But “Shenandoah” is undoubtedly conventional; its melodramatic effects are dependent on stage presentment rather than on the printed page.  In fact, so much an artisan of the theatre was Mr. Howard that he was always somewhat skeptical of the modern drama in print.  When he was persuaded to issue his last piece, “Kate,” in book form, he consented to the publisher’s masking it as a novel in dialogue, hoping thus, as his prefatory note states, “to carry the imagination directly to scenes of real life and not to the stage.”  To the last there was a distinction in his mind between literature and the drama.  It is since this was written that the play form, nervous and quick, even in its printed shape, has become widely accepted.

“Shenandoah” is a play of pictorial effects and swiftly changing sentiment.  Were there a national repertory, this would be included among the plays, not because of its literary quality, but because of the spirit to be drawn from its situations, framed expressly for the stage, and because of its pictures, dependent wholly upon stage accessory.  It is an actable play, and most of our prominent actors, coming out of the period of the late 80’s, had training in it.

THE AMERICAN DRAMA

by

BRONSON HOWARD

In considering the present standing of the American drama, compared with the time when there was little or nothing worthy of the name, the one significant fact has been the gradual growth of a body of men engaged in writing plays.  Up to the time I started in 1870, American plays had been written only sporadically here and there by men and women who never met each other, who had no personal acquaintance of any kind, no sympathies, no exchange of views; in fact, no means of building up such a body of thought in connection with their art as is necessary to form what is called a school.

In what we now style Broadway productions the late Augustin Daly stood absolutely alone, seeing no other future for his own dramatic works except by his own presentation of them.  Except for Daly, I was practically alone; but he offered me the same opportunity and promise for the future that he had given to himself.  From him developed a school of managers willing and eager to produce American plays on American subjects.  Other writers began to drop into the profession; but still they seldom met, and it was not until about 1890 that they suddenly discovered themselves as a body of dramatists.  This was at a private supper given at the Lotos Club to the veteran playwright Charles Gaylor, who far antedated Daly himself.  To the astonishment of those making the list of guests for that supper, upward of fifty men writing in America who produced plays were professionally entitled to invitations, and thirty-five were actually present at the supper.  A toast to seven women writers not present was also honoured.