Page:Representative American plays.pdf/898



The Boss represents the play dealing with political and business interests. Its author, Edward Brewster Sheldon, was born in Chicago, February 4, 1886, the son of Theodore and Mary Strong Sheldon. He graduated from Harvard College in 1907, and took the degree of A.M. from Harvard University in 1908. He had been interested in the writing of plays while an undergraduate, and had his first professional success in little more than a year after graduation.

On November 12, 1908, at the Opera House, Providence, Rhode Island, Mrs. Fiske produced his play, Salvation Nell, which was a stage success. A complete list of his plays since then includes The Nigger, produced first at the New Theatre, New York City, December 4, 1909; The Boss (1911); Princess Zim-Zim, played first at the Harmanus Bleecker Hall, Albany, New York, December 4, 1911; Egypt, first played at The Playhouse, Hudson, New York, September 18, 1912; The High Road, produced first at His Majesty's Theatre, Montreal, Canada, October 14, 1912; Romance, played first at Harmanus Bleecker Hall, Albany, February 6, 1913, and The Garden of Paradise, first produced at the Park Theatre, November 28, 1914. Mr. Sheldon also dramatized Das Hohe Lied of Hermann Sudermann in 1914, under the title of The Song of Songs, adapting the original to American conditions. It was, however, not a success from a dramatic standpoint.

The most important plays of Mr. Sheldon are Salvation Nell, The Nigger, The Boss, Romance, and The Garden of Paradise. In these plays he has treated five quite different themes, and shown a dramatic craftmanship, at times, of a high order. Salvation Nell reproduced with fidelity scenes in the street life of New York City, and placed against a background of drunkenness and vice, the work of the Salvation Army. The Nigger showed real power in treating the theme of a young Southerner with political ambitions and great family pride who finds that he is of mixed blood. The ending is somewhat inconclusive, but there are portions of the play, such as the letter of the quadroon to her master, which are remarkable pieces of writing.

The Boss was the third of these realistic studies of American life. Business and politics form the background, but the attention of the audience is centred upon the relations of "Regan" and his wife. They are strongly contrasted types and at first glance their union seems impossible. Yet Mr. Sheldon has indicated unobtrusively enough but surely with sufficient definiteness, the inherent attraction which the strength of "Regan" had for "Emily Griswold" and the way