...want.

Point 6, The Atlantic Charter

**********

Progress in war may be measured according to martial gain, and the strewn Allied victories of 1943--including the taking of Guadalcanal, the breaking of the siege at Leningrad, the Tunisian conquest, and the destruction of the German Wolf Pack--all whispered the eventual, fitful demise of worldwide Axis aggression. However, considering that no Axis presence ever threatened occupation of sovereign U.S. soil, such progress abroad belied many perceived threats that surfaced not from external enemies without but instead circulated throughout national practices and beliefs within. As Howard Zinn has presented the question, "But what about Fascism--as idea, as reality? Were its essential elements--militarism, racism, imperialism--now gone? Or were they absorbed into the already poisoned bones of the victors?" (424). The effects of these ideological belief systems upon the communal mind of national citizenry are not so measurable according to the more overt standards of war. Arguably, Fascism's initial conveyance preceded any concerns with troop support and late-Imperial conquest. If recognized as the circulation of cultural energies, Fascism's psychological threat surged where tanks and bombs could not cleanly target. The issue was one of recognized national concern to the United States throughout World War II and beyond.

Beginning in 1943 as victory abroad turned palpable, playwrights James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau directed an introspective and forward looking eye to home-front Fascism. Drawn to multiple cultural problems, Gow and d'Usseau introduced to the public new type of problem play specifically constructed to identify and expose indigenous American Fascism in each of its guises. The success of the playwrights' first installment, Tomorrow the World, doubtless persuaded Gow and d'Usseau to return with two sequels, Deep Are the Roots, which was performed at the very close of the war in 1945, and Legend of Sarah, whose brief production would not appear until 1950. To a certain extent, the dramas conformed to the style of the traditional problem play already popularized by writers such as Arthur Wing Pinero and August Strindberg, and the plays generally culled a protagonist's struggles from contemporary and socially relevant issues. However, Tomorrow the World and Deep Are the Roots may be further distinguishable as "Big Problem Plays", a title coined retrospectively by theatre critic John Chapman; these plays were not simply of broad social concern but carried within them the weight of national identity. Considering that these plays appeared during a time of war, they represent a cultural attempt to further capitalize upon victory abroad by the propagation of a peaceful resolution to predicaments at home. This paper shall consider a few of the contexts by which the successful runs for two of these plays, Tomorrow the World and Deep Are the Roots, might be measured and qualified according to what wartime sociologists would independently and broadly term the "Americanization" project. Inquiry shall extend to the plays' representations of domestic actions in times of conflict as indicative of developing national ideologies regarding emigration policy and ever-relentless Southern racism. While much of the present paper shall attempt to judge these Big Problem Plays according to a series of national crises from 1943-45, some consideration shall extend to post-war HUAC trials in an attempt to comprehend James Gow and Arnaud d'Usseau's insight: that representations of "Americanization" on stage could possibly enter into a greater discourse affecting generations of future citizens.

These writers, both of whom shared common backgrounds as newspaper men and Hollywood scenarists--Gow served as film and drama critic of the World newspaper from 1928-31 before writing the scenarios for such films as Ballerina and Paramount On Parade while d'Usseau served as United Press correspondent in El Sereno before writing for the films Lady Scarface and One Crowded Night--were first professionally introduced during a collaboration on RKO's comedy Repent at Leisure. This benign formation would eventually grow into a partnership credited with the longest running, deliberately political play in the history of Broadway production, Tomorrow the World, and would consequently result in the development of many other films and plays throughout the wartime years. Perhaps due to their journalistic backgrounds, the two did not aspire to entertainment writing alone, and it is noteworthy that both individuals even enlisted into the Signal Corps and wrote training films such as The Japanese-American Soldier for the U.S. Army.

Tomorrow the World, under the direction of Elliott Nugent, opened at the new Ethel Barrymore theatre on April 14th, 1943. Reviews recognized the text as "no masterpiece as a piece of writing" (Waldorf Review 334) and judged that "portions of it [are] talky and contrived" (Rascoe Review 334). Nevertheless, the same reviews consistently recommended attendance for the "tremendous force in many scenes" (Morehouse Review 336) and because the "highly original and ingenious drama" would certainly result in "a good deal of discussion ... Anybody who indulges in the luxury of thinking now and then will want to see it" (Waldorf Review 334). The length of its run testified to its popularity, the final performance not occurring until June 17th of the following year.

The setting of Tomorrow the World depicts the home of Michael Frame, a charmingly good-natured university professor loyally involved in military research, somewhere in a "large University town in the Middle West" (Tomorrow 7). The play's early exposition busily introduces the domestic front: Michael, both father and widower, proposes to his girlfriend Leona Richards--a young elementary school teacher of Jewish heritage--even as they discuss preparations...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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