Pardon
our Dust
Percy
Mackaye (1875-1956)Playwright, Biographer
Son of the famous James Steele Mackaye, Percy Mackaye was born in New York City and raised in a theatrical household. His mother, Mary Medbery, had adapted Pride and Prejudice for the stage. Even before he attended Harvard College, young Percy, a precocious talent, had composed a series of choral songs for his father's Spectatorium project intended for the Chicago Exposition of 1893 . When he was a junior at Harvard, he wrote a verse drama Sappho, which was performed by students from Harvard and Wellesley. Following graduation, he took the almost obligatory two years abroad before returning to New York in 1900 to teach in a private school and write plays. His first success as a playwright came when E. H. Sothern accepted his Canterbury Tales in 1903 and in 1904 turned his full attention to playwriting.
The unproduced "Fenris, the Wolf" (1904) is a sweeping verse tale resembling the Norse epics. Fenris, the wolf god desires his brother Baldur's betrothed Freya and tries to win her. Odin decides to turn the trio and himself into humans. He becomes a priest, Ingimund; Fenris becomes the hunter/werewolf Egil; Baldur, the dwarf Arfi; and Freya, Ingimund's daughter Thordis. In his macho attempt to win Freya, Egil sweeps aside even his own brother, but ultimately makes an heroic sacrifice. Still, like many first works, the play lacks a clear focus and, while the verse occasionally springs to life, it is generally not up to Mackaye's later work.
Jeanne D'Arc (1905) was produced in the 1906-7 season by E. H. Sothern.
The Scarecrow, based on a short
story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Feathertop",
was first performed by the Harvard Dramatic Club, and produced professionally
at the Middlesex Theatre, Middletown, Connecticut (1910) and transfered
to the Garrick Theatre, New York 1911.. His Sapho and Phaon, a
Greekish tragedy in three acts, was produced at the Lyric Theatre, New
York, October 21, 1907, with Bertha Kalich in the role of Sapho.
Mackaye's most distinctive contribution to the art of the theatre was in his extensive work in pageants and masques.
In addition to his plays, Mr. Mackaye is the author of The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, a prose rendering of the prologue and ten tales. An avid medievalist, Mackaye's work reflects this preoccupation.
Works
for and about the Theatre:
PLAYS:
The Canterbury Tales, a Comedy (1903)
Jeanne D'Arc, A Tragedy (1906)
Sappho and Phaon, A Tragedy (1907)
The Scarecrow, A
Tragedy of the Ludicrous (1908)
A Garland to Sylvia, A Dramatic Reverie
Kinfolk of Robin Hood, A Play for Children
Mater, An American Study in Comedy (1908)
Anti-Matrimony, A Satirical Comedy (1910)
Tomorrow, A Play in Three Acts (1912)
Yankee Fantasies, Five One-Act Folk Plays (1912)
A Thousand Years Ago, A Romance of the Orient (1914)
Washington, the Man Who Made Us, A Ballad Play (1919)
This Fine Pretty World, A Kentucky Mountain Comedy (1923)
Napoleon Crossing the Rockies, A Kentucky Mountain Play (1924)
MASQUES AND PAGEANTS::
Gloucester Pageant (1903)
Saint Gaudens Masque-Prologue (1909)
Caliban, A Masque on the Art of the Theatre
(1916)
Saint Louis, A Masque of the American Civilization
Sanctuary, A Bird Masque (1913)
The New Citizenship, A Civic Ritual (1915)
The Evergreen Tree, A Christmas Masque (1917)
The Roll Call, A Masque of the Red Cross (1918)
The Will of Song, A Ritual of Community Singing (1919)
The Pilgrim and the Book, A Dramatic Service
OPERAS:
The Immigrants, A Tragedy (1915)
The Canterbury Pilgrims, A Comedy (1916)
Sinbad
the Sailor, A Fantasy (1917)
Rip Van Winkle, A Legend (1919)
ESSAYS:
The Playhouse and the Play
The Civic Theatre
A Substitute for War
Community Drama, An Interpretation
Epoch, The LIfe of Steele Mackaye in Relation to His Times and Contemporaries,
(1927) a two volume biography of his father, Steele
Mackaye