WASN’T THAT A TIME? : Remembering Good Works From the Federal Theatre Project

The question isn’t “Will there ever be an American national theater?” It’s “Will there ever be an American national theater again?”

We had one 50 years ago. For four years (1935-39), the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project produced hundreds of scripts, employed thousands of artists and entertained millions of people from New England to California.

You don’t have to be 100 years old to recall the Federal Theatre. Burt Lancaster was an acrobat in one of its circus units. John Houseman administered its Harlem company, which performed Orson Welles’ famous voodoo “Macbeth.” John Randolph acted in “Revolt of the Beavers,” the children’s show accused of being Red propaganda. (It featured some beavers throwing out their bosses, who did nothing but eat ice cream.)

“Revolt of the Beavers” is bound to come up at a panel discussion of the Federal Theatre at 3 p.m. Saturday at Actors Alley, 4334 Van Nuys Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Oscar Saul, who wrote the play with Lou Lantz, will be there. Also Lorraine Brown, director of the Federal Theatre Research Project at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Also Nancy Ebsen, who studied with the Federal Theatre’s director, the amazing Hallie Flanagan.

Also this reporter, to ask questions. The Federal Theatre’s history is well-recorded in Flanagan’s 1940 book, “Arena,” and Brown’s researchers have tracked down tons of scripts, production notebooks, costume sketches and the like. Still, for those of us who weren’t there, it’s hard to imagine how a theater operation of this magnitude actually worked.

Flanagan tallies up the achievement at the end of “Arena”: 1,200 scripts presented, everything from “Murder in the Cathedral” to “Pinocchio.” An average of 10,000 actors, writers, designers put to work each year (the project’s major aim as a branch of the Depression-era federal employment program, the Works Progress Administration). A total audience of 30 million people in 31 states. Admissions ranging from free to $1.

All this achieved, as Flanagan innocently puts it, “for approximately the cost of one battleship”--$46 million.

She must have been a cool customer. She had been the director of Vassar’s experimental theater, but there was nothing arty about her. “Arena” displays an organized mind, capable of staying on top of an enormous flow of information. As crazy as the phone calls and the memos got in her office, Flanagan never lost touch with the Federal Theatre’s original goals:

“1--That the re-employment of theater people now on relief rolls is the primary aim.

“2--That this re-employment shall be in theater enterprises offering dramatic entertainment either free or at low cost.

“3--That whenever possible, regional theaters developing native plays and original methods of production shall be encouraged. . . .”

The last is important. Flanagan acknowledged that the Federal Theatre was a make-work project. So was the WPA. But she didn’t see why it shouldn’t be quality work. An out-of-work actor wasn’t a bad actor, just an actor without a job.

She would treat her people like artists. For example, she didn’t want the Federal Theatre doing “Up in Mabel’s Room.” The idea wasn’t to duplicate Broadway and summer-theater fare. How would that help the economy? It was to do plays that commercial theater generally turned its back on: classics, children’s shows, black plays (“Run, Little Chillun” was a big Federal Theatre hit in Los Angeles), and regional plays (Paul Green’s “The Lost Colony” is still performed in Roanoke).

Controversial plays, too. The Federal Theatre never went uncensored (Flanagan herself would crack down), but its scripts got into some touchy areas. For example, Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here” had been bought for the movies, but it clearly wasn’t going to be made. Something about foreign governments taking offense.

So on Oct. 27, 1936, the Federal Theatre “premiered” Lewis’ stage version of his novel at 21 different theaters across the continent, each production directed and designed independently. (Los Angeles had a Yiddish production, Tampa a Spanish one, Portland a black one.)

Adding to the madness, Lewis and his collaborator, John C. Moffitt, were still cranking out rewrites the week before the opening. They were also refusing to talk to each other. Flanagan had to run pages between their suites in the Hotel Essex, a task that sorely tested her sense of humor.

So did the request of her New York director to postpone his opening until the results of the out-of-town “tryouts” were in. Flanagan informed him that a national theater didn’t have any “out-of-town,” and that he would take his chances along with everybody else. (Reviews were mixed.)

The show opened just before the 1936 election, and there were accusations that the Federal Theatre was stumping for the Democrats. These accusations were even louder every time it presented one of its Living Newspapers, documentary dramas with a definite New Deal slant.

“Triple-A Plowed Under” was about the farm problem. “One-Third of a Nation” was about the housing problem. “Power” was about electric rates. Each Living Newspaper showed a common man learning the scope of the problem at hand and, finally, its root cause--often, corporate greed. The remedy would be left to the common man and the audience, but the message was obvious: “Holler.”

Flanagan upbraided the authors of an early Living Newspaper for “bad journalism and hysterical theater.” But as long as the factual material was accurate, she and her mentor, WPA chief Harry Hopkins, stood by the shows.

“People will say it’s propaganda,” Hopkins told the cast of “Power.” “Well, the big power companies have spent millions on propaganda for the utilities. It’s about time that the consumer had a mouthpiece.”

The Living Newspaper exemplified the Federal Theatre’s mandate stylistically as well. Flanagan wasn’t supposed to spend more than 10% of her budget on scenery--the point was to get as many actors back to work as possible.

So the Living Newspapers relied on lights and shadows and platforms to create visual interest. Much use was made of projections and silhouettes. (Only “One Third of a Nation” had a traditional set, a three-story steel tenement designed by Howard Bay.)

Casts were also very big--up to 100 people sometimes. This too would add drama, with big groupings posed on different levels, in the Meyerhold manner.

The Russian overtones made the Federal Theatre a natural target for the new House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1938. Flanagan, who had traveled to Russia and elsewhere on a Guggenheim grant, had to swear that she wasn’t a Communist. Later, in passing, the name of a certain “Marlowe” came up.

CONGRESSMAN: You are quoting from this Marlowe. Is he a Communist?

MRS. FLANAGAN: I am very sorry. I was quoting from Christopher Marlowe.

CONGRESSMAN: Tell us who Marlowe is, so we can get the proper reference, because that is all we want to do.

MRS. FLANAGAN: Put in the record that he was the greatest dramatist in the period of Shakespeare, immediately preceding Shakespeare.

Congress defunded the Federal Theatre in July, 1939, and it went out of business. Playwright Emmet Lavery has suggested that if it had lasted six months longer, it would have become part of the war effort “and we would have had a national theater.”

Perhaps, but it may be just as well that the Federal Theatre Project ended when it did. Flanagan makes clear that interference from local WPA administrators was a constant problem (particularly in Southern California). Too, there’s something off-putting about the federal government’s sponsoring plays with an overt political message, even if one approves of the message.

A centralized national theater at the bid of the current Administration could be ominous. Perhaps Flanagan recognized that herself. She was always careful to call the Federal Theatre Project a “federation of theaters.” Literally, that’s what today’s resident theaters around the nation resemble, so perhaps she drew the blueprint after all.

The reader can learn more about Flanagan in Lorraine Brown and John O’Connor’s book, “Free, Adult, Uncensored: The Living History of the Federal Theatre Project” (New Republic Books, 1978). Or by attending Saturday’s panel.

Actors Alley is currently presenting Mary Chase’s “Me Third,” a play premiered by the Federal Theatre in 1936 and not often seen since then. Friday night’s performance will be a reunion for all Los Angeles Federal Theatre personnel. Information at (818) 986-AART.