George Cram Cook is said to have had the driving vision that solidified the Provincetown Player’s importance in American drama. Born October 7, 1873, Cook shared the “pioneer” theme throughout his life with Susan Glaspell, with whom he co-founded the Provincetown Players. Much of Cook’s life was dedicated to making the past important to the now, an interminable search for his “New Athens,” and a thorough distaste for professionalism that made him a distinct and unforgettable part of theater in the 1920s and 30s.

Background and Influences

George “Jig” Cram Cook spent much of his young life developing a hatred for the middle class tendencies of his day. Belonging to a relatively affluent family, Cook was not oppressed or in constant economic strife, and as a result of the very middle class tendencies he hated, he received a broad and enviable education. In research for his first novel, Roderick Taliaferro, George Cram Cook studied at University of Iowa (where he later taught for years), Harvard, Heidelberg, Geneva and Florence. Thirsting for literature, his love for books lead seamlessly to the job he acquired in Chicago as a reviewer for the Evening Post’s, Friday Review. Chicago was where people flocked to in order to flee “the staid small town in order to give expression to their artistic longings,” but as times changed, so did Cook’s residence. When the avant-garde scene changed to being centralized in Greenwich Village, Cook joined with the masses in New York. “Here his vision of an artistic flowering became a reality in the Provincetown Players.”

Accomplishments in American Theater (1920s and 1930s)

As a small boy, Jig revered the civilization of ancient Greece. “He saw the same integrity, heroism, and democratic spirit in Greece that he associated with pioneer life in America.” With American pioneer spirit and ancient Greek civilization as evidence, Cook felt it possible to build a unified culture with “artisans and the workaday” come together to create an artistic climate where heritage created a strong basis for art. He saw this vision encapsulated by the development of the Provincetown Players, a possibility for his proclaimed “New Athens.”

“As the founder and leader of the Provincetown, Cook was responsible for its unique character which set it apart from the other little theaters of its day. The Provincetown had one basic aim: to give the American playwright a theater wherein he could work out every phase of his play’s production. Cook’s faith in the American playwright and his insistence on producing only original plays by native dramatists were the primary reasons for the Provincetown’s importance in American theater.”

This aim had one basic outcome: to find the one, true American playwright of the time. Yet it was this goal, once realized, that became the Provincetown’s and Cook’s ultimate demise. For George Cram Cook, it was the journey to the destination that was important. The work behind the production was what mattered most. In becoming known as the group to have discovered Eugene O’Neill, the Provincetown Players and George Cram Cook alike began their descent. Cook was keenly aware that fame would destroy the ideal that made his company distinctive. As plays were produced and shown at the playhouse for two weeks before moving uptown because of popularity, Cook decided to end the Provincetown Players with this sentiment: “Since we have failed spiritually in the elemental things-failed to pull together-failed to do what any good football or baseball team or crew do as a matter of course with no word said-and since the result of this is mediocrity, we keep our promise: We give this theater we love good death; the Provincetown Players end their story here.”

G.C. Cook Today

Perhaps one of the greatest things we can attribute to George Cram Cook today is his vision and showing the world what power a vision can have. Seen as some as a “scholar gypsy, idealist, and drunken child” and self proclaimed to be a magnificent failure,” Cook never stopped moving, wanting and seeking. His drive to actualize his dream is an inspiration and perspective on life worth looking at. With the downfall of the Provincetown Players, Cook’s move to Greece increased the eccentric take on his lifestyle, but it is there that he found more peace than in any other time of his life. His grave is marked by a stone from the Parthenon and he is seen as the most beloved of Greece’s foreign heroes, next to Byron. George Cram Cook could not accept the practical limitations of his idealism, “he wanted a modern America based on the past, be could not envision this in the middle-class temper of his day.” He leaves behind the model and the ever growing list of proof to how much a vision can change history.

Sources

Ben-Zvi, Linda. Susan Glaspell: Her Life and Times. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc, 2005.

Bogard, Travis. Countour in Time. 1988. Oxford University Press. 3 Dec 2006 <http://www.eoneill.com/library/contour/amateur/cook.htm>.

Kennedy, Jeff. Research Project about The Provincetown Playhouse. 1998. 3 Dec 2006 <http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqk2598/provincetown.html>.

Tanselle, Thomas. "George Cram Cook and the Poetry of Living, with a Checklist." Books at Iowa 24(1976) 03 Dec 2006 <http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/Bai/tanselle.htm>.

Waterman, Arthur E.. Susan Glaspell. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc, 1966.