Van Zorn is a comedy of New York City artist life written in 1914 by Edwin Arlington Robinson. It is one of Robinson's two published plays, published just before his volume of poems The Man Against the Sky. As of 1920, Van Zorn's only public performances was a 1917 run given in a Brooklyn hall by a semi-professional company. It has not fared so well in the hundred years since.
Van Zorn is about a fatalist who, attempting to play the part of destiny in a love affair, runs counter to a man with a destiny better than his own.
The wealthy title character arrives in Greenwich Village after travels abroad. Van Zorn finds out that the painter Weldon Farnham, his best friend, is engaged to marry Villa Vannevar. Van Zorn has met Villa Vannevar once, and the play implies without stating outright that he is in love with her. He looks at the portraits Farnham has painted of Vannevar and believes that Farnham does not really know her, and is marrying her for her beauty. Van Zorn also finds out that George Lucas is in love with Vannevar, but that a previous relationship between the two ended in their separation by Vannevar's aunt. Van Zorn has strong powers of intuition, and realizes that Lucas will kill himself if Vannevar marries Farnham. He succeeds in convincing Lucas to give up alcohol and not to kill himself, and Vannevar to break off the engagement and marry Lucas instead; Van Zorn thus sacrifices his own happiness for that of others. [1] [2]
A reviewer in The New York Times of November 15, 1914, upon the publication of the play, opined: [3]
Edith J. R. Isaacs in The Encyclopedia Americana gives the following evaluation of the play:
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