![]() Brieux, known as a moralizing playwright in his home country of France, found great fame in the United States for his revolutionary, open discussion of issues such as venereal disease, motherhood, and divorce. While the play itself casts the men as the decision-makers who determine whether to spread or conquer this sexually transmitted disease, much of the publicity surrounding the play at the time of its production similarly places men in control. This image makes Bennett the activist of the project, the one who will tell the audience the story they need to hear. He is the agent who can address the audience, while the woman must keep her eyes focused on the child. But even in the poster for the film, the role of women is apparent: Bennett looks directly out toward the viewer, while the mother casts her eyes downward toward the child. The initial 1914 silent film ushered in the era of exploitation films, becoming one of the first films to present a taboo subject on the screen. The tour resulted in more interest, and eventually, Hollywood called. After the Broadway production, Bennett made it his life’s work to travel through the United States with the play. ( Wikimedia Commons)īrieux wrote the role of the doctor to be the voice of reason, and Bennett stepped into the role onstage as the helpless George who realizes the error of his ways and as the offstage crusader for open conversations about syphilis. Eugène Brieux on the right, standing with French ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand. The Kansas City Independent identifies Bennett as the sole interpreter of the work, giving him the credit for bringing the appropriate sincerity and frankness of the play to cities across the United States. Upton Sinclair, in his preface to his novelization of the play, describes Bennett as courageous for bringing the subject to the stage. According to press reports at the time, it was his star power that propelled the play from an obscure reading for the Sociological Fund to a Broadway-bound piece. Known as one of the best actors of the time, Bennett publicly took the roles of producer and purveyor of the story, using publicity to make him not only the star, but also the social force behind the play. Richard Bennett received the most publicity and notoriety as the driving force behind the play and the way it spread knowledge of the disease across the United States. Without agency, the women of the play - the wife, mother, and mistress - simply trust in the knowledge and decisions of the men in their lives. George’s decision to follow through with his marriage turns him into the plague that infects his family, something that could have been avoided if he had listened to the other man in the play and relied on science. ![]() George’s young wife, Henriette, is infected with the disease, as is their young daughter, Germaine. Men exhibit these characteristics throughout the play, with the women as the passive receivers of their decisions. George and the doctor represent two sides of the play: the passionate and the logical. George passionately argues with the doctor that the social ramifications of that decision would paralyze him, and despite the best effort of the doctor to logically convince George of the science behind the disease, George chooses to forego the treatment and continue with his marriage. ![]() While not discussed at length in the play, the treatment for syphilis at the time of the play involved the use of arsenic, and George knows that the required medication will mean the postponement of his engagement. ![]() The doctor treating him prescribes the usual course of medication, but George refuses. ![]() The play, and the novel subsequently made of the popular work, focuses on George Dupont, a young man about to be married when he learns that he has contracted syphilis. Film Poster from the 1914 silent film, Damaged Goods. The play and the publicity surrounding the piece cast women to the sidelines, but the actual history of the production places women in far more active roles. Instead, the real threat stems from how the male characters use their intelligence, rendering the women helpless carriers of the disease. The syphilis bacteria isn’t the real pathogen in the story. As with so many of his works, Brieux intended the characters in Damaged Goods to point out social injustice - in this case, the way syphilis could be spread to innocent spouses and children - but the only heroes in the story remain solely the men who also pose the greatest threat. While Henrik Ibsen’s play, Ghosts, had referenced sexually transmitted disease, Brieux’s plot featured a main character wrestling with the physical and social ramifications of syphilis after an ill-chosen affair. In 1913, the New York theatre world was electrified with the presentation of Eugène Brieux’s play, Damaged Goods. ![]()
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