Representative American Plays/The Scarecrow

by Percy MacKaye

Layout 2

THE SCARECROW
A TRAGEDY OF THE LUDICROUS
BY
Percy MacKaye

Copyright, 1908, by The Macmillan Company

Copyright, 1914, by Percy MacKaye

Copyright, 1916, by Percy MacKaye

All Rights Reserved

Including stage and platform rights and the right of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

This play "The Scarecrow" has been duly copyrighted in the United States of America, The Dominion of Canada, and in all countries of the copyright union.

No performance, amateur or professional, can legally be given without permission first obtained from the author and payment of royalty. Infringement of copyright involves liability to prosecution by law.

No public reading of this play for money can legally be given without permission first obtained from the author.

To obtain such permission communication should be made with the author direct, in care of the publishers.

Reprinted by permission of Mr. Percy MacKaye and by special arrangement with the Macmillan Company.

 

THE SCARECROW

The Scarecrow represents the romance of the fantastic, with its basis in American history. It was suggested by Hawthorne's story of "Feathertop," published originally in 1852 and afterwards included in the Mosses from an Old Manse. Mr. MacKaye has modified the nature of the characters decidedly, has added characters, and, as he says in the preface to the published play, has substituted the element of human sympathy for that of irony.

Percy MacKaye was born in New York City, March 16, 1875, the son of Steele MacKaye and Mary Medbery, who herself dramatized Pride and Prejudice. He grew up in the atmosphere of the theatre and before entering Harvard College in 1893 he had written a series of choral songs for his father's projected "Spectatorio" at the World's Fair in 1893. He graduated from Harvard College in 1897. During his junior year, he wrote a poetical play Sappho, which was acted by Harvard and Wellesley students. After two years of European travel and study he returned to New York and taught in a private school, continuing to write plays. The turning point in his career came when his Canterbury Pilgrims was accepted by E. H. Sothern in 1903. Since 1904 he has devoted himself entirely to dramatic work, living at Cornish, New Hampshire. Mr. MacKaye stands in our drama for high standards of dramatic writing. He represents the movement for a civic and national theatre, untrammelled by commercial considerations, and he has brought into recent prominence the idea of the community masque or pageant, in itself one of the most significant dramatic movements of the time. At the same time he is not simply a theorist, but has proved his ability to write plays that succeed upon the stage.

He has written sixteen plays, ten masques or pageants, and four operas. His plays have been performed except the first, A Garland to Sylvia, and Fenris the Wolf, a masterly study of the mutual effects of purity and passion, laid in a setting of Northern mythology. The acted plays, arranged in the order of their composition and with their dates of publication indicated in parentheses, are: The Canterbury Pilgrims (1903), a dramatization of the relations between Chaucer and his characters, first performed at the Park Extension Theatre, Savannah, Georgia, April 30, 1909; The Scarecrow (1908); Jeanne d'Arc, an historical play (1906), first produced at the Lyric Theatre, Philadelphia, October 15, 1906; Sappho and Phaon (1907), a Greek play with the theme of the contrasted influence of family ties and sexual love, first performed at the Opera House, Providence, Rhode Island, October 14, 1907; Mater (1908), a comedy based on American politics, first performed at the Van Ness Theatre, San Francisco, California, August 3, 1908; Anti-Matrimony (1910), a clever satire upon the influence of modern continental playwrights upon the ideas of marriage held by two young Americans, first performed in the Theatre at Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 10, 1910; Tomorrow (1912), a play dealing seriously with the problem of selection in the matter of marriage, first performed at the Little Theatre, Philadelphia, October 31, 1913; A Thousand Years Ago (1914), an Oriental romance, first performed at the Shubert Theatre, New York, December 1, 1913, and Yankee Fantasies (1912), five one-act plays, four of which have been performed, and two of which, Gettysburg and Sam Average, are upon national themes.

The group of Masques and Pageants include the Saint Gaudens Masque-Prologue (1909), first produced June 20, 1905, by the Cornish Colony in honor of Augustus St. Gaudens; the Gloucester Pageant (1903), produced under the auspices of the city of Gloucester in honor of President Taft, August 3, 1909; A Masque of Labor (1912), projected but not yet performed; Sanctuary, a Bird Masque (1914), given first, September 12, 1913, in honor of President and Mrs. Wilson, at Meriden, New Hampshire, and repeated many times, 120 performances being given in the Southern and Western States before over 200,000 spectators by the Redpath Chautauqua players; Saint Louis: A Civic Masque (1914), given in St. Louis to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the city, from May 28 to June 1, 1914; The New Citizenship, a Civic Ritual (1915), given February 14, 1916, in New York City, on Lincoln's Birthday and, most significant, Caliban, A Community Masque (1916), produced May 25 to June 2, 1916, in New York City as a part of the Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration. This masque, founded on The Tempest, and having as its main theme the regeneration of Caliban through his love for Miranda, was magnificently produced at the Stadium of the College of the City of New York and marks a new epoch in the community drama. Of the operas, Sinbad the Sailor (1917) and The Immigrants (1915), with music by Mr. F. S. Converse, have not as yet been produced. The Canterbury Pilgrims (1916), with music by Mr. Reginald de Koven, was first produced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, March 8, 1917.

The Scarecrow was first performed by the Harvard Dramatic Club, on December 7, 1909. Its first professional performance was given at the Middlesex Theatre, Middletown, Connecticut, December 30, 1910. The cast as given remained the same at its first New York performance, at the Garrick Theatre, January 17, 1911, except that the part of "Rachel" was taken by Miss Fola La Follette. The play is dedicated by the author to his mother, for the reason (as he has told the editor) that, but for her sympathetic interest and assistance, it would probably not have been written. The version here printed has been revised by Mr. MacKaye and represents the acting version used by Mr. Frank Reicher during two seasons in the United States, and by Miss Muriel Pratt at the Theatre Royal, Bristol, England. It is also the version translated into German by Dr. Walther Fischer, of the University of Pennsylvania, for the professional use of Herr Rudolf Schildkraut in Germany, at the "Deutsches Theater," Berlin, under the direction of Professor Max Reinhardt. It has also been translated into French by Professor M. Garnier, of the Sorbonne, Paris.

The individual plays may be found in printed form, as indicated above. Mr. MacKaye's poems, which have appeared in several editions, may be had most conveniently in the complete edition of his Poems and Plays, in two volumes, issued by Macmillan Company in 1916. In this edition. The Canterbury Pilgrims, Jeanne d'Arc, Sappho and Phaon, The Scarecrow, and Mater have been reprinted. His essays on dramatic subjects may be found in The Playhouse and the Play (1909), and The Civic Theatre (1912). He has also in press: Steele MacKaye, A Memoir and Two Plays. For an interesting foreign criticism of his work, especially of The Scarecrow, see M. Garnier, M. Percy MacKaye, in La Revue du Mois, April 10, 1909.

The editor is indebted to the courtesy of Mr. MacKaye for permission to reprint the play and for the biographical details and the information concerning the plays upon which this introduction is based.

Note to Revised Edition

Since the publication of the First Edition, Mr. Mackaye has produced the following dramatic works:

Plays—Washington, the Man Who Made Us (1919), a Ballad Play, was first produced in its entirety (under the title "George Washington") at the Belasco Theatre, Washington, D. C., February 23, 1920, one portion of it (the Valley Forge Action) having been previously produced in French—translated by Pierre de Lanux—at Copeau's Theatre du Vieux Colombier, New York, Feb. 17, 1919. This Action and other Actions of the play have also been translated into fourteen different languages by the Foreign Language Information Service Bureau of the Red Cross for publication and production in foreign language theatres in America.

Masques—Caliban was also presented on a still more splendid scale, by co-operation of nineteen districts of Greater Boston, at the Harvard Stadium, Cambridge, June 28 to July 21 (inclusive), 1917.

The Evergreen Tree (1917), a Christmas Masque, was first produced by North Dakota Agricultural College, at Fargo, N. D., Dec. 15, 1917.

The Roll Call (1918), a Masque of the Red Cross, was first produced during Roll Call Week. December 16-23, 1918, simultaneously in different states throughout America. The Will of Song (with Harry Barnhart, 1919), a Dramatic Service of Community Singing, was first produced at Orange, N. J., May 2 and 3, 1919.

Operas—Rip Van Winkle, a Folk Opera (1919), with music by Reginald Koven, was first produced by the Chicago Opera Association at the Audirium Theatre, Chicago, Jan. 2. 1920.