André sympathetically, however, Dunlap also justified his execution as a necessary exigency of war—deploring the tragic costs of the Revolution without questioning its overall legitimacy.
The Old American Company. Dunlap contributed to the development of American drama not only by writing plays but also by producing them. In 1796 he invested in the Old American Company, a New York theater company owned by Lewis Hallam and John Hodgkinson, and became part owner and manager. Internal conflicts and financial difficulties plagued the company from the start, and the theater failed to draw enough customers to make a profit. By 1798, as the company went further and further into debt, Dunlap had become the sole director and manager. When it went bankrupt in 1805, he was liable for all its debts and had to forfeit all of his own property to pay them. Although the failure of this enterprise tempered his optimism about American cultural development, he continued to hope that American culture would eventually live up to its promise.
Later Life. While Dunlap did not abandon theater altogether, he increasingly turned his attention to other pursuits. In 1805 he returned to painting, becoming an itinerant portrait artist and developing an interest in chronicling the development of the arts in America. After publishing a biography of novelist Charles Brockden Brown in 1815, he wrote A History of the American Theatre (1832) and A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States (1834). These works reflected his growing interest in American history in general, and his last books were A History of New York for Schools (1837) and History of New Netherlands (1839, 1840). He also wrote a temperance novel, Thirty Years Ago; or, The Memoirs of a Water Drinker (1836).
First American to write a book on the history of art in the United States, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, 1834. Dunlap was the only child of a New Jersey housewares merchant, Samuel Dunlap and his wife, Margaret Sargent (Dunlap). The family moved to New York city in 1777 where the father, a Loyalist, was sought refuge (New York was British headquarters at the time). The younger Dunlap was largely self-educated. Despite losing sight in one eye in an accident, he became a professional portrait painter at sixteen, achieving modest fame with two paintings of George Washington. He traveled to London in 1784 to study with Benjamin West where the London theater impressed him as much as the graphic arts. Back in the United States in 1787, Dunlap continued as a portrait painter, yet his true interest was the theatre. In 1787 Dunlap began writing plays. He married Elizabeth "Nabby" Woolsey in 1789. He joined his father's business, continuing to paint and write. In 1796 he became a partner and manager of the theatrical concern, the American Company and, although several of his plays were produced, none was a success. He left the company, painting to support himself, before returning to the theater in 1806 as manager of T. A. Cooper's theatrical interests, including the Park Theater. Dunlap left theater managing permanently in 1811 to pursued painting in earnest. He joined the American Academy of the Fine Arts and later through the National Academy of Design organizing exhibitions and working as a professor of historic painting. In 1812 he started the journal Monthly Recorder, a fine arts and literary periodical. He published The Memoirs of George Fred. Cooke, Esq., Late of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1813 and The Life of Charles Brockden Brown in 1815. His important article on the early history of the American stage, "The History of the American Theatre" appeared in 1832. In 1834 Dunlap self-published his History of the Rise and Development of the Arts of Design in the United States, a biographical dictionary of early American artists with commentary. Though the book is full of errors and prejudice (Rowland), it provides a valuable record of the period. Other histories by Dunlap included The History of New York, for Schools (1837) and volume one of The History of the New Netherlands, the Province of New York, and State of New York in 1839, the year of his death. History of the Rise and Development of the Arts was the first book to trace the emergence of the visual arts tradition in the United States (Lyons). He conceived of his book as "a reverse Gibbon," referring to the book Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon (1737-1794). Dunlap worked throughout his life toward diversifying an American taste in art and drama, which were still largely British-centric. Many theater historians regard as the father of the American drama. The History as a relatively random assembly of biographies. More recently, Maura Lyons asserted Dunlap's accomplishment was to create a "partisan tract shaped by competing professional, regional and commercial interests..
Selected Bibliography
[complete art bibliography:] "Anotated Bibliography of William Dunlap's Published Writins on the Visual Arts." in Lyons, Maura. William Dunlap and the Construction of an American Art History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005, pp. 167-172; A History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States. New York: [self published] printed by George P. Scott, 1834.
Sources
Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 538; The American Vasari: William Dunlap and His World. Exhibition catalog with essay by Arlene Katz Nichols. Hirsch & Adler Galleries, New York, 1999; mentioned, Rowland, Jr. Benjamin. "Introduction." Jarves, James Jackson. The Art-idea. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1960, p. xxvii; Lyons, Maura. William Dunlap and the Construction of an American Art History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005.
(1766–1839). The first professional dramatist in the United States, William Dunlap wrote more than 60 plays, about 30 of which were originals; others were adaptations of French and German theatricals. He also wrote novels, as well as a history of the American theater and the first comprehensive survey of American art. An accomplished painter, Dunlap was a cofounder of the National Academy of Design⁶.
Dunlap was born on February 19, 1766, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. His father was an Irishman who came to North America with the British army and served in the battles in Quebec, Canada. As a boy, the younger Dunlap had little formal education; however, a friendship with an elderly neighbor who had a well-stocked library enabled the boy to learn to read and to study many classic stories and poems. Dunlap’s learning was interrupted by the American Revolution; the family moved first to the village of Piscatawa, New Jersey, and then, in 1777, to New York City, where Dunlap was enrolled in school. An accident while playing in 1778 caused Dunlap to lose his right eye; the subsequent treatment prevented him from continuing formal schooling. He took up drawing, which had previously been a casual pastime, and pursued it with a new intensity.
In 1784 Dunlap went to London to study painting with Benjamin West; however, the London theaters held more allure for Dunlap, and he soon abandoned painting for playwriting. He returned to the United States in 1787 and wrote his first play, The Modest Soldier; or, Love in New York, based on Royall Tyler’s The Contrast. Dunlap’s play was rejected by producers, but his second play, the comedy The Father; or, American Shandyism, was produced in 1789 by the American Company and was a great success. Thus began a long relationship between Dunlap and the American Company; he continued to write for them, and in 1796 he was made a partner. In 1798 Dunlap and one of his partners, John Hodgkinson, opened the Park Theatre. That same year Dunlap’s play André was produced. It was a tragedy based on a true event that took place during the Revolutionary War. André was especially notable because it was the first play written by an American and based on American material. The year also saw production of Dunlap’s The Stranger, a moody work translated from a German play.
The Park Theatre thrived for many years, offering a repertory of modern and classical plays. In 1805, however, the company went bankrupt; Dunlap stayed on as manager until 1812. After his retirement from the theater, he continued to write plays. In about 1813 he returned to painting and began to write non-theatrical material as well. Among his more notable books are the biographies Memoirs of the Life of George Frederick Cooke (1813) and The Life of Charles Brockden Brown (1815); A History of the American Theater (1832), the first theater history in the United States; the comprehensive History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States (1834); and the novel Thirty Years Ago; or, the Memoirs of a Water Drinker (1836). Dunlap died on September 28, 1839, in New York City. His diaries were published as an autobiography, The Diary of William Dunlap, in 1930.
Dunlap
[Pg 501]
WILLIAM DUNLAP:
FATHER OF THE AMERICAN THEATRE
(1766-1839)
The life of William Dunlap is full of colour and variety. Upon his shoulders very largely rests the responsibility for whatever knowledge we have of the atmosphere of the early theatre in America, and of the personalities of the players. For, as a boy, his father being a Loyalist, there is no doubt that young William used to frequent the play-house of the Red Coats, and we would like to believe actually saw some of the performances with which Major André was connected.
He was born at Perth Amboy, then the seat of government for the Province of New Jersey, on February 19, 1766 (where he died September 28, 1839), and, therefore, as an historian of the theatre, he was able to glean his information from first hand sources. Yet, his monumental work on the "History of the American Theatre" was written in late years, when memory was beginning to be overclouded, and, in recent times, it has been shown that Dunlap was not always careful in his dates or in his statements. George Seilhamer, whose three volumes, dealing with the American Theatre before the year 1800, are invaluable, is particularly acrimonious in his strictures against Dunlap. Nevertheless, he has to confess his indebtedness to the Father of the American Theatre.
Dunlap was many-sided in his tastes and activities. There is small reason to doubt that from his earliest years the theatre proved his most attractive pleasure. But, when he was scarcely in the flush of youth, he went to Europe, and studied art under Benjamin West. Throughout his life he was ever producing canvases, and designing, and his interest in the art activity of the country, which connects his name with the establishment of the New York Academy of Design, together with his writing on the subject, make him an important figure in that line of work.
On his return from Europe, as we have already noted, he was fired to write plays through the success of Royall Tyler, and he [Pg 502]began his long career as dramatist, which threw him upon his own inventive resourcefulness, and so closely identified him with the name of the German, Kotzebue, whose plays he used to translate and adapt by the wholesale, as did also Charles Smith.
The pictures of William Dunlap are very careful to indicate in realistic fashion the fact that he had but one eye. When a boy, one of his playmates at school threw a stone, which hit his right eye. But though he was thus early made single-visioned, he saw more than his contemporaries; for he was a man who mingled much in the social life of the time, and he had a variety of friends, among them Charles Brockden Brown, the novelist, and George Frederick Cooke, the tragedian. He was the biographer for both of them, and these volumes are filled with anecdote, which throws light, not only on the subjects, but upon the observational taste of the writer. There are those who claim that he was unjust to Cooke, making him more of a drunkard than he really was. And the effect the book had on some of its readers may excellently well be seen by Lord Byron's exclamation, after having finished it. As quoted by Miss Crawford, in her "Romance of the American Theatre," he said: "Such a book! I believe, since 'Drunken Barnaby's Journal,' nothing like it has drenched the press. All green-room and tap-room, drams and the drama. Brandy, whiskey-punch, and, latterly, toddy, overflow every page. Two things are rather marvelous; first, that a man should live so long drunk, and next that he should have found a sober biographer."
Dunlap's first play was called "The Modest Soldier; or, Love in New York" (1787). We shall let him be his own chronicler:
As a medium of communication between the playwriter and the manager, a man was pointed out, who had for a time been of some consequence on the London boards, and now resided under another name in New York. This was the Dubellamy of the English stage, a first singer and walking-gentleman. He was now past his meridian, but still a handsome man, and was found sufficiently easy of access and full of the courtesy of the old school. A meeting was arranged at the City Tavern, and a bottle of Madeira discussed with the merits of this first-born of a would-be author. The wine was praised, and the play was praised—the first, perhaps, made the second tolerable—that must be good which can repay a man of the world for listening to an author who reads his own play.
In due course of time, the youthful playwright reached the presence of the then all-powerful actors, Hallam and Henry, and,[Pg 503] after some conference with them, the play was accepted. But though accepted, it was not produced, that auspicious occasion being deferred whenever the subject was broached. At this time, young Dunlap was introduced to the stony paths of playwriting. He had to alter his manuscript in many ways, only to see it laid upon the shelf until some future occasion. And, according to his confession, the reason the piece did not receive immediate production was because there was no part which Henry, the six-foot, handsome idol of the day, could see himself in to his own satisfaction.
Dunlap's next play was "The Father; or, American Shandy-ism,"[1] which was produced on September 7, 1789. It was published almost immediately, and was later reprinted, under the title of "The Father of an Only Child."
Most historians call attention to the fact that to Dunlap belongs the credit of having first introduced to the American stage the German dialect of the later Comedian. Even as we look to Tyler's "The Contrast" for the first Yankee, to Samuel Low's "Politician Out-witted" for an early example of Negro dialect, so may we trace other veins of American characteristics as they appeared in early American dramas.
But it is to "Darby's Return,"[2] the musical piece, that our interest points, because it was produced for the benefit of Thomas Wignell, at the New-York Theatre (November 24, 1789), and probably boasted among its first-nighters George Washington. Writes Dunlap:
The eyes of the audience were frequently bent on his countenance, and to watch the emotions produced by any particular passage upon him was the simultaneous employment of all. When Wignell, as Darby, recounts what had befallen him in America, in New York, at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the inauguration of the President, the interest expressed by the audience in the looks and the changes of countenance of this great man became intense.
And then there follows an indication by Dunlap of where Washington smiled, and where he showed displeasure. And, [Pg 504]altogether, there was much perturbation of mind over every quiver of his eye-lash. The fact of the matter is, as a playgoer, the Father of our Country figured quite as constantly as the Father of our Theatre. When the seat of Government changed from New York to Philadelphia, President Washington's love of the theatre prompted many theatrical enterprises to follow in his wake, and we have an interesting picture, painted in words by Seilhamer (ii, 316), of the scene at the old Southwark on such an occasion. He says:
[The President] frequently occupied the east stage-box, which was fitted up expressly for his reception. Over the front of the box was the United States coat-of-arms and the interior was gracefully festooned with red drapery. The front of the box and the seats were cushioned. According to John [sic] Durang, Washington's reception at the theatre was always exceedingly formal and ceremonious. A soldier was generally posted at each stage-door; four soldiers were placed in the gallery; a military guard attended. Mr. Wignell, in a full dress of black, with his hair elaborately powdered in the fashion of the time, and holding two wax candles in silver candle-sticks, was accustomed to receive the President at the box-door and conduct Washington and his party to their seats. Even the newspapers began to take notice of the President's contemplated visits to the theatre.
This is the atmosphere which must have attended the performance of Dunlap's "Darby's Return."
The play which probably is best known to-day, as by William Dunlap, is his "André,"[3] in which Washington figures as the General, later to appear under his full name, when Dunlap utilized the old drama in a manuscript libretto, entitled "The Glory of Columbia—Her Yeomanry" (1817). The play was produced on March 30, 1798, after Dunlap had become manager of the New Park Theatre, within whose proscenium it was given. Professor Matthews, editing the piece for the Dunlap Society (No. 4, 1887), claims that this was the first drama acted in the United States during Washington's life, in which he was made to appear on the stage of a theatre. But it must not be forgotten that in "The Fall of British Tyranny," written in 1776, by Leacock, Washington appears for the first time in any piece of American [Pg 505]fiction. Dunlap writes of the performance (American Theatre, ii, 20):