WICHITA, Kansas -- When you watch a movie, TV show or play, you quite naturally follow the story and the actors. But did you ever think about who wrote the lines the actors speak and the story they are acting? Most actors will tell you that the story and the words are the key ingredients even though most people who write those words and stories are little known.
One of the very best at writing stories and words was a Kansas native by the name of William Inge. Born in Independence in 1913, he rose to writing heights most can only dream about.
Mike Wood, associate professor and media resource director at Wichita State, is a William Inge expert.
“William Inge became synonymous with the midwestern small town story” according to Wood who goes on to say that most of Inge’s work had a Kansas background and even more than that, an Independence background. “People in Independence knew he was writing very specifically about what he had observed growing up there. Independence natives could recognize incidents and even people in the town.”
In the 1950s, Inge had four plays on Broadway: “Come Back Little Sheba”, “Picnic”, “Bus Stop” and “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.” They were four hit plays made into four hit movies starring the likes of Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, William Holden, Robert Preston and many others, some of the top names in the acting business.
Wood talks about the stature Inge enjoyed in the 1950s. “During that time he was considered one of the top three playwrights on Broadway. The three reigning playwrights were Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and William Inge.”
That’s very heady company for a guy from Independence, but he more than kept pace.
“Picnic” won the Pulitzer Prize as the best play of 1953 and his plays were nominated for various Tonys, the Broadway equivalent of the Oscar. He also did something neither Miller or Williams, two of America’s greatest playwrights ever did. He won an Oscar.
Inge won the best screenplay Oscar for writing “Splendor in the Grass”, one of the top movies of 1961. The movie starred Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty as star-crossed lovers in a small Kansas town, a town clearly modeled on Independence in the 1920’s. It was the first movie for Beatty, who went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. He was recommended for the part by Inge who saw him on Broadway. Inge himself had a small role as a pastor.
He was one of the best writers of his time and many experts rank him among or very close to the top twenty American playwrights ever. But if he had a way with words, he had little way with life.
“He was a troubled man” says Wood. “He was dealing with depression, alcoholism and his sexuality as a closeted gay in the 1950s.”
Inge took his own life at the age of sixty in 1973 and rests today in the Mount Hope cemetery in Independence. He is home in both body and spirit in the hometown where he has not been forgotten.
The William Inge Theatre Festival is now thirty years old. It brings playwrights and actors from across the country to the Independence Community College to celebrate writers. Well known people from New York and Hollywood have attended to pay homage to the men and women who write the words.
There is also Inge’s boyhood home in Independence, now owned by the Inge foundation. It’s a place where visiting playwrights stay and is the home used as the setting in both “Picnic” and “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.”
“Picnic”, the story of a small town drifter, clearly takes place in Independence as does “Splendor in the Grass.” “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” is very much based on Inge’s life. It’s a story of unemployment and marriage problems and the two children in the family are based on Inge and his older sister, Helene.
In addition to all this, Inge willed his papers, manuscripts and books to Independence Community College where they reside now in a special room at the library. Scholars come from around the world to study a man whose plays are performed throughout the year in many different cities and whose stories of small town life have been acted by some of the best.
“Inge’s plays are definitely universal” says Wood. “There are stories everywhere, but not many people have the talent to piece those stories together and make something that has a beginning, an arc and a nice ending. Inge could do that, and those who study him are going to find a very fascinating man.”
