The Melting Pot (play)
The Melting Pot is a play by Israel Zangwill, first staged in 1908. It depicts the life of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family, the Quixanos. David Quixano has survived a pogrom, which killed his mother and sister, and he wishes to forget this horrible event. He composes an "American Symphony" and wants to look forward to a "melting pot" society free of ethnic divisions and hatred, rather than backward at his traumatic past.
The hero of the play proclaims : "There she lies, the great Melting Pot--listen! Can't you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth [_He points east_]--the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,--black and yellow-" VERA: "Jew and Gentile-" DAVID: "Yes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, the pole and the equator, the crescent and the cross--how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God. Ah, Vera, what is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races come to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all races and nations come to labour and look forward!" ."[1]
Although the idea of "melting" as a metaphor for ethnic assimilation had been used before, Zangwill's play popularized the term "melting pot" as a symbol for this occurrence in American society.[2]
The Melting Pot opened at the Comedy Theatre in New York on September 6, 1909, and ran for 136 performances. It was produced by Liebler & Co. and staged (directed) by Hugh Ford. Walker Whiteside played David and Chrystal Herne (daughter of James A. Herne) played Vera.[3][4] When the play opened in Washington D.C. on October 5, 1909, former President Theodore Roosevelt leaned over the edge of his box and shouted, "That's a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that's a great play."[5][6]
The hero of the play, David, emigrates to America in the wake of the 1903 Kishinev pogrom in which his entire family is killed. He writes a great symphony called "The Crucible" expressing his hope for a world in which all ethnicity has melted away, and falls in love with a beautiful Russian Christian immigrant named Vera. The dramatic peak of the play is the moment when David meets Vera's father, who turns out to be the Russian officer responsible for the annihilation of David's family. Vera's father admits his guilt, the symphony is performed to accolades, David and Vera live happily ever after, or, at least, agree to wed and kiss as the curtain falls.
Contents
Revival
The play received a production at New York's Metropolitan Playhouse in March 2006.
References
- ↑ The Melting Pot, e-book, Gutenberg Project
- ↑ Sollors, Werner. Beyond Ethnicity; Consent and Descent in American Culture. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. 1986. p.66.
- ↑ Burns Mantle and Garrison P. Sherwood, eds., The Best Plays of 1909-1919, (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company), 1933, p. 399.
- ↑ The Melting Pot, IBDB:Internet Broadway Database, http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=6834.
- ↑ Guy Szuberla, "Zangwill's The Melting Pot Plays Chicago," MELUS, Vol. 20, No. 3, History and Memory. (Autumn, 1995), pp. 3-20.
- ↑ #Leftwich57
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Sources
- Edna Nahshon, From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill’s Jewish Plays, (Wayne State University Press), 2006. ISBN 978-0-8143-2955-9
External links
- <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/> The Melting Pot at Project Gutenbergno:The Melting Pot
