Old Books, Deep Are the Roots, and the Passing of Ted Kennedy

While driving toward Pennsylvania on vacation, my partner Jerry and I stopped at Doylestown, after visiting friends near Quakertown. We had heard it was a lovely little place with cute shops. (It also has a place in my family's history since my father drove us there once instead of taking my sister and me to our swimming lesson. So we also joked about how much we hated Doylestown because it made us miss our swimming at the Norristown Y.) Anyway, Doylestown was indeed a cute burg with quaint shops. We found a used book store and I bought a play from 1945 called Deep Are the Roots (pictured at left, a scene from the show on the cover of Theatre World magazine). Today it is chiefly remembered because it was directed by Elia Kazan and starred a very young Barbara Bel Geddes before she did Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with him. The play by Arnaud D'Usseau and James Gow was a hit in its day and deals with an intelligent African-American veteran returning to his Deep South home after WWII. He has grown up in the home of a racist Southern senator where his mother was employed as a housekeeper. All kinds of trouble results when Brett, the vet, attempts to improve conditions for his people and--worse--he is attracted to the senator's youngest daughter.

The play is dated and obvious--there's a visiting Northern writer who is engaged to the senator's older daughter (played by Bel Geddes) to represent the liberal viewpoint. The senator melodramatically frames Brett with stealing a valuable family heirloom. Brett is arrested but escapes for a climactic confrontation with the white family. What's interesting is this kind of play used to be done on Broadway with a degree of regularity--controversial topics like race prejudice and interracial romance would never be touched by Hollywood and TV was still in the planning stages. Broadway had its share of silly comedies and escapist fare in those days, but you saw thoughtful work too. Also, the liberal views espoused were given full voice and the evil--yes evil, I said it--of the old racist Southern way of life was exposed for what it was. Significant sidenote: Gordon Heath, the actor who starred as Brett later left America and settled in Paris because as a handsome, intelligent African-American actor who wasn't a Stephin Fetchit type, he couldn't find work on stage or screen. He decided to stay in Europe after the play's run in London. He also was gay and had a white lover whom he had met in America so he was fleeing both homophobia and racism. Also Kazan later cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, resulting in the blacklisting of several of his friends who had views like those put forth in the play. One character even accuses Brett of being a Communist because he wants to change the Jim Crow South.

Today a play like that would never make it to Broadway. Too political. Too "liberal." The passing of Ted Kennedy calls to mind another passing--that of the word liberal. It's still a tainted word thanks to Ronnie Reagan. You notice that politicians and commentators now say "progressive" instead. I am liberal and not ashamed to say it. I believe government can and should help people who are down on their luck. I believe everyone should be treated equally. I believe religion should be a private matter and have no place in the public sphere. I should be able to marry my partner in any state in the union. Affordable health care should be a right, not a priviledge. Kennedy was an advocate for all of those things. With more people identifying themselves as conservative than liberal, I worry about the future of these issues. To me conservative means "Leave things the way they are; never change. Our health care may not be the best in the world, but I'm scared to lose what I have. So don't bother fixing it, you might make it worse."

I think most people associate liberal with "tax and spend" when if they really thought about it, they'd agree with liberal principles. President Obama said Kennedy helped him to achieve his goals through his legislative efforts including repealing the poll tax which prevented African-Americans from voting. Ironically, that's one of the wrongs the Brett character tries to end in the play. One of the plot points of the Deep Are the Roots involves Brett entering the public library by the front door and asking for a book without a note from the white family his mother works for. This causes a minor scandal in the town. Now we have a black president, how far we've come. But the roots of prejudice are still there.