All Play and No Work: American Work Ideals and the Comic Plays of the Federal Theatre Project

The Federal Theatre Project (FTP) plays analyzed by Paul Gagliardi in All Play and No Work feature complex portrayals of labor and work relief during the Great Depression. He explores how comedies of the FTP challenged the promoted ideals of work and addressed topics such as political resistance, inequality, and the dangers of unchecked economic con artists. The plays employed diverse casts and crew and contained radical economic and labor ideas, reflecting the concerns of their audiences.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 237 pages
Publication date: 01 December 2023
Publisher: Temple University Press,U.S.

Many of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) plays analyzed in Paul Gagliardi's book All Play and No Work feature complex portrayals of labor and work relief at a time when access to work was difficult. Gagliardi questions what it means that many plays produced by the FTP celebrated forms of labor like speculation and swindling. All Play and No Work directly contradicts the promoted ideals of work found in American society, culture, and within the broader New Deal itself. Gagliardi shows how comedies of the Great Depression engaged questions of labor, labor history, and labor ethics. He considers the breadth of the FTP's production history, staging plays including Ah, Wilderness!, Help Yourself, and Mississippi Rainbow.

Gagliardi examines backstage comedies, middle-class comedies, comedies of chance, and con-artist comedies that employed diverse casts and crew and contained radical economic and labor ideas. He contextualizes these plays within the ideologically complicated New Deal, showing how programs like the Social Security Act straddled progressive ideals and conservative, capitalist norms. Addressing topics including the politicization of theatrical labor and the real dangers of unchecked economic con artists, the comic plays of the FTP reveal acts of political resistance and inequality that reflected the concerns of their audiences.

Dimension: 229 x 152 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781439922163