Customer Reviews

All That Glittered: The Golden Age of Drama on Broadway, 1919-1959

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ethan Mordden has written many books on the topic of Broadway, although generally they have been about the musical stage. This time he writes about plays, (mostly) without music, and rather arbitrarily defines, perhaps for purposes of symmetry, its golden age as the period between 1919 and 1959 (although he can't help himself and goes on into the 1960s a bit). As usual one is amazed at his encyclopedic knowledge of Broadway history; one can imagine him spending weeks and months, perhaps even years, in dusty libraries reading all those old copies of Variety, Playbill and the New York newspapers. His all-but-copyrighted bitchiness is much in evidence and gave me more than a few chuckles. His penchant for pointing who was gay among the actors, authors and directors, and for finding gay themes where they aren't obvious, is prominent.

He chronicles the Broadway spoken play by decade and finds something characteristic about each period. I found his writing, always sparkling, becomes more so when he gets to the 1940s and beyond, perhaps because those plays and the people who made them are within living memory for many people. Clearly Mordden (who is right at sixty, although his glamorous never-changing dustjacket picture hasn't changed in at least two decades) has had personal contact with many of the people mentioned in those latter years and he has some tales to tell.

Included are some pretty obscure plays and we are all the more informed for that. He writes much about the important actors, writers, producers and directors and we pick up a lot of theater lore as a result. His writing style is dense with fact and sometimes hermetic but it always dances along. I had difficulty putting the book down.

Another valuable book by Mordden, possibly primarily for specialists but assimilable by the casual reader with even a modicum of interest in the subject.

Scott Morrison

Ethan Mordden is probably best known for three things: the impossibility of remembering how to spell his last name; the width and depth of his subject matter; and his encyclopedic knowledge of musical theater. To all this, we can now add a fourth; an almost equally deep knowledge of "straight" (in the theatrical sense) drama. While it is arguable as to whether the golden age began in 1919 and ended in 1959, Mordden's treatment of this span is as exciting and insightful as any of his other critical studies and that, as his readers know, is saying a lot! (Aside to Mr. Mordden: The title "Beggar on Horseback" may be more closely related to the saying, "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."... just a thought). Oh, and the only reason for 4 instead of 5 stars is to have somewhere to go for the next time.

I love theatre history, but Mordden is such a fine writer that I will read his "History of Plumbing" should he write one.

Unlike his essential seven-volume chronicle of the musical, this is not a show-by-show description. Instead, Mordden takes a thematic approach, insightfully linking the development of the Broadway play to broader cultural developments. The shift from rural to urban humor, the relationship between Broadway and Hollywood, and the role of theatre as educator to the unsophisticated are among his compelling through-lines. Despite my unfamiliarity with most of the titles referenced, this is a great read.

This book is such fun that I even enjoyed the feeling that I could visualize Ethan Mordden's index cards as he sifted through and wrote up the research into paragraph form. This was a rich exploration of Broadway's making and breaking, especially well-detailed on the artistry and personalities that made "the Street."

At first, I was jolted by what seemed non-sequitor, and confused. Early in the book, Ethan Mordden ambles, rambles and scrambles along through the 20s capturing every name, every place and every type of theatre. But who coined the categories? Labels which sound astute and appropriate include wisecrack comedy, mystery and melodrama followed with society drama as well as five kinds of comedy. The trail of theatre in the 20s jumps from types of productions with certain actors and directors and plots, to organizations that produced theatre, to places where they were produced, then back again. Besides being dizzying and confusing, it starts to lack coherence. I wanted it to work, I am interested in the subject more than the average reader, I daresay. I got lost in a description of three "theatre's experiments in the 1920s" but I divined where he was going when he started on a multipaged description, including names, plots, designers and interpretations of expressionism, after which I stopped looking for number two and three of these experiments in the 1920s and just read along for the bumpy ride. Soon, without knowing by which path Mr. Mordden took me there, I was learning about the birth of the Theatre Guild and its many faults and merits. I could hang on to names as stepping stones. I ran to my computer and utube to look up Lionel, John and Ethel Barrymore, the Lunts, Helen Hayes and photos and scenes of anything I could find just to get a grip, and could also hang onto Hollywood names like Katherine Hepburn, Anita Loos (even her!) and Leslie Howard. Thank you Hollywood, you preserved theatre history for us in your own way.

Eventually, you either get so used to Mordden's quirky style of presentation, or you find a way to ride the bull without falling off, I don't know which, and the meat of the piece becomes hearty stuff indeed. His anecdotes are eye-opening, his descriptions of certain legends are unsurpassed. Legends such as Katherine Cornell, Marlon Brando, the Group Theatre, Eugene O'Neill, Tallulah Bankhead, Tennessee Williams among many others are all freshly examined.

And then there are the Lunts, almost without category. When Mordden quotes Lee Strasberg's claim that "the Lunts ARE the Method" it is a thrilling and perfectly understandable revelation. In describing the Lunts, he outlines talent so special and precious that you know you missed something never to be repeated. It is a testament to Mr. Mordden's valuable insights into the act of theatre-going that he manages to make the reader realise what is lost when a living performance is over.

Mr. Mordden has a great way of describing and examining the birth and death of flop productions from all points of view -- producers, actors, authors -- depending on how much information he could find, I suspect. His description of gay culture in the theatre is inspirational, and he shows that the creativity and drive of gay artists was used to brighten and enlighten the lives of straight people, a flat-out concept of two worlds that would have been unheard of, let alone understood, at the time when all this action was happening. He does a fresh job of demonstrating how much camp culture was being created, how intelligent it was, and how thirsty audiences were for more. In this he shows how theatre is entertaining and educational, an elementary concept that was taken for granted in those days. In the theatre's dying days, how sorely missed and elusive is this wonderful mix.