Maxwell Anderson was one among several playwrights, including Eugene O’Neill, Elmer Rice, Sidney Howard, Robert E. Sherwood, George S. Kaufman, and Paul Green, who changed perceptions of American drama. Before World War I, American drama was purely of local interest, and no great playwrights had appeared in the United States. By the end of the 1920’s, however, New York City ranked as one of the most vital theater centers in the world, and American dramatists were enjoying a period of extraordinary creative flowering.

Although American playwrights of that period presented diverse views, many reflected the disillusionment that followed World War I. Anderson was among these; the basic philosophy of life that informs his drama is typical of the 1920’s. In this view, the modern individual is deprived of religious faith or the opportunity for meaningful social action. Love, although fleeting, is the only thing that gives life meaning.

Throughout his dramatic works, Anderson adhered to the Aristotelian principles of unity and the tragic hero as he explored the myths of his times. Producing the most important body of his work during the Great Depression years of the 1930’s, he addressed social issues and injustices, though his primary purpose seems to have been to place them in their historical, literary, and mythological contexts rather than to raise the audience’s awareness of such problems. Clearly, Anderson was interested in dramatic theory and history, and his plays exemplify his concerns with form as well as with theme.

What Price Glory?

Anderson’s first successful play, What Price Glory?, on which he collaborated with Stallings, has affinities with many works of the 1920’s. Its critical look at the myths surrounding war brings to mind Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). The play centers on a squad of U.S. marines in the midst of some of the heaviest fighting in World War I.

The play’s disillusioned attitude and profane dialogue may seem mild to modern readers accustomed to stronger stuff, but to audiences of the 1920’s, the play was shocking. Its soldiers talked like real soldiers, and their profanity (toned down after objections from various groups, including the Marine Corps) epitomized a thoroughgoing irreverence among the characters toward matters that traditionally had been treated with greater respect.

The play uses the war as a symbol for a world that is purposeless and chaotic. Act 1 shows the U.S. Marines awaiting a battle with the Germans in a French town; act 2 centers on the battle, emphasizing the suffering of Americans and Germans alike; and act 3 reveals the futility of the conflict.

Elizabeth the Queen

The opening of Elizabeth the Queen on November 3, 1930, launched Anderson on the most productive decade of his career and for the first time showed the public the nature of his concern with poetic tragedy. The play was both a popular and critical success—surprising, perhaps, considering that it was written in verse. The controlled expression of emotion through rhythm and image is well handled in the play, perhaps contributing to the acceptance of its poetic form by the audience. Anderson got his idea for the play from Lytton Strachey’s history Elizabeth and Essex (1928) but shifted the story’s focus from historical transition to individual character. Evident here is a recurring theme in Anderson’s Tudor plays: the lust for power in conflict with sexual passion. In this play, the central theme is the aging Queen Elizabeth I’s suspicion that her youthful lover, Essex, is as enamored of her throne as he is of her person.

Anderson distrusted government systems and power politics in the United States and elsewhere....