The Enchanted Years of the Stage: Kansas City at the Crossroads of American Theater, 1870-1930

Reviewer: Deborah Ground Buckner

The settlement of the American frontier brings to mind images of weary horses and oxen pulling Conestoga wagons. Taking only the items essential for building a new life (with, perhaps, a few special treasures tucked inside), pioneers made the trek west and began to build communities. Once the priorities of shelter, churches, and schools were established, theatres followed. In The Enchanted Years of the Stage: Kansas City at the Crossroads of American Theater, 1870-1930 (University of Missouri Press, 2007; 327 pp.), Felicia Hardison Londre tells the story of the development and impact of the theatre on the cultural life of a frontier town. Long-time drama and music editor of the Kansas City Times and Kansas City Journal newspapers D. Austin Latchaw recorded a sixty-chapter memoir of the theatre and stars he witnessed beginning in 1886. Londre's book incorporates Latchaw's work, supplementing his recollections with historical information and anecdotes gleaned from many other sources. The result is a story as enchanting as its subject. Anyone living in or traveling to Kansas City, Missouri, will find Londre's stories of the historical names and the architecture behind the early theatres of the town of special interest. But Londre has written for a far wider audience. The study of one particular city gives a view of the experiences nineteenth-century actors had in many cities as they toured across the American frontier. Actors who performed in Kansas City's enchanted years include Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, James O'Neil, Maude Adams, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Edwin Forrest, Joseph Jefferson, Sir Henry Irving, Lotta Crabtree, Lillie Langtry, the Marx Brothers, George M. Cohan, Eddie Foy,, Paul Robeson, Fannie Brice, and many, many others. The experiences of Kansas City are representative of the theatre of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries across America. Though there are a few lapses into academic writing, the book remains a very readable work, including many of Latchaw's anecdotes in his own words. Careful annotation and a thorough index make this a handy reference volume as well for anyone studying a particular actor or play.

Felica Hardison Londre is Curators' Professor of Theatre at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Former Resident Dramaturg with the Missouri Repertory Theatre, she is also the author of eleven previous books.