American Literature: Biographies

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre The Oxford Companion to American Literature Further reading

Margaret Fleming

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre | 2004 | | Copyright

Margaret Fleming (1891), a play by James A. Herne. [Palmer's Theatre, 1 perf.] Philip Fleming ( E. M. Bell), a successful and seemingly happily married manufacturer, is dismayed to learn that he has fathered a child by one of his mill girls. He resolves to keep the knowledge from his wife, Margaret ( Katherine C. Herne), who is threatened with blindness from her own recent pregnancy. Margaret's maid, Maria ( Mattie Earle), has a sister who has just had a child and is apparently dying after a troubled birth. She begs Margaret to visit the sister, and Margaret agrees. There she learns of her husband's infidelity, for the sister is Fleming's mill girl. The shock and the death of the mill girl's baby bring on the blindness that had been threatening, and Margaret deserts her husband. They meet by coincidence years later when Margaret stumbles on her own child, who is being raised by Maria. A squabble ensues, and they are hauled into the police station. There Margaret resolves to raise her own child, but never more to see Fleming. The first important American play to demonstrate Ibsen's influence, it remains a significant milestone in American dramaturgy. Because no New York producer or theatre owner would mount or book the play, the performance at Palmer's was a special matinee. Critics were sharply divided, with the Ibsenites strongly in favor and the anti‐Ibsenites vigorously opposed. Herne later revised the play, cutting it and giving it a happier ending. Although it was afterward given several important revivals, it never won over either the public or the more traditional critics. Modern critics object not to its debt to Ibsen, but to its vestiges of traditional melodrama.

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Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Margaret Fleming." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Margaret Fleming." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-MargaretFleming.html

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Margaret Fleming." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-MargaretFleming.html

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