Overview

From the late 1920s to late 1950s, the Broadway theatre was America's cultural epicenter. Entertainment took the form of literature, music, and theatre. During this golden age of Broadway, actors and actresses became legends and starred in now classic plays. Laurence Olivier, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontaine were names to remember, etching plays into memory as they brought the words of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill to life. Joseph Cotton romanced Katherine Hepburn in Philip Barry's ""The Philadelphia Story"" while Laurette Taylor became ""The Glass Menagerie's"" Amanda Wingfield. Frederic March, Florence Eldridge, Jason Robards, Jr and Bradford Dillman showed us life among the ruins in ""Long Day's Journey Into Night"" at a time when audiences demanded smart plays, good acting, and a certain glamour that was Broadway.

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9780312338985

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Reviews

A scintillating take on Broadway drama's finest decades. Anyone who wishes they had witnessed the Great White Way's great past gets a second chance in this latest from Mordden (Beautiful Mornin', 1999, etc.). A vivid stylist, he seats readers fifth-row center as Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie, Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in almost anything collaborated with many others to bring American dramatic theater to heights that it seems it may never again climb. More than enlivening description, Mordden offers social, political, aesthetic and cultural context as he discusses what led to Broadway's ascendancy and demise. He examines topics as diverse as the Depression, the Method, McCarthyism and stagecraft to explore the ways in which they shaped what happened on- and off-stage. Against this backdrop, he covers dramas justly and unjustly forgotten. He summons forth the now largely overlooked Rachel Crothers, arguing that she created a new form in her plays, from He and She in 1911 to Susan and God in 1937. He finds the themes in Life with Father worthy of Ibsen and Shaw, ranking Lindsay and Crouse's long-running comedy along with Thornton Wilder's Our Town as the two most underappreciated achievements in Broadway history. He suggests that Auntie Mame anticipates Stonewall and the emergence of gay voices on Broadway. But Hollywood, once at Broadway's heels for scripts and stars, began to surpass it as cool, moody actors like Brando, Newman and McQueen went west to build another entertainment empire.Mordden's keen eye, broad vision, wealth of detail and sparkling style bring to life the American rialto at its peak. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

ETHAN MORDDEN is the author of dozens of books, both fiction and nonfiction. His writing has appeared in ""The New York Times,"" ""The New Yorker"" and numerous other magazines and journals. He lives in Manhattan.

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