The opening of The Gilded Age caught the public and the critics by surprise. At a time when the American literary community was in heated debate over the possibility of someone writing the American novel, Colonel Sellers took the New York stage by storm, as evidenced by the following review:AMERICAN DRAMA
NEW YORK TIMES
September 18, 1874It is, perhaps, a little singular that while we have been waiting for the American novel, an American drama has dropped in upon us, almost unannounced. There has been an unreasonable expectation of the American novel. Foreign critics (and, for that matter, domestic ones) have demanded that we should produce a novel that should not only have "the flavor of the soil" on all its characters, but in its plot and movement. WALT WHITMAN and JOAQUIN MILLER, they say, have done something for American poetry. But where is the versemaker who is as gifted as LONGFELLOW or LOWELL, without the European methods of either? Especially, where is the novelist who shall do for American life and thought what SMOLLETT and FIELDING, DICKENS and THACKERY have done for English life and character? It has been a bitter reproach that we have been compelled to import not only our best plays, but our best dramatic ideas. Begging the pardon of the illustrious company of gentlemen who write for the American stage, the American flavor is sadly deficient in all of their works. JOHN BROUGHAM, who is a thrifty exotic, has given us some admirable things that might have been grown in the atmosphere of London, as well as in the dryer air of New York. The same may be said of DION BOUCICAULT, whose latest piece, with a change of names, would be equally effective as an incident of the Franco-German war as it now is in the lurid light of the American Rebellion. Without a thought of disparagement toward any of the playwrights of our own time, it may be truly said that not one of them has hitherto produced a dramatic work that possesses a distinctively American character in addition to other positive merits. Perhaps it is asking too much that a novel or poem should be national as well as artistic. We have a multitude of good American novels; the American novel may never be written. Perhaps it is just as well that it should not be; nay, more, perhaps it is impossible. BRET HARTE has given us one dramatic phase of American life and manners. He promises as much for the American stage.
But in the production of the play of "The Gilded Age" Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, better known as "Mark Twain," has made a long stride toward the American drama. For the first time, we believe, truly national characteristics have been brought out on the stage in high relief, and without offensive coarseness or extravagance. We do not lose sight of "Rip Van Winkle" or "Solon Shingle," both excellent in their way. But one of these is essentially old-world, and the other is merely a sketch. The title of MR. CLEMENS' play is meaningless; it was well enough for the book from which the piece has sprung, but it has slight significance in the drama. All its characters, its motive, its humor, its pathos, and its movement are emphatically American. To say this and to say that it has dramatic unity, power, and fullness is to say a great deal. Yet all this is measurably true. The central figure is the visionary American speculator, who sees "millions" in wild land, corn, hogs, railway jobs, steamboats, and eye-water. A too common social scandal, involving the shooting of a "destroyer" by an injured woman, emphasizes the local dramatic action; and Congressional lobbying and appropriations for internal improvements round out the distinctively national characteristics of the piece. The dialogue, though often "talky," is smart and brisk. The humor is grotesque and extravagant—as all American humor must be.
Here, then, we recognize a truly American work. It is of native authorship, color, motive, flavor, and humor. It is worth while that we should go out of our way, as it might appear, to speak of an achievement that is so unusual and that deserves so well of an American public. How much superior it is to the artificial and unnatural plays that are chiefly recommended to our people because in the French nastiness so often put upon our stage, some persons may perceive human motives and actual people; but, for the most part, the characters use language and obey impulses of which the world generally knows nothing whatever. "Camille" is as unreal as "The Tempest," and "Folline,""Aladdin," or "Le Diable Boiteux." With all its crudeness, "The Gilded Age" appeals to the common sense and experience, as well as the sympathies, of each spectator. Every American who knows his country knows Col. Mulberry Sellers. The quaintly courteous, hopeful, good-hearted, and self-confident Colonel is more than an American Micawber. He is Colonel Sellers. He is native born. So of the jury trial, the newspaper "boys," the land speculations, and Southern Chivalry. They are all national. They may be foibles and weaknesses, but they have too rare merit of being honest and lifelike. We do not wish to be understood as giving unqualified praise to this new work. On the contrary it has much in it that might be pruned away without loss. It may be made smoother and more artistic. But as we have said, it is a great advance in American drama. Who will give us the next?
