Review of Strange Duets: Impresarios and Actresses in the American Theatre, 1865-1914 by Kim Marra

Strange Duets by Kim Marra (2006). Published by University Of Iowa Press.

I’ve worked in New York City theatres for about three years now, and at the core theater I work at, New Perspectives Theatre Company, my boss has a little free library where she gives away books that she doesn’t want anymore.

When I would head up to town I would pick up some of her spare books because our focus has been women in theatre history, and a lot of these books are academic ones that I would be paying like $30 a pop if I bought themself myself.

My theatre collection is fully stocked because of my work at the theater and through the plays I’ve bought throughout the years at The Drama Bookshop around the corner.

After a year of bringing this book home and dusting it off on the section of my shelf dedicated to what I’m going to read next, I finally sat down and read this book. And I recently read Dead Wake right before starting this book, and seeing the connections between the two were wild.

One of the big theatre producers who made some of these women stars was Charles Frohman, who died during the sinking of the Lusitania—which is what Dead Wake is about.

His final moments being alive were described in that book in such a poignant way that it stuck with me (he had limited mobility, and as the ship went down, the man probably died fairly quickly since he couldn’t swim and he had the damage of something heavy falling on him).

Anyways, onwards with the review! I’ve rambled enough already.

A survey of the American theatre scene from 1865-1914 through the leading ladies of the era.

I wanted to read this book specifically not only because of my work in women’s history, but also because of the fact I didn’t know much about the time period specified. I would say that we don’t really dwell on the before the 1880s part of the history, and the vast majority of this book takes place dwelling on the period directly after that.

We spend quite a bit of time talking about the likes of Maude Adams and those who rose to prominence on the stage in the 1900s.

Often in this time frame, theatre was likened to vaudeville and it didn’t look like the Broadway and theatre world we knew today. Marra specifically points out some of the bigger names during the time who helped establish these theaters that broke outside of the norm, which, of course, were run by men.

We have Charles Frohman, who brought Peter Pan and other English and French plays to American audiences at the time, essentially becoming one of the best known men in New York City theater. Then we have David Belasco, who started in San Francisco then brought his companies out east.

It was through these men and their partnerships with leading actresses that we get the content and history that’s often untold. We learn about great men like these in school but only note the actresses as an afterthought.

This book shows us they had thoughts and feelings about the productions too, and they often had input, sometimes running the show in certain ways when no one else had similar power.

It’s these contributions that are so important and brushed off when they shouldn’t be, as they helped create the canon of American drama in the contemporary age.

Considering Frohman’s gay and was a well-known gay in the New York City circles, it was nice to get a glimpse into what actresses were also queer at the time.

Societal norms and the shock value of seeing actresses in certain costumes at the time are also brought up in this book, which I find to be important cultural touchstones to note while flipping through.

Marra weaves together intersectional themes to bring up the role of women in theatre, as there’s also quite a bit touching on the class divides happening during the time as well.

Overall Thoughts

It was definitely a worthwhile read for me! I don’t think I would read this casually again, which is why I picked it up, but I will be holding onto my copy for a bit so I can have it on hand for my academic work.

My interests, as I mentioned before, coming into this was seeing how interconnected everything was, so I would like to take it a step further and read about theater in the World War eras, specifically what was happening in the Americas.

I read this in less than three days, so it was pretty easy to get through. All in all, the bibliography also has some interesting sources for those who need to weed through it academically.

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