Margaret Fleming by James A. Herne

First published: 1890

First produced: 1890, at the Lynn Theatre, Lynn, Massachusetts

Type of plot: Domestic realism

Time of work: 1890

Locale: Canton, Massachusetts

Principal Characters:

• Philip Fleming, a mill owner
• Margaret Fleming, his wife
• Joe Fletcher, a traveling salesman
• Dr. Larkin, Margaret’s doctor
• Maria Bindley, Margaret’s German nursemaid
• Mrs. Burton, the caretaker of Maria’s dying sister Lena
• Mr. Foster, the manager of Philip’s mill

The Play

Margaret Fleming opens in Philip Fleming’s private office at his mill. Philip enters and goes through the morning’s mail. He confers briefly with his manager and his foreman and then smiles when his office boy brings in a soiled calling card. It is from Joe Fletcher, who used to work at the mill for Philip’s father. Joe is now a traveling salesman who sells medicines and household articles. Joe is tired and thirsty. He eagerly takes a drink from Philip’s liquor cabinet and asks Philip if he still drinks as he used to do. Philip responds that he has now married and settled down. He proudly shows Joe the picture on his desk of Margaret, his wife, and their small child, Lucy. Joe’s visit is interrupted by Dr. Larkin, who has come to see Philip. Dr. Larkin has just learned that Philip is the father of a baby born during the night to Lena Schmidt, a girl who used to work at the mill. He angrily reprimands Philip, who says he has done all he can for Lena, but Dr. Larkin insists that Philip go to see her because she should not have to die alone. Philip reluctantly calls Margaret to say he will be late coming home.

The second scene of the first act takes place in Margaret and Philip’s living room. Margaret sits by the fireplace getting Lucy, the baby, ready for bed. Maria Bindley, the German nursemaid, is gathering up the baby’s clothes and quietly crying. Margaret tells Maria not to cry. Maria says that she has had a hard life. Her second husband was Joe Fletcher, the man who came by the house that morning. He left her, she says, and now her younger sister, Lena, is dying. Margaret tells Maria to go to her sister.

Margaret finally gets the baby to sleep and puts her in the adjoining room. Philip comes in, tired and wet. Margaret scolds him for being so late, but then she sees how weary he looks. Philip presents Margaret with a bank book and some legal papers, including a deed to the house. Margaret asks Philip if he knew that the tramp who came by the house this morning was Maria’s husband, who robbed her and left her. Maria swore at him in German and threw him down the stairs, Margaret says, laughing. Seeing how pale and tired Philip looks, Margaret insists he go to bed.

The second act takes place in the same room. It is the next morning, and the sun is shining. Dr. Larkin is putting out some medicines for Margaret, who has been having trouble with her eyes. When Margaret leaves the room, Dr. Larkin tells Philip that Margaret has a tendency toward an eye condition called glaucoma and that she must not undergo any great emotional strain. After the doctor leaves, Joe Fletcher comes in through the garden. He is trying to avoid Maria, but she comes into the room and sees him. He tries to escape but trips and sprawls on the floor. Maria throws him out the door. Margaret, hearing the commotion, enters and inquires about Maria’s sister. Maria says that she is worse and asks Margaret if she will go to see her. Margaret agrees to do so.

The third act takes place in the sitting room of Mrs. Burton’s cottage. Dr. Larkin knocks on the door and enters into the empty room. Mrs. Burton enters from the next room with a tiny baby. When the doctor asks about his patient, Mrs. Burton says that Lena died about one hour ago after writing a long note. There is a knock at the door. It is Margaret. She is surprised to see Dr. Larkin and he is shocked to see her. He tries to get her to leave, but she thinks she can be of some assistance. Dr. Larkin finally tells Margaret that there is contagion in the house. As Margaret starts to leave, Maria enters with a letter in her hand. She tells Margaret that she will have to leave with the baby and pulls a revolver out of her pocket. Margaret, in a calm voice, asks for the revolver and asks Maria to read the note because she cannot see it. It is addressed to Mr. Fleming. Margaret sinks into a chair. Dr. Larkin finally tells Margaret that she is in danger of losing her eyesight. Margaret writes a short note to Philip asking him to meet her at the Burton cottage. She asks the little Burton boy to take the note, and she sends the doctor away, saying she must see Philip alone. As the women wait, the baby begins to cry. Margaret tries to comfort him. As he continues to cry, Margaret picks him up and at last starts to unbutton her blouse just as Philip runs into the room. The lights fade.

The last act takes place in the Flemings’ living room. Maria is sitting near the door to the garden where the babies are. Dr. Larkin comes in, and then Margaret comes in from the garden with her arms full of flowers. A few moments later the doorbell rings. It is Mr. Foster, the manager of the mill. He tells the doctor that Philip is outside. He does not dare tell Margaret, leaving that to the doctor. When the doctor tells Margaret, she asks why he does not come in. Philip enters looking very weary and broken. He is shocked to find that Margaret cannot see him, but Margaret says the doctor will operate to restore her sight. When Philip asks for forgiveness, Margaret says there is nothing to forgive, but when he calls her his wife, Margaret says that “the wife-heart” has gone out of her. What if she had been unfaithful to him, she asks. Philip is horrified at the idea. He asks Margaret if he should go away, and she responds that his place is here and since he is a man he will soon live down the disgrace. He has responsibilities to his second child, his son, who is out in the garden with little Lucy. Philip goes into the garden to see the babies. Margaret stands looking into the darkness, as a serene look of joy illuminates her face and the stage lights dim.

Dramatic Devices

Margaret Fleming was much too realistic for audiences and many of the critics of the 1890’s. There were no big climactic scenes. Both the audiences and critics were shocked by the nursing scene. Most important, the general public did not like the ending. They expected a sentimental reunion of Margaret and Philip, a sudden revelation that Philip was innocent, or a noble death to atone for Philip’s guilt. James A. Herne denied the audience such a melodramatic ending. He instead left Philip to acknowledge his guilt and live with the consequences. One critic called Margaret “a monster of morality” for not taking Philip back.

Margaret Fleming still has some touches of melodrama. Joe is the comic character. There are also several unexplained coincidences. The Flemings’ maid is Joe’s former wife, and she is Lena’s sister. Dr. Larkin is called in as a consultant when Lena is about to deliver her child. It is melodramatic when Maria pulls a revolver out of her pocket and threatens to kill Philip. Margaret’s failing eyesight and subsequent blindness are a sentimental touch to gain sympathy for her.

However, there are some very realistic scenes that had not been seen before in original American plays. The first scene, portraying the day-to-day routine in a work environment, Philip’s office, is very realistic until the doctor arrives. The domestic scenes with Margaret and the baby in front of the fireplace are quiet and real. The quiet ending of the play was an innovation in American drama.

Critical Context

James A. Herne started as an actor in the prevalent melodramas of the 1850’s. Even as a young man, he liked playing character roles. He was especially fond of some of the characters in the dramatic adaptations of Charles Dickens’s novels. He shocked audiences with his fierce intensity as Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist (1837-1839) and charmed them with his characterization of Daniel Peggotty in David Copperfield (1849-1850). Herne later paid tribute to the influence Dickens had on his writing. When Herne started writing and adapting plays, he started with melodrama, but he gradually began to do away with some of the melodramatic devices and tried to make the characters and the plots more realistic. After he married a young Irish actress, Katherine Corcoran, he began writing believable characters for her roles as well as for his own work.

In 1889 the Hernes were acting in Herne’s original temperance drama, Drifting Apart (pr. 1888), at a second-rate theater in Boston. Hamlin Garland, a young writer from the Midwest who had recently moved to Boston, was told by the literary editor of the Boston Evening Transcript to go see the Hernes in Drifting Apart. Garland was overwhelmed by the quiet realism in the play. William Dean Howells, the outstanding writer and advocate of literary realism at the time, also praised Drifting Apart as a play very simple and honest in method. At the time, Herne was writing Margaret Fleming. Encouraged by the praise of the realists, Herne proceeded with his even more realistic play, Margaret Fleming.

Margaret Fleming was given three “tryout” performances in Lynn, Massachusetts, in July, 1890. Hamlin Garland reviewed the play and gave a detailed summary of the plot in the Boston Evening Transcript in July, 1890. Herne rewrote the ending of the play several times. The plot summary in this essay describes an ending created later by Herne and shows how he worked to make the play more realistic. In this early ending, four years have elapsed since the third act. Maria, because of her hatred for Philip, has taken little Lucy, telling Joe Fletcher, who now is back as her husband, that the child is her sister’s. Margaret and Philip have been searching for the child, but Maria will not tell them that this child is Lucy. The fifth act of the play takes place in the office of the inspector of police. The inspector leaves Margaret and Philip alone after asking them to work things out. Though Margaret tells Philip that she cannot take him back as her husband, when the inspector comes in and sees them together he thinks they have arrived at a reconciliation and calls in the next case. The audience can see how much simpler the later ending of the play is.

In spite of the praise from people like Garland and Howells, the Boston and New York theater managers would have nothing to do with such a realistic play. They knew that such a play could not be a box office success. Howells suggested that Herne produce the play himself, as some of the realists were doing in Europe. The Hernes found that they could rent a concert hall in Boston. The hall could seat about five hundred people, and Herne was given permission to make what alterations to the stage he wanted.

A distinguished audience attended the opening night. The play received some excellent reviews and ran for two weeks, but the general public did not come. Not until 1907, six years after Herne’s death, with his daughter, Chrystal, playing Margaret, was Margaret Fleming both a popular and a financial success. The American audiences had at last caught up with the vision of realistic drama that James A. Herne had foreseen many years before.

Sources for Further Study

Edwards, Herbert J., and Julie A. Herne. James A. Herne: The Rise of Realism in the American Drama. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1964.

Matlaw, Myron. Nineteenth Century American Plays. New York: Applause Theatre Books, 1985.

Perry, John. James A. Herne: The American Ibsen. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1978.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Representative American Plays from 1767 to the Present Day. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953.

Robinson, Alice M. “James A. Herne and His ‘Theatre Libre’ in Boston.” Players Magazine 48, nos. 5/6 (Summer, 1973).

Wilson, Garff B. Three Hundred Years of American Drama and Theatre. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973.