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Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times
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Product Description
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #258367 in Books
- Published on: 2008-07-08
- Released on: 2008-07-08
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 336 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780802716989
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Quinn (Marie Curie) does a superb job of recounting the rise and fall of the Federal Theatre Project, a wing of FDR's WPA meant to employ playwrights and actors while providing diversion and inspiration for Depression-ravaged Americans. Quinn shows how, under the management of the irrepressible Hallie Flanagan, the left-leaning FTP facilitated such controversial masterpieces as Triple-A Plowed Under and The Cradle Will Rock while unintentionally setting the stage for the House Un-American Activities Committee and much of the red-baiting and blacklisting of the 1940s and '50s. The Daily Worker applauded FTP projects such as a dramatization of Sinclair Lewis's antifascist novel, It Can't Happen Here. Among the actors, directors and writers sponsored by the program were John Houseman, Orson Welles, Will Geer and Meyer Levin. Experimentation thrived: Welles oversaw an all-black production of a voodoo version of Macbeth that played Broadway and toured nationwide. All of this Quinn describes eloquently and artfully, summoning a not-so-distant time when a nation bled and great artists rushed as healers into the countryside. B&w photos. (July)
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From Booklist
It’s often said that politics is theater, and theater certainly is political, especially in times of extreme hardship and tumult. Quinn illuminates both sides of the coin in this energetic and adeptly detailed account of the remarkable achievements of the Federal Theatre Project, one particularly vital facet of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s altogether revolutionary Works Progress Administration. A celebrated biographer, Quinn relishes the complex temperaments of the key players, beginning with the outspoken head of the WPA, Harry Hopkins, and Hallie Flanagan, the spitfire director of Vassar College’s influential experimental theater who took on the complex, unprecedented national program and broke new sociopolitical and artistic ground. Paralleling the ravages of the Depression with daring advances onstage, Quinn tracks the rapid coalescence of each wildly controversial production, most famously Orson Welles’ “voodoo” Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, and charts the arc from electrifying theatrical successes to the crushing attacks of the HUAC. Much more than the sum of its fascinating parts, Quinn’s history couldn’t be timelier as we face yet another time of economic hardship. --Donna Seaman
Review
?Quinn illuminates both sides of the coin in this energetic and adeptly detailed account of the remarkable achievements of the Federal Theatre Project?. A celbrated biographer, Quinn relishes the complex temperaments of the key playrs.... Much more than the sum of its fascinating parts, Quinn?s history couldn?t be timelier as we face yet another time of economic hardship.??Booklist
"Quinn?s well-written narrative is both fascinating and frightening as politics and idealism come to metaphorical blows with the rise of Martin Dies...Recommended for all large public libraries and all academic libraries.??Library Journal (starred review)
?Insightful, judiciously selective history of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), the most controversial branch of the New Deal?s Works Progress Administration (WPA)."?Kirkus Reviews
?Susan Quinn has already proven herself a master at depicting the lives of exceptional women, and in Hallie Flanagan she has found a compelling successor to her previous subjects, Marie Curie and Karen Horney. As the head of the New Deal?s glorious but doomed Federal Theatre Project, Flanagan is the protagonist of a neglected chapter in the pivotal Roosevelt years. With a cast of period icons ranging from Harry Hopkins to Orson Welles, Quinn's vibrant narrative exposes the myriad ?-isms? ?racism, sexism, communism, fascism?defying the birthright of a young democracy whose survival was still very much in question. A provocative reminder of how consistent our national conflicts remain.? ?Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home
?Gore Vidal refers to our country as the United States of Amnesia. It is urgent that everyone read this remarkable book about the extraordinary work that took place under FDR?s guidance, when an entire population was rescued from unemployment. And more extraordinary than that was the inclusion of artists and theater people. This is unique in our country?s history. This book demonstrates that better than any other." ?Ellen Adler, daughter of Stella Adler and granddaughter of the great Yiddish actor Jacob Adler
?Susan Quinn has gifted us with a key moment in the history of F.D.R.?s New Deal. Especially thrilling and revelatory is the work of the Arts Project of the WPA. Not only were there rakes and shovels, jobs and food for family, there was exhilarating and hopeful theatre, music, and painting, lifting our spirits. They gave us all hope.??Studs Terkel
?This fine book combines elements of political history, theater lore, and a saga of social justice. In showing us a rare triumph of bold artists in league with brave public servants, Quinn rescues the idea that the imagination and government can be friends instead of strangers. Our times are desperate, too, and Furious Improvisation comes at just the right moment.??James Carroll, author House of War and Constantine?s Sword
?Susan Quinn?s Furious Improvisation is a fascinating account of a fleeting moment in American history when the U.S. government felt some obligation to provide work for its more indigent citizens, including artists. Hallie Flanagan, the heroine of this book, emerges as a true saint of the theatre?passionate, visionary, and inspired. Well-written and thoroughly engrossing.??Robert Brustein, founder Yale Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, and theater critic for the New Republic
?A brilliant, riveting account of the most tempestuous times in American history and the woman at the dramatic and dangerous center of the maelstrom.??Barbara Goldsmith, author Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last and Obsessive Genius
Customer Reviews
Passionately written wonderful read
There are writers who can give us an accurate account of a time in history, and then there are those rare and gifted ones who can take us by the hand and deliver us to the sights, sounds, politics and emotions of another time. Susan Quinn is such an author, and it is no wonder she receives starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and others for this wonderful book. Quinn's tales of Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theatre Project are vital, colorful and immediate, almost as if you are reading their stories in today's paper. The courage and creativity of Flanagan and others participating in this great experiment are vividly portrayed. I could feel the hunger and dust of the Great Depression in my own throat. Susan Quinn's book is amazingly well-researched and full of great photos, but what makes it special is the passion with which it is written. Furious Improvisations is just right for readers seeking an inspiring, true story taken from the pages of our nation's history. I highly recommend it!
Heartfelt Drama
In the story of Hallie Flanagan, Susan Quinn explores a transformative movement in American theater history. A young widow blessed with drive and confidence and luck in love and friendship, Flanagan organized the New Deal's Federal Theatre Project. She fostered liberal ideals: theater of the people and for the people, drama that was immediate and commented on politics, that dealt with situations, including those faced by immigrants and African-Americans, that reflected the range of the American experience. Quinn's meticulous research brings the enterprise vividly to life; it achieved enormous successes, while its boldness made fatal enemies. Hallie Flanagan's project left a legacy of openness and inclusiveness that persists today; Quinn's book is an important contribution to American cultural history.
A backstage view
There are many stories of the government's response to the crisis of the depression, and even many that tell how writers were served (and how in turn they created a lasting legacy), but Susan Quinn fills an important gap by giving us the story of the federal theatre project and the lifeline it threw to actors, playwrights, directors, producers, and many others for whom the stage was everything. Focusing on the extraordinary Hallie Flanagan, who ran the project over its brief four-year lifespan, Quinn brings the characters, the politics, and the associated temperaments to life. Prominent in her engrossing story is the important effect of the program on audiences across the country, many of whom lived far from cities where plays were traditionally performed. And highly relevant to our time is the difficulty - perhaps impossibility - of balancing artistic autonomy against political sensitivities. Quinn has a delicious story to tell, and she delivers it with confidence, nuance, and panache.
