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The Apprenticeship of Robert Edmond Jones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Dana Sue McDermott
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Extract

“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument.” With this statement and related discussion Carl Jung suggested that the decision to work as an artist is involuntary; however he did not actually explain the nature of being “seized.” Working with numerous artists, reading about many others, and examining the specific example of Robert Edmond Jones, I would suggest that the artist is both seized by and seizes the innate drive and that it is a process which occurs over time. An examination of Jones's childhood, education, and early production experience reveals the complex nature of his progression toward a career as a theatre artist.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , November 1988 , pp. 193 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1988

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References

Notes

1 Jung, C.G., “Psychology and Literature,” in The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature, trans. Hull, R.F.C., exec. ed. McGuire, William (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Information here combines material from Furber, Mary Hall, “The Scene: New Hampshire, U.S.A.,” in The Theatre of Robert Edmond Jones, ed. Pendleton, Ralph (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1958), pp. 7–8Google Scholar, and my own observations from visits to the farm in December 1974 and August 1983.

3 Robert Edmond Jones, Letters to Mary Foote, 1916–1946, Private Collection of Mrs. Franz M. Oppenheimer, Washington, D.C., n.d. and June 29, 1927. Jones corresponded with Miss Foote throughout his analysis.

4 This dating is based upon combining two sources of information: Oenslager, Donald, “Introduction to the Second Edition,” Drawings for the Theatre by Jones, Robert Edmond (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1970), p. 16Google Scholar and Robert Edmond Jones, Letter to Kenneth Macgowan, n.d., Kenneth Macgowan Papers, University of California, Los Angeles.

5 Hale, Nathan G. Jr., Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876–1917 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 383–386Google Scholar.

6 Robert Edmond Jones, Letters to Kenneth Macgowan, 1926–1927, Kenneth Macgowan Papers, University of California, Los Angeles.

7 Personal interview with Donald Oenslager, January 7, 1974.

8 Robert Edmond Jones, Letters to Mary Foote, 1916–1946.

9 Jung, C. G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and edited by Jaffe, Aniela (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), p. 189Google Scholar.

10 Information combines Furber “The Scene…,” pp. 8–10, with details from Robert's Harvard scholarship applications found in the Harvard University Archives, and a personal interview with Rachel Pugh (a family neighbor) on August 28, 1983.

11 Furber, pp. 10–13 and interview with Rachel Pugh.

12 Robert's siblings included an older brother Charles, a younger brother Philip, and three younger sisters — Elizabeth, Alice, and Dorothy (who died in early childhood). My source is correspondence with the family lawyer Fred W. Hall, Jr. of Cooper, Hall & Walker, Rochester, N.H., January 13, 1975.

13 Furber, p. 10.

14 Furber, p. 12 and my examination of Jones's childhood sketchbook in the Harvard Theatre Collection.

15 Sergeant, Elizabeth, “Robert Edmond Jones: Protean Artist” in Fire Under the Andes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927), p. 40Google Scholar.

16 Furber, p. 9.

17 Sergeant, p. 40.

18 Furber, p. 12.

19 Wickes, Frances G., “Drawing, Part 2.” The Inner World of Man (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1948), pp. 284–285Google Scholar. My information that the section “Drawing, Part 2” pertains to Jones is based on an interview with Donald Oenslager, January 7, 1974.

20 Jones, Robert Edmond, The Dramatic Imagination (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941), pp. 104–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Furber, p. 11.

22 C. Jones's letter, May 6, 1906, is part of the miscellaneous materials with Robert's academic transcripts in the Harvard University Archives. Other materials referred to were at the farm when I visited there in December 1974 and are now in the Harvard Theatre Collection. Robert's chiaroscuro drawings appeared in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks in September and November, 1905.

23 Furber, p. 12.

24 C. Jones, Letter to Harvard University, May 6, 1906. Miscellaneous materials with Jones's academic transcripts, Harvard University Archives: hereafter referred to as Harvard Archives.

25 Clarence E. Kelley, Letter to Harvard, Harvard Archives, April 30, 1906.

26 Kelley to Harvard.

27 Milton Town Report 1906, on exhibit at the New Hampshire Farm Museum, August 28, 1983.

28 Jones's scholarship applications and academic transcript, Harvard Archives.

29 Pendleton, Ralph, “Robert Edmond Jones: A Chronology,” in The Theatre of Robert Edmond Jones, p. 146Google Scholar.

30 Moderwell, Hiram Kelley, “The Art of Robert Edmond Jones,” Theatre Arts Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1917), 51–52Google Scholar.

31 Furber, p. 13.

32 Sergeant, p. 41.

33 Fred W. Hall, Jr., Letter to author, January 13, 1975.

34 C. Jones, Letter to Harvard.

35 Furber, p. 11.

36 Sergeant, p. 41.

37 Macgowan, Kenneth “Robert Edmond Jones,” Theatre Arts Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 11 (1925), 723Google Scholar.

38 Moderwell, p. 52.

39 Harvard Class of 1910, 25th Anniversary Report (Cambridge, Mass.: Printed for the Class, The Cosmos Press, Inc. 1935), p. 394Google Scholar.

40 Furber, p. 13. Note that Furber is wrong about Jones's having enrolled in Baker's course; it does not appear on his transcript.

41 Bogard, Travis, Contour In Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 48–62Google Scholar.

42 Furber, pp. 11–12 and Moderwell, p. 52.

43 Macgowan, p. 723.

44 Moderwell, p. 52.

45 Macgowan, p. 723.

46 Gorelik, Mordecai, New Theatres for Old (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1962), p. 180Google Scholar.

47 Steffens, Lincoln, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1931), p. 180Google Scholar.

48 Kornbluh, Joyce L., ed., Rebel Voices: An I. W. W. Anthology (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964), pp. 197–201Google Scholar; and Churchill, Allen, The Improper Bohemians (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1959), pp. 74–79Google Scholar.

49 Churchill, p. 80.

50 Luhan, Mabel Dodge, Movers and Shakers (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1936), vol. III of Intimate Memories, p. 204Google Scholar.

51 Kornbluh, p. 201.

52 New York Times, 8 June, 1913, p. 2, col. 1, and Kornbluh, p. 201.

53 Paterson Strike Pageant Program, Kornbluh, p. 210.

54 New York Times, 8 June, 1913, and Strike Pageant Program.

55 Luhan, p. 204.

56 Kornbluh, p. 201 and p. 211.

57 Tribune quoted in Rebel Voices, ed. Kornbluh, p. 213.

58 Luhan, p. 212.

59 Seldes, Gilbert, “Profile — The Emperor Jones,” The New Yorker, May 9, 1931, p. 25Google Scholar.

60 Robert Edmond Jones, Letter to Kenneth Macgowan, n.d., Special Collections, Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

61 Luhan, pp. 348–51.

62 Styan, J. L., Max Reinhardt (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press., 1982), p. 53Google Scholar.

63 Styan, pp. 138–40. Information on the productions Reinhardt presented during Jones's sojourn is taken from the chronology “Theatre productions of Max Reinhardt.”

64 Moderwell, pp. 51–4.

65 Robert Edmond Jones, Letter to Kenneth Macgowan, Feb. 10, n.y.

66 Stern, Ernst, My Life, My Stage, trans. Fitzgerald, Edward (London: Victor Gollancz, 1951), p. 75Google Scholar.

67 Robert Edmond Jones, Letter to Kenneth Macgowan, Feb. 10, n.y. Jones was either mistaken about Stanislavsky's production of Romeo and Juliet or it was a minor event; there is no reference to it in the Performing Arts Library, Lincoln Center, New York.

68 The Merchant of Venice designs are in the private collection of Robert L.B. Tobin in San Antonio, Texas.

69 Robert Edmond Jones, Letter to Kenneth Macgowan, n.d.

70 Larson, Orville K., “A Note on the New Stagecraft in America,” Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 8, No. 4 (December 1961), 278–279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Robert Edmond Jones, Letter to Kenneth Macgowan, n.d.

72 Letter from Sam Hume to Orville K. Larson quoted in Larson, “A Note on the New Stagecraft in America,” p. 279.

73 The Portable Jung, ed. Campbell, Joseph, trans. Hull, R.F.C. (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), p. 261Google Scholar.