Rachel Crothers

Background

Crothers was born on December 12, 1878 in Bloomington, Illinois, to Dr. Eli Kirk Crothers and Dr. Marie Louise (de Pew) Crothers. Crothers' mother, an independent-minded woman whose father had been friends with Abraham Lincoln, went to medical school at forty and became one of the first woman physicians in Illinois, encountering and eventually overcoming much opposition to her practice in Bloomington.

Education

She graduated from Illinois State Normal School and commenced writing plays at an early age. After some stage training in New England School of Dramatic Instruction in Boston (1892), she attended the Stanhope-Wheatcroft School of Acting, New York (1897), where she later became an instructor.

Career

Rachel Crothers started her career as an Elocution teacher in Bloomington, Illinois in 1892-1896. From 1897 to 1901 she was a teacher at Stanhope-Wheatcroft School in New York. Later she directed and staged her plays.

While at the school she wrote and produced several one-act plays. Her first full-length play, “Nora” (1906), was a failure, but “The Three of Us,” produced in the same year, was an immediate success. She wrote and directed more than 30 plays, the majority of them successful. She constructed light and amusing plays based on topical subjects, usually of moral and domestic problems as they affect women, and each representative of its particular period. They fall into the category of the "well-made play," relying on a somewhat conventional plot. “Susan and God” (1937), produced as a starring vehicle for British actress Gertrude Lawrence, is generally considered her best play. Among the others are: “Once Upon a Time” (1918), “Nice People” (1921), and “Let Us Be Gay” (1929).

Having originally intended to become a professional actress, Rachel Crothers eventually spent four decades as one of the leading playwrights of the twentieth century. Known for her commentary on social problems, Crothers was one of the first writers to favor serious issues over poetry in her work. By the time of her death in 1958, she had written twenty-four plays produced in New York. Most of these were highly successful, due to Crothers’ vast experience in the field. As stated by Louis Gottlieb in his biography, Rachel Crothers, she “deserves regard and attention as an important contributor to the evolution of modern American drama.”

Throughout her life, Crothers was inspired by her mother, who was a physician at a time when it was difficult for a woman to gain acceptance in the field of medicine. By the time she reached her early teens, Crothers had already begun to discover her talent for writing. Her first play, which she wrote, directed, and produced, was “Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining: The Ruined Merchant.” In 1891, she graduated from Illinois State University Normal High School, where she had sometimes ignored her studies to concentrate on her role in the Bloomington Dramatic Club. After studying elocution for one term at the New England School of Dramatic Instruction in Boston, Crothers was determined to pursue an acting career.

Having been persuaded by her family to return home to Bloomington, Crothers taught elocution until she was able to leave for New York to pursue her dream. While attending the Stanhope-Wheatcroft School of Acting, she became an instructor for several years and acted with the Lyceum Stock Company. While she held her teaching position, Crothers wrote several plays that were acted by the students at the school. This experience in play production proved quite useful in her career as a professional playwright. After the “New York Times” reviewed “The Rector”, one of Crothers’ early works, she decided to try her hand at writing a play that would be successful on Broadway.

Crothers achieved this goal with “The Three of Us” in 1906 and gave up her teaching position to work in the theater full time. Crothers oversaw the entire production of her plays, serving as both writer and director. This was unusual in the early 1900s, and it was even more surprising that a woman was performing these functions. Crothers played the lead in “He and She” in 1920, taking an even more complete role in her work. When she was not busy acting, writing, or producing, Crothers devoted much of her lime to assisting those less fortunate members of the theater. Forming the United Theatre Relief Committee at the time of the Depression, she also founded the Stage Relief Fund, which would eventually raise roughly $800,000 for those in need. Crothers’ dedication to helping others did not end there; she established the American Theatre Wing for War Relief, the organization that formed the Stage Door Canteen in the 1940s.

“The Three of Us” was one of Crothers’ first plays to center around a woman who desired the freedom to live her life as she pleased. This type of woman was at the time generally called the “New Woman,” and Crothers was known for illustrating the social difficulties caused by a woman’s search for liberation. Rhy MacChesney, the “New Woman” in “The Three of Us,” is left to support herself and her younger brothers. Accepting her responsibility, she believes that since she is performing the duties of a man, she should be given credit for her efforts. Rhy is denied the respect she deserves, and when she is found in a questionable situation with Louis Berresford, the antagonist of the drama, her actions are deplored by Stephen Townley, her love interest. Feeling betrayed by his attitude, she tells him that he would treat her differently if she were a man. After being told by the men in town that she should wed Berresford to avoid ruining her reputation, Rhy denounces both men and declares that she can manage her affairs. The Three of Us effectively introduced a new female role model to American theater, and it was awarded much acclaim by the critics of the time.

Having turned her efforts toward comedy for several years, Crothers resumed her commentary on the progress of women with the advent of the flapper in the 1920s. “Nice People,” produced in 1921, chronicles the life of Teddy Gloucester. Teddy fervently believes that she has the right to do whatever she desires, including dancing and drinking. However, by the end of the play, Teddy reforms, an act which earned Crothers great criticism from those who felt that it would be far more likely for Teddy to continue on her downward spiral. Crothers explained that she viewed Teddy as she viewed the young women of the time, and said that she felt that in time they would return to a more traditional way of life.

In 1923, Crothers again examined the life of a flapper, this time with “Mary the Third,” the tale of a woman who proposes to go on a trip with her two suitors in order to determine which one she should marry, but is forced to abandon her plan in the face of her family’s horrified reaction to her plan. Her conviction that people should make an effort to learn about one another before marriage has been formed by her observations of her mother’s marriage and her disbelief in her grandmother’s assertion that a man’s only function is to be maneuvered by his wife. Her belief that love is the most important tiling in a person’s life finally transfers to her mother, who proceeds to divorce Mary’s father. Mary eventually chooses her fiancé, and they form a contract deciding the guidelines of their union and agree that if they fall out of love they will divorce. Having rationally begun their marriage, the couple then succumbs to the same forces of romance that were the downfall of Mary’s mother and grandmother. “Mary the Third” earned the critical praise that was not attained by “Nice People,” and Crothers began to turn toward social comedies at the end of the century, depicting a more mature female character after the crash of the stock market in 1929.

From 1929 to 1937, Crothers enjoyed great success with her sophisticated social critiques, winning the Mergrue Prize for Comedy for “When Ladies Meet,” a story of sexual indulgence, in 1933. In 1937, her longest-running play, “Susan and God,” was produced. Unlike “When Ladies Meet,” “Susan and God” do not deal with sexuality; the play instead examines the consequences of self-absorption. Susan Trexel, the main character, joins a religious sect on a trip abroad and begins to urge her companions to convert. Her new religion has brought her much attention, and she leaves her husband under the pretext of beginning a career as an evangelist. This causes her husband, an alcoholic, to reform to win back his wife. Eventually realizing that Susan is not sincere and is only attempting to draw more attention to herself, he berates her and leaves. Realizing her mistakes, Susan vows to better herself with the help of her husband, who has come back to her. Voted the season’s exceptional production by the Theatre Club in 1938, “Susan and God” was considered by E. V. Wyatt of Catholic World to be “the best play Miss Rachel Crothers has ever written.”

Crothers achieved both popular and critical success, earning a reputation for the social commentary in her plays.

Achievements

• She was a playwright whose works, which were highly successful commercially, reflected the position of women in American society more accurately than those of any other dramatist of her time.
  
  Rachel Crothers opened doors for women in the theater before World War II.
  
  On April 25, 1939, Crothers was awarded the Chi Omega sorority national achievement award by Eleanor Roosevelt, a gold medal award given “to an American woman of notable accomplishments in the professions, public affairs, art, letters, business and finance, or education. "

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Three Of Us: A Play In Four Acts

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

    1916
  • Let Us Be Gay 1929
  • A Man's World: A Play in Four Acts
  • Expressing Willie 1925
  • When ladies meet 1949

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• According to Judith E. Barlow, “Contemporary Women Dramatists,” Crothers’ “problem plays and comedies combine a genuine sense of what works on stage with a thoughtful investigation of such serious issue.”

Interests

• philanthropist, activist

Connections

She was never married.

Father:

Dr. Eli Kirk Crothers

Mother:

Dr. Marie Louise (de Pew) Crothers

Acquaintance:

Gertrude Lawrence

References

• Rachel Crothers (Twayne's United States authors series)
• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 194
  2010