SOURCE: Weales, Gerald. “And we're lost out here in the stars.” Southern Review 15, no. 2 (spring 1979): 513-18.

In the following essay, Weales examines, through a review of Dramatist in America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson, 1912-1958, the theme of compromise both in Anderson's plays and in his life as he tried to balance his literary standards with his desire for critical and popular success.

“It's true that she would compromise in little things—” says Mary Grey in Joan of Lorraine, finally agreeing with her director on how Joan of Arc should be played, “but it's also true that she would not compromise her belief—her own soul. She'd rather step into the fire—and she does.” Maxwell Anderson's plays are full of people who choose to step into the fire—Mio and Miriamne at the end of Winterset, Mary and Rudolph at the end of The Masque of Kings—but...