The Servant in the House

Servant in the House, The (1908), a play by Charles Rann Kennedy. [Savoy Theatre, 80 perf.] Everyone in the home of the Reverend William Smythe (Charles Dalton) mentions that the new butler, the strange and singularly humble Manson (Walter Hampden), looks familiar. But they are more concerned about the arrival of Smythe's detested brother‐in‐law, the Bishop of Lancashire (Arthur Lewis), who is virtually deaf and blind and preoccupied with worldly success. The vicar's brother Joshua, long out of touch and now supposedly an important figure in the church, is also expected. The third arrival is to be another long‐lost brother, Robert (Tyrone Power), who took to drink after his wife's death and is now a common laborer. When Robert shows up, the family behaves badly and it remains for the butler Manson to quietly bring the family closer together and teach them the true meaning of their religion. Amazed at Manson's healing powers, the vicar asks him, “In God's name, who are you?” Manson replies, “In God's Name—your brother.” Henry Miller produced the modern morality play, and Walter Prichard Eaton called it “not a sermon or a tract, but a statement of applied or ethical religion in terms of the drama, a play with its own dramatic appeal and human significance.” Almost inevitably, a play such as this had little broad appeal. Charles Rann KENNEDY (1871–1950), the grandson of the famous classical scholar of the same name, was an English‐born actor and playwright who made his first American appearance as the Doctor and Messenger in a 1903 revival of Everyman. While the fact that his American debut was in a medieval morality play may have been mere coincidence, it remains significant that most of his plays had markedly religious bents. Among his other works were The Winterfeast (1908), The Terrible Meek (1912), and The Army with Banners (1918). In later years he produced and played in an annual festival of Greek plays at Millbrook, New York.