Before Katrina: Archiving Performative

Downpours and Fallen Women Named

Sadie in Rain and The Deluge (1922) 1

katie n. johnson

During the 1922 Broadway season, two popular plays literally took the stage
by storm. In what may strike post-Katrina audiences as a somewhat
uncanny coincidence, these two dramas Rain and The Deluge were
both based on the aftermaths of natural disasters: specifically, torrential
downpours, the breaching of a levee, and the struggle to regenerate in
the wake of catastrophic destruction. In another seemingly uncanny coinci-
dence, although both dramas have virtually all-male casts, both also feature
one central female character, a down-on-her-luck fallen woman called
Sadie. In addition to featuring natural cataclysms (surely meant as a coun-
terpoint to moral ones), both The Deluge and Rain recycle a classic hooker-
with-a-heart-of-gold story a tale about a repentant prostitute called Sadie
who reconciles with her scarlet past. As I have argued elsewhere, dramas
with prostitutes form the backbone of what was then called brothel
2
drama, a vital subgenre of American modern theatre. Whereas the
brothel genre as a whole waned in the early 1920s in conjunction with
anti-prostitution reform, representations of scarlet women lived on in a
new prostitute figure.
But why the obsession with a fallen woman character named Sadie?
What cultural work does this figure perform? And, specifically, why,
during the 1922 season, was her story located in the context of torrential
storms?
While it is uncertain whether The Deluge or Rain consciously borrowed
from one another (or from other prostitute dramas), what is clear is that-
during the 1922 season (a season characterized by theatre critic Robert
Benchley as a collection of sex plays [Can Sex Things Be?]), a quintes-
sential fallen woman figure named Sadie emerged. Beginning in 1917
with The Deluge (but extending for decades), a prostitute character
named Sadie appeared in countless films, dramas, musicals, and fiction.

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 KATIE N. JOHNSON

What Maggie was to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature

and drama, Sadie was to America between the wars. The emergence of
Sadie Thompson in M. Somerset Maughams 1922 short story Miss
Thompson (later anthologized as Rain) really set sparks flying. Soon,
3
Sadies appeared everywhere. Utterly compelling and sexy, yet destined
to be dumped and scorned (though sometimes saved), Sadie became
an iconic character-type, appearing in Broadway hits (Rain, 1922 24),
Academy Award winning musicals (Miss Sadie Thompson, 1944), African
American race films (Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A., 1946), and numerous
Hollywood adaptations (with Gloria Swanson, 1928; Joan Crawford, 1932;
and Rita Hayworth, 1953). As Jennifer Forrest points out, given the exten-
sive recycling of the figure, Sadie as a type would have been utterly familiar
to most audiences. Forrest writes, If audiences didnt remember the Sadie
Thompson of Rain or of its earlier version, then they would certainly be
familiar with a Sadie Thompson type (176; emphasis in original).
In focusing on just two of the performative iterations of Sadie in The
Deluge and Rain this essay seeks to show how the character-type emble-
matizes a sexually transgressive woman who steps outside of what Foucault
has called the regulatory ideal of sex. At the same time that Sadie rivals het-
eronormative sexuality (as well as codified notions of racialization), so too
she finds herself in narratives that often re-inscribe such ideologies.
Precisely because they threaten the very fabric of normative sexuality, char-
acters named Sadie find themselves exposed to torrential downpours,
trapped in floods, or caught in hurricane winds. Their sexual frenzy,
matched by the natural disasters that frame their journeys, must be con-
tained. In this respect, these dramas and films functioned, to extend
Foucaults analysis, as a part of analytical discourses that took charge of
administering sex. One had to speak of sex, Foucault writes, and do so
publicly, which gave rise to a policing of sex: that is, not the rigor of a
taboo, but the necessity of regulating sex through useful and public dis-
courses (24 25). These plays give voice, in other words, to the project of
regulating fallen womens sexuality. And yet, while narratively efforts are
made to contain Sadie, such efforts often fail (as can be seen in the censor-
ship battles with the Hayes Code in the case of some of the film adap-
tations). Performatively, then, Sadie is a figure that often resists these
oppressions and performs sexual subversions, if only momentary ones.
While The Deluge (originally staged in 1917) was popular enough to
merit a stage revival (in 1922) plus a filmic version, and while Hearsts
International boasted that Rain was the most talked about play in
New York (Play of the Month 93), running for almost three years, we
rarely hear about the importance of these plays for the emerging modern
American drama. I wish to draw attention to these productions with an
eye toward what David Roman has called archival drag, a performance

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 Rain and The Deluge: Floods, Rain, and Fallen Women Named Sadie

that sets out to re-embody and revive a performance from the past (140).
Performing its own kind of queer historical impulse, as Carolyn Dinshaw
(qtd. in Roman 140) puts it, this essay seeks to trace, to use Romans words,
connections across time and to find the significant affinities between the
past and the present that cannot be reduced to positivist notions of histori-
cal progress or causal relationships of cultural change (140). In so doing, it
hopes to draw attention to the importance of these two forgotten plays, not
only for their merit as performative archives of dramatic literature or for
their innovations in stage machinery two important reasons, to be
sure but also because these works remind us of the centrality of
Sadie prostitute characters to the construction of sexuality and the for-
mation of the dramatic canon.
The Deluge splashed onto the American stage in 1917 with Frank
Allens adaptation of the Swedish play Syndafloden (by Henning
4
Berger). Though Berger wrote the initial three-act play in Swedish, it
was, nonetheless, set in America and was based on his experiences of
living in rural Mississippi. Indeed, the premise of the play is somewhat
haunting in the wake of Katrina. In a saloon in a small Mississippi
town, patrons seek refuge from a sweltering mid-summer day. Storms
break out with 100-mile-an-hour hurricane winds. As the temperature
soars above 108 degrees and as howling rains pound outside, the town
levee bursts. Rising flood waters make it clear to all inside the saloon
kept safe thus far by steel shutters that escape is impossible, and
each character comes to terms with imminent death. One intriguing
plot detail from The Deluge worth mentioning for post-Katrina readers
is that it is political corruption that has eroded the towns infrastructure,
specifically, the neglect of the levee. Thrown into the saloon is the grafter
who is responsible for the weakness of the dam which eventually bursts,
flooding the town (The Deluge Seems Mainly Alcohol). He is left to
atone for both his unethical profiteering and past sexual exploits when
he is reunited with the very woman whom he has ruined, Sadie. In
spite of his confessions of love for Sadie and of regret for not standing
by her, he forgets all when the waters miraculously recede.
In spite of The Deluges success throughout Europe and Scandinavia, its
New York premiere in 1917 tanked, running just sixteen performances, in
spite of a riveting performance by then newcomer Pauline Lord.
However, producer Arthur Hopkins believed in the production enough to
store the scenery for five years and revive it again in 1922; when he did
so, The Deluge did only slightly better, with forty-five performances. Its
filmic release under the title of Sin Flood in 1922 was expected to do
5
much better, though it is unclear whether it did so.
Many critics of the period agreed that The Deluge was a strong dramatic
piece although it was not in sync with American tastes for theatre. In 1917,

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 KATIE N. JOHNSON

Arthur Hornblow of Theatre Magazine observed that The Deluge had dis-
tinct literary merit and it was superlatively well acted, but, given that the
playwright was Swedish, the spirit of the piece was distinctly continental
(Mr. Hornblow Goes to the Play [1917] 205). But it was not just the plays
foreign origins that plagued it. Its timing was also bad. In reflecting upon
the 1917 production five years later, Hornblow remarked that the earlier
production was ill-timed owing to the war and the piece made little or
no impression (Mr. Hornblow Goes to the Play [1922]). Life Magazine
concurred that the play bombed, in part, because it came into production
at the wrong time of the year (Metcalfe). The New York Clipper agreed that
its closing was generally attributed to the hot weather (The Deluge
Revived). Apart from the inauspicious timing, another explanation
offered for its short run was that it was poorly translated. According to
the Bookman, It cannot succeed in this English version, and the poor
old public is not to blame for it. Something has been lost in the transplant-
ing, something integral and vital (Broadway, Our Literary Signpost 179).
The reason for its failure, it appears, was a perfect storm of bad timing, bad
weather, and bad translation.
Although The Deluge could hardly be called a triumph, it is worth pon-
dering how its production paved the way for Rains extraordinary success.
Rain was launched just nine months after The Deluge closed and was still
running at the time of The Deluges filmic release. An undeniable hit,
Rain played for nearly three years, with a brief hiatus in 1924. Indeed,
Rain was called the most consistently popular dramatic success of the
season of 1922 23 and the supreme dramatic triumph of the year by
drama critic Burns Mantle (29, 9). Several adaptations on stage and
screen would also ensue, involving a line of stars such as Gloria
6
Swanson, Jeanne Eagels, Joan Crawford, and Rita Hayworth.
Why did Rain succeed where The Deluge failed?
In addition to better timing, one palpable explanation why Rain did
much better was because it was based upon a well-known British, rather
than an obscure Swedish writers story. W. Somerset Maughams short
story, Miss Thompson (later anthologized as Rain), lent some cachet
to the stage version. It was also brilliantly adapted by John Colton and
7
Clemence Randolph and was seen as a model for students of dramaturgy.
Yet I suspect Rain succeeded on three other grounds. First, it introduced
innovative stage machinery that simulated a realistic tropical downpour
that lasted for the entire two-hour production. Second, Rain catered to
Orientalist and colonialist desires, during a period of waning empire, to
see portraits of sultry native peoples. Thus, Rain not only brought
realism to the portrayal of an exotic locale outside of American
borders, but also created a space where puritanical Anglos could unleash
sublimated sexual desires. And third, while both plays recycled a classic

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 Rain and The Deluge: Floods, Rain, and Fallen Women Named Sadie

hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story, Rain offered a more captivating and

resistant scarlet woman, the first of a long line of Sadie Thompsons.
What is interesting about Rain is not that, in retelling a Camille-like
story, it put its dent in the old dramaturgical tin can, as James Agate
once famously put it, but rather that it did so by altering the dramaturgical
trajectory for such a fallen woman, and, in effect, torqued the archival drag.
Taken together, these elements of Rain allowed it to succeed where the
poignantly dire Deluge failed.

CALAMITOUS RAIN
But what of the torrential downpours, the surging waters, and the calami-
tous rain that link these two productions? Why were American audiences so
captivated by this kind of story and mise en scene? At a time when American
theatres were still searching for authentic voices, real settings, and gripping
circumstances, experiments in realistic set design were increasingly valued.
While much early twentieth-century theatre used the underworld as a
primary if not problematic authenticator of gritty American life, in
these two plays, there is a turn toward nature as the primary site for explor-
ing the human experience. In other words, theres a shift from the wreckage
of the urban underworld toward damage from natural disasters a shift
from literal to metaphorical calamity.
In many cultures and for thousands of years, a deluge has been under-
stood as a kind of punishment for humankinds sins. The Deluge draws
consciously on the biblical story of Noahs ark and the flood. But instead
of creating a literal ark besieged by rain for forty days and forty nights,
both Bergers original script and Allens adaptation portray a different
kind of sin flood set in a cellar saloon during twenty-four hours of life-
threatening rain. In case audience members miss the reference, one char-
acter spells it out: Suppose this were Old Noahs Deluge then Strattons
saloon would be the Ark. Dont you see? to which another character
replies: And wed be the animals, eh? (Allen 66).
The stage mechanics of representing the storm in The Deluge were rivet-
ing, created entirely by sound and light effects. As described in Theatre
Magazine, There is a rumble of thunder. Presently the storm busts a
100 mile hurricane . . . Meantime, the lightning is terrifying, the crashes
of thunder deadening. The wind shakes the building. All are badly frigh-
tened (Hornblow, Mr. Hornblow Goes to the Play [1922]). Other
reviews, like this one from the Dial, agree: The production succeeded mir-
aculously in creating an atmosphere (The Theatre). Indeed, as the
New York Clipper tells it, Mr. Hopkins worked up the suspense with
great skill, his storm machines working overtime (The Deluge Revived).

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 KATIE N. JOHNSON

Yet, the focus in The Deluge on a sumptuously appointed saloon

designed by the talented Robert Edmund Jones may well explain its com-
parative failure (Allen 9), in spite of its adherence to the Aristotelian
unity of space. For as Frances Hackett of the New Republic pointed out in
1917, while the portrayal of an actual engulfing flood of water that swal-
lows up a Mississippi town had great promise indeed (especially in light
8
of the recent Johnstown flood), the play failed to exploit this potential,
with the action limited to the basement saloon: There is no panorama
of torn-up trees nor happy children in floating apple-barrels, drowned
dogs and shivering grandmothers retrieved by the Red Cross (Hackett).
What critics like Hackett yearned for was a more immediate kind of
realism that reached beyond a single setting. Such raw portrayals were
indeed broadcast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (minus the happy
children, I believe). Hacketts point raises the question of whether theatrical
realism can, in fact, portray such brutal images effectively (a question
tackled by the many artists who have created theatre pieces about Katrina).
Critics also questioned whether the Hopkins storm machines were
effective enough to sustain suspense when the flood was never shown.
Stuck in the saloon, the characters from The Deluge kept referring to the
rising water, but the spectators never saw it. The audience, as the
Bookman noted in its 1917 review, was stuck in the saloon too: We feel
of course the gradual approach of destruction in the shape of an overflow-
ing river, but it is difficult to keep ones mind fixed on that invisible and
crudely suggested menace for two hours and a half (Broadway, Our
Literary Signpost 180). This led the New York Times to characterize the
play as being governed by a blight of unreality (The Deluge Seems
Mainly Alcohol). The New York Clipper portrayed the failure of the
staging as a kind of betrayal: [T]he audience, as well as the characters in
the play, discover that they have been fooled and that there is not a real
overwhelming flood (The Deluge Revived). Producer Arthur Hopkins
grasped the difficulty of staging something that audiences couldnt see
but excused his approach by disparaging female audience members,
who, Hopkins believed, would never care for realistic thunder storms
that prevail over two acts, nor are they likely to enthuse over barroom veri-
ties (qtd. in Hornblow, Mr. Hornblow Goes to the Play [1917] 205). As we
shall see, he got it wrong: men and women were equally disenchanted.
Like the thunderous Deluge, Rain also offers an amazing storm in a
single setting, but this one is located in the tropics as opposed to the
Mississippi Delta. A boat containing missionaries and others has landed
on a South Sea Island just as the rain hits. In case the audience misses
what the play is about (as if the title didnt give it away), Joe Horn, a
trader from the area, makes it crystal clear: [T]he rainy seasons on, and
Pago Pago is about the rainiest place in the Pacific when it rains (Colton

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 Rain and The Deluge: Floods, Rain, and Fallen Women Named Sadie

and Randolph 41). Indeed, the play is one of the rainiest dramas ever to be
staged. According to theatre historian Samuel Leiter, Rain was given a
spectacularly effective scenic embodiment, which employed a rain
machine that poured tropical torrents on the outer edges of the set
(744). To achieve this outcome, the script was orchestrated, much like a
musical score, so that the rain fell in the scale and [rose] to a crescendo
for dramatic effect. According to one newspaper clipping, All through the
play, the stage-manager stands with his score in hand, signalling by
coloured lights to the operator controlling the supply of water. The rain
can fall with any desired intensity within the space outside the verandah
screen, thus conveying the proper tropical effect (The Rain Makers).
The production did not rely just upon sound effects (as did The Deluge);
rain in this eponymous play was fully present for all to see and hear. In
fact, Rains set design was perceived as a marvel of modern technology,
complete with a matrix of wires, pipes, valves, and switches. Theatre
Magazine hailed the deployment of rain onstage as a new achievement in
realistic stagecraft: Be it said to the credit of realism in America that
never has a wetter or more consistent downpour been seen on any stage
than the one which streams upon the boards of the Maxine Elliott during
the progress of the piece (Rev. of Rain, Theatre Magazine). George
Herbert Mair from the Evening Standard remarked that the rain is a char-
acter in the play just as much as any of the men and women who take a part
in it. The incessant rain, as one British reviewer called it, was more than
the background of the scene; it [was], as it were, a malign Fate, a tragic
Destiny, directing the action of the play (Rev. of Rain [London]). Staging
of the downpour, according to another British newspaper, created visceral
responses: The audience last night shuddered at the constant rattle on the
corrugated roof. They became cold and then hot. Indeed, the article con-
tinued, the technology created proximity, the play making physical as well
as mental contact with its audience (Missionary and Butterfly). So
present, so tactile that it functioned like a character, the high-tech down-
pour in Rain far exceeded typical American stagecraft.
Rain staged another kind of contact as well: the Anglo encounter with
the tropics. The torrent of rain that audience members heard, a British
newspaper pointed out, was not the soft English rain . . . but the merciless,
malignant torrent of the tropics (Missionary and Butterfly). Through the
trope of tropical rain, Maugham cast the South Sea Islands as relentlessly
malevolent and sexually forbidden, a dangerous geography for the soft,
genteel Anglos marooned there. As one publicity pamphlet described it,
the constant rain throughout the play is never to be forgotten by those
of the white race who have experienced the mental distress caused by
this tropical torture (Publicity pamphlet). Discourse about the rain was,
in other words, racialized, imbued with the wetness, danger, and sexuality

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 KATIE N. JOHNSON

that were imagined to be lurking in racially exotic locales. The tropics thus
became not only the literal scenic backdrop but also the emotional and
sexual setting for the exciting, sordid, sub-tropically hot little drama, as
one reviewer called it, which arouses the primitive sexual desires in
Reverend Davidson before he assaults Sadie (Rain at the Garrick).
Moreover, I would argue that the performative effect of the play was to
arouse primitive desires not only in some characters but also in its prurient
audiences.
This racialized portrait is underscored by colonial fantasies. In what may
be a truly perverse American twist to this story, at least one production
photo shows the problematic deployment of blackface for some of the
9
islanders. Given that literature and other arts had portrayed the South Sea
Islands as an exotic contact zone, now theatre tried its hand at going
native. As another newspaper acknowledged, These South Sea Islands!
They have established their place in literature. We feel we know all about
the innocently immoral natives, about the queer white population, about
the missionaries. So, from the first, we expect the worst (Rev. of Rain
[London]). As this colonialist rhetoric reveals, the white population
especially the missionaries had indeed very queer notions of indigenous
peoples. This is why the religious and moral conversion of the sexually
corrupt Sadie must occur here, in the supposedly over-sexed island (and
why it will fail). Unlike in earlier conversion stories of fallen women, which
might take place in a bar-room (Edward Sheldons Salvation Nell from
1908) or at sea (Eugene ONeills Anna Christie in 1921), this harlots conver-
sion is facilitated by the sordid sub-tropics, which are seemingly infected
with immoral natives (Rev. of Rain [London]).
Trapped on this muggy, steamy island, Reverend Davidson strives to save
Sadie from the flames of sexual purgatory. He relentlessly insists that Sadie
not only confess her sexual sins and repent but that she also return to
San Francisco and complete her three-year jail sentence. At first,
Davidson succeeds in converting Sadie.

davidson When you are alone my strength will come to you through prayers,
which will be always on my lips little by little you yourself will
grow stronger surer and presently the time will come when sin
and terror are powerless to penetrate the great love God has
wrapped around you. Then you will be redeemed the kingdom
and the glory will be yours.
sadie (In ecstasy) Yes yes when you talk to me like that Im not afraid
that old life I led dont seem to belong to me at all it was someone
else it wasnt me. When I feel that way, Reverend Davidson, does
that mean Im redeemed? (Colton and Randolph 211)

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The religious fervour with which Davidson speaks parallels the thinly dis-
guised ecstasy of Sadie. In fact, both characters become enraptured with
one another, and the sexual tug of this intense battle worries Davidsons
wife, who pleads with her husband to stay away from the tropical night
(and, by extension, from Sadie). She implores him, Alfred, dont go out
again tonight[,] please dont; its not healthy. It has rained for four days
now and the air is full of poison, from rotting plants (216). But more
than the fetid landscape, it is spending time with Sadie, we learn, that is
poisoning Davidson, as his wife explains to a fellow missionary:
(Unhappily) He prayed with Miss Thompson last night until she went to
sleep. It was nearly three oclock when he came upstairs . . . He has
strange dreams that puzzle him (216). Indeed, Davidson has been dream-
ing of the hills of Nebraska, and in case audience members missed the psy-
choanalytic symbolism, the doctor clarifies, Didnt it strike you that [the
mountains] were curiously like a womans breasts? (222). The Freudian
references were not lost on the critics either. The psycho-analytical
phase of the piece, wrote the reviewer for Theatre Magazine, will be of
immense interest to those many who have come to know in the past few
years all about complexes, sublimations and dreams (Rev. of Rain,
Theatre Magazine).
Davidsons sublimated sexual desires are even more desperate, given
that he and his wife have never had sex together, as Mrs. Davidson
reveals: On our wedding night Mr. Davidson explained to me his ideals
of our marriage. He believed it should be a union free from earthly indul-
gence, devoted entirely to the salvation of others . . . I can safely say our
marriage is entirely a contract of the spirit (Colton and Randolph
21718). It now becomes clear why Davidsons passionate quest for Sadies
conversion is inextricably tied to his repressed sexual desire. As the reviewer
from Londons Tatler put it, It is really the inner conflict of his own sex sup-
pressions battling against his narrow faith. Well, sex will always win sooner or
later, either in deliberate expression or by some form of outlet through which
it may escape confinement (Passing Shows 443). And sex does win.
Disgusted by his sexual overtures toward Sadie (which the audience never
witnesses), Davidson slits his own throat with a razor.
Just as Davidson is undone by the sultry island, so too Sadie returns to her
old fallen ways. Interestingly, this conversion is signalled by a sound
cue after it is discovered that Davidson has committed suicide: Suddenly
the raucous sound of the asthimic [sic] phonograph is heard. It comes from
Sadies room. Both men [Horn and Dr. MacPhail] start listen and then
turn to each other with a look of tempered horror (Colton and Randolph
236). The use of a phonograph here most likely a performative citation
of the last act of The Easiest Way, when Lauras slide into prostitution is
communicated by the playing of a hurdy-gurdy is short-hand for Sadies

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10
sexual fall and it was recognized as a thrilling aural addition. [S]eldom
have we experienced a more powerful thrill in the theatre than in the last
act, wrote Benchley of Life Magazine, when the raucous sound of the
old phonograph in the next room signaled the salvation of Sadie
Thompson from a horrible conversion (Benchley, Just Dandy).
Subverting the trope of salvation, Benchley claimed that Sadie had been
saved from a hypocritical religious conversion (and not from sex work).
When Sadie emerges, her transformation back to prostitution is complete:
Sadie makes her appearance. She is dressed in the costume in which we
first beheld her. Her face is tragic beneath its rouge (Colton and Randolph
239). As visual, textual, and aural clues demonstrate, in this sexual tropical
landscape, Sadies moral rebirth can only be momentary, as tragedy
awaits her as well.

SADIE, SADIE
I still havent addressed why both plays were obsessed with a fallen woman
named Sadie (or why Sadie Thompson would emerge in numerous plays
and films in years to come). To begin, Id like to examine how the two
Sadies in The Deluge and Rain compare to the long tradition of harlot char-
acters in American theatre and how these two productions resonate not
only with one another but, indeed, with brothel drama as a whole (thus
another iteration of the archival drag).
In The Deluge, Sadie is literally the only woman in the play. While she is
referred to as a prostitute by characters in the play and by theatre critics
alike, it is not entirely clear that Sadie is actually a prostitute. She is cer-
tainly a sporting girl, who sleeps around with men and who has fallen in
love with the hopelessly thoughtless and greedy grafter, Adams. When
rising flood waters threaten imminent death, both lovers declare their devo-
tion for each other. As the waters recede, however, Adams becomes oppor-
tunistic at once and discards Sadie like a used rag. Sadie internalizes
Adams rejection, saying, I think everythings kinder wrong about me
nothing goes right do you understand? When Adams suggests that
they stay together, Sadie sees through him, replying, Two people like us
dont go the same road. We must choose different roads (Allen 76 77).
Ultimately, she is able to move beyond her self-loathing and reject
Adamss offer to keep her as his mistress. It could be said that she preserves
her dignity in the end, and the light cue on her exit underscores her change
of fortune: Sadie goes out into street; turns so sunlight shines full on face
and figure (78). This hopeful moment is not insignificant, as scarlet
women in drama were often punished by death or deprivation. As the
New York Times noted, The pathos of the love of a woman of the streets
seldom fails to affect an audience; but it must be said that Miss Lord

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 Rain and The Deluge: Floods, Rain, and Fallen Women Named Sadie

played with rare sincerity and discretion (Deluge Seems Mainly

Alcohol). A full four years before ONeills Anna Christie would emerge
to garner respectability for prostitute characters (the play won the
Pulitzer in 1922), this sympathetic portrait of Sadie is not only rare, as
the review suggests, but also significant for our understanding of how
embodied performances of prostitution infused both stage and page.
And in the interest of tracking the performative archive and its various
citations in repertoire, to borrow Diana Taylors analysis, it is also worth
11
noting how various actresses shaped the role of Sadie. Pauline Lord origi-
nated the role of Sadie in The Deluge to strong reviews and would go on to
play the title character in ONeills Anna Christie in 1921. When The
Deluge was revived again in January 1922, Pauline Lord was unavailable
for Sadie, according to theatre historian Gerald Bordman, for she had
become a star, playing a girl all too familiar with low bars, in the
Hopkins production of a drama by another ONeill (65). Lords portrayal
of Anna Christie was haunted, as Marvin Carlson would say, by her role
12
of Sadie, and playing fallen women would define her career. But if The
Deluge failed in spite of Pauline Lords talents, Rain succeeded because
of its infamous portrait of Sadie Thompson.
Rain delivers, in fact, what I believe is one of the most exciting prostitute
characters since Shaws Mrs. Warren. Described by the Philadelphia
Bulletin as wild and willful, and full of frolicsome deviltry (Gossip of
13
the Rialto) Sadie Thompson is not the repentant courtesan so familiar
to the New York stage of the time. As the Tatler put it in 1925, True, we
may be getting a little tired of the prostitute-heroine, but at least Sadie
Thompson is an interesting variation on a well-worn theme (Passing
Shows 442). Precisely because Sadie Thompson ultimately defies repen-
tance and conversion to Christianity, she remains true to herself and
leaves the island on her own terms. Played memorably in the New York
City production by Jeanne Eagels from 1922 to 1924, the part of Sadie
Thompson was remembered as one of the most startlingly convincing
that we have ever seen (Benchley, Just Dandy). Indeed, the role of
Sadie Thompson was the defining moment of Eagelss career. The director
of the play, John D. Williams, once remarked, Miss Eagels had that touch
of magic in character interpretation (qtd. in Biography for Jeanne
Eagels). It was said that nearly one million theatre-goers saw Eagels in
that role over the years.
In her study of womens voices in classical Hollywood cinema, Amy
Lawrence maintains that womens speech is repeatedly constructed as a
problem in Rain and that Sadie is usually silenced. While much of the
play supports Lawrences argument, the ending provides a satisfactory
exception. Having been sexually violated by Reverend Davidson when she
was most vulnerable, Sadies closing lines reveal her contempt for men:

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 KATIE N. JOHNSON

Youre right! Something has happened. You men! Something has hap-
pened! You men youre all alike. (hoarsely) Pigs! Pigs! I wouldnt trust
14
one of you! (Colton and Randolph 241; emphasis in original). Notice
how similar her lines are to those of ONeills Anna Christie (which was
written before Maughams short story): When confronting her father and
lover with the reality of her past as a prostitute Anna says, Youre just
like all the rest of them you two! Gawd, youd think I was a piece of
furniture! Ill show you! . . . all men, God damn em! I hate em! Hate em!
(11112). Its unclear whether Maugham had read ONeills play before
penning his short story, but the similarities are nonetheless interesting and
demonstrate yet another instance of the archive dragging itself into perform-
ance. This scene reveals Sadies vigour, strength, and self-actualization.
Indeed, director Williams remarked that this superbly tragic last act was
riveting because of its flawless blend of bitter disillusionment, irony,
revenge, terror (qtd. in Biography for Jeanne Eagels). The unprecedented
independence and strength of the prostitute-heroine was no doubt what
attracted actresses and filmmakers to Sadie Thompsons story for decades.
In addition to these remarkable lines, there is an additional scene
between Sadie and Mrs. Davidson at the very end of Rain that is worth
noting. As Sadie renounces Davidson and men in general, she still
doesnt know that Davidson has killed himself. When she eventually finds
out, she staggers and utters in a strange voice, So he killed himself,
did he? Then I can forgive him. I thought the joke was on me all on
me! ( pauses) I see it wasnt (Colton and Randolph 242). Grasping the
severity of the event, she turns off the raunchy music. Then, Mrs.
Davidson walks straight toward Sadie. There is intense silence on the
stage. The two women gaze intently at each other.

mrs. davidson (Sadly) I understand, Miss Thompson Im sorry for him

and Im sorry for you. (Mrs. Davidson turns hastily away,
covers her face and walks upstairs. All the people on the stage
watch her until she is out of sight.)
sadie (In a low, sick voice) Im sorry for everybody in the world! Lifes a
quaint present from somebody, theres no doubt about that. Maybe
it will be easier in Sidney. (She clutches OHaras arm and breaks
into sobs as the curtain falls.) (243)

This scene between the two women is striking for a number of reasons.
First, as I have argued elsewhere, it is uncommon for two women in plays
about prostitution to have scenes together; the dramaturgical force of the
story is usually more invested in the conflict between the fallen woman
and men. While this short scene ultimately resolves with heterosexual
closure (Sadie leaves with the sailor OHara), the two women nevertheless

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 Rain and The Deluge: Floods, Rain, and Fallen Women Named Sadie

share an unusual moment. Their brief scene (and even their silent gazes)
speaks volumes about their shared understanding regarding the oppression
of women. They are sorry for one another, for more reasons than one. But
this scene is also striking because Maughams short story ends quite
differently:

Miss Thompson was standing at her door, chatting with a sailor. A sudden change
had taken place in her. She was no longer the cowed drudge of the last days. She
was dressed in all her finery, in her white dress, with the high shiny boots over
which her fat legs bulged in their cotton stockings; her hair was elaborately
arranged; and she wore that enormous hat covered with gaudy flowers. Her face
was painted, her eyebrows were boldly black and her lips were scarlet. She held
herself erect. She was the flaunting queen that they had known at first. As they
came in she broke into a loud, jeering laugh; and then, when Mrs. Davidson
involuntarily stopped, she collected the spittle in her mouth and spat. Mrs.
Davidson cowered back and two red spots rose suddenly to her cheeks. Then,
covering her face with her hands, she broke away and ran quickly up the stairs.
(Maugham 454)

I quote at length to show how Colton and Randolphs version differs radi-
cally from Maughams original. Not only is Sadie less of a tart in the dra-
matic version; she is also portrayed far more sympathetically. Gone are
the gaudy dress, the harlot make-up, and the crude spitting on Mrs.
Davidson. Instead, Colton and Randolph allow the two women to under-
stand how their fates were perhaps not so different, that through the
deployment of sexual and religious discourse, whore and wife can share
more than is ever publicly acknowledged. Whereas Maughams story
ends with Dr. Macphail as the sole one understanding Sadies fate (Dr.
Macphail gasped. He understood), in the stage adaptation, it is Mrs.
Davidson who most understands the torment Sadie has endured
(Maugham 455).


The wrath of God has commonly been invoked in response to catastrophic

flooding; the explanation continues to be deployed even today as we
struggle to interpret the aftermath of Katrina. Constituting a kind of discur-
sive, if not performative, flood, dramatic and filmic portrayals of Sadie
Thompson surge into one another, dragging various archival remnants.
Though not recorded in mainstream theatre histories, The Deluge and
Rain deserve our attention, not only because they were so important to
early twentieth-century American drama or because their performances
constitute an important citational archive, but also because of the long-for-
gotten icon of the happy-go-lucky prostitute. After the 1922 season, Sadie

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 KATIE N. JOHNSON

Thompson would be found on water-drenched stages and in films for years

to come. Her journey is often a dark one, as expressed by Sadie in the lyrics
from Miss Sadie Thompsons Song (the Academy Award nominated
theme song of the 1953 film, Miss Sadie Thompson):

Because of all the rain and mud

The feel of the place gets in your blood
But deep in the night there comes unawares
the terrible thought that nobody cares. (Lee and Washington)

On the one hand, Sadie is right when she thinks nobody cares; male char-
acters, especially, do not seem to care about her well-being, however well
intentioned they are. But as Mrs. Davidson demonstrates in Colton and
Randolphs adaptation, some characters genuinely do care about Sadie,
and perhaps even more would care about her if dramaturgical space were
given to that narrative thread. Even as the rain and mud get into the
blood, as the lyrics say, and efforts are made to contain Sadies sexuality
in exotic locales, she resists these regulatory measures. Sadie Thompson
remains one of the most exciting, wilful and self-possessed harlot charac-
ters in the dramatic canon. And insofar as popular discourse seems to be
obsessed with Sadie figures, and to the extent that sexuality debates have
been waged literally upon her body, Sadie is central to any study of cultural
investments in womens sexuality and American drama.

NOTES
1 Special thanks to J. Kerry Powell, Timothy D. Melley, Alan Ackerman, James
McKinnon, and Rosemary Clark-Beattie for their comments on this essay.
2 For a discussion of brothel drama and its importance for early twentieth-
century theatre, see Johnson.
3 Sadies fate was not always good, as can be seen in Little Sadie, a folk ballad
that first emerged in 1922, the same year that Rain and The Deluge appeared.
While also known by other titles, the ballad tells the story of a man who is
apprehended and sentenced after shooting his wife/girlfriend. In the first sound
recording from 1930 (with Clarence Tom Ashley), Little Sadie seems to have
been a prostitute; see Little Sadie.
4 Syndafloden premiered in Copenhagen in 1905 with great success and was
translated into many languages throughout Europe; see The Deluge Revived.
Another article maintains that the premiere was in Paris in 1907, but Im
inclined to accept the Clippers date. Special thanks to Sven-Erik Rose for his
help in translating the Swedish title, Syndafloden, and for information about
Henning Berger.
5 As the New York Times put it, This play is familiar to a good many though too
few people through its English translation which Arthur Hopkins twice tried

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 Rain and The Deluge: Floods, Rain, and Fallen Women Named Sadie

to make a go of on the New York stage under the title of The Deluge. It is to be
hoped that the picture will have a wider circulation; see The Screen.
6 While it premiered in Philadelphia in October 1922, in New York City, Rain ran
at Maxine Elliotts Theatre from 7 November 1922 through June 1923, for a total
of 256 performances, with Jeanne Eagels in the title role. It reopened the
following year and played for two years (from 1 September 1924 through March
1926) at the Gaiety Theatre, again with Jeanne Eagels; see Leiter 744, Mantle
483 84; Internet Broadway Database. A musical version, called Sadie
Thompson, ran for sixty performances in November 1944 (with June Havoc).
A silent film version of Rain, called Sadie Thompson, with Gloria Swanson,
was released in 1928. The first talkie version came out in 1932 with Joan
Crawford. Another film version, called Miss Sadie Thompson, was released in
1953 with Rita Hayworth. A race film by Spencer Williams, called Dirty Gertie
from Harlem U.S.A., was made in 1946 with Francine Everett (see Forrest;
Jones).
7 Rain was so well adapted from the short story that, according to the Nations
drama critic Ludwig Lewisohn, [C]ollege workshops and seminars in drama-
turgy, should study the story Rain and the play now founded upon it. With
that book in the students hands most of the theoretical treatises on the subject
could safely go to the ash-heap (586).
8 The disastrous Johnstown flood occurred in 1889, when the South Fork Dam,
situated fourteen miles upstream of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, burst. The dams
failure, which unleashed a torrent of 20 million tons of water, was compounded
by several days of heavy rainfall. The flood killed over 2,200 people and was the
first major disaster relief effort handled by the new American Red Cross.
According to Wikipedia, Public indignation at that failure prompted a major
development in American law state courts move from a fault-based regime to
strict liability; see Johnstown Flood.
9 As many scholars have shown, blackface was a performance practice with a
lengthy and problematic history; see Lott; Bean, Hatch, and McNamara.
10 The Easiest Way by Eugene Walter was selected retrospectively as the best play of
1909 by John Gassner. It was revived several times, but important for my
argument is the revival of 1921.
11 I am using Taylors efforts to deconstruct the binary between written text (what
she calls the archive) and performance (what she calls repertoire).
12 In the rival of The Deluge in 1922, Kathlene MacDonnell was cast as Sadie,
although several critics remarked that she was not as convincing as Lord. For
example, the New York Clipper observed that MacDonnells performance can
hardly be compared with that of Pauline Lord, who created the role (The
Deluge, Revived). But were the critics really that smitten with Pauline Lord
originally, or were they rewriting the archive five years later, having been
influenced by Lords burgeoning repertoire of fallen women? I suspect it is
the latter, for although she had positive reviews, very little ink was spilled
praising Pauline Lord until after the 1921 production of Anna Christie.
The most positive review regarding Pauline Lords acting in The Deluge
came from the New York Dramatic Mirror: She takes a small part . . . and

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 KATIE N. JOHNSON

makes it the memorable characterization of the play. It is acting of the

highest caliber sincere, restrained and convincing; see Rev. of The Deluge,
New York Dramatic Mirror.
13 Lesley Ferriss term for prostitute characters who confess, repent, suffer, and
often die.
14 Sadies speech castigating the men is noticeably absent from the script
reprinted in Theatre Magazine in February 1923.

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Broadway, Our Literary Signpost. Bookman 55 (April 1922): 179 80.
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U of Michigan P, 2001.
Colton, John, and Clemence Randolph. Rain: A Play in Three Acts. New York:
Liveright, 1923.
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Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. Dir. Spencer Williams. Sack Amusement
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Ferris, Lesley. Acting Women: Images of Women in Theatre. London: Macmillan
Education, 1990.
Forrest, Jennifer. Sadie Thompson Redux: Postwar Reintegration of the Wartime
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Jennifer Forrest, and Leonard R. Koos. New York: State U of New York P, 2002:
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Gassner, John, ed. Best Plays of the Early American Theatre: From the Beginning to
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Gossip of the Rialto. Rev. of Rain. New York Times 15 Oct. 1922: 99.
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ABSTRACT: In 1922, two popular plays Rain and The Deluge literally took the stage by
storm. In what may strike post-Katrina audiences as a somewhat uncanny coincidence,
these plays were based on the aftermaths of natural disasters: specifically, torrential down-
pours and the breaching of a levee. Both plays also featured a down-on-her-luck fallen
woman called Sadie. Indeed, after this season, Sadie became an iconic character-type,
appearing in various Broadway hits, musicals, and films for years. In focusing on just
two of the performative iterations of Sadie, this essay shows that, at the same time that
Sadie rivals heteronormative sexuality (as well as codified notions of racialization), so
too she finds herself in narratives that often reinscribe such ideologies. And yet, while,
narratively, efforts are made to contain Sadie, such efforts often fail. Performatively,
then, Sadie is a figure that often resists these oppressions and performs sexual subver-
sions, if only momentary ones.
KEYWORDS: Rain, The Deluge, Sadie Thompson, Prostitute, M. Somerset Maugham, John
Colton, Clemence Randolph

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