User:RL0919/Clansman

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The Clansman
Theatrical poster
Written byThomas Dixon Jr.
Based onThe Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan
Date premieredSeptember 22, 1905 (1905-09-22)
Place premieredAcademy of Music, Norfolk, Virginia
Original languageEnglish

The Clansman is a play written by Thomas Dixon Jr., based on his novel The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan.

History[edit]

After the successful publication of The Clansman Dixon proceeded to adapt it for the stage. It opened in Norfolk on September 22, 1905 and toured the south with great commercial success before venturing into receptive northern markets such as Indianapolis.[1] One Dixon biographer, reviewing the script, noted its conspicuous gaps in character and plot development. No background or justification is offered for Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Klan or the institution of lynching, but the play nonetheless excited the passions of southern audiences that took these for granted.[2] Contemporary newspaper and religious criticism, even in the south, was less favorable. Journalists called the play a "riot breeder" and an "exhibition of hysterics" while an Atlanta Baptist minister denounced it as a slander on white southerners as well as black.[3] The Clansman played in New York in 1906, again to an enthusiastic audience and critical panning, while Dixon gave speeches around the city and unsuccessfully offered Booker T. Washington a bribe to repudiate racial equality.[4]

In 1915, when Birth of a Nation appeared, The Clansman was best known as a play. Much of the movie is taken from the play, rather than directly from the novel.

Dixon rewrote the novel as a play In order to further publicize his views. "In most cases, Dixon's adaptation of a novel for the stage was merely intended to present his message to a larger audience, for his avowed purpose as a writer was to reach as many people as possible."[5][6][7] He enrolled in a correspondence course given by the one-man American School of Playwriting, of William Thompson Price. Price was "the greatest critic of the theater since Aristotle"; Dixon also compares him with Daniel Boone and Henry Clay, adding "The State of Kentucky has given the nation no greater man."[8] Apparently as an advertisement for the school, he reproduced in the program his handwritten thank-you note. (At the time, reproducing handwriting was expensive, and to send a handwritten, as opposed to typed, letter was an indication of special esteem.)

November 11, 1905
My dear Mr. Price,
Thanks for your letter of congratulations. It is for me to thank you for invaluable aid as my instructor in the technique of playwriting.
I learned more from your course in one year than I could have gotten in ten years unaided. It is new, not found in books, thorough and practical. The student who neglects this course is missing the opportunity of a life [sic]. I could never have written "The Clansman" without the grasp of its principles. Our association has been an inspiration to me from the first.
Sincerely,
Thomas Dixon Jr.[9]

The contract for the production specified, at Dixon's request, that Dixon would pay half the cost of the production, and have half ownership. He chose the cast and had a "secret power in the...management of the company".[10] "The production of the play became the most fascinating adventure on which I had ever embarked. I lived in a dream world with dream people. I never worked so hard or so happily in my life. Work was play, thrilling, glorious, inspiring play."[11]

Four horses in Klan costumes "raced across the stage in a climax. The horses were ridden in the streets as advertising."[12]

Reception[edit]

See also: Atlanta race riot

In Montgomery, Alabama, and Macon, Georgia, the play was banned.[13] The next day the Washington Post, in an editorial, called for the same to be done in Washington, saying the play was abominable, stupid, and misleading:

The play does not possess even the merit of historic truth. It is as false as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and a hundred times more wicked, for it excites the passions and prejudices of the dominant class at the expense of the defenseless minority. We can imagine no circumstances under which its production would be useful or wholesome, since it disgusts the judicious and the well-informed, and exerts an influence only upon the ignorant, the credulous, and the ill disposed. But in the present condition of the public mind at [sic] the South it is a firebrand, a counsel of barbarity, in fact, a crime.[14]

In an effort to prevent a performance in Washington, D.C., a group of pastors appealed to President Theodore Roosevelt to intercede on their behalf.[15]

In Philadelphia, the play was banned after it opened by Mayor Weaver, who said that "the tendency of the play is to produce racial hatred".[16] At the opening rotten eggs were thrown at the actors.[17]

The play, despite these protests, was extremely popular in the South. It opened with a huge premiere in Norfolk, Virginia, and drew record-breaking audiences in Columbia, South Carolina, and[18][19] In fact, the vast majority of news stories about The Clansman have to do with the play, not the novel.[citation needed]

In Bainbridge, Georgia, a black man was lynched shortly after presentation of the play in October, 1905. A newspaper article reported it under the title: "Lynching Laid to 'The Clansman'. Georgia Mob, Wrought Up by Dixon's Story, Hangs Negro Murderer." "The feeling against negroes, never kindly, has been embittered by the Dixon play, following which stories of negroes' depredations during the reconstruction period have been revived, and whites have been wrought up to a high tension."[20]

According to news stories, the "mob" which lynched three negroes in Springfield, Missouri in April, 1906, "seemed filled with the spirit of 'The Clansman', which created such a strong anti-negro feeling here six weeks ago".[21] Dixon called this attribution "the acme of absurdity", claiming that the play had reduced lynchings. The lynching in Springfield, he opined, "was caused by the commission of a crime by negroes—a crime so horrible and revolting to every instinct of white manhood that a whole community went mad with rage for justice, swift and terrible. Such things have happened in the south before and they will happen again so long as such crimes are committed by negroes."[22]

The play had an opulent 60-page program, with pictures, sold at the high price of 50¢ when a newspaper cost 5¢. It included "A Portrait and Sketch of the Author", and "Mr. Dixon's Famous Articles on 'The Future of the Negro', 'The Story of the Ku Klux Klan', and 'What Our Nation owes to the Klan'".[23] The play, being concerned with the KKK and Reconstruction, is adapted in the second half of The Birth of a Nation. According to Professor Russell Merritt, key differences between the play and film are that Dixon was more sympathetic to Southerners' pursuing education and modern professions, whereas Griffith stressed ownership of plantations.[24]

A four-page program of a traveling production, held by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, tells us that "Hundreds [were] turned away at every performance since the memorable opening in Norfolk, VA., Sept, 22, 1905".[25]

The play was not published until 2007.[26] A scholar says it was not only not published, it was not printed,[27] but with so many involved in the production — two companies were touring simultaneously[28] — copies had to be printed for internal use. Two such copies are known, one in the Library of Congress, the other in the Cortland Free Library.[29]

Plot[edit]

The play opens on Election Day in Piedmont, South Carolina during Reconstruction.[a] Alec, a local black sherrif, encourages black men on the street to vote multiple times to secure forty acres and a mule from the government and pass a "Constertooshun" that will disfranchise white voters. A nearby white carpetbagger claims to be a government agent fulfilling the "forty acres" promise and cons Alec into paying for a fake land deed.

Cast and characters[edit]

The characters and cast from the Broadway production are given below:

Opening night cast
Character Broadway cast
Character One Actor One

Dramatic analysis[edit]

Interpretations, unusual elements, adaptation from another source, etc., go here.

Reception[edit]

"racist, thoroughly obnoxious, deeply offensive – but skillfully written"[32]

Praise for the debut from a local paper: [33]

"its construction is crude, its characters stock, its dialogue stilled, and its situations exaggerated"[27]

Adaptations[edit]

1911 version[edit]

In 1911, the Kinemacolor Company of America produced a lost film in Kinemacolor titled The Clansman. It was filmed in the southern United States and directed by William F. Haddock. According to different sources, the ten-reel film was either completed by January 1912 or left uncompleted with a little more than a reel of footage. There are several speculated reasons why the film production failed, including unresolved legal issues regarding the rights to the story, financial issues, problems with the Kinemacolor process and poor direction. Frank E. Woods, the films scriptwriter, showed his work to Griffith, who was inspired to create his own film adaptation of the novel, titled The Birth of a Nation.[34][35][36]

The Birth of a Nation[edit]

Main article: The Birth of a Nation

After the failure of the Kinemacolor project, in which Dixon was willing to invest his own money,[37] he began visiting other studios to see if they were interested.[38] In late 1913, Dixon met the film producer Harry Aitken, who was interested in making a film out of The Clansman; through Aitken, Dixon met Griffith.[38] Like Dixon, Griffith was a Southerner, a fact that Dixon points out;[39] Griffith's father served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army and, like Dixon, viewed Reconstruction negatively. Griffith believed that a passage from The Clansman where Klansmen ride "to the rescue of persecuted white Southerners" could be adapted into a great cinematic sequence.[40] Griffith first announced his intent to adapt Dixon's play to Gish and Walthall after filming Home, Sweet Home in 1914.[35]

Birth of a Nation "follows The Clansman [the play] nearly scene by scene".[41]: xvii  While some sources also credit The Leopard's Spots as source material, Russell Merritt attributes this to "the original 1915 playbills and program for Birth which, eager to flaunt the film's literary pedigree, cited both The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots as sources."[42] According to Karen Crowe, "[t]here is not a single event, word, character, or circumstance taken from The Leopard's Spots.... Any likenesses between the film and The Leopard's Spots occur because some similar scenes, circumstances, and characters appear in both books."[41]: xvii–xviii 

Griffith agreed to pay Thomas Dixon $10,000 (equivalent to $304,186 in 2023) for the rights to his play The Clansman. Since he ran out of money and could afford only $2,500 of the original option, Griffith offered Dixon 25 percent interest in the picture. Dixon reluctantly agreed, and the unprecedented success of the film made him rich. Dixon's proceeds were the largest sum any author had received [up to 2007] for a motion picture story and amounted to several million dollars.[35] The American historian John Hope Franklin suggested that many aspects of the script for The Birth of a Nation appeared to reflect Dixon's concerns more than Griffith's, as Dixon had an obsession in his novels of describing in loving detail the lynchings of black men, which did not reflect Griffith's interests.[43]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ The play was never commercially published, but multiple variant copies of the script exist in archives.[30] Plot details are based on the version published in 2007 in the journal Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film.[31]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Slide 2004, p. 59–60.
  2. ^ Slide 2004, p. 58–60.
  3. ^ Slide 2004, p. 60.
  4. ^ Slide 2004, p. 64.
  5. ^ Cook 1974, p. 107.
  6. ^ da Ponte 1957, p. 15.
  7. ^ Dixon 1984, p. 280.
  8. ^ Dixon 1984, p. 281.
  9. ^ The Play that is Stirring the Nation: The Clansman. New York: American News Company. 1905. p. 69.
  10. ^ Dixon 1984, pp. 280–282.
  11. ^ Dixon 1984, p. 282.
  12. ^ Dixon 1984, p. 285.
  13. ^ "'The Clansman' Tabooed". Washington Post. September 25, 1906. p. 1 – via newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "Suppress 'The Clansman!'". Washington Post. September 26, 1906. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "WOULD STOP "THE CLANSMAN.": Pastors Appeal to President to Prevent the Performance". The Washington Post. October 6, 1906. ProQuest 144659181.
  16. ^ "'Clansman' Prohibited". New York Age. October 25, 1906. p. 1 – via newspapers.com.
  17. ^ "'Clansman' Prohibited". New York Age. October 25, 1906. p. 3 – via newspapers.com.
  18. ^ "Hissing of 'The Clansman': Majority of People of Columbia, S.C., Commend the Play". The Washington Post. August 21, 1905. ProQuest 144554467.
  19. ^ "Premier of Clansman: Thomas Dixon's Dramatic Answer to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' Scores Success". September 23, 1905. ProQuest 144588850.
  20. ^ "Lynching Laid to 'The Clansman'". Minneapolis Journal. October 30, 1905. p. 1 – via newspapers.com.
  21. ^ "Negroes Lynched". Sedalia Weekly Democrat. Sedalia, Missouri. April 20, 1906. p. 9 – via newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Not the Fault of the 'Clansman'". St. Joseph Gazette. St. Joseph, Missouri. May 3, 1906. p. 5 – via newspapers.com.
  23. ^ The Clansman, by Thomas Dixon. The play that is sweeping the nation. New York: American News Co. 1905. Retrieved April 25, 2019.
  24. ^ Russell Merritt, "Dixon, Griffith, and the Southern Legend." Cinema Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Autumn, 1972)
  25. ^ Brennan, George H. (c. 1905). 'The Clansman': an American drama: founded on his two famous novels: 'The Leopard's Spots' and 'The Clansman' [playbill]. New York: The Madison Press. OCLC 884731140.
  26. ^ Dixon, Thomas Jr. (2007). "The Clansman. An American Drama". Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film. 34 (2): 60–138. doi:10.7227/NCTF.34.2.5. S2CID 219961909.
  27. ^ a b da Ponte 1957, p. 16.
  28. ^ da Ponte 1957, p. 22.
  29. ^ Dixon, Thomas Jr. (1905). "The clansman : an American drama: from the material of his two novels, the leopard's spots and the clansman". LCCN 47036857. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  30. ^ Johnson 2007, p. 5.
  31. ^ Dixon 2007.
  32. ^ Mayer 2019, p. 181.
  33. ^ "'The Clansman' Scored Sensational Success". Virginian-Pilot. September 23, 1905. pp. 1–2 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. ^ McKernan 2018.
  35. ^ a b c Stokes 2007.
  36. ^ Usai 2019.
  37. ^ Rohauer 1984, p. 330.
  38. ^ a b Franklin 1979, p. 421.
  39. ^ Dixon 1984, p. 295.
  40. ^ Lynskey, Dorian (March 31, 2015). "Still Lying about History". Slate. Retrieved February 27, 2018.
  41. ^ a b Crowe, Karen (1984). "Preface". In Crowe, Karen (ed.). Southern horizons : the autobiography of Thomas Dixon. Alexandria, Virginia: IWV Publishing. pp. xv–xxxiv. OCLC 11398740.
  42. ^ Merritt 1972.
  43. ^ Franklin 1979, pp. 422–423.

Works cited[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. “THE NATION IN THE BIRTH OF A NATION.” Citizenship on Catfish Row: Race and Nation in American Popular Culture, University of South Carolina Press, 2022, pp. 15–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv23hcf4j.4.
  • Inscoe, John C. “‘The Clansman’ on Stage and Screen: North Carolina Reacts.” The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 64, no. 2, 1987, pp. 139–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23518685.
  • Kibler, M. Alison. “‘Freedom of the Theatre’ and ‘Practical Censorship’: Two Theater Riots in the Early Twentieth Century.” OAH Magazine of History, vol. 24, no. 2, 2010, pp. 15–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25701404.
  • KIBLER, M. ALISON. “IMMORAL … IN THE BROAD SENSE: Censoring Racial Ridicule in Legitimate Theater.” Censoring Racial Ridicule: Irish, Jewish, and African American Struggles over Race and Representation, 1890-1930, University of North Carolina Press, 2015, pp. 82–115. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469618371_kibler.7.
  • Kinney, James. “The Rhetoric of Racism: Thomas Dixon and the ‘Damned Black Beast.’” American Literary Realism, 1870-1910, vol. 15, no. 2, 1982, pp. 145–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27746049.
  • Kirby, Jack Temple. “D. W. Griffith’s Racial Portraiture.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 39, no. 2, 1978, pp. 118–27. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/274506.
  • MARSHALL, ANNE E. “The 1906 Uncle Tom’s Cabin Law and the Politics of Race and Memory in Early-Twentieth-Century Kentucky.” Journal of the Civil War Era, vol. 1, no. 3, 2011, pp. 368–93. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26070140.
  • Martin, Jeffrey B. “Film Out of Theatre: D.W. Griffith, ‘Birth of a Nation’ and the Melodrama ‘The Clansman.’” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 2, 1990, pp. 87–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43797587.
  • Mayer, David. “The Clansman and The Birth of a Nation.” Stagestruck Filmmaker: D. W. Griffith and the American Theatre, University of Iowa Press, 2009, pp. 142–65. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20mvg3k.10.
  • Paulin, Diana Rebekkah (2012). Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction. University of Minnesota Press.
  • PYRON, DARDEN ASBURY. “‘GONE WITH THE WIND’ AND THE SOUTHERN CULTURAL AWAKENING.” The Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 62, no. 4, 1986, pp. 565–87. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26436777.


External links[edit]

Category:1905 plays Category:American plays adapted into films Category:Debut plays Category:English-language plays Category:Plays based on novels

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