This Bright Land : A Personal View

ALL COLOR INTERIOR

In 1971, when Brooks Atkinson wrote This Bright Land, the modern conservation movement was being driven by new awareness of science’s shortcomings. The early conservation movement, built on John Muir and Henry David Thoreau’s appreciation of nature, was well aware of man’s ability to outstrip his environment, but until the 1960s society still trusted man’s ingenuity to fix any problem, even as mankind willfully depleted his natural resources.

However, Rachel Carson’s 1962 publication of Silent Spring demonstrated this trust was misplaced. Her research into the harmful effect of DDT demonstrated that mankind’s incautious use of science and technology could destroy the environmental base, that it was a fragile base.

It was instinctive then that a Thoreau student, such as Brooks Atkinson, would quickly understand not only the old dangers in mankind’s choices, such as deforestation, but also newer problems such as hazardous chemicals, or air and water pollution, that threaten both flora and fauna in This Bright Land of America.

JUSTIN BROOKS ATKINSON (November 28, 1894 - January 14, 1984) was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960. In his obituary, the Times called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his time." A war correspondent during World War II, he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his work as the Moscow correspondent for the Times. Atkinson attended Harvard University where he began writing for the Boston Herald. He graduated from Harvard in 1917, and worked at the Springfield Daily News and the Boston Evening Transcript, where he was assistant to the drama critic. In 1922, he became the editor of the New York Times Book Review, and in 1925 the drama critic. Atkinson married Oriana MacIlveen, a writer, in August 1926. On the drama desk, Atkinson quickly became known for his commitment to new kinds of theater-he was one of the first critical admirers of Eugene O'Neill-for his interest in all kinds of drama, including off-Broadway productions. In 1928, he said of the new play The Front Page, "No one who has ground his heels in the grime of a police headquarters press room will complain that this argot misrepresents the gentlemen of the press." In 1932 Atkinson embraced the witty, direct writing style that became his hallmark. His reviews were reputed to have the power to make or break a new stage production: for example, his panning in 1940 of Lawrence Riley's Return Engagement led to that comedy's closure after only eight performances, this despite the fact that Riley's previous comedy, Personal Appearance, had lasted for over 500 performances on Broadway. Atkinson, who was dubbed "the conscience of the theater," was not comfortable with the influence he wielded over the Broadway box office. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Atkinson requested a reassignment to war coverage, and the New York Times sent him to the front lines as a war correspondent in China, where he covered the second Sino-Japanese war until 1945. While in China, he visited Mao Tse-Tung in Yenan and was captivated by Mao, writing favorably on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) movement, and against the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, which he saw as reactionary and corrupt. After visiting Yenan, he wrote that the CCP political system was best described as an "agrarian or peasant democracy, or as a farm labor party." Atkinson viewed the Chinese Communist Party as Communist in name only and more democratic than totalitarian; the Times effusively titled his article "Yenan, a Chinese Wonderland City. " After the end of the war, Atkinson stayed only briefly in New York before being sent to Moscow as a press correspondent; his work as the Moscow correspondent for the Times earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence in 1947. After returning from the Soviet Union, Atkinson was reassigned to the drama desk, where he remained until his retirement in 1960. He is given much credit for the growth of Off-Broadway into a major theatrical force in the 1950s, and has been cited by many influential people in the theatre as crucial to their careers. David Merrick's infamous spoof ad for Subways Are For Sleeping-in which he hired seven ordinary New Yorkers who had the same names as prominent drama critics to praise his musical-had to wait for Atkinson's retirement, because Merrick could not find anyone with the right name. There was only one Brooks Atkinson in New York City. Atkinson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960. He came briefly out of retirement in 1965 to write a favorable review of Man of La Mancha; his review was printed on the first page of the show's original souvenir program. After his retirement, he became a member of The Players who organized a tribute dinner for Atkinson's 80th birthday which was attended by Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, and other prominent actors and playwrights.