Winterset by Maxwell Anderson

First produced: 1935; first published, 1935

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Tragedy

Time of plot: Twentieth century

Locale: New York

Principal characters

• Esdras, an old man
• Garth, his son
• Miriamne, his daughter
• Trock, a murderer
• Shadow, his henchman
• Judge Gaunt,
• Mio, Romagna’s son

The Story:

Trock and Shadow walk warily under the bridge by the tenement where Garth lives with his old father, Esdras, and his fifteen-year-old sister, Miriamne. Trock is just released from prison, where he served a sentence for his part in a murder for which Romagna was electrocuted. Judge Gaunt, who presided over the trial when Romagna was convicted, is said to be mad and to be roaming the country telling people that the trial was unfair. A college professor also begins an investigation of the old murder trial. Trock comes to the tenement district to see Garth, who witnessed the murder that Trock really committed. Garth did not testify at the trial, and Trock wants to warn him never to tell what he saw.

Trock threatens to kill Garth if he talks. Miriamne knows nothing about her brother’s part in this crime, but after she hears Trock threaten her brother, she questions him and learns a little about the killing. Miriamne loves Garth, but she knows that his silence about the murder is wrong. Old Esdras watches and comforts his two children.

To the same tenement district comes Mio and his friend, Carr. Mio is seventeen, and he learns that somewhere in the tenements lives a man who knows that Romagna is innocent. Mio and Miriamne see each other on the street and fall in love. Knowing that he has to speak to Miriamne, Mio sends Carr away. When Miriamne hears Mio’s full name, Bartolemeo Romagna, she tells him that he must go away and never see her again, for Miriamne knows then that Mio is the son of the man who died for the murder Trock committed. Mio tells Miriamne that he was four years old when his father was electrocuted and that he lives only to prove his father’s innocence.

While the lovers are talking, Shadow and Trock appear on the street, and Miriamne hides Mio in the shadow so that the two men cannot see him. The gangsters are looking for Judge Gaunt in order to silence him. The judge also comes to the tenement, and Garth, meeting him, makes the crazed man go to Esdras’s apartment for safety. Shadow, however, wants no part in killing the judge. As he leaves, Trock sends two henchmen after Shadow to kill him. Mio sees the shooting. Feeling that he came to the right place to learn the truth of the old killing, he waits.

In Esdras’s room the judge awakens, refreshed and normal once more. Realizing where he is and what he did, the judge asks Garth and Esdras to say nothing of his mad claims that Romagna’s trial was unfair. The judge does not want the case to be reopened any more than does Trock. Esdras offers to guide Judge Gaunt partway back to his home.

After the two old men leave, Mio knocks on the door. He was directed to Garth’s home by neighbors. He is bewildered at the sight of Miriamne until she explains that Garth is her brother. She asks Mio to leave, but first she wants him to tell her that he loves her. Garth angrily interrupts the lovers and orders Mio to leave. As Mio prepares to go, Judge Gaunt and Esdras return, forced to turn back by driving sleet. Mio recognizes the judge and begins questioning him and Garth about the trial. Garth’s story is that he did not witness the murder for which Mio’s father died. Judge Gaunt insists that Romagna was guilty. Mio points out that evidence at the trial was biased because his father was an anarchist. The judge says that if he thought the trial unjust, he would have allowed a retrial.

The steady denials of Garth and Judge Gaunt nearly break Mio’s spirit. Suddenly Trock enters the apartment. Mio grows more suspicious. Then Shadow comes to the door. The sight of the henchman he thought dead terrifies Trock. Shadow was shot, but he lives long enough to accuse Trock of his murder. After Shadow dies, Judge Gaunt again becomes deranged. He thinks he is in court, and Mio tricks him into admitting that Romagna was an anarchist and as such should have been put to death. When Trock threatens to kill them all, Mio knows that he is near the end of his search.

In the middle of Mio’s discoveries, the police come looking for Judge Gaunt, who has been missing from his home for many days. Mio accuses Trock of murdering Shadow, but when he sends the police into an inner room where Garth dragged the body, the corpse is not there. When Miriamne also denies his charges, Mio admits that he must have been dreaming, for he saw a pleading message in Miriamne’s eyes that directed his decision.

As the police take Judge Gaunt away, Trock goes also, leaving Garth to face Mio’s accusations. Mio is helpless, however, because he loves Miriamne. Free at last to vindicate his father’s name, he is tied by Miriamne’s love for her brother. In spite of Miriamne’s fears that his life is in danger, Mio leaves Esdras’s home.

Mio feels that there is nothing left for him but to die, for he cannot live and remain silent about his father’s death. While he hesitates outside the tenement, Miriamne comes to join him, and they see Garth carrying the body of Shadow from the alley. Esdras joins Mio outside. The boy’s search for justice and his courage make the old man see that Garth’s silence is wrong. Esdras tells Mio that he is going to the police to report Shadow’s murder. Mio cautions Esdras that he will not try to save Garth by remaining silent about the Romagna case, but Esdras says that Mio owes them nothing. He goes to inform the police.

Alone with Mio, Miriamne tries to find hope of happiness for him. At last she reminds him that his father would forgive his killers, and Mio realizes that she is right. Still, he is determined to reveal the truth. Then Esdras returns and tells him that Trock’s henchmen are guarding the streets and that there is no way of escape.

As Mio dashes down a passage toward the river, Miriamne hears the sound of shooting. She runs to her lover and finds him dying. Then she runs toward the same passage, into the fire of Trock’s machine gun. Dying, she crawls back to Mio. Esdras and Garth, still alive, carry the dead lovers out of the cold, wet winter night.

Bibliography

Abernathy, Frances E. “Winterset: A Modern Revenge Tragedy.” Modern Drama 7 (September, 1964): 185-189. Provides a careful comparison of the play to Renaissance revenge tragedies, with special emphasis on Hamlet. Contrasts the Hebraic code of an eye for an eye in Hamlet with the Christian gospel of love and forgiveness in Winterset.

DiNapoli, Russell. “Fragile Currency of the Last Anarchist: The Plays of Maxwell Anderson.” New Theatre Quarterly 18, no. 3 (August, 2002): 276. A reconsideration of Anderson’s plays. DiNapoli maintains that the plays were both influenced by their times and atypical of their times, and this conflict has affected Anderson’s posthumous reputation.

Hazelton, Nancy J. Doran, and Kenneth Krauss, eds. Maxwell Anderson and the New York Stage. Monroe, N.Y.: Library Research Association, 1991. A collection of essays in honor of Anderson’s centennial in 1988. Contains an insightful interview with George Schaefer regarding a production of Winterset.

Horn, Barbara Lee. Maxwell Anderson: A Research and Production Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. A guide to Anderson’s plays. Includes an introductory essay about his life and work and individual chapters devoted to synopses and critical overviews of each play, including Winterset. Contains bibliographies of critical reviews of the plays and of secondary sources of information about Anderson.

Shivers, Alfred S. The Life of Maxwell Anderson. Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: Stein & Day, 1983. Provides numerous details about the writing and the staging of Winterset.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Maxwell Anderson. Boston: Twayne, 1976. One of the best brief critical introductions to Anderson and his works. Shivers sees Winterset as a continuation of Anderson’s compulsion to portray an idealistic central character “marked for some kind of self-willed defeat for the sake, usually, of a worthwhile cause.”

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Maxwell Anderson: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Works. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985. A very complete listing, often with annotations, of works by and about Anderson, including numerous citations about Winterset.