Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players by Jeffery Kennedy (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players by Jeffery Kennedy
• Beth Wynstra (bio)

Jeffery Kennedy. Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2023. Pp xii + 626. $49.95.

Chapter 19 of Jeffery Kennedy's Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players is titled "'Unorganized, Amateur, Purely Experimental,' but Still Standing" (291). The adjectives in this chapter title come from an article that Edna Kenton, chronicler the Provincetown Players, wrote for the Boston Transcript in 1918 to introduce the Players and their goals. These descriptors, however, require much unpacking and contextual detail, for "unorganized," "amateur," and "purely experimental," when taken at face value, cannot explain the positive connotations of such goals nor the work required to keep such goals intact. Enter Jeffrey Kennedy, who is more than up for the task of analyzing the complex history and contributions of the Provincetown Players as well as detailing why their goals were significant for American theatre.

At the heart of Kennedy's study is what he points out was missing from Kenton's 1918 article (and much scholarship that followed): a focus on George Cram Cook as the founder and driving force of the Provincetown Players. As Kennedy argues, "no one but Cook could have initiated the Provincetown Players and then maintained their experiment as long as he did with the resulting vital contributions to American theatre" (6). Utilizing letters, interviews, board meeting minutes, archival materials as well as providing crisp summaries of the 93 plays produced by the Players, Kennedy offers a multifaceted and voluminous study of Cook and the artists with whom he worked. While Kennedy keeps a close eye on the Players' artistic innovations on the stage, he continuously links the dramatic works with the momentous events happening outside the theatre walls such as the outbreak of World War I, first-wave feminism, and, more than anything, the development of a distinct Bohemian sensibility in Greenwich Village at the start of the 20^th century. Staging America is an essential sourcebook for those interested in the Players and the birth of a truly American theatre, and it will continue to be a resource for the seasoned scholar or curious student looking for a fascinating study of American modernism, the interconnected web of artists working at the first part of the 20^th century, and the "purely experimental" spirit that pulsed through much of the dramatic, visual, and literary work of the time.

The early chapters of Staging America trace George Cram Cook's childhood and student days in Iowa. Cook graduated from the State University of Iowa (later known as the University of Iowa) and was named as class poet along with other prophetic monikers in the yearbook like "Philosopher" and "Proctor" (57). His scholarly interests in philosophy and Greek history, nurtured during graduate school at Harvard, coupled with a desire to mentor were all early indicators of [End Page 281] lifelong pursuits and the passion he brought to the Provincetown Players. Kennedy argues that when Cook returned to his alma mater in Iowa to teach, he developed a pedagogy for his writing courses that favored collaboration, discussion, and revision, all hallmarks of the famed and soon-to-be-developed Iowa Writer's Workshop. As Cook ended his first marriage and his teaching career at the university, his focus turned to the writing of novels and frequent visits to Chicago, where he came to know writers and artists of the city's Literary Renaissance, one of whom was fellow Iowan and journalist Susan Glaspell. Cook felt a connection to Glaspell and her sharp mind and artistic sensibilities, despite his impending nuptials to his second wife. In these early chapters of Staging America, Kennedy shows what will be a continuous thread throughout the volume: a reverence for Cook but never at the expense of revealing the destructive behavior of the man, which included infidelity and alcoholism.

Both in Chicago and later in New York (where he and Glaspell moved in 1912 before getting married), Cook witnessed the groundbreaking work and innovative acting styles of the Irish Players on their American tour, the 1913 Paterson Pageant, and the...