Early-Twentieth-Century Frontier Dramas on Broadway

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 1-17

3. The Axes of Analysis: Frontier Western Discourse and Theater Practice

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. Frontier Western Discourse at the Turn of the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 21-52

   3. The Turn-of-the-Century American Theater Context

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 53-79

4. The Plays

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-81

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   2. Discipline and Spontaneity: Clyde Fitch’s The Cowboy and the Lady and Augustus Thomas’s Arizona

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 83-107

   3. Drama from Novels: John Ermine of the Yellowstone and The Virginian

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 109-140

   4. Variations on the Frontier Myth: Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man and David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 141-168

   5. From Melodrama to Realism: William Vaughn Moody’s The Great Divide and Rachel Crothers’s The Three of Us

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 169-199

   6. Conclusion

      • Richard Wattenberg

      Pages 201-208

5. Back Matter

   Pages 209-267

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Frontier dramas were among the most popular and successful of early-twentieth-century Broadway type plays. The long runs of contemporary dramas not only indicate the popularity of these plays but also tell us that these plays offered views about the frontier that original audiences could and did embrace.

• America
• drama
• novel
• theatre

"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

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

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