THE PLAYBOOK

The triumph and downfall of a groundbreaking theater.

Award-winning Shakespeare scholar Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America, creates a vibrant history both of the astonishingly successful Federal Theatre Project and the culture wars that succeeded in quashing it. Under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, from 1935 to 1939, the FTP “staged, for a pittance, over a thousand productions in twenty-nine states seen by thirty million…two thirds of whom (according to audience surveys) had never seen a play before.” However, rabid conservatives, led by “charming, bigoted, and ambitious” East Texas Rep. Martin Dies, condemned the project as “dangerously progressive,” promoting a racially integrated, pro-union vision of America. The Dies Committee hearings, a precursor to the House Un-American Activities Committee, went on virulent attack against plays such as It Can’t Happen Here, based on Sinclair Lewis’ anti-Fascist novel; a production of Macbeth—the largest to ever tour America—with an all-Black cast, set in Haiti, incorporating voodoo, and directed by Orson Welles; and One Third of a Nation, an exposé of the dangerously substandard housing that beset many American cities. A critic in New Orleans called One Third “a dramatic bombshell.” Shapiro looks at the creation and reception of these plays and considers two others that were focused on racism: How Long, Brethren?, a dance performance featuring “Negro songs of protest,” and Liberty Deferred, which was never staged. With Dies as the book’s villain, Hallie Flanagan, a Vassar professor with a stellar background in theater, who was appointed FTP director, is the hero. Committed to mounting productions that exposed racial, religious, and political persecution, she battled “red tape, local politicians, censorship of various kinds,” and “dreaded” requisitions forms to keep it alive. Its demise still resonates, Shapiro warns, with the Dies playbook revived by culture warriors noisily censoring the arts.

Sharp history as cautionary tale.