2012
NORTH CAROLINA L ITE R A R Y RE V IE W O N L INE
number 21 Courtesy of British Film institute
6
The Theatre and the Screen by pa u l g r e e n
introduced by margaret d. bauer
Reprinted from Paul Green, Drama and the Weather: Some Notes and Papers on Life and the Theatre
(New York: French, 1958), with permission from the Paul Green Foundation.1
To say the least, Paul Green, North Carolina’s preeminent playwright, was not enamored with the film industry after working as a screenwriter. Watching his own work adapted into film may also have been a factor in prompting him to write “A Playwright’s Notes on Drama and the Screen.” This essay was originally published in The New York Times on February 4, 1934, less than two weeks after the Charlotte, North Carolina, premiere of Carolina, a movie very loosely based on Green’s Broadway play The House of Connelly.2 Perhaps disappointment in (if not dismay about) this film adaptation of his own work inspired him to express his concern about the failure of the film industry to live up to Green’s perception of its potential to bring dramatic art to the masses.
NCLR Editor Margaret D. Bauer is currently working on a critical edition of Paul Green’s The House of Connelly.
above Janet Gaynor in Carolina (Fox Film Corporation,
1934), a movie loosely based upon Paul Green’s 1931 play The House of Connelly