Follow Max Eastman, one of the� Twentieth Century's most fascinating� figures, as he crusades for labor and women's rights, narrowly escapes both prison and lynching, writes bestsellers, travels the world, combats the tyranny of Stalin, and befriends Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Sigmund Freud, Leon Trotsky, H.G. Wells, e.e. cummings, William F. Buckley, and James Joyce, to name but a few.

I first came across Max Eastman when researching a grad school paper on the Provincetown Players. Once I got the information I needed out of his autobiography, I found I simply couldn't put the book down. The seed had been planted which would grow into this play. In his time, Eastman shifted seamlessly from poet to journalist, philosopher to agitator, lover to fighter, radical to conservative. Historically, he stands out merely for his survival of government persecution during WWI and his revealing to the world the document now commonly called Lenin's Testament. His editorship of The Masses and The Liberator, two of the most remarkable journals ever produced, is enough to ensure his place in literature. And a list of his friends reads like a Who's Who of the Century. However, all of this is, if not the tip of the iceberg, certainly only part of the Max Eastman story. That he went from being a major celebrity during his lifetime to a relative unknown afterward is something for which I don't have all the answers. I sincerely hope that this play goes some way toward reawakening interest in his life and works.
-Richard Sautter
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TIMELINE OF MAX EASTMAN'S LIFE
1883 Born, Canandaigua, New York.
1893 Eastman's parents become joint pastors of the Park Church, Elmira, New York.
1897 Enters Mercersburg Academy on scholarship, earns highest marks in the school's history.
1905 Graduates Williams College.
1907 Eastman moves to New York, settling in Greenwich Village with his sister Crystal.
Joins the Philosophy staff of Columbia University under John Dewey.
1910 Forms the Men's League for Women's Suffrage.
1911 Mother dies. Marries sculptor/activist Ida Rauh.
1912 Meets Woodrow Wilson, instructs him on Women's Suffrage.
1913 Becomes editor of The Masses, writes Enjoyment of Poetry.
1914 First volume of poetry published. Enjoyment of Poetry becomes a bestseller. Covers the Ludlow Massacre as a journalist. War breaks out.
1916 Helps found the Provincetown Players.
1917 US declares War. Eastman escapes lynching after delivering a pacifist speech. Raises money to send John Reed to Russia. The Masses withheld from the mails for containing material designed to impede the war effort. Eastman and Rauh separate. The Masses folds.
1918 Eastman and Crystal found The Liberator. Eastman and Masses colleagues twice brought to trial under the Espionage Acts.
1919 War ends. Eastman receives and makes public secret State Department cables detailing US military intervention in Russia. Meets and befriends Charlie Chaplin.
1920 John Reed dies in Russia.
1921 The Sense of Humor, Eastman's groundbreaking study, published.
1922 Attends the Genoa Conference, world's first "summit", as a reporter. Goes to Russia.
1923 Gains access to top echelons of Soviet authority through friendships and mastery of Russian language. Becomes romantically involved with Eliena Krylenko. Researches life of Trotsky. Suffers a nervous breakdown.
1924 Learns of Lenin's "Testament" to the Party, warning against Stalin. Sees Trotsky outdone by Soviet bureaucracy. Marries Eliena Krylenko. Leaves Russia. Settles in South of France.
1925 Parties with American writers in France. Publishes Since Lenin Died, expos� of Party factionalism in Russia. Denounced by socialists worldwide.
1926 Publishes his study, Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution.
1927 Visits Freud in Vienna. Returns to US. Crystal dies.
1929 Becomes Trotsky's translator and unofficial literary agent.
1932 Visits Trotsky in Prinkipo and spends a brief time in a Spanish prison.
1933 "Art and the Life of Action" series printed in the Modern Monthly.
1935 Publishes Enjoyment of Laughter.
1936 Great Purges begin in Soviet Union. Most of Eastman's Russian friends shot.
1937 Tsar to Lenin, Eastman's documentary film, released. Scuffle with Ernest Hemingway makes international headlines
1938 Becomes the host of a national radio show. Buys land to build a house on Martha's Vineyard.
1940 Publishes "Lot's Wife," his longest poem, in addition to two major political works.
1941 Irrevocably renounces his socialist beliefs. Becomes roving editor of Reader's Digest. Edmund Wilson publishes his sympathetic essay "Max Eastman in 1941."
1948 Publishes the first volume of his memoirs.
1953 Translates Jacob Rosin's landmark work The Road to Abundance.
1955 Joins the masthead of The National Review.
1956 Eliena dies.
1958 Marries Yvette Szekely.
1959 Interviewed on national television by Mike Wallace.
1964 Completes the second volume of his memoirs.
1969 Dies in Barbados.


The Eastman Home on Martha's Vineyard

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