Representative American Plays/Shenandoah

by Bronson Howard

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SHENANDOAH
BY
Bronson Howard

Copyright, 1897, by Bronson Howard

All Rights, Including that of Performance, Reserved

Reprinted from the privately printed edition, by permission of the Society of American Dramatists and Composers, from a copy furnished by Samuel French.

 

SHENANDOAH

Shenandoah represents the Civil War play. It also represents the work of the playwright who illustrates in his career the development of modern American drama. Bronson Crocker Howard was born in Detroit, Michigan, October 7, 1842, the son of Charles Howard, a merchant of Detroit, who was at one time Mayor of the city. After being educated at the local schools in Detroit, he prepared for Yale College, but did not enter, owing to eye trouble. He began newspaper work in Detroit, and wrote plays. The first of these to be performed was a dramatization of an episode in Les Miserables under the title of Fantine, which was played in Detroit in 1864. In 1865 Mr. Howard came to New York and after he had had the usual struggles to obtain a hearing, Augustin Daly put on Saratoga at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, December 21, 1870. The play was a great success, running one hundred and one nights. It is a comedy, bordering on farce, reflecting the manners of 1870 and concerned with the adventures of Bob Sackett, who is engaged to be married to four girls at once. It was adapted for the English stage by Frank Marshall and produced by Sir Charles (then Mr.) Wyndham under the title of Brighton at the Court Theatre, London, May 25, 1874. Later Mr. Wyndham played it in Germany in a German translation.

Diamonds, a comedy, produced in New York September 26, 1872, and Moorcroft or The Double Wedding, a comedy, played in New York, October 17, 1874, and partly suggested by a short story by John Hay, were not so significant as The Banker's Daughter, produced first at Hooley's Theatre, Chicago, September 4, 1873, as Lillian's Last Love, and under its final title at the Union Square Theatre, New York, September 30, 1878. This play, based on the theme of a woman's self-sacrifice for her father's sake, through which she marries a man she does not love, still holds the stage. An interesting account of the building of this play is given in Mr. Howard's The Autobiography of a Play.

Next came in rapid succession, Old Love Letters, a charming one-act play, based on the return of a package of letters between two former lovers, which was played at the Park Theatre, New York, August 31, 1878; Hurricanes, a comedy produced first in Chicago at Hooley's Theatre, May 27, 1878, and later in England under the title Truth; Wives, a comedy adapted from Moliere's Ecole des Femmes and Ecole des Maris, played at Daly's Theatre, New York, October 18, 1879, and Fun in a Green Room, a comedy played at Booth's Theatre, New York, April 10, 1882. His next most significant play was Young Mrs. Winthrop, a study of the estrangement of a husband and wife through circumstances and their reconciliation through their child. It was first played at the Madison Square Theatre, New York, October 9, 1882. A very successful comedy, One of Our Girls, the scene of which is laid in France, was first played at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, November 10, 1885. Met by Chance, a romantic play, performed at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, January 11, 1887, was not a success, but on September 26 of the same year The Henrietta began its career at the Union Square Theatre. This is a dramatization of the motives that move Wall Street and in it Mr. William H. Crane and Mr. Stuart Robson achieved one of the great successes of their joint careers. It has been revived by Mr. Crane who is still playing in a revision of it. Baron Rudolf, written originally in 1881, was played in New York, October 25, 1887. Shenandoah came in 1888 and Aristocracy, a comedy in which social types, both national and international, are contrasted was put on first at Palmer's Theatre, New York, November 14, 1892. Peter Stuyvesant, an historical comedy, written in collaboration with Mr. Brander Matthews, and played at Wallack's Theatre, New York, October 2, 1899, was the last play of Mr. Howard's to be performed. Knave and Queen and Kate, the latter a clever international play, have not been performed. Mr. Howard died at Avon, New Jersey, August 4, 1908.

Shenandoah, which he wrote at the height of his career, was first put on at the Boston Museum on November 19, 1888. It was based upon an earlier work which Mr. Howard had produced in Louisville, Kentucky, about twenty years before and at its first tryout in Boston it was not a success. After revision, however, it was brought out at the Star Theatre, New York, September 9, 1889, and ran in New York, during the entire season. It has proved to be the most popular of Mr. Howard's plays.

Saratoga (1870), and Young Mrs. Winthrop (1882), have been published by Samuel French. Kate was published in 1906 by Harper and Brothers. The Henrietta has been published in England by French, but in this country has been only privately printed. The same is true of Old Love Letters, The Banker's Daughter, Shenandoah and Aristocracy. The present text of Shenandoah is based on the privately printed edition prepared by Mr. Howard. It was furnished the editor by Samuel French through the courtesy of the Society of American Dramatists and Composers.

For biography of Mr. Howard, see the volume In Memoriam—Bronson Howard, published by the American Dramatists Club, New York, 1910. This contains a biography by H. P. Mawson, an appreciation by Brander Matthews, The Autobiography of a Play by Bronson Howard and a list of the plays with the original casts. The Autobiography of a Play has been reprinted with an introduction by Augustus Thomas in the Publications of the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University, New York, 1915. See also Plays of the Present, ed. by J. B. Clapp and E. F. Edgett, Pub. of the Dunlap Society, New York, 1902, and The American Dramatist, Montrose J. Moses, New York, 1911.

Of especial interest is the article on Bronson Howard in William Archer's English Dramatists of Today (1882), in which Mr. Archer, while pointing out Mr. Howard 's merits, accuses him of vulgarity for certain expressions in Saratoga, which are not included in the play, and which were therefore, most probably inserted by the English adaptor.

[FROM PREFACE TO SHENANDOAH]

In ACT I, just before the opening of the war, Haverhill is a Colonel in the Regular Army. Kerchival West and Robert Ellingham are Lieutenants in his regiment, having been classmates at West Point.

ACT I

Charleston Harbor in 1861. After the Ball

The citizens of Charleston knew almost the exact hour at which the attack on Fort Sumter would begin, and they gathered in the gray twilight of the morning to view the bombardment as a spectacle.—Nicolay, Campaigns of the Civil War, Vol. I.

"I shall open fire in one hour."—Beauregard's last message to Major Anderson. Sent at 3:20 A. M., April 12, 1861.

ACTS II AND III

The Union Army, under General Sheridan, and the Confederate Army, under General Early, were encamped facing each other about twenty miles south of Winchester, on Cedar Creek. * * * Gen. Sheridan was called to Washington. Soon after he left, a startling despatch was taken by our own Signal Officers from the Confederate Signal Station on Three Top Mountain.—Pond, Camp. Civ. War, Vol. XI.

On the morning of Oct. 19th, the Union Army was taken completely by surprise. Thoburn's position was swept in an instant. Gordon burst suddenly upon the left flank. The men who escaped capture streamed through the camps along the road to Winchester.—Pond, supra.

Far away in the rear was heard cheer after cheer.—Three years in the Sixth Corps.

ACT IV

Washington, 1865. Residence of General Buckthorn

I feel that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate.—Gen. Grant's Memoirs.