John Durang: Man of the American Stage By Lynn Matluck Brooks

One of the pleasures of this research has been the person it revealed, expressed most fully in Durang’s Memoir, a delightful document. The original manuscript, held at the York County Heritage Trust in York, Pennsylvania, is beautiful. Durang’s handwriting is full and neat, the drawings are richly colored and vibrant, and the notations by Durang’s son Charles are additionally informative, a preview of Charles’s valuable History of the Philadelphia Stage. Durang filled each page of his notebook carefully, wasting no sheets, for he was a frugal man. Yet his prudence was always—in his Memoir and in his life—balanced by pride in his accomplishments and enthusiasm for the theater and for life. George Seilhamer, in his History of the American Theatre, remarks that Durang’s “diary” was “probably imaginary.”² What prompted Seilhamer to such a comment I cannot say, but having investigated Durang’s references closely, I can state that the Memoir is far from make-believe. There are chronological confusions—dates were not Durang’s strong point—but there is no invention here. Durang wrote of what he did, what he experienced. Corroboration of his statements by other evidence—newspapers, contemporary reports, and trustworthy chronologies—has proven that he very much knew what he was talking about, that he was an astute observer of the life and theater around him, and that he was well aware of social and cultural trends shaping the times in which he lived. Durang’s position in the bowels of the theater—for he was no star—gave him an insider’s perspective. Watching from the wings was a station with which he was well familiar, and this vantage point gives us a peek at the stage that few documents from this period afford.

Durang’s spelling, although not standard, was an aspect of his language use, which was, I believe, an issue in his participation in the theater. In quotations taken from Durang’s Memoir, I leave spelling as it was in the original, without change and with few acknowledgments of error (such as “sic”), in order to reveal the flow of the language and of Durang’s thoughts. Durang’s writing is evocative, sometimes rich in feeling, and full of information. Although this information needs to be placed in context to be fully appreciated, I felt it would eviscerate the man who Durang was if I “updated” and “corrected” his writing. Durang