Hatcher Hughes
Hatcher Hughes was an influential American playwright and professor, born in 1881 in Polkville, North Carolina. He earned his degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and taught at Columbia University for over three decades, where he also founded the Morningside Players drama group. Hughes gained significant recognition for his Broadway plays, particularly "Hell-Bent for Heaven," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1924. This melodrama, set against the backdrop of North Carolina's mountains, is noted for its exploration of intense personal conflicts and family dynamics. Although celebrated, the award was contentious amidst allegations of jury influence. Hughes followed this success with "Ruint," which dealt with themes of honor and societal judgment, though it did not achieve the same acclaim. Throughout his career, Hughes wrote additional plays, contributing to the early 20th-century American theater landscape, with his legacy primarily anchored by his celebrated work "Hell-Bent for Heaven." He passed away in 1945, reportedly working on new material at the time of his death.
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Hatcher Hughes
Playwright
- Born: February 12, 1881
- Birthplace: Polkville, North Carolina
- Died: October 18, 1945
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Hatcher Hughes was born in Polkville, North Carolina, in 1881. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 1913 until his death in 1945, he taught at Columbia University, enjoying a long and rewarding career as a professor of literature and founder of the school’s Morningside Players drama group.
He also gained fame as a playwright. Between 1921 and 1934, six of his plays appeared on Broadway. One of these plays, Hell-Bent for Heaven, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1924 and made his reputation.
Hell-Bent for Heaven was a melodrama set in the mountains of North Carolina. Critics hailed it as a major contribution to American folk drama, a genre very much in vogue during the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Hughes’s receipt of the Pulitzer Prize was highly controversial because the jury’s deliberations were made public, revealing that jurors were vacillating between Hughes’s play and George Kelley’s The Show Off; some critics charged that officials from Columbia University had influenced the jury to award the prize to Hughes. Ironically, Hell-Bent for Heaven completed its Broadway run the day before Hughes received the Pulitzer Prize. Hughes followed the play in 1925 with Ruint, another mountain folk play.
Taken together, these two plays represent the playwright’s best work. They both deal with highly passionate young people and the family pressures that confront them. The plot of Hell-Bent for Heaven is driven by a religious zealot, a villain determined that if he can not have his sweetheart for himself, than nobody else will. He carries out his schemes by playing on long forgotten family rivalries, but despite invoking God as his ally he ends up abandoned in a flood of his own making. In Ruint, the plot turns on erroneous reports of a young woman having become sexually violated, leading her supposed seducer, a rich boy from the North, to be tarred and feathered. This play was less successful than Hell-Bent for Heaven.
Hughes began his career as a professional playwright by collaborating with Elmer Rice on Wake Up, Jonathan, produced in 1921. The play is a domestic drama about a boring marriage brought to life by the wife’s cleverness. It was designed as a vehicle for the actress Minnie Maddern Fiske, and reports suggest that her talents carried the play rather than the play supporting her talents. It had a very good run, in any event, lasting more than two seasons in New York and then went on tour.
After Ruint, Hughes had three more plays produced on the New York stage. The first of these was a farce titled Honeymooning on High when it opened in Boston in 1927 and retitled Honeymooning when it was performed in New York later that year. It is the story of an elopement gone awry. In 1930, the year of Hughes’s marriage to actress Janet Cool Ranney, he provided another vehicle for Fiske, It’s a Grand Life. Written in collaboration with Alan Williams, the play is about a woman who takes control of her marriage to a womanizing husband. Reviews were decidedly mixed, and again some critics argued that Fiske deserved better. Hughes’s last play, The Lord Blesses the Bishop, was staged in 1934. It is another domestic comedy about strained relations between husband and wife, with the wife sorting things out. The play received a tepid critical response and had a short run.
When Hughes died in 1945, there were reports that he had been at work on a new play. In the long run, his reputation as a playwright rests on his great success with Hell-Bent for Heaven.