Le Bookiniste

[Radicalism] [Theatre] We, the People: A Play in Twenty Scenes

Rice, Elmer

New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1933. First Edition, First Printing.

12mo (7 1/8 x 5 1/8 inches; 191 x 130 mm), 253, [1] pages, orange cloth, titles in black to upper board and spine, in an unclipped dust jacket.

An angry, Depression-era play that chronicles the impoverishment of a factory worker's family and shines a spotlight on the corruption of the American financial and political systems. Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times theatre critic, called the play "a bristling indictment of the American political system." (The New York Times, January 23, 1933, page 9). "We, the People" premiered at the Empire Theatre in New York on January 21, 1933. Rice himself directed the play, which consisted of 20 scenes and featured more than 40 actors.

While some critics dismissed the play as left-wing agitprop, "We, the People" was an important contribution to realism in the American theatre, showing how working-class and middle-class people were brutalized and degraded in the Depression years. Rice wrote a number of dramas with left-wing themes and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1929 for Street Scene, about New York tenement life.

CONDITION: Foxing to page edges, light soiling to end papers, and a small nick to the top of the upper board. Very Good or better in an unclipped dust jacket that is lightly sunned with a few nicks and closed tears. Item #2559

Price: $450.00