The Melting-Pot Drama in Four Acts

by Israel Zangwill

Book by Zangwill, Israel

Genres: Plays, Classics, Fiction, Drama, American, Historical Fiction, Jewish

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

Israel Zangwill was a British novelist, short-story writer and dramatist.

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in a Lit course in college (about American assimilation), and though it's overly heavy-handed and very dramatic IMO (too be fair, David Quixano is a pretty dramatic guy), I did enjoy reading this play more than some of the other stuff we read.

I liked mild-mannered Mendle, and Kathleen's growth and acceptance (and understanding) of Frau Quixano by the end, and honestly Vera's growth too. The only character I had a hard time getting behind totally was David. Maybe I would have liked a more subtle protagonist; David was very stage dramatic and I felt he overwhelmed the story in a silly way. I imagined him lolling on a fainting couch one moment and then jumping around the stage waving a baton the next. And maybe that is David, but I was more about the supporting characters and reading the antiquated slang and casual anti-Semitism of the time. (At times I really liked the history more than the story.)

3.5 stars.

...

I recently found some notes I took from my lit class:

David Quixano and Quincy Davenport are inverse characters.
David is "King David, the musician.” “Quixano” also alludes to Don Quixote, the dreamer.
Quincy is a child of New England aristocracy. Quincy is supposed to remind us of an "old American" belonging, like the name of a former president (John Quincy Adams).

David says that the pilgrims came from his Old Testament. David doesn't feel that he needs to immigrate, he's already "American" because America is a group of values. He may be a "newcomer,” but he's not an immigrant.

End of the play: Melting Pot.
A melting pot melts and fuses metals & alloys to make it stronger.
1. Melting -solid to liquid, hard to soft.
2. Fusing -merges two separate things to become an alloy.
3. Purging -to remove imperfections.
4. Alchemy -takes a base metal and turns it into something else. Or, turns lead into gold...

The Alchemy of the Melting Pot is the most complex change of the processes above, and in the Melting Pot, the great alchemist is God, which is why David keeps calling it "God's Crucible.”

Before the Melting Pot, we'd assume "to assimilate" means to "become like Americans." But the one American in the play, Quincy, is the one character we don't want to be like. Instead, the Melting Pot is a play of "amalgamation.” With David and Vera's future children being from a mixed-race marriage, they will become the true Americans. To become an American is to become something else (not to pretend to be like one type of something/Quincy). David and Vera's children will become Americans by fusing together the ideals and opposites of their parents. Maybe this is alchemy?...

[ML Character]

Okay, so years ago someone suggested this play when I was researching what to do with Drama of Diversity. Hoo boy is it a prime specimen of 1907 sentimental drama (to be fair, some of the supplementary material notes that at least one critic said the same in 1907). I find the portrayal of post-genocide trauma.... unmoving, a bit embarrassing. Although, maybe trauma reactions ARE sort of embarrassing and, you know, resistant to aesthetic prettiment. But this is likely also to give Zangwill too much credit. I imagine he WAS going for aesthetic trauma with his pogrom survivor musical genius who falls in love with a Russian noblewoman who has to disown her family twice, for being Tsarists (while she became a revolutionary) and then for being bigots while her Settlement House work and love for said musician has taught her to overcome her antisemitism. So, the melting pot here is primarily about Russian gentiles and Russian Jews finding love. And the Irish maid is still around for comic relief, sliding from antisemite to...accidentally or maybe gleefully Jewing it up. That was a choice.

[Nate Portnoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a first generation American, of Russian-Jew decent, living in New York to immigrant parents, understand that I am impossibly and ostensively biased in my reading here.

Plot summary: The Melting Pot is a 1908 play written by Israel Zangwill. It follows “the story of David Quixano [and his brother Mendel, and grandmother Frau], Jewish immigrant(s) who came to the United States after [their] family was slaughtered in a Russian pogrom. During the course of the play, David writes a great symphony and falls in love with a Russian Christian noblewoman (Vera)”. 1

It’s in many way a play dedicated to the ways in which we spectate American liberty. Look at the way in which Zangwill marries theatrical exaggeration (and trust me when I say that David is theatrical) and deep, poignant images of an American grotesque (even if that may not be the right word) and what you see is a portrait of the kind of discord which must have existed in an early 1900's America. He creates a commentary where his message seems to be that the idealism, patriotism, and nationalism (as expressed by consistent motifs of my statue tis of thee and the statue of liberty) which certain American’s express, doesn’t exist in a vacuum from violence, destruction, and brutalism (as in this case specially portrayed as Anti-Semitism) which has spurred it. He asks the question: how do you address national discord?

This was a play written with Theodore Roosevelt in mind (if not obvious from its dedication to him), and it seems like Roosevelt was real proud of that. This is just a personal guess, but I think that Roosevelt was the exact president that Zangwill wanted for writing a play like this. The way that Roosevelt was this this kind of unpolished, undisciplined man, he was just odd enough to provide Zangwill the background to say look at everything he surrounds. If THE American isn’t any one thing, why is it expected that his people are? Roosevelt’s chipper permeates in this play often time. I think this play would benefit from a renewed academic interested for the contemporary reader.

Something in particular that caught my eye was the way in which Zangwill described Europe in this novel. It seems almost an affliction. As if the American identity is an infection on the gash of a European world-views. As a relatively progressive play (ya know, for treating the jews like human beings), this quote that Zangwill gave in his afterward rings particularly true for me, “The process of American amalgamation is not assimilation or simple surrender to the dominant type, as is popularly supposed, but an all-around give-and-take by which the final type may be enriched or impoverished”. As an idea in 1908, Zangwill must’ve gotten a lot of shit for saying something like that. Now American assimilation seems a ridiculous notion to question. As per what I said about renewed academic interest, it’s good context.

(as to not ignore the elephant in the room when discussing American injustice) Zangwill does (to my pleasant surprise) address African-American slavery in this play too. Not with as much emphasis as I know some would like, but I liked finding that his acknowledgement of injustice wasn't so myopic. What is America if not its sum? If your edition has an afterward like mine does, then it’s a welcome addition too to know that Zangwill had the Native Americans in mind also.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. I took this from the essay Zangwill's "The Melting Pot": Ethnic Tensions on Stage by Neil Larry Shumsky. I didn’t actually read the essay, I just knew that there was someone out there who could write a better plot description than me and I was feeling LAZY.

[Lance Eaton · Rating 2 out of 5]

After coming across the title in about four times in two weeks, I decided that I needed to fill this gap in my reading experience. So this book is the supposed original reference for the concept of the United States as a "melting pot". In that regard, it reminds me of Karel Capek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), the first use of the term robots. And that comparison works in a lot of ways in that it's often surprising to see what something fairly common in our language and to see that its first use was not particularly striking or surprising. In this case, The Melting-Pot is a 4 act play about David Quixano, a Jewish immigrant from Russia who plays the violin and writes music. He lives with his uncle and his grandmother in New York since his parents were killed in one of the Russian pogroms. The play opens with a woman, Vera arriving and talking with his uncle and grandmother about wanting David to play for the Settlement, a transition place for newly arrived immigrants (not entirely clear on this point) because she believes they would love his music. David is more than happy to do it and they begin to plan. We then encounter Quincy Davenport, Jr., a rich immigrant who is sexually interested in Vera (but is also already married). Knowing that Vera is of Russian nobility, he invites her parents to America and proceeds to court them as a means of getting to Vera (and bypassing the budding romance between Vera and David). Confrontations ensue and inevitably, David and Vera are torn apart by what comes out of these encounters and it is left uncertain just what their future will be until the very end. Driving David's performance for the Settlement is the decision that he would play his piece that he's composing that is a dedication to the welcoming disposition and beauty of America. Thus, his music is dedicated an America that "is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming!".

The story lacks subtlety both in its message and its uncritical love of America. In some ways I can appreciate the embrace of America's potential but even during the time of this writing, it's still a country banning Chinese people from coming to the US, Jim Crow segregation, and an absence of women voting rights. Now there is some acknowledgment of this, Vera's father makes note of lynching but it is largely brushed aside as irrelevant. The final note of the play is one that embraces looking forward and not backward; which for many marginalized peoples feels like a (pun intended) whitewashed way of forgetting real violence and inequity. So while it was an interesting book to be exposed to for one interested in exploring understanding the lives and experiences of marginalized people, it can feel a bit hollow to read it for significant meaning or even significant entertainment.

[Matilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave it four out five stars, not because of its wonderful literary qualities or the breathtaking originality of the plot, but because it was wonderfully interesting regarding my American Studies class.
I really enjoyed discovering the origin of the "melting pot" expression, and see how immigration was seen and expressed in the beginning of the 1900's. A quick, fun read, a bit melodramatic, but enjoyable nonetheless.

[sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the historical significance and widely important themes of this play, I truly wonder why it has lost its popularity in the world of theatre. The Melting Pot is a glimpse into Russian Jewish refugees to the United States. Though the play itself is definitely patriotic, it’s not dishonest about tension and antisemitism that existed in America. Zangwill wrote from an optimistic, yet reflective and observant tone.

I truly think everyone—Americans, especially—should read this at some point.

Overall, this was extremely moving. 5/5 stars.

My Favourite Quotes:
“Why, if they hadn't the use of their legs, their arms danced on the counterpane; if their arms couldn't dance, their hands danced from the wrist; and if their hands couldn't dance, they danced with their fingers; and if their fingers couldn't dance, their heads danced; and if their heads were paralysed, why, their eyes danced—God never curses so utterly but you've something left to dance with!”
-
“But just fancy it, uncle. The Stars and Stripes unfurled, and a thousand childish voices, piping and foreign, fresh from the lands of oppression, hailing its fluttering folds. I cried like a baby.”
-
“Here you stand...in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you've come to—these are the fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American”
-
“So he is, most of the time—a sunbeam took human shape when he was born. But naturally that dreadful scene left a scar on his brain, as the bullet left a scar on his shoulder, and he is always liable to see red when Kishineff is mentioned.”
-
“Your sneer is false. The love that melted me was not Vera's—it was the love America showed me—the day she gathered me to her breast.”
-
“Mendel: Oh, no—she understood nothing. She always cries on the eve of the Sabbath.
Vera: [Mystified, sinking back into her chair]
Always cries? Why?
Mendel: [Embarrassed]
Oh, well, a Christian wouldn't understand.”

[Ece · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this for my American Studies class and I must say that even though it is not a quality literary work for me it is easy to read and helps a lot understanding the ideal of the melting pot and to build upon it some ideas. I have really liked the melodramatic elements and comical parts. It felt like Romeo and Juliet but with a happy ending. Variety of characters and their unique savageness at some level have made me laugh. Also I like the two other readings which argue the effect of Judaism and how the play should have ended with David’s breakdown as well as canonical reading.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my writing class

[Kien Pham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overly sentimental piece on American exceptionalism, or insightful look into the Jewish-American life?

[Martin Denton · Rating 4 out of 5]

America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you've come to--these are the fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians--into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.

Israel Zangwill may not have coined the term "melting pot" to describe the romantic ideal that he understood (willed?) for the still-young U.S.A. (Zangwill was English); but his play gave it currency, and the words stuck.

As drama, it is very much of its time (early 20th century), which is to say that the dialogue can sometimes feel dense to our 21st century ear and that the plotting relies all too extremely on melodramatic conventions rather than psychology. (The third act concerns itself almost entirely with a dastardly scheme on the part of the play's villains to reclaim the ingenue from the hero; they would tie her to train tracks or a saw mill if Zangwill could figure out how to get either one into his New York City setting.)

But the story is as timely and resonant as ever. David is a young, recent Jewish immigrant from Russia. He's a musical prodigy--would be a virtuoso violinist if not for an injury to his left shoulder, inflicted on him by soldiers in the pogrom in which the rest of his family was brutally murdered. He's also a gifted composer, and the symphony he's working on is an ode to his new home, the America that has fired his romantic imagination.

David is "discovered" by Vera Revendal, a Russian emigre (the daughter of a Baron, we eventually learn) who fled her homeland after serving time in jail for trying to overthrow the Czar's regime. Vera now works at a settlement house in New York City, where she first heard David play. She wants him to return, and although she's taken aback to find out that he's a Jew, she rises above her prejudice and arranges for the wealthy American dilettante Quincy Davenport to hear David's music. Davenport brings along the great German conductor Herr Pappelmeister, who immediately recognizes David's genius. The young immigrant composer suddenly finds himself handed an immense career opportunity and--perhaps even more importantly--in love with Vera, a gentile.

David's twin journeys away from his roots and toward assimilation in his new country, one professional, one personal, mark the rest of The Melting Pot. David's uncle reacts violently to the notion of intermarriage (as does Vera's father the Baron, who turns up in the second half of the play). And David himself, haunted by the ghosts of his past, is torn apart inside as he tries to embrace the success offered him in his new land.

It's potent stuff, food for thought whether you're the great-grandson of immigrants as I am, or can trace your lineage back to the Mayflower, or you just arrived on these shores yourself. The ideals that America once represented to the world and itself have shifted so seismically that the re-examination that Zangwill's play forces us to make of them can only be fruitful.

[Ted J. Gibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Israel Zangwill's largely-forgotten play is a chronicle of ethnic identity, overcoming of the bounds of history, and liberation from the ideologies of ancestors. Focusing on a young Jewish composer whose family were brutally murdered in the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, The Melting-Pot has socioculturally good intentions at its heart, encouraging the assimilation of all peoples regardless of present or historical ethnic divisions. And while Zangwill's writing occasionally drifts into a more Impressionistic style, à la traditional European Modernism, his execution at times feels rather propagandistic, with such a simple message somewhat removing the space for interpretation that makes a great work of art and literature.

[Mason Monteith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 Stars
I read this play for my Ethnic Literature course in college - overall I enjoyed it. It was thought-provoking and led to deeper research on the subject on my part. The play itself thought was good but not my all-time favorite. It is historically important and something I would recommend reading at least once but I felt that the main character David was a bit overly dramatic in comparison to the other characters in the play, and it felt odd with the serious nature of his past. So overall, I'd recommend reading it at least once in hopes that it leads to deeper research on immigration in America, but it wasn't my favorite thing to read. (This is good because it is better to read widely and learn more perspectives even if the story isn't your cup of tea.)

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historically significant play and Broadway hit of 1909, Zangwill coined the phrase "melting pot" adopted by social scientists to describe the American experience. I enjoyed the multi-generational look at immigrants, mirroring my own family's experience. Zangwill thought that immigrant Jews might be among the first to success, because we were always outsiders and in the minority, and last to assimilate, because of our millennial resilience. The play premiered in Washington D.C. with Theodore Roosevelt in the audience. He liked the play. "Bully for Zangwill!"

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Melting-Pot is not a particularly good play with its melodrama and one dimensional characters - but there's no denying its historical importance. Zangwill's play is indeed the play responsible for coining the term melting-pot, and its role in pushing that ideology into the public sphere is hard to ignore. That being said, however, The Melting-Pot is pretty disappointing. I can't see any reason to read this play outside of an academic setting or out of personal interest.

[Merceda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for Cultures of Displacement class. Interesting play. The Baron was horrible. David was PTSD, and he wanted to marry Vera Revendal who is a gentile in the early 1900s after his parents were killed by the Baron in a pogrom. David's talents as a musical genius enables him to live and push forward as he lives with his uncle in New York.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a really funny, touching, and thought provoking play. It really looks into the issues of racism and prejudice and how America is a place we can put dark pasts behind us. A play about moving forward.

[Jennifer Booth · Rating 1 out of 5]

A word of caution!

For it's time, the play seen like a right to be racist. It has been over 100 years since this play was performed. It was one of the most worst and bigot book I have read in a while. Don't read if you don't want to be offended.

[Akiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I had to read this for class I found it quite interesting even with such a tragic theme. I wish it could be a biography and not a play but either way I enjoyed it as a quick read while traveling.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous play! Written before WW-I from the point-of-view of a Russian Jewish immigrant. Someone who knew, only too well, the recent and ongoing persecution of the pogroms.

[Stephanie Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a delightful play. Anyone who wants to understand the United States of American should read it.

[Gabrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure I will read this with my class, but this edition has a couple of informative appendices that I want to incorporate.

[Caty · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful depiction of how we should rise above the discrimination in this world and love everyone!

[ChanniLovesReading · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fine. The third act was the best part, the fourth act was the worst.

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because I recently met the author's grandson at a party. I had not realised that the origin of the phrase "Melting Pot" was this play. I found it moving and enjoyable; a story of redemption and optimism, told with humour and pathos. Zangwill had a good ear for speech patterns and accents - his Irish maid has her brogue reproduced with brilliant accuracy (if only Dickens and the Bronte sisters could have rendered dialect speech with such accuracy!). The story is about a Jewish immigrant who falls in love with the daughter of the Tsarist official who carried out an anti-Jewish pogrom in which some of the immigrant's own family were murdered. As it has a happy ending, it is therefore about forgiveness and redemption, but fairy-tale unbelievability is avoided: forgiveness requires a huge effort, and grace doesn't come cheap. If there is a weakness, it is perhaps the unanswered question at the heart of it all: melting our differences in a crucible is all very well, but how much of our own history can and ought we to preserve? Can you be a good American without sacrificing your Jewishness? If you forge a new identity as an American, what do you lose, and what do you retain, of the identity you had before?

These are live questions for me as an English Gentile. I am - I hope - open to a wide variety of cultures, and yet I am very aware of the stresses and strains my own Anglo-Saxon identity is put under as a result of the unprecedented melting pot which 21st century England has become.

[Cara Byrne · Rating 3 out of 5]

First brought to the stage in 1909 in Washington DC, this four act play is melodramatic and follows musical prodigy David as he overcomes traumatically witnessing the massacre of his family in Russia as he celebrates his new freedoms in America. While it is not particularly well-written or engaging for contemporary readers, it is an essential read in contextualizing American immigration narratives in the 20th century.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suuuuper cheesy play about a patriotic young Jewish fellow. I think I secretly really liked it despite its feel-goodiness.

[Weiti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting work about an important topic, just at the end a little too much patriotism.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The American story of immigration, this story needs to be remembered by many, especially today.