Sometimes a work of art tries too hard to say all the right things, only to beat its points to the point of banality. Such is the fate of this drama meant to prepare the country for the start of World War II.
A historically significant but dramatically leaden presentation of the national experience over 43 years, “The American Way” is a departure for playwrights George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart in its deadly earnestness. Almost bereft of humor, it pivots from flag-waver to tragedy without giving an audience a chance to catch their breaths.
Martin and Irma Gunther, German immigrants who settle in Mapleton, Ohio, are its main characters; a mass of supporting players come and go like train passengers. You can’t keep track of them with or without a scorecard. As years fly by, 1896 to 1939, they experience death, bankruptcy, spousal abandonment, etc. in such rapid fashion it is hard to care about or even remember it five minutes later.
Lessons in the form of clunky dialogue are dished out, most landing on the same core idea:
MARTIN: All my life, Mr. Brockton, my one idea was to come to America. Why? Because then no one can tell me what I must do, how I must think.
BROCKTON: I see. Well, it’s brought a good many people to this country. My great-grandfather, among them. Only he died for just what you’re talking about.
MARTIN: It is not a bad thing to die for, Mr. Brockton – freedom. You only understand what it means when you have not had it.
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| In this contemporaneous illustration by legendary Broadway artist Al Hirschfeld, Moss Hart (in bottom middle) and George S. Kaufman (far right, in glasses) confer during a rehearsal of "The American Way." Performed in just two acts, the play required numerous scene breaks to represent the passage of time. Image from https://www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org/piece/american-way |
A play promoting liberty and democracy shouldn’t be this painful to read. Alas, instead of writing a play, Kaufman and Hart pieced together a revue, designed to showcase the good and bad of the American experience. This is designed to contrast with the situation in Europe – particularly Germany in the 1930s, as seen in Act Two, where the Gunthers are confronted by members of a fascistic front organization based on the German-American Bund.
Here we get some rare dramatic tension as Martin and Irma’s grandson Karl becomes enamored with the Nazi way after the Gunthers and their neighbors are completely reduced by the Great Depression.
“Go ahead – wave the flag,” the grandson rails. “Let the bands play. But if you stop listening to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ for a minute, you can hear this whole rotten system crashing around your ears.”
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| A souvenir program from the play's 1939 opening shows the Gunther family and their friends living through times of peace and war. A big part of the play's attraction was its epic cast, with some 80 speaking parts. Image from https://www.bidbuylive.com/product-page/1939-the-american-way-souvenir-program-fredric-march-kaufman-hart-patrio |
On the one hand, “The American Way” is fascinating for how it presents the struggle for direction in the United States at a key crossroads in our history. There were many radicals speaking out against the American way, some arguing for fascism, others for communism. For a time after Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact, they even spoke as one, as dedicated pacifists. (See Pete Seeger’s Songs For John Doe.)
Kaufman and Hart are different. “The American Way” shows them to be foursquare behind capitalism. Progressive, liberal, Democratic capitalism, presented complete with a recorded speech from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but entrepreneurial capitalism all the same:
CLARA: You will like it here, Frau Gunther. Six years ago, Otto and I come here. We could not speak a word. Now we have our own shop. See? (She indicates it) Otto Heinrich, Bakery.
IRMA: Es ist wunderbar. Yah, I like it here.
CLARA: I come and see the babies tomorrow, Frau Gunther, and they we have our party. And Otto will bake for you a great American dish – doughnuts.
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| For much of the play's run, New York City hosted the very popular 1939 World's Fair, dedicated to world peace. A Variety review dated January 25, 1939 recommends the play as "an extra attraction to the World's Fair crowds." Image from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5059525/Rare-color-photos-1939-World-s-Fair.html?ITO=1490 |
It’s all very refreshing to read, just clumsily presented. The dialogue throughout is tinny, pleading, and very on the nose. Even if I am no fan of Kaufman and Hart comedies, they usually deliver more verve and energy than this.
The play opens with a brief introduction at Ellis Island, 1896, where Martin introduces his newly arrived family to an immigration official:
THE OFFICIAL: All going to be Americans, eh? Where are you going to live? New York?
MARTIN: No, no, we live in Ohio. Already I have made a home there.
THE OFFICIAL (to the baby): Well, when you get to be Governor of Ohio, don’t forget who let you into this country…
Martin is destined for big things; not in politics but in industry. He opens a woodworking business where his industry and sense of fairness (refusing to cut off a customer whom a local banker’s wife does not like) impresses the banker enough to get financing for a factory. Martin proves a square-deal employer who wins over his workers, becoming very prosperous in a short time.
At least it seems like a short time. Everything moves fast in this play.
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| "Vote for McKinney - he's the man - tie Bill Bryan to an old tomato can." A rally for the 1896 Presidential race is briefly depicted as part of history's passing parade in a montage-like scene in the middle of Act One of "The American Way." Also plugged are the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford. Image from https://blogs.dickinson.edu/hist-211pinsker/2010/10/12/1900-the-mckinley-roosevelt-ticket-a-winner/ |
The banker, Samuel Brockton, reappears several times, representing a humane form of capitalism that rewards independent thinking. He is left to deliver the play’s final eulogy on standing up for freedom.
Winifred Baxter, a defiantly single woman of her time who befriends the Gunthers, is introduced heckling a Republican rally for not supporting the cause of women’s suffrage. Later in the play, she ruefully notes how women wound up giving their votes to Warren Harding.
Other character stories are touched on as background elements. A young man whose mother works for a time as the Gunthers’s maid emerges in Act Two a celebrity on that new medium, radio. The male members of the Gunther family get much attention; far less so the daughters.
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| Designed more as a spectacle than a straight play, "The American Way" was an enormous production. New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson was reserved about the play's merits, but related to its message, writing "it shines like a good deed in a naughty world." Image from https://www.bidbuylive.com/product-page/1939-the-american-way-souvenir-program-fredric-march-kaufman-hart-patrio |
“The American Way” often plays as a nostalgia piece: Songs that would have been familiar to older members of a contemporary audience. A long section at the start of Act Two shows excited reactions of various Mapleton residents to radio reports on Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 flight.
The big crisis in Act One is World War I. As a German-born woman, Irma Gunther does not want to send her son off to kill her relatives. Martin makes clear their duty is to their new country, not the old one:
MARTIN: Irma Liebchen, he must go. This is our country, Irma, and I am proud that we have a son to go. We cannot divide our allegiance, Irma – we are either Germans or we are Americans, and I say we are Americans!
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| Frederic March as Martin Gunther confronts an anti-freedom organization near the climax of "The American Way," as performed in 1939. While the fascistic group is not named in the play, -parallels to the pro-Hitler German-American Bund would not have been lost. Image from https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/02/21/power-american-way |
Throughout the play, much is made of the struggle to earn freedom against ignorance and apathy; its intention to rally theatergoers to face the danger of totalitarianism could not be clearer. War is a tragedy, Kaufman and Hart make clear, but even World War I is presented as a cause worth fighting for.
“The
American Way” might have worked better a couple of years later as a basis for a
short film selling war bonds. In its own time the play was not a success; it
was closed and forgotten by the time World War II began in September. By that
time Kaufman and Hart had a new comedy ready, “The Man Who Came To Dinner,” which
turned out a big hit. In those even darker days, the pair no doubt realized
they could better serve the cause of freedom by giving people something to
laugh about.
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