During the first few years of the Hedgerow venture the theatre was often dark. There were only a few players, the company being strengthened when necessary by people from near-by towns, and audiences were thin. It went broke. But for the automobile no such theatre could exist and, even thirteen years ago, there were not so many possible patrons owning cars. The members of the company went off temporarily to get jobs. Deeter himself once went off to take a job telling stories to children in a Philadelphia school; he was for a time at the Brookwood Labor College at Katonah, New York; he taught for several short periods in Pennsylvania colleges; and he commuted back and forth to Hoboken to direct plays for Christopher Morley’s fanfaronading theatre experiment. The players went out and came back. Audiences began to grow a little. The company was held together.
Most of the players at Hedgerow are young. There are sons and daughters of the rich and sons and daughters of laborers. Deeter has apparently found out a certain secret, that there is a deep and real passion for the theatre in many people, that it goes pretty far.
It is obviously his belief that in acting there can be found a way of life too, that if men and women can find work they love doing they do not too much mind discomforts. At Hedgerow the actors wash and iron their own clothes, they do the necessary theatre printing in a little room in the theatre house, they design and build the sets for the plays, they are of many nationalities, they do the scene-shifting and clean the theatre, take turns in the box office, drive the theatre bus to the station to bring patrons to the plays. The young woman of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry who last night played a leading rôle in a play by Shaw, Chekov or Lynn Riggs may this morning be planting sweet corn or setting out cabbages in the garden. Another actor is helping her. They are working on a scene as they set the cabbages. “It is not true,” she cries, getting up from her knees and looking at him with hard eyes. “I have not misled you. I have not deceived you.” You are a little disconcerted. “Am I intruding on a private love scene here?” It is quite all right. She has not read the lines with enough feeling. She goes back to the cabbage setting, saying them over as she crawls along the row.
There is a young woman whose turn it is to attend to the housekeeping. She is going off to market in the company truck. There are in the company young printers, electricians, automobile mechanics, young painters. All have learned to cook. Beside the members of the company who live in the theatre house, do nothing but theatre, there are others who come in. There is a real estate man from a near-by town, a man who works in his father’s junk yard, a truck driver, an automobile salesman. There are daughters of rich men from Philadelphia, aspiring actors who own their cars, who get home from rehearsals often at daylight. You may see one of these, a rather delicate-looking girl, sitting in the sun back of the theatre on a summer afternoon. She is cleaning and shining men’s shoes and is quite gay about it. There are twenty-seven pairs of them near her on the grass.
The place called “Hedgerow” is peculiarly interesting to an American just now. What is there young men and women will not do to find work that may give them feeling of use? The idea, apparently dominant in Jasper Deeter’s mind, seldom insisted upon, always in many ways being put forth, that the life of the theatre, even under hard conditions and on a small scale, is enough, doesn’t always take. Apparently in any group of people, given the initial passion for acting that would make any one of them want to come to Hedgerow, there will be specially talented ones. Nowadays New York producers watch the place and the movie companies send their agents.
And then there is such a thing as love and marriage. Young women get married and have children. They can’t very well have them in a theatre.
It isn’t always special talent that is wanted. There is such a thing as a good body, good legs. A young man does well in juvenile rôles. He has charm. Or there is another young man who is very handsome and who will photograph well. He may make a good movie lover. Often the young come quite convinced they understand Deeter’s purpose. They will work hard and if they succeed in becoming real actors they will stick. They haven’t been tempted.
Is there a definite purpose? If there is, the audiences are unaware of it. Deeter himself seems absorbed in simply doing shows well. If there is a central idea, passionately clung to, it may have come out of Jasper Deeter’s experience with the Provincetown. That was an organization devoted to the makers and doers of plays. Writers, actors, directors, and scene, makers worked together. Success came and it fell to pieces. A few emerged as big figures in the New York theatre. The rest were lost.
And then there was something else. Deeter, as actor, did very beautifully the part of the grubby little Englishman in “Emperor Jones.” He might have gone on getting other such parts. There is a rather tragic thing happens to many of the players in our modern theatre. Player after player might be used as example. There is, to take one example, the fine actor Mary Morris. She is a hard worker, a student. Her work in the part of Abbie Putnam in O’Neill’s “Desire Under the Elms,” attracted wide attention. She was the leading woman in “Double Door.” It is likely that for the rest of her life as a player Miss Morris will find it extremely difficult to get work except in such parts. The New York newspapers recently carried a publicity story about the young player who bounces the ball off the shack in “Tobacco Road.” He has bounced the ball so and so many hundreds of thousands of times. It isn’t the happiest thought in the world.
The thought Jasper Deeter seems to cling to is of more and more challenge in his work for the player. It is apparent that Deeter thinks it is to be found only in repertoire and in the experimental theatre. It takes a long time to make a real actor. A young painter may work in a loft or a writer in a railroad station but an actor must have fellows. He must have a theatre.
And there is another idea. Jasper Deeter is not just a theatre man. He is a born teacher and he believes it is possible, if often difficult, to run a theatre for actors and writers as well as for audiences, that it is possible, through a theatre, to give more dignity to the lives of actors.
“You can’t do it and be a big shot, not now,” he would say. It is not impossible that his own experience with the Provincetown and later as both actor and director in the so-called “big” world of the theatre has taught him something. Men who achieve excellence in any field in America are always in danger of becoming the thing called a “celebrity.” It is a pretty bitter handicap for any one wanting to go on trying to do good work. It may be that Deeter, in starting his own theatre venture in a rather out-of-the-way place, being always chary of accepting patronage, always putting others through certain hardships, making them earn the right to work, that in all of this he hasn’t been entirely a fool. It is amazing how few men get any satisfaction out of what is called fame.
Deeter and the others have managed to keep their theatre going. It has remained on the whole pretty experimental. There is definitely about the place the feeling of men and women having a good time. In our commercial theatre there is, as every actor knows and except for a few big stars, always the danger of being, for long periods, out of work, the weary tramping from casting agency to casting agency. There is the cry for plays. “Why do we not get plays?” As though there were not many beautiful old plays often not seen in our theatre for years. In the world of books there is the bookshelf. In two minutes I can step there. I can again become lost in the pages of my Moore, my Borrow, my Turgenev.
Not much dignity in the way of life of many, many actors. The fact hurts Deeter. At any rate, at the Hedgerow, the actor can always work. He has always a mature man of the theatre at hand, eager to help, ready at any time, day or night, to work with him, talk with him and, for Deeter, the rare pleasure any born teacher must get in seeing some youngster, after many awkward attempts, get into it, come through, get at last really into some rôle, the rôle felt down through the very body of the actor.
The effect of that upon all of the other actors upon the stage.
There have been, in the fou
rteen years, something like four hundred actors ground through the Hedgerow mill. Applications from hopefuls pour in, too many of them. Few can be accepted. More and more writers send scripts. Audiences do slowly grow. Many actors go out. They are on the New York stage. They are in Hollywood.
Others stick. They do not care for any theatre other than what they have got. They go on working there year after, taking what hardships come, apparently glad to be where they are.
To be always working. To be where there is always work to be done.
Go to Hedgerow on a summer day. It is perhaps two in the afternoon and the actors are just getting out of bed. There may have been a rehearsal lasting until four in the morning and another will start at three. The actors, men and women, are going into the kitchen of the theatre house to prepare each his own breakfast. There is a group gathered about a long table in the dining room and they are shelling peas for the evening meal. Deeter is among them. He is unshorn, unshaven, carelessly dressed. Opposite him at the table and also helping in the pea shelling is a young woman actor, who in the show last night got all the applause. It was for her, from an audience point of view, a big night but, see, there is something wrong. She knows it. For a time she sits in silence and occasionally she looks at Deeter. She has surrendered to the always present temptation for the actor, the temptation to overplay, become a point maker, steal the show. “See how beautifully I am acting this rôle, how I stand out among all the other players on this stage.” How persistently, over and over, this sort of thing is done on our stage. Reputations are built on doing it. The actor at Hedgerow speaks and the room becomes silent. “Well,” she says and presently, “did I again?” she adds.
“Yes,” says Deeter, “you know you did.” Like all good teachers Jasper Deeter is never tyrannical. He is infinitely patient. “Wait,” he will say to a criticism of one of his actors. “He is still trying. He is working.” He explains now to the actor. “You did not want to do it. You did not want to spoil the work of all the others on the stage. I understand. Again you were too determined. You were afraid you would not get it done and so you got it all up in your head. You could not let go. The other players on the stage were thrown off. As I have told you many times and as you know well, playing is always a group matter. When you become like that, all mind, determined, conscious of technique, the others cannot exist in the play. The play and others get lost. Only you remain.”
“Yes,” says the actor. She is relieved. She knows that the other actors, sitting about, do not too much blame her for what she has done, because again tonight one of them may do the same thing and later, in the presence of Deeter, also be ashamed.
It goes on. In his patient, persistent way Jasper Deeter has been able to make his little repertoire theatre Hedgerow a way of living for his people. Jasper Deeter and the actors gathered about him in their theatre in the old mill over there near Media, Pennsylvania, do seem to enjoy themselves. You hear little among these young men and women of the defeat of the young, the lost generation. They keep going along. It is a significant enough fact in the story of the theatre just now.
WINESBURG, OHIO
A PLAY
IN NINE SCENES
NOTES ON PRODUCTION
AFTER A GOOD deal of experimenting we have found that “Winesburg, Ohio” seemed to gain a certain strength by great simplicity in stage settings. There is a tremendous advantage in having the scenes move forward rapidly, the shift being made in a few minutes while the theatre remains dark. This gives the play a rapid flow and also affords greater freedom of movement. The play is a play of character, the attempt being made to give each character full development.
By extreme simplification of the settings emphasis is all on the people.
THE CAST
DOCTOR PARCIVAL
DOCTOR REEFY
LOUISE TRUNION
TOM WILLARD
GEORGE WILLARD
SETH RICHMOND
BELLE CARPENTER
ELIZABETH WILLARD
FRED
JOE WELLING
HELEN WHITE
BANKER WHITE
ED HANBY
SCENES
ACT ONE: Scene I — The Winesburg Cemetery Scene 2 — Doctor Reefy’s Office Scene 3 — Banker White’s House Scene 4 — A Village Street in front of Louise Trunion’s House Scene 5 — George Willard’s Room Scene 6 — Helen White’s House Scene 7 — Louise Trunion’s House Scene 8 — Mrs. Willard’s Room
EPILOGUE
In Ed Hanby’s Saloon
SCENE I
TIME: — EARLY afternoon, summer, 1900
There is an almost bare stage with a bluish-gray background to give the impression of space. There are a few gravestones, one of which is broad and square so that an actor standing on it will be head and shoulders above the crowd A great deal of the scene takes place offstage, left. The players on the stage are at a corner of the graveyard at the edge of the crowd attending a burial A town character, WINDPETER WINTERS, has been filled by a train and the town has turned out for the burial Before the curtain rises the song “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” is being played on a phonograph record. With the rise of curtain the music stops Offstage left a preacher is saying a prayer. Sometimes his words are heard, sometimes lost
MINISTER’S VOICE
Lamb of God, spread Thy wings over this departing spirit. Bathe him in Thy golden light.
Voice trails off There are two young boys and two girls in the group upstage center, and one of the young men suddenly snatches the hat from the head of one of the girls and puts it on his own head. He runs away from her and she follows, giggling. The other young man and woman are immensely amused. She catches the young man and struggles with him and gets back her hat. She looks at it ruefully as the hat is decorated with feathers and flowers and they have become disarranged
YOUNG GIRL
Oh, you mean thing.
The noise they made interrupts the prayer and a man in the group turns and calls to them
MAN
Say, you back there, what do you think this is, a funeral or a picnic?
DOCTOR PARCIVAL, accompanied by DOCTOR REEFY and followed by TOM WILLARD, comes out of the crowd, left, DOCTOR PARCIVAL goes to the bench, right front, and sits and DOCTOR REEFY sits beside him. All these. — men are middle-aged men, say fifty years old.
DOCTOR PARCIVAL is somewhat fat and of medium height. He is a man with a face red from drinking and now he is a little lit up. He is dressed in a long-tail black coat, loud-striped, soiled trousers, and a soiled white vest DOCTOR REEFY is a rather stooped, fussy man with graying hair, dressed in a warn but clean suit of black, and TOM WILLARD has rigged himself out in a long black coat, TOM has a big black moustache
MINISTER’S VOICE
Lamb of God, forgive this erring brother his transgressions in this vale of tears. Spread Thy wings, Lamb of God, carry him safely over the Golden River.
The giggling of the young people interrupts the PREACHER again, and the UNDERTAKER pops out of the crowd, puts his finger to his lips and motions them to he silent. He is a small, rather obsequious man
UNDERTAKER
Sh! Keep quiet! Don’t you hear? He’s praying.
DOCTOR PARCIVAL and DOCTOR REEFY are sitting on the stone bench and TOM WILLARD stands just at REEFY’S shoulder. Young GEORGE WILLARD, SETH RICHMOND, and FRED have come out of the crowd and sit on the ground near PARCIVAL
PARCIVAL
Talking a bottle from his pocket I brought you here. Doctor Reefy, hoping you would take a little nip with me.
Clears his throat A funeral is a dry business. Think of it, that preacher at the church trying to talk old Windpeter Winters into heaven. It is going to be hot where he will go and where I’ll go, too. It makes me want to refresh myself just thinking about it.
TOM WILLARD, seeing the bottle in PARCIVAL’S hand, leans forward eagerly
REEFY
With dignity No, I thank you, Doctor Parcival.
TOM
Wanting to call attention to himself Ahem. How-de-do, Doctor? Lordy, this is the hottest day this summer. I walked clear out here from town. You don’t have to tell me how dry you are, Doctor Parcival. I know.
PARCIVAL
Turning to TOM smiling Why, hello, Tom. You’ll join me? He’s still praying in there. No short prayer will ever get an old rapscallion like Windpeter Winters through the Golden Gate.
In the crowd at the back there are some women who now turn and see PARCIVAL holding the bottle in his hand and about to drink. They make motions, indicating that they are shocked and turn to whisper to one another and point. The three boys laugh and a woman runs over from the crowd and hits SETH RICHMOND with her fan. The three boys are all young fellows, seventeen or eighteen years old. GEORGE WILLARD is more carelessly dressed than the other two
SETH
Gee, George, put every one’s name down, I dare you. Half the toughs and no-accounts in town are here.
FRED
A lot of nice people, too. What a mix-up. I saw big old Moll Hunter. Gee, did you see the ostrich feather she’s wearing? I bet you don’t dare to describe her outfit in the paper. Put her in as a society dame, I dare you.
TOM WILLARD is just reaching to take the drink from DOCTOR PARCIVAL when he hears the voices of the young men and turning quickly, sees GEORGE. He draws himself up
TOM
No, thanks, Doctor Parcival. I am a man who can take it or let it alone.
PARCIVAL
Turning from TOM and also seeing the three boys.
He smiles and turns back to TOM. With his free hand makes a sweeping motion Ah! I see, Tom. Tom, you misjudge your son. He’s a good boy. He won’t put it in the paper, will you, George? FRED and SETH are amused
Complete Works of Sherwood Anderson Page 301