Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway

RICHARD WATTENBERG Professor of Theatre Arts at Portland State University, USA.

• PART I: THE AXES OF ANALYSIS: FRONTIER WESTERN DISCOURSE AND THEATRE PRACTICE The Frontier Western Discourse at the Turn of the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century The Turn-of-the-Century American Theatre Context PART II: THE PLAYS Discipline and Spontaneity: Clyde Fitch's The Cowboy and the Lady and Augustus Thomas's Arizona Drama from Novels: John Ermine of the Yellowstone and The Virginian Variations on the Frontier Myth: Edward Milton Royle's The Squaw Man and David Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West From Melodrama to Realism: William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide and Rachel Crothers's The Three of Us

"The wealth of allusions, ranging from Theodore Roosevelt's role in shaping attitudes about the frontier to the impact of railroads, enlivens the evocation of this crucial decade in American self-definition . . . Recommended." - CHOICE'Wattenberg's work is intelligent, well-informed, and wide-ranging, and his analyses of the plays are excellent. It delves in detail into material that has been too often overlooked and underappreciated. There is really nothing like this.' Roger Hall, Professor of Theatre, James Madison University