Opening page, typed, of "Tobacco Road," by Erskine Caldwell, signed. No date.

From Page to Stage II

Tobacco Road

In 1932, Southern novelist Erskine Caldwell wrote the provocative novel Tobacco Road, which depicted the underbelly of the 1930s rural South-the poverty and the physical and emotional starvation. Adapted for the stage by Jack Kirkland the following year, Tobacco Road ran for 3,182 performances for over seven years, making it the longest-running Broadway drama up to that time. Controversy surrounded the play; critics assailed it as immoral and repulsive, but the public was titillated by the plot and language. In a note in the published version of the play, Caldwell wrote:

In the course of Tobacco Road's slow progress it opened on a windy December night in New York. Those men of America who constitute the critical gentry published the following day in columns deep their indignation. The people on the stage behaved like animals; the play was inept, clumsy, and rudderless; there was too much dust on the stage; the play was too snickery to watch; there was no Southern dialect spoken; it was ruttish and blabby...Jack Kirkland has dramatized Tobacco Road in the manner in which, were I myself a playwright, I should have liked to do it. He has followed the novel from beginning to end just as it was written. I like his work so well that I have just about made up my mind to suggest that I trade him my novel for his play.

This photograph was taken on the night that Mayor Kelly closed the play.

Kirkland, Jack. Tobacco Road, A Three Act Play by Jack Kirkland, from the Novel by Erskine Caldwell. New York: Viking, 1934.

Typed letter, signed, from Theodore Dreiser to the Pulitzer Prize Committee. 1 February 1934.

Life mask of John Steinbeck, cast by Ritch Lovejoy. 1934.

Of Mice and Men

American novelist John Steinbeck wrote three plays during his literary career. Two of the plays dramatized his previously written novels, and all three plays were written in, what Steinbeck termed, the "play-novelette" format. In describing this form, Steinbeck said,

It is a play that is easy to read or a short novel that can be played simply by lifting out the dialogue. It gives a play a wide chance of being read and a piece of fiction a chance of being played without the usual revision. I think it is a legitimate form and one that can stand a great deal of exploration.

As Steinbeck's first playwriting attempt, he adapted his novel Of Mice and Men. Produced by George S. Kaufman, the play opened November 23, 1937, at the Music Box Theatre in New York, running for 207 performances. This drama won Steinbeck the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play of the 1937-1938 season.

Autograph postcard, signed, from John Steinbeck to Wilbur Needham. [26 May 1936].

Steinbeck writes to the critic, regarding the adaptation Of Mice and Men, 

I'm going into training to write for the theatre which seems to be waking up. I have some ideas for new dramatic form which I'm experimenting with. Of course I don't know yet whether I am capable of writing for the theatre. Just have to learn.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men: A Play in Three Acts. New York: Covici-Friede, 1937.

Copy is inscribed "For George and Beatrice Kaufman: I wish I could have written as good a play as you directed. John Steinbeck."

All items displayed in this section from the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature.