J.A. Sokalski, McMaster U
Playing for the Birds:Sanctuary as the Site for the Confluence of Social Protest and Polite Society In the Early Twentieth Century

One of the earliest twentieth-century theatre productions to bring social protest to middle class society was Percy MacKaye’s 1913 play Sanctuary. Through allegory the play critiqued the social habits of affluent women who embraced the period fashion for hats adorned with song-bird feathers. So strong was the work’s reception that the play became the site for the confluence of social protest and polite society. Indeed, the issue addressed in the play concerning the environmental harm done unto migratory bird populations in North America by the commercial hunting of plumage for the fashion trade resulted in trade tariffs that firmly halted the importation of such items. The passing of this government bill became personal for President Woodrow Wilson when he watched his young daughter featured as one of the threatened birds in the original outdoor production. This paper explores the play’s origins, its production and the impact on the issues it treated. Indeed, one legacy produced by such social activism is the strategy of bringing awareness to people of the environmental impact of their personal fashion choices. Ninety years after Sanctuary this strategy continues to be used by social activists and environmentalists. In examining an early example of how environmental issues can be publicly advanced on stage this paper provides a historical vantage point for a form of theatre that is important to many Canadian theatre artists and social activists.