The joy of this book is its depth and breadth. Many plays included will be familiar and expected...but more valuable is coverage of plays little known today and rarely produced. McLaughlin and Parry provide enough plot synopsis to keep readers engaged, but the key content is the penetrating analysis of the themes found in the works discussed. the book is crammed with engaging, often moving analysis.
In this impeccably researched study we are shown that American theatre of the thirties and forties presented a much more balanced view of the divide in public opinion than the flag-waving Hollywood movies.
McLaughlin and Parry have taken on much impressive research to accomplish this project, revealing a fascinating depiction of connections among theatrical history, culture, and politics.
Broadway Goes to War fits well with the existing literature concerning World War II and popular culture, and successfully connects popular culture to the complicated politics of the period. In contrast to Hollywood films, McLaughlin and Parry argue that wartime theater productions took a nuanced approach to exploring new possibilities in the interest of promoting social change. In the process, such plays also highlighted some of the challenges faced by ordinary people during the war, along with their attempts to overcome and create a better postwar world.
" Broadway Goes to War fits well with the existing literature concerning World War II and popular culture, and successfully connects popular culture to the complicated politics of the period. In contrast to Hollywood films, McLaughlin and Parry argue that wartime theater productions took a nuanced approach to exploring new possibilities in the interest of promoting social change. In the process, such plays also highlighted some of the challenges faced by ordinary people during the war, along with their attempts to overcome and create a better postwar world." — Ralph W. Brown III, professor of history at the University of Louisiana, Monroe
" Broadway Goes To War is a detailed description of the historical context that served as the background of what playwrights were concerned about during years of World War II." — NewsNotes Dance Blog
"McLaughlin and Parry have taken on much impressive research to accomplish this project, revealing a fascinating depiction of connections among theatrical history, culture, and politics." — Hometowns to Hollywood
"In this impeccably researched study we are shown that American theatre of the thirties and forties presented a much more balanced view of the divide in public opinion than the flag-waving Hollywood movies." — Stage and Cinema
04/01/2021
In this scholarly reminder of the impact of live theater, McLaughlin and Parry, both English professors at Illinois State University, explore how early 20th-century New York stages tackled the political and social ramifications of the emerging threats from Germany and Japan far earlier, and more keenly, than Hollywood. Anti-Nazi plays premiered as early as 1933—six years before Germany invaded Poland—and once the war began, a key difference emerged between theater and film: where film could believably depict ground and air battles, stage plays could not. The most successful plays, therefore, focused on how those on the home front were affected by the economic and social upheavals brought about by the war. Intriguingly, plays produced near the end of the war examined how returning soldiers might recover from physical and psychological wounds, and how prejudices against returning Black and Jewish American soldiers might continue to permeate society. The plights of Japanese Americans, and Asian Americans broadly, and any possible theatrical representations of their experiences are not addressed in this book. In an example of American myth-making, State of the Union, a play depicting postwar unity, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1946. VERDICT An engaging, thorough, slightly academic work about an overlooked period of American drama, perhaps best reserved for theater historians and course-specific studies.—Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA
