Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/312

 294 The Drama, 1860-1918 Brown's Children of Earth, written out of inherited feeling for spiritual yearnings and ancestral prejudices. Sheldon, cleverly- alive to drama, — one of the many men who have come out of university courses specially dedicated to dramatic technique, like Professor Baker's Workshop at Harvard, — ^has always been entertaining, with a dexterity which might have gone far had he not, later in his youthful career, been swamped by managerial and actor demands — as when he dramatized Suder- mann's The Song^ of Songs (Eltinge Theatre, 22 December, 1 9 14). His first play, Salvation Nell (17 November, 1908), showed freshness of atmosphere ; but it was brought to distinc- tion by Mrs. Fiske, and it had none of the ironic intent of Shaw's Major Barbara. Even in the creating of atmosphere, Sheldon has not always been happy. His Romance (10 February, 191 3) has none of the real New York flavour of Fitch's Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (4 February, 1901). With no philosophic body of ideas moving American drama, it is surprising what an excellent number of plays can be mentioned as illustrative of certain definite types of drama. It is not a dead creative field which can point to the high comedy of A. E. Thomas's Her Husband's Wife (9 May, 1910), Thompson Buchanan's A Woman's Way (22 February, 1909), Harry James. Smith's Mrs. Bumpstead Leigh (Lyceum Theatre, 3 April, 191 1), and Jesse Lynch Williams's Why Marry? (Astor Theatre, 25 December, 1917). Perhaps these examples are overtopped by Langdon Mitchell's The New York Idea (L5nic Theatre, 19 November, 1906), which has an irony of universal import — a 'tang of the Restoration drama, without its blatant vulgarity — a critical sense of manners at once timely and for ever true. This ability shown by Mitchell makes one deplore the time spent by him on dramatizations like Becky Sharp (12 September, 1899) and Pendennis (26 October, 1916). We may point with just pride to examples of drama of social condition like Charles Kenyon's Kindling (Daly's Theatre, 3 December, 191 1) and Medill Patterson's Rebellion (Maxine Elliott's Theatre, 3 October, 191 1). And, even with its ex- crescences of bad taste, Louis K. Anspacher's The Unchastened Woman (9 October, 191 5) possessed marked distinction of characterization. In the sphere of simple human comedy, Winchell Smith's The Fortune Hunter (4 September, 1909) and