It Cannot Happen Here

“Written? Too mild a word. The play was created by polygenesis.”
- Hallie Flanagan, Arena
Telegrams …

Denver: WHERE IS REVISED VERSION ACT THREE LEWIS PLAY RUSH IMMEDIATELY.

Chicago: NEW ENDING REVISED ACT THREE LEWIS PLAY DOES NOT MAKE SENSE PLEASE ADVISE

Tampa: SPANISH COMPANY RESTIVE CANNOT LEARN LINES BY OCTOBER 27 UNLESS RECEIVE FULL TEXT PLAY IMMEDIATELY

San Francisco: OBJECT TO CUTTING WHITE HOUSE SCENE ONLY GOOD SCENE LEWIS PLAY

Nebraska: PERSON IN HIGH PLACE CONSIDERS WHITE HOUSE SCENE QUOTE ILL-ADVISED UNQUOTE LETTER FOLLOWS

Los Angeles: MAKING SUPERHUMAN EFFORTS TO MEET OCTOBER 27 LEWIS PLAY STOP IMPERATIVE HAVE NO MORE REVISIONS STOP STOP

William Watts, San Francisco production director …

The chief obstacle was the script itself - because of its hurried and superficial writing.

Orders from Washington to all productions …

… avoid all controversial issues - political angles of any degree - special appeals - racial or group appeals - or inferences in any of these directions, since Federal Theatre is interested only in presenting good theatre, neither adapting nor assuming any viewpoint beyond presenting a new and vital drama of our times, emerging from the social and economic forces of the day …

Also forbidden in most positive terms are any references to any foreign power, any policy of a foreign power, the personalities of any foreign power or government; any comparison between the United States and any specific foreign power, system, personality, etc. Our business is with a play of our time and country by a great writer of our time and country and our job is wholly a job of theatre.

A phone call from Sinclair Lews on the morning of October 25 …

I haven’t slept all night - for the matter of that as yiou know I haven’t slept for weeks. Nobody can say I haven’t given everything to the Federal Theatre … Now it is all terrible - everybody has gone into a coma … I want you to get right on the train and come to New York and postpone the play a week and get new people to do everything, or do it yourself. It is all terrible. It is all a failure.

Dorothea Lynch, Florida Project director …

We didn’t have the last act until it was just about the time to start. Then it came, without who was to say what.

Telegram evening of October 27 …

Cleveland: RESPONSIVE AUDIENCE KEYING UP FOR PERFORMANCE APPLAUSE AFTER FIRST ACT TREMENDOUS

The Plain Dealer - October 28
Sometimes it moves slowly, but it moves. On the whole it is a satisfactory production of a propaganda play that is worth doing.
- William McDermott

Sources:
Arena by Hallie Flanagan (1940)
Showtime In Cleveland
Free, Adult, Uncensored

It Can't Happen Here

"It Can't Happen Here" is a semi-satirical political novel by Sinclair Lewis published in 1935. It features newspaperman Doremus Jessup struggling against the fascist regime of President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip. In 1936, Lewis and John C. Moffitt wrote a stage version which is still produced. The stage version premiered on October 27, 1936 in several U.S. cities simultaneously, in productions sponsored by the Federal Theater Project. - Wikipedia

Complete text at Project Gutenberg

The play opened in 18 different cities, including a Cleveland production at the Carter Theater on East 9th Street, directed by Theodore Veihman. This production brought the story from Vermont to central Ohio, and included references to Akron and Cleveland.

The three-week run featured the Federal Music Project Marching Band on its sold-out opening night, and critic William McDermott (no fan of the FTP) wrote in the Plain Dealer that the show "sometimes moves slowly, but it moves." - Showtime in Cleveland

"We Want to do 'It Can't Happen Here' because it is a play by one of our most distinguished American writers. We want to do it because it is a play about American life today, based on a passionate belief in American democracy.

The play says that when dictatorship comes to threaten such a democracy, it comes in a harmless guise, with parades and promises; but that when such dictatorship arrives, the promises are not kept and the parade grounds become encampments.

We want to do 'It Can't Happen Here' because, like Doremus Jessup and his creator, Sinclair Lewis, we, as American citizens and as workers in a theatre sponsored by the government of the United States, should like to do what we can to keep alive the 'free, inquiring, critical spirit' which is the center and core of a democracy."

- Hallie Flanagan from "Free, adult, uncensored: The living history of the Federal Theatre Project"

Would you know a dictatorship coming if you saw one? I mean ... really?