The Visionary Farms is a drame à thèse which owes a great deal to the expressionist tendencies of the early plays of Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, and Elmer Rice. It is not in any important sense original; it does not enlarge the range of dramatic art; but it provides an opportunity of examining an interesting alliance between modern dramatic verse and those non-representational procedures which have been developed in the theatre in such plays as The Hairy Ape. (p. 223)

The theme of The Visionary Farms is not "money" but the larger motive of "Progress," which Professor [Richard M.] Weaver has described as the "god term" of the present age…. It is probably the only term which gives the average American or West European a concept of something larger than himself, which he is socially impelled to accept, and for which he is ready to sacrifice.

The context of...