McGuire Proscenium Stage / Jan 28 – Mar 19, 2017

by GEORGE S. KAUFMAN and EDNA FERBER directed by RACHEL CHAVKIN

STUDY GUIDE Inside

THE AUTHORS When Edna met George...and wrote some plays • 3 Selected Chronology on the Life and Times of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber • 4 Comments by and about the Authors • 9

THE PLAY Synopsis, Characters and Setting • 13 Comments about the Play • 14 The Barrymores: The (Real) Royal Family of Broadway • 16 Myself as I Think Other See Me by Ethel Barrymore • 16

CULTURAL CONTEXT The Lingo of the Stage • 21 People and Things of the Period • 24

THE GUTHRIE PRODUCTION Notes from the Creative Team • 26

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION For Further Understanding • 28

Play guides are made possible by

Guthrie Theater Study Guide Copyright 2016

DRAMATURG Carla Steen GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Waldusky RESEARCH Stephanie Engel, Carla Steen

All rights reserved. With the exception of classroom use by teachers and Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415 individual personal use, no part of this Play Guide may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including ADMINISTRATION 612.225.6000 photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Some materials BOX OFFICE 612.377.2224 or 1.877.44.STAGE TOLL-FREE published herein are written especially for our Guide. Others are reprinted guthrietheater.org • Joseph Haj, artistic director by permission of their publishers. Jo Holcomb: 612.225.6117 | Carla Steen: 612.225.6118

The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center for theater performance, The Guthrie Theater receives support from the National Endowment production, education and professional training. By presenting both classical literature and for the Arts. This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State new work from diverse cultures, the Guthrie illuminates the common humanity connecting Legislature. The Minnesota State Arts Board received additional funds to support this activity from the National Endowment for the Arts. Minnesota to the peoples of the world.

2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE AUTHORS

When Edna met George … and by Carla Steen wrote some plays Production Dramaturg

In 1924, Edna Ferber was among the most successful writers in James Goldman America. She had published three novels, several collections of short stories, and had co-written a play featuring her popular character Emma McChesney, in which Ethel Barrymore starred. Her most recent novel, So Big, had just received the Pulitzer Prize. While she had only a passing acquaintance with playwright/critic George S. Kaufman, when he suggested they turn her short story “Old Man Minick” into a play, one of the great collaborations in American theater was launched.

Both were disciplined writers, and famous Barrymore-Drew family, Eight and Stage Door. The Royal they moved quickly, completing but even Ferber admitted “we Family wasn’t done with Ferber, the adaptation within three weeks succeeded in convincing no one, however. In 1940, she realized her of starting. Winthrop Ames agreed including possibly ourselves.” childhood dream of being an actor, to produce, and the play, now The work wasn’t quite so swift when she performed the role of called Minick, opened to moderate this time, taking eight months to Fanny Cavendish in a week-long success in September 1924. write, which Ferber thought an run in Maplewood, N.J. Alas, she While the play itself may not be embarrassingly long time for “just discovered she did not enjoy acting remarkable or even remembered, it a comedy,” but they didn’t need as much as she thought she would, did lead to the musical Show Boat to do any rewrites, so polished finding herself bored with the (a passing comment by producer was the rehearsal draft. After repetition the craft required. Ames about the floating theaters some difficulty with casting – they caught Ferber’s attention) and to offered the lead role to Ethel Kaufman wrote more than 40 The Royal Family. Barrymore, who emphatically plays in total, and his best-known turned it down and held a grudge, collaborations may be those with Before work on the latter while other actresses didn’t want Moss Hart in the 1930s. Like Ferber, commenced, Ferber learned all to either cross or promote Miss Kaufman received the Pulitzer she could about river theatricals Barrymore by appearing in the Prize, twice in fact, for Of Thee I and two years later published play – The Royal Family opened on Sing and You Can’t Take It With her novel, Show Boat, which December 28, 1927. It was a busy You. He died in 1961 at age 71. composer Jerome Kern wanted to month for Ferber, as the musical turn into a musical play. Kaufman, Show Boat opened the day before. Ferber’s body of writing captured meanwhile, had a dalliance with the surprising variety of American the Marx Brothers and Irving Berlin The Royal Family played for 10 life – from the land rush in that resulted in the stage musical months, became a film and was Oklahoma to the gold rush in The Cocoanuts. staged in London in 1935 as Alaska – and explored challenging Theatre Royal (the British have topics and themes including single In 1926, Ferber and Kaufman their own royal family, after all), motherhood, miscegenation laws started on their second project, directed by Noël Coward. Over and struggling farms as well as about a theatrical family. They the next 20 years, Ferber and examining American values and claimed from the beginning that Kaufman collaborated on four the American Dream. Ferber died the play was not based on the more plays, including Dinner at at age 82 in 1968.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 3 THE AUTHORS

Selected Chronology on the Life and Times of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber

YEAR GEORGE S. KAUFMAN EDNA FERBER WORLD EVENTS

Ethel Barrymore (d. 1959) is born into a family of actors. In addition 1879 to her parents and grandparents her brothers Lionel and John were also actors. Edna Jessica Ferber is born Grover Cleveland inaugurated 1885 August 15 in Kalamazoo, Mich. as 22nd President of the United States. George Simon Kaufman is born Mark Twain publishes A 1889 November 16 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. The Ferber family moves to Julius “Groucho” Marx is born 1890 Ottumwa, Iowa, where Ferber October 2. endures anti-Semitism. The Ferber family moves to Queen Victoria celebrates her 1897 Appleton, Wis., where Ferber Diamond Jubilee. completes her formal schooling. For 18 months, Ferber works The United States gains control as a reporter for the Appleton of the project that will eventually Crescent at age 17. She later takes become the Panama Canal. 1902 a job with the Milwaukee Journal until 1905, when she returns to Appleton. She begins to write her first novel and short stories. Kaufman graduates from Robert Baden-Powell founds what Pittsburgh Central High School. would become the Boy Scouting Enrolls at Western University of and Girl Guiding movements in 1907 Pennsylvania to study law, but Dorset, England. withdraws within the first year due to illness. Kaufman moves to Passaic, N.J., Ferber moves to Chicago with Halley’s Comet passes near the where he works as a salesman. her mother and sisters after her earth. 1910 He takes classes at the Alveine father’s death. School of Drama in New York City. Dawn O’Hara, the Girl Who Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s 1911 Laughed, Ferber’s first novel, is Ragtime Band” becomes an published. international sensation. Kaufman works as a columnist for Buttered Side Down, a collection New Mexico and Arizona gain 1912 the Washington Times. of stories, is published. statehood. Kaufman becomes a reporter for Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Ford Motor Company sets up the The New York Times. Adventures of Emma McChesney, first moving assembly line. 1913 a collection of stories, is published. Writes a play The Lunatic with his Personality Plus: Some World War I begins in Europe. friend Herbert Seligman. It is not Experiences of Emma McChesney 1914 produced. and Her Son, a collection of stories, is published.

4 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE AUTHORS

YEAR GEORGE S. KAUFMAN EDNA FERBER WORLD EVENTS

Emma McChesney & Co., a Albert Einstein first postulates his collection of stories, is published. general theory of relativity. In collaboration with George V. Booker T. Washington dies. Hobart, Ferber writes Our Mrs. D.W. Griffith’s filmBirth of a Nation 1915 McChesney for the stage, adapted is released. from a series of her short stories. Ethel Barrymore plays the lead role in the Broadway production.

1917 Kaufman marries Beatrice Sarah Bernhardt begins her final Bakrow, and works as critic and tour of the United States. 1917 later as drama page editor for The New York Times (-1930). Kaufman’s play Someone in the After World War I, Ferber moves Willa Cather publishes My Antonia. House opens in New York City. to the east coast, splitting her World War I ends. time between New York City and Connecticut. 1918 Cheerful, by Request, a collection of stories, is published.

Kaufman collaborates with Ferber publishes the novel The Charlie Chaplin writes, directs and 1921 Marc Connelly to write Dulcy, to Girls. stars in the feature filmThe Kid. popular success. Kaufman and Connelly write a Gigolo, a collection of stories, is John Barrymore plays the title role 1922 satire on Hollywood, Merton of the published. in Hamlet in both New York and Movies. London, to great acclaim. Kaufman and Connelly write a The Teapot Dome scandal receives 1923 musical, Helen of Troy, New York. hearings in Washington, D.C. Kaufman and Connelly write Ferber is awarded the Pulitzer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Beggar on Horseback and Be Prize for her novel So Big. Columbia Pictures studios are Yourself. founded in Hollywood. In her first collaboration with Kaufman collaborates with Ferber George S. Kaufman, she adapts J. Edgar Hoover becomes the for the first time to write the play her short story “Old Man Minick” director of the F.B.I. 1924 Minick. for the stage. The play, called The first Winter Olympics are held, Minick, opens on Broadway in in Chamonix, France. September. With Kaufman, writes the film script Welcome Home. Kaufman and Irving Berlin write The Norwegian capital, Christiania, the stage musical The Cocoanuts is renamed Oslo. for the Marx Brothers. Sinclair Lewis receives the Pulitzer 1925 Writes Butter and Egg Man. Prize for Arrowsmith. Kaufman and his wife adopt a baby girl and name her Anne. Her novel Show Boat is published. Chiang Kai-Shek becomes head of 1926 the Chinese Revolutionary Party.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 5 THE AUTHORS

YEAR GEORGE S. KAUFMAN EDNA FERBER WORLD EVENTS

The Royal Family, written with The Royal Family, written with Charles Lindbergh flies solo Edna Ferber, opens on Broadway George S. Kaufman, opens on nonstop in The Spirit of St. Louis on December 28. Broadway on December 28. from New York to Paris. The musical adapted from her 1927 novel Show Boat opens the day before, on December 27. Mother Knows Best: A Fiction Book, a collection of stories, is published.

Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind Alexander Fleming write the stage version of Animal discovers penicillin. 1928 Crackers for the Marx Brothers. Directs The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott The Academy Awards are write The Channel Road. established to honor the best films in Hollywood. 1929 Writes June Moon with Ring Lardner. The U.S. Stock Market crashes and the country is plunged into the Great Depression. Kaufman and Moss Hart Her novel Cimarron is published. Grant Wood exhibits his painting collaborate on Once in a Lifetime. American Gothic. The Royal Family of Broadway, a Kaufman plays the role of film adapted from theThe Royal 1930 Lawrence Vail. Family, is released with Ina Claire Resigns from The New York Times. as Julie and Fredric March as Tony.

Kaufman, Ryskind and George and Her novel American Beauty is Nine young African-American men Ira Gershwin write the musical Of published. are falsely accused of raping a Thee I Sing. It is the first musical white woman in Scottsboro, Ala., 1931 to win a Pulitzer Prize. tried and convicted. Several civil rights groups work for decades to get the conviction overturned and the men freed from prison. Kaufman and Ferber write Dinner Dinner at Eight is produced on John and Lionel Barrymore appear at Eight. Broadway in October. together in the filmThe Grand Hotel, alongside Greta Garbo and 1932 Directs Face the Music, with music Joan Crawford. and lyrics by Irving Berlin and book by Moss Hart. Kaufman and Woollcott write The They Brought Their Women: A The Marx Brothers’ filmDuck Soup 1933 Dark Tower. Book of Short Stories is published. is released. Kaufman and Hart write Merrily Outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde We Roll Along. (Fifty years later it Barrow are gunned down in Texas. 1934 becomes the source for Stephen Sondheim’s musical.)

Her novel Come and Get It is Mussolini invades Abyssinia, published. beginning the Second Italo- Ethiopian War. 1935 The Royal Family is produced in London as Theatre Royal.

6 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE AUTHORS

YEAR GEORGE S. KAUFMAN EDNA FERBER WORLD EVENTS

Kaufman and Hart collaborate on Stage Door is produced on Jesse Owens wins four gold You Can’t Take it With You. The Broadway in October. medals at the Olympics in Berlin. 1936 play earns a Pulitzer Prize. Kaufman and Ferber write Stage Door. Kaufman and Moss Hart write I’d Disney releases Snow White, the Rather be Right, a musical with first feature-length animated film. Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Amelia Earhart is lost at sea while 1937 attempting an around-the-world flight.

Kaufman and Hart write The Nobody’s in Town and Trees Britain and France assent to Adolf 1938 Fabulous Invalid. Die at the Top, two novellas, are Hitler’s claims to the Sudetenland. published. Kaufman and Hart write The Man Ferber writes the autobiography A Germany invades Poland on 1939 Who Came to Dinner and The Peculiar Treasure. September 1. World War II begins. American Way. Kaufman and Hart write George 1940 Washington Slept Here. Kaufman and Ferber write The Her novel Saratoga Trunk is The U.S. enters World War II after Land is Bright. published. No Room at the Inn, a the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. collection of stories, is published. 1941 The Land is Bright is produced on Broadway in October.

Kaufman and John P. Marquand On June 6, a day that will become write The Late George Apley. known as D-Day, United States 1944 forces successfully invaded a series of beaches in Normandy, France. Kaufman’s wife Beatrice dies. Her novel Great Son is published. World War II ends with the surrender of European forces 1945 in May and Japanese forces in August. Kaufman and Ferber write Bravo! Bravo! is produced on Broadway Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated. 1948 in November. Appears as a regular guest on Arthur Miller’s Death of a the television show “This is My Salesman opens on Broadway. 1949 Business.” Marries the actress Leueen MacGrath. Directs the musical Guys and Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your 1950 Dolls, for which he wins a Tony Life” is broadcast on television as Award. well as radio (-1961). The Royal Family is revived The U.S. draft age is lowered on Broadway. It will have two 1951 to 18. subsequent revivals, in 1975 and 2009.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 7 THE AUTHORS

YEAR GEORGE S. KAUFMAN EDNA FERBER WORLD EVENTS

Her novel Giant is published. George VI, king of England, passes 1952 away and is succeeded by his daughter Elizabeth II. Kaufman and Howard Teichmann “The Tonight Show,” hosted by 1953 write The Solid Gold Cadillac. Steve Allen, premieres. Kaufman collaborates with Leueen Rosa Parks is arrested in McGrath and Abe Burrows on the Montgomery, Ala., for refusing book of the musical Silk Stockings, to give up her seat on a bus 1955 with music and lyrics by Cole to a white man, an act of civil Porter. disobedience that sparked the Civil Rights Movement. Kaufman and Leueen MacGrath West Side Story, with music divorce. by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by 1957 Arthur Laurents and choreography by Jerome Robbins, opens on Broadway. George S. Kaufman dies at age 71 Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas June 2 in New York City. Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican 1961 Republic, is assassinated on May 30. Ferber writes a sequel President John F. Kennedy is autobiography, A Kind of Magic. assassinated by Lee Harvey

1963 Oswald on November 22. The Guthrie Theater opens on May 7.

Edna Ferber dies at age 82 on Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert 1968 April 16 in New York City. F. Kennedy are assassinated in separate shootings.

PHOTO: HEIDI BOHNENKAMP

Members of the cast of The Royal Family

8 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE AUTHORS

Comments by and about the Authors

[George Kaufman’s] method of about him. I don’t recall any article cogency than usual in his new conserving his strength is carefully that he has ever written about a book, “The American Drama thought out, and it works. He collaborator. These have included Since 1918.” … [I]t seems to me concentrates. Aside from bridge Marc Connelly, Ring Lardner, that Mr. Krutch does considerably (he is one of the most brilliant Katharine Dayton, Moss Hart, less than justice to Mr. Kaufman’s amateur bridge players in America) Laurence Stallings. professional integrity. Out of his interests are practically Mr. Krutch’s pages Mr. Kaufman nonexistent outside the theater. Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, New York: emerges as almost a charlatan. Mr. The theater is his life. If there is a The Literary Guild of America, Inc., 1939 Krutch suggests that Mr. Kaufman couch in the room – any room – he deliberately conceals his culture as stretches out on it. He doesn’t stay a way of flattering the box office. … there long, but very few people Let us take, for example, the case know the refreshment that comes of George S. Kaufman. To most When a man is sensationally to muscles, heart and arteries in people outside the theatre as well successful as a popular writer there five minutes of repose, repeated as those inside it, he is the symbol is a disposition to urge him on to at frequent intervals. During tough of the successful playwright. For nobler things. But Mr. Kaufman has rehearsal sessions, when he is about twenty years he has been had an excellent understanding of directing, you are likely to miss collaborating in the authorship of his abilities and has generally stuck him for a few minutes. He’s in a shrewd comedies, most of them to his last. His excursions outside second box or at the back of the popular, some of them fabulously his familiar bailiwick have not house or somewhere in a side aisle, so. His wit is legendary. His taut, encouraged him much. … stretched full length on the floor, expertly timed direction has had a relaxed and resting. He does almost quickening effect all through the Although Mr. Kaufman’s personal no walking. From the Astor to the modern American theatre. … But integrity makes it impossible for Music Box is a day’s jaunt for him. long-continued success breeds him to overestimate his talents He eats prodigious quantities of resistance and suspicion. There is and prevents him from claiming chocolate candy and pastry, which a disposition in many quarters now mastery of the whole field on the gives him energy. He smokes and to regard the writing of successful basis of his hilarious victories in one drinks almost not at all. He talks and popular comedies as a mean part of it, it would also be reckless little. He hates to be interrupted or and unworthy achievement. to underestimate the importance of forestalled when he does talk. His his accomplishments. He has been wit is devastating but rarely cruel. The point is raised here because largely influential in establishing He is one of the most considerate Joseph Wood Krutch states the the brand of mordant satire that of men. He rarely praises. In the case for the dissenters with more has sharpened post-war thinking years of our work together he has never paid me anything that could faintly be construed as a compliment. This makes me very No play is, I suppose, important as importance is rated in the cross indeed. He himself likes world. But to the playwright and the actor it is, during those praise. I never have known any very three weeks of rehearsal, the one supremely important thing successful man who hadn’t the in the life. Not that alone, it is the one thing on the planet. encouragement of a brilliant and Markets may crash, dynasties fall, wars rage – the people of understanding woman. Anyone the theater live in their world bounded by the three walls of who knows Beatrice Kaufman the empty stage and the blank of the proscenium, suspended will admit that this is true, too, of in a vacuum above the planet Earth. George. Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, New York: The Literary Guild Most of George Kaufman’s of America, Inc., 1939 collaborators have written articles

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 9 THE AUTHORS in the theatre. …He is the foremost to going ahead, however slowly, As a story of the fascination stage craftsman, both as writer unhampered by coordinating with of life in the theatre, “The and director. He is the master of other people, and under her own Royal Family” is affectionate, the wisecrack, which has become a steam. Beginning with the opening crack-brained and amusing, fundamental part of the American night another factor was added: with complete comic integrity. vernacular. For twenty years he has embarrassment at being out there In the contrast it draws also worked in the theatre honestly. showing off in front of so many between the cold sobriety of Not the least of his virtues is that people. What exhibitionism she life outside the theatre and he has stuck to his last. … The fact may once have had – a necessary the giddiness of the doings of chief importance is that it has part, she thinks, of an actor’s inside, “The Royal Family” is helped produce some of the most equipment – seemed to have died entirely reasonable. hilarious and caustic plays of our quite some time before Miss Ferber century and his long-enduring got to Maplewood, N.J. … Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: success should not start to count Edna Ferber Begins a Week’s against him now. Convinced as she is that the whole Acting Career,” The New York thing, as far as she is concerned, Times, August 13, 1940 Brooks Atkinson, “Anatomy of Stage was a debacle – and no one can Success: Or, the Right of George S. Kaufman dislodge that idea – she had quite to Continue Doing the Work for Which He a lot to say about why writers can’t Such a one was Kaufman. He was is Conspicuously Qualified,” The New York be actors. Writers are spectators, almost the last of the Broadway Times, December 31, 1939 she thinks. They are people who breed of iconoclasts, a breed that watch and weigh and churn things indulged in derision rather than over and then go home and grind breakage. It also preferred to Edna Ferber is the latest American out a record. If occasionally they lampoon American flaws under writer to take to the stage. For her do wade in and join the fray, long its nose, rather than clobber the debut – and, she insists, her farewell years of habit and training see to it cockeyed behavior of far-off appearance – she chose a part that that a part of them still looks with Russians and Chinese. would make a veteran professional the head cocked a little to one side. blanch. … This is the role of Fanny A good actor, on the other hand, is Kaufman’s writings for the stage Cavendish in “The Royal Family,” a person who can immerse himself and magazines varied in excellence written by Miss Ferber and George in a part, literally be that character, but seldom in purpose. They Kaufman sixteen years ago. and only use his accumulated investigated human clownishness knowledge of people and things and offered Americans a look at It is a credit to Miss Ferber’s to add to his current picture themselves in a sort of fun-house intelligence and adaptability that in of himself. Either one of these mirror. … this role she was not at all bad. At approaches automatically cancels no time did she slow up the precise the other. How good a playwright was George timing of the direction, or make a S. Kaufman? At his best he was the hole in the expert construction of Elizabeth R. Duval, “Edna Ferber Rings best of playwrights, and more. He the play. She got her laughs, she Down One Curtain,” The New York Times, was part of a good time Americans even got her tears, and no one September 1, 1940 were once able to enjoy – when except the company, Miss Ferber they dared to laugh at themselves and a group of ribald friends who rather than yield that privilege to were out front feeling for her, knew In the last ten years of his life others. that she hated every minute of it. … George S. Kaufman found himself as obsolete as a Smithsonian Ben Hecht, remembering George S. Kaufman Right from the start of the one exhibit. He was a practitioner of in the Saturday Review, June 24, 1961 week of rehearsal Miss Ferber irony and satire, with a side line of was bored and exasperated. The bon mots. The USA, hell-bent on endless repetition of lines, the making the whole world as noble as The major women of all my novels, standing around, the apparently itself, had no welcome mat out for plays, and short stories written in unprogressive business of doing tricky-minded fellows poking fun these past fifty years and more the same thing over and over at it. have been delineated as possessed again, was maddening to one used of strength, ingenuity, perception,

10 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE AUTHORS initiative. This is because I think Oklahoma in Cimarron, Connecticut brilliant in the dialogue of the plays that women in general – and in American Beauty, New York in of which he was co-author. Kaufman certainly the American female of Saratoga Trunk, Texas in Giant, and was constantly embarrassed by the United States – is stronger in Alaska in Ice Palace. this inequality of recognition; he character, more ingenious, more was forever trying to set the record perceptive and more power- Her books were not profound, but straight to the advantage of his possessing (potentially) than the they were vivid and had a sound collaborators. American male. sociological basis. She was among the best-read novelists in the Brooks Atkinson, Broadway, New York: The How can it be denied that the vast nation, and critics of the 1920s and MacMillan Company, 1970 majority of women in the United 30s did not hesitate to call her the States have failed to claim their greatest American woman novelist legal rights; to use their inherent of her day. To the Drama Editor: power; and to fulfill in any degree I wonder if you would let me use at all their great potentialities? “Edna Ferber, Novelist, 82, Dies,” The New the columns of The Times to correct York Times, April 17, 1968 what seems to be a prevailing By this I do not mean that she journalistic misapprehension, even can play better football; or more though The Times itself has been less expertly hammer down all those [George S. Kaufman] was a tall, lean, guilty in the matter than have other nails about which the jokes used to melancholy man with a thick crop newspapers and magazines. be made; or kill more people in a of bushy black hair, and he wore Miss Edna Ferber and I have written war; or compose a grander opera rimless glasses. He was one of the four plays together. For some or write a better book, paint a finer most disciplined men on Broadway. fantastic reason, and despite the picture, run a faster mile. This she He turned out a prodigious amount simple assurance of the programs, has not done. I mean that women of work, because he was thoroughly there has been a tendency on the are inherently tougher than men; organized. Despite his fabulous part of reviewers to assume that they know this; and potentially success, he lacked self-confidence. Miss Ferber is some sort of cook’s they could rule the world if they Long after he had come to occupy assistant in the preparation of these wanted to. They may even have to, a conspicuous and envied place in little dishes, and that I dash them eventually. the Broadway hierarchy, he clung off single-handed, while Miss Ferber to his eighty-dollar-a-week job as sharpens the pencils. Also, they seem Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic, Garden City, drama editor of The New York Times to have the idea that Miss Ferber N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963 (and conscientiously performed is then sent to the Orient or some his duties), because he trusted place while I attend to casting. the stability of the Times but not With a love and enthusiasm that that of his career in the theater. A Certainly Miss Ferber needs no gained her world fame, Miss Ferber skeptic by nature, he needed to be championing from me or anybody wrote about the United States for surrounded by things he trusted. else at this stage of her career. It four decades. Her novels became Although the theater is basically seems incredible that it should minor classics and earned her a an emotional medium, he lacked be necessary to remind reviewers fortune as well as many honors. personal warmth; and that may that these plays have been written So Big, among the earliest of her be why he wrote only one script with Edna Ferber, not with Lottie 12 larger-than-life portrayals of without a collaborator. Although Whifflepoor. But obviously it is the national scene, sold more than he was uneasy about it, The Butter necessary. 300,000 copies on publication in and Egg Man was one of his best. 1924 and became required reading In writing a play, he could supply My collaborations with Miss Ferber in schools and universities. the discipline – the organization of have been collaborations in the the script, the dramatic situations, fullest sense of the word, from So Big, the story of a woman on and the wording of the dialogue – beginning to end. a truck farm outside Chicago, but he felt insecure in the elements was a part of a drama of America that involved emotion. He was so George S. Kaufman, “From the Drama from shore to shore. Miss Ferber famous and his laconic style was Mailbag,” The New York Times, November depicted show business life on the so familiar that he was generally 22, 1936 Mississippi in Show Boat, frontier credited with anything particularly

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 11 THE AUTHORS

Walk around the reservoir any a lot of photographs back there or habits we had in common, and morning – any reservoir, for that … Oh, look! Douglas Fairbanks. … they were important in this relation. matter – and it’s an even bet that Mrs. Harrison Williams … C. Bascom Both were work worshipers; both you will run into Edna Ferber. Miss Slemp … stage-struck; were punctual; Ferber is a walker. That daily walk, were politically and humanely she says is essential her physical It was when we started looking at liberal; were neat to the point of and mental well-bring. Me, I’m photographs of C. Bascom Slemp fussiness. If George said, “I’ll see different. In the words of Ring that we realized the refugee idea you at eleven tomorrow morning,” Lardner, the only exercise I get is was in a bad way. We had touched he appeared at eleven, shoes when I take the studs out of one bottom. But this was only the polished but not glittering, tie shirt and put them in another. … second day, and neither of us was handsome but restrained; shaved willing to face the other and utter pink; spectacles sparkling. He We had a great idea for a play. the dread words. We had no play, would glance hungrily at the outer Refugees. Not just ordinary that was the simple truth of it. But covering of my morning mail which refugees, mind you, but the great for nine days out of ten we kept I cannily had thrust back into the figures of the artistic and scientific pretending that we had. … envelopes. He then would sit down, world. … untie his shoelaces, and tie them On the tenth day we faced each again, neatly. To any psychoanalyst So we went to White Sulphur. … other and had it out. Each started who is interested in this last detail A splendid cold rain greeted us out to convince the other, but it I know state that I make him a as we came down the steps. … It was evident in two seconds that present of it. There, too, was I, was at the precise moment that neither needed any convincing. … with two hands practically poised the refugee idea began to slip. As The only person we know in the above the typewriter keys. If a days passed it was destined to get whole play is that American woman fleck of white paper, a tiny bit of worse and worse, but I should say who comes in – you know, old New thread, appeared on the workroom that the instant of our descent of York family. … Yes, we could write carpet we both pounced on it. those car steps was when it first her. … George disliked food, sentiment, started to go. … walking (or any form of exercise); Peculiarly enough, I have no any expression of emotion; The first day’s session started in recollection of the actual writing. declarative and purposeful women businesslike fashion. … For the first That seems to be true with most (like myself); sauces, travel; being hour we interrupted each other in plays, so far as I am concerned. The interrupted while speaking. Myself, our excitement – the ideas came whole business of getting ready to I was more or less given to all thick and fast. Then they began to write, finding the actors, rehearsals, these things. Added to all this, slow up. What did they do in the out of town – bits and pieces of all George was at his liveliest at night, second act? What did they do in that linger in the mind. But all I can having been trained on a New York the first, for that matter? … tell you about the weeks of writing morning paper. I was crisp as celery is that the meals at Ferber’s house in the morning, my newspaper I’ll tell you what! Maybe if we were elegant. I can remember the background having been an knocked off and didn’t work food in detail, but none of the work. afternoon paper. tonight – first day and everything. We’d be much fresher in the George S. Kaufman, “Notes of a Co-Author: We worked mornings and into the morning – afternoon, I mean. I In Which Mr. Kaufman Tells All About ‘The afternoon. notice they show a movie here at 9 Land Is Bright’,” The New York Times, o’clock every night – we could drop November 2, 1941 Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic, Garden City, in on that … All right. It wouldn’t N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963 hurt – one evening. Might be good for us, as a matter of fact. No two people could have been more unlike in temperament, style, The next day we started off very habit, taste, emotional and physical brightly … Say! Have you been reactions. Yet our collaboration in around the place – looked the hotel the writing of plays was pleasant over? Quite interesting. They’ve got and productive. Two or three traits

12 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE AUTHORS

Almost every play, of course, is the other way. At a key moment But whether the play is good or rewritten in some degree during in the play the audience remains bad, promising or unpromising, its tryout tour. This is inevitable. In sublimely disinterested, or else the playwright will retire to his the first place, there is no play in starts coughing its head off, and bedroom typewriter with one the world that cannot be improved that’s why all those playwrights are phrase ringing in his ear. “It needs by additional work. And in the locked up in hotel rooms. work.” … second and much bigger place, it is well known that plays have And that, children, is why plays There is no one in the world who a way of fooling you. No matter are tried out on the road, instead cannot tell an author how to fix how careful your labors, there is an of opening cold on Broadway, as his play, and the poor guy has to unpredictable factor. Somewhere the theatrical phrase has it. “But stand there and listen courteously. in the transition from typewriter I don’t see why you can’t tell, just And at the end he must say, “Thank to stage there is an almost by reading it. Either it’s good or it’s you very much. You are absolutely chemical element that intrudes bad. The thing to do is just produce right,” instead of what he wants to itself between the play and the the good ones and then you won’t say, which is, “What the hell do you audience. Sometimes this works have all that trouble.” Well, of know about it?” to the playwright’s advantage, and course, the answer is that you can’t a simple scene of which little had just tell. Billy Rose recently said to George S. Kaufman, “A Playwright Tells been expected suddenly throws me that he “wouldn’t open a can of Almost All: George Kaufman cites the woes the audience into stitches, or sardines cold,” and that seems to of life on the tryout circuit,” The New York moves it to tears, as the case may be the consensus of show business Times, September 17, 1944 be. This is a good deal like having (Mr. Rose intends to violate this your bank account gone over and rule by opening “Henry VIII” here finding that you have two hundred without benefits of tryout, but dollars more than you figured. But of course, Shakespeare is not more frequently, of course, it goes sardines.)

Matthew Saldívar as Tony Cavendish and Elizabeth Franz as Fanny Cavendish in The Royal Family

PHOTO: HEIDI BOHNENKAMP

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 13 THE PLAY

Synopsis

Three generations of actors in the famed Cavendish family slog through their daily routine of matinees, SETTING new play readings, rehearsals, revivals and tabloid gossip. Julie is the current family star, and prima New York, 1927. donna in the New York theater world. Her career The duplex apartment of the Cavendish family. has always come first, a sacrifice abetted by her mother, Fanny, who dissuaded her from marrying a businessman named Gilbert Marshall 19 years ago so CHARACTERS that she would stay in the industry and realize the fame and fortune due her. Fanny Cavendish, age 72, the family matriarch, “rather magnificent” Fanny is a widow in her 70s, recently recovered from a lingering illness, gamely planning to resume her Julie Cavendish, 39, Fanny’s daughter, career and recapture the years spent touring with her the star of Broadway husband, Aubrey. Gwen Cavendish, 19, Julie’s daughter Tony is Julie’s brother, a handsome and talented actor with the energy of a lunatic – perfect for Hollywood Tony Cavendish, late 30s, Fanny’s son, – until he shows up at the Cavendish house after late of Hollywood breaking his film contract and punching his director. Herbert Dean, 57, Fanny’s brother, Julie’s independent 19-year-old daughter, Gwen, is “an excellent actor beginning to show his age” beginning her own acting career, but she is troubled by an argument with her boyfriend, Perry Stewart, Kitty Lemoyne Dean, 48, Herbert’s wife, over the time commitments required by her career. a mediocre actress Faced with giving up a life with Perry to continue acting, Gwen shocks the entire family by declaring Oscar Wolfe, the Cavendishes’ long-time theater she is quitting theater altogether. This outburst – manager, “a figure of authority” combined with a visit from the now-wealthy Gilbert Marshall – makes Julie realize that her daughter is Perry Stewart, 28, Gwen’s love interest and a at the same crossroads she was 19 years ago, and “personable young fellow” prompts her to question her own decision all those years ago. Gilbert Marshall, 47, a successful business man and former suitor to Julie

PHOTO: HEIDI BOHNENKAMP Della, the Cavendishes’ maid

Jo, the Cavendishes’ houseman

McDermott, a boxer who trains with Julie

Miss Peake, a nurse

Hallboy

Chauffeur

Michelle O’Neill as Julie Cavendish and Shawn Hamilton as Oscar Wolfe in The Royal Family

14 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAY

Comments about the Play

George Kaufman and I had decided Not doing much except fighting Charles Brackett, “Compliments of the to write a play about a glamorous with Ferber. That takes up most of Season,” The New Yorker, January 7, 1928 theatrical family – no particular my time – some nights I don’t get theatrical family, I hastily add – but to bed until two or three o’clock. an imaginary one that might be After viewing the theatrical any family wedded to the stage. George S. Kaufman, in a note to Ruth Gordon profession sentimentally in “Show We did, however, plan to use one while writing The Royal Family, quoted in Boat” Miss Ferber has executed member of the Barrymore family George Kaufman and His Friends by Scott an about-face by viewing it – John; not as a whole, but bits Meredith, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., ironically in “The Royal Family,” of him. He was, of course, too 1974 written in collaboration with improbable to copy from life. This George S. Kaufman. Their play family of ours was to have been in is one of the most enjoyable of the theater for generations. It was “The Royal Family” is about as the season. Nothing could make to be the kind of stage family that much fun as any play I have for completer exploitation of its thinks, talks, lives, breathes only ever seen. The portrait of three theme than this collaboration of a theater. … generations congenitally and fiction writer, primarily concerned splendidly mad about their job, with plot and characters, and a Considering that The Royal Family, which is the theatre, it has vitality, satirist remarkable for his neat, is, after all, just a comedy, it is and beauty, and pathos as well. critical dialogue and his skill in rather embarrassing to confess play technique. After completing a that eight months of work went The play has no particular story, play and seeing it quiver through into its writing. The wonder is that but flashes of many stories gleam the maul of casting and rehearsing we weren’t at each other’s throats through its lines. The curtain rises even the collaborator is never after that long grind. We actually on the splendid apartment of the quite sure how much of the work emerged good friends. Gallons Cavendishes, and on an atmosphere is his; and the untutored playgoer, of coffee had been drunk, tons of of glamorous turmoil. … of course can only guess blindly. sandwiches consumed, miles of Whatever the sources of its capital floor had been walked, typewriter Before the play is over one knows humors may be, “The Royal Family” ribbons had been worn to rags, all about the Cavendishes. How melds them perfectly into rounded Jed Harris had come into the scene they rebel at the slaveries of the characters, illuminating plot, visual as producer – and still we two theatre, and plan to desert it (all action, tickling dialogue. … collaborators remained friends. … but Fanny Cavendish, who is so old she knows better) and sometimes In writing a domestic comedy The Royal Family, begun in do desert it, but always come back. about a family of brilliant actors November, was finished the end of And how wild and difficult they are, an author can lean perilously June. When I say finished I mean but how gloriously alive. … close to farce without betraying that, except for perhaps twenty the spirit of comedy. No one minutes spent in doing some And because one has learned that will be dull enough to judge the additional off-stage dialogue in a old Fanny Cavendish is too ill to Cavendishes by the standards of scene that needed extra clamor, we go trouping again, though no one ordinary men. If their life inside a never rewrote a line or a word of dares tell her, one watches her die crowded duplex apartment appears the play. At least our eight months drinking a toast to the great Aubrey to be a bedlam of absurdities it had served that purpose. Cavendish, with a sense that death is because that is the sort of life has been as kind to her as life. they lead. They have come to think Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, New York: of themselves as gods because The Literary Guild of America, Inc., 1939 Oh, a grand play! Thank you, Miss every dazzled playgoer does, Ferber and Mr. Kaufman. It’s just and their long-suffering manager what I needed. obligingly compromises between

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 15 THE PLAY

what he knows and what every one Edith Oliver, “Off-Broadway,” The New has always been a favorite of else believes by humoring their Yorker, December 29, 1975 theater folk, for obvious reasons. outrageous vanities. If an actor were philosophical, tolerant and Like Noël Coward’s “Hay Fever” modest he would be no actor: he “The Royal Family” is a treasure- and the musical “Kiss Me Kate,” would be philosophical, tolerant trove of sparkling wit. “I can give other larky portraits of people who and modest. you the names of actors and live and die by the theater, “The actresses of 300 years ago – Royal Family” allows performers J. Brooks Atkinson, “Show-Folk Variously,” dozens of them! Name me two to caricature the narcissism, self- The New York Times, January 8, 1928 17th century stockbrokers!” Gwen dramatizing and infantile craving demands during a fight with Perry, for attention that were once said while Fanny, given to an asp- to characterize their profession It is a play that does not happen to tongued wit wonderfully suited (and of course have nothing to be about anything. It is conceived for an older woman, remarks, do with actors as we know them on the idea of a piranha-jawed, “Marriage isn’t a career. It’s an today). It also pulses with the door- dedicated and addicted, American incident.” slamming farcical sound and fury theatrical family – it could be the found in the liveliest of Kaufman’s Barrymores, the Skinners or almost With their coterie of servants and collaborations. anyone – and the limits to which it lavish lifestyle, the Cavendishes will go to remain in the spotlight occupy a rarefied universe. But Ben Brantley, “Move Over, Darling, The of the footlights. This is a play that the miracle of these characters is, Spotlight is Calling,” The New York Times, merely means to make amusement that for all their hoity-toity ways, October 9, 2009 out of that fortune-cookie message, the Cavendishes are a family who “There’s no Business Like Show deeply love and generously provide

Business.” The play achieves so for each other. Julie bails out her PHOTO: HEIDI BOHNENKAMP well because it is written so well. brother without blinking, tries to It is the kind of play that makes a help out the Deans (no matter how craft into an art, and crafty itself much it vexes her) and dotes on becomes artistic. It has not got Fanny. a thought in its head except the sincere desire to make money and The other aspect of “The Royal to offer fun – in that order. But one Family” is how classily Kaufman so admires the honest financial and Ferber make a case for success over the dishonest artistic artists as being of a higher order. disaster! Actors liken theater to a calling, something they surrender to heart Clive Barnes, “Stage: A ‘Royal Family’ for and soul. The play touches on the Brooklyn,” The New York Times, December sacred aspects of theater without 18, 1975 pretentiousness. …

The Cavendish clan may be The script has great wit and dash. annoyingly larger than life, but “The It also has real curtain lines, and it Royal Family” leaves you wishing occurred to me that perhaps the they were your family. reason that so many dramatists write one-acters today is that they Jayne Blanchard, “Guthrie Gives Irresistible just can’t think of curtain line; it ‘Family’ the Royal Treatment,” St. Paul also occurred to me that ringing Pioneer Press, July 11, 1995 doorbells and phones are the twentieth-century replacement for Victoria Janicki as Gwen Cavendish and the opening and slamming doors of David Darrow as Perry Stewart in The Royal Family nineteenth-century farce. A satire notoriously inspired by the Barrymore clan, “The Royal Family”

16 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAY

anything at all in the theater. I have had to fight my own tendency to loaf as well as go through the very serious business of putting a play on. It isn’t that I do not like rehearsal.

I enjoyed every minute of the long The Barrymores: rehearsals in London, but then I usually have liked the rehearsals of any play. There is creation in the The (Real) Royal Family rehearsal period. Ever since I was a boy and wanted to be a painter I of Broadway have had the urge to be a creative artist. In spite of the handicap of my laziness, that still holds. But what they knew best – as any great when a production gets set and desire to be on the stage. Ethel one must go to the theater six became the toast of Broadway and nights and two afternoons a week her younger brother John gained a to repeat the same part, there is reputation as a matinee idol when danger that after a certain time, he made the transition to film. In even with the best intentions in the play we know them as Julie and the world, and with the most loyal Tony Cavendish. Eventually Ethel’s and encouraging support of an daughter, like Gwen in play, also audience, one may become stale. … joined the family business, as Ethel Barrymore Colt. Ethel and John In other arts people strip their Barrymore each wrote memoirs, souls naked in mean attics year from which excerpts appear below. after year, but in the theater one Ferber and Kaufman claimed they may win recognition overnight. But did not base the Cavendishes in Though I came of an acting family then in the theater one is never The Royal Family on the Barrymore and I have the heritage of an actor, safe. At any minute one may show family, but the authors succeeded I do not feel I am disloyal when himself up. It is easier to get on in convincing no one, including, I set forth my reasons for not and up in the theater than to stay Ferber admitted, even themselves. caring too much for the theater put. … The Barrymore-Drew family was as a medium in which to work. I indeed the first family of theater don’t believe when I was a boy I God help anyone after his first at the time of the play’s writing. thought overmuch about what I success in the theater! There is Louisa Lane Drew, the inspiration should do when I grew up. In my always the fear and the dread that for Fanny, was the child of a long- grandmother’s house there was it may be different next time. If established acting family, the often a discussion going on about one yields to the temptation to do Drews, and for many years ran the acting, but it never seemed to again what he has succeeded in, Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia. mean anything to me or that I was there is the certainty that sooner Her children, John Drew Jr. (a part of it. … or later his equipment will become model for Herbert Dean) and exhausted. Some actors never Georgiana Drew, followed her into I am by nature and by the grace of exhaust their equipment till they the profession. Georgiana married God a very indolent person. Acting are dead. Irving never did, but an Englishman named Herbert is a profession that requires infinite then, there are few Irvings. Blythe who protected his family’s and intensive labor and patience, name when he became an actor by particularly in the creation of a John Barrymore, Confessions of an Actor, changing his to Maurice Barrymore. character and the projection of Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, The Barrymore children joined a play. Because of my virtue of 1926 the family business as much out laziness, I have had to work doubly of need and practicality – it was hard whenever I have accomplished

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 17 The summer [of 1930] was a heavenly one for all of us. I was relaxed because I had a settled on my play for the next season. It was Scarlet Sister Mary. I had the manuscript with me and would occasionally look it over, studying it, and Sister [Ethel’s daughter, Ethel Barrymore Colt] would read it, too.

One night in our stateroom on the Berengaria, coming back to New York, when I thought Sister was Nobody in our family ever asleep, she suddenly said, “Mother, taught me anything about acting I don’t want to come out.” except by absorption, but in our family absorption was a good I said, “Why not?” way to learn. I remembered by grandmother; I remembered, “I want to go on the stage. I want without having realized it until now, to play Seraphine in Scarlet Sister the naturalness of my mother’s Mary.” acting, twenty-five years ahead of her time. I had played for three “Are you sure?” I said. I wasn’t years with Uncle Jack, who acted prepared for this at all. I had to naturally that he never seemed never though she wanted to go to be acting, so naturally that he on the stage, and everything had never let anyone see a wheel going been arranged for her debut – around. orchestra, room at the Colony Club, everything. On the opening night [of Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines in 1901] She said, “Oh, yes, I’m sure. I had for the first time the terrible I’ve thought about it a lot.” … sense of responsibility which, ever since, has made every first night It was lovely having Sister a king of little dying, an agony of in the company with me. terror that never failed to make me There was a very special king physically sick. While I had been of happiness in seeing her playing small parts, and even in His so charming, so sure of her Excellency, I hadn’t been important part. When she first came on enough to have that terrific feeling the stage, smiling, it always of responsibility. Even in Captain seemed to radiate a glow to Jinks in Philadelphia and on tour every corner of the theater. afterward, I had barely begun to feel it. It was only on the opening Ethel Barrymore, Memories: An night in New York that I really felt Autobiography, New York: Harper & the full weight of it and began to Brothers, 1955 suffer as I have every first night. I think I have always managed to hide it from the audience but I don’t know how I’ve lived through it. …

At right: Louisa Lane Drew, Ethel and John Barrymore’s grandmother

18 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAY

Myself as I Think Others See Me Together with Some Observations on the Theatre and Life Itself by Ethel Barrymore

Editor’s note: It’s no secret that American tour, and he was playing — not my art — and my looks — Ethel Barrymore was not a fan of in the same town. I had enjoyed anything but —” The Royal Family. She took offense the supreme privilege, four years at Ferber and Kaufman’s portrayal before, of playing a whole season And it was then that the lean, of a family closely resembling with him in London, but it was not strong old arm darted out and took her own and did not speak to only for this reason that, when my mine in his, while he said: “See to it either of them for some years own play was over, I hurried across that they never say anything else!” after the play premiered. She did, to his theater. For I should be just I tell this story at the beginning not however, write a response to the in time for the death-bed scene of only because, as I say, those words play that appeared in a number of “Louis XI.” have been a perpetual comfort newspapers in the country in 1929 to me, but because for years the and 1930. Below is her piece in its They put me behind some curtains. only appreciation I ever had was entirety. The play was drawing to its close. from foreigners, and Irving was, On a stone bench Irving was dying. I suppose, a technical foreigner. They say that any success I’ve had Dying, with the majesty of an Irving You may accuse me of patting is just due to my personality, or my and of a King. And when death had myself on the back when I say that, appearance, or anything but what come, and the curtain had fallen, he reminding me that a prophet has I really feel they should say. “See saw me. I went and sat by his side. never any honor in his own country. to it that they never say anything But I don’t happen to be in the else.” “They tell me you’re a great star mood to pat myself on the back. I these days.” am merely stating a fact which still I have italicized that phrase, puzzles me, and used to hurt me, because of all the phrases that have “Do they?” though now, heaven knows, I have ever echoed in my life, that is the ceased to worry about it. one which has most affected me. It “Yes. Extra matinees — wonderful has helped me through the years. receptions. Aren’t you happy?” However, I might give an example Perhaps I had better give you its of what I mean. Some of you context. “I don’t know.” may have seen me in Somerset Maugham’s play, “The Constant I was twenty then, and already, for “Why not?” Wife.” good or evil, I was what they call a “star” — a word whose meaning I looked at him. I expect I must At the end of that play, I began to has always rather puzzled me. I have seemed incredibly earnest cry. It was intentional, because I felt was acting in a play called “Cousin then. I said, “The critics never give the situation demanded it. Then the Kate.” It was at the time when me any credit for what I do — or spirit of comedy took hold of me [Henry] Irving was making his last try to do. It’s always my personality again, and it was in this note that

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 19 the play ended. been told of some criticism which themselves. And it is on their behalf has been delivered of me, and it that I would speak Max Reinhardt saw me play it. He has made me feel that I must have came up to me afterwards and said, given the impression of a poseuse, The legend has it that we artists are “Can you do that every night?” a poor, stagey creature. And then, wild, careless, tousled and immoral. I told him that I could and did. after looking into my own mind, We breakfast at midnight on a I have wondered if perhaps the caviar sandwich and an absinthe “How amazing,” he said. accusations might not be laid to cocktail. We live en famille — and the critic himself. For always I have such a famille! An organization Now Reinhardt saw and tried to leave my authors alone. of idiots — chaotic, arty, self- understood. He understood all You don’t have to be bewildered by conscious, thinking theater, that lay behind those few swift Shakespeare. There he is. Leave him breathing theater, smelling theater. tears. Who else understood? Of alone. Say what he said, and thank To these half-baked intelligences, a the public, many, but of the critics? your God that he has given you a theatrical family is only a theatrical Perhaps I may best illustrate the trumpet through which you may family — it is not an association of attitude of certain of the critics by blow so sweetly. You don’t have normal, healthy, human beings. a quotation from the recondite Mr. to be bewildered by Ibsen. There I want to record my protest against Percy Hammond, whose delicate he is. Leave him alone. He will tell this libel, not on my own behalf, prose is a source of such constant a woman’s life in three lines, and but on behalf of other less robust delight to all theatergoers. He there, before you, like a golden gift and hard-bitten artists, who may be phrased it far more exquisitely than are those three lines. Thank your intimidated by such criticism. Take poor ignorant Max Reinhardt. He God for them, because, if you are it from me, any artist who makes merely observed that I indulged in true to yourself, the very saying even a small mark on the pages of a few vaudeville tricks in the last of them will make you an artist. contemporary theatrical history act. That at least is what I feel about must be a human being first, and an my own work. I say my lessons and artist second. What you applaud, So that, you see, is how others have done. I want no mystery, no as you sit back in your stalls, is not see me! At least the critics in this green lights, no Czecho-Slovakian only our art but our life. We are country. Of the public I say nothing, producers or early Metro-Goldwyn what we have been, not only on the because they have already said to wind machines. I want to speak and stage but off it. me far more wonderful things than feel what I am speaking. And that is I could ever answer. But the critics! all I know. Look upon that picture — the Well, here is another little example. picture of the parodists, and on When I was playing “The Second However, this is supposed to be this the true picture of my own Mrs. Tanqueray,” Bourdet, whose an article about myself as I think childhood. It is a picture as formal, name is above any eulogy that I others see me and I must stick to as quaintly conventional, as a late could pay it, asked me why I did the point. How do others see me? Victorian print. It shows a house- not give a season in Paris. I said I do not wish to waste the time hold conducted with a regularity to him, “My French isn’t good either of myself or my readers and decorum that seemed as enough.” He said, “Play in English. in attempting to discredit those though it were ordained by Nature. They will understand every word parodies of my family which certain For fifty years my grandmother had you say.” And I returned to my writers — being devoid of any the same theater, in which she ruled hotel, pardonably elated by this creative impulse — have seen fit to alone. That theater was something compliment, to be greeted by a foist upon the public. It is better fixed and stable in a bewildering criticism from the classical Mr. to leave vulgarity to itself, to allow universe, and round it life rotated Heywood Broun, who observed little minds to burn themselves in ordered ceremony. Every day at of the same performance which out, and little voices to chatter twelve o’clock, the light brougham moved M. Bourdet, that I had themselves into the silence of would draw up under the trees given the impression, in the most the Great Inane. But if you throw in our quiet Philadelphia street poignant moment of the drama, of enough mud, some of it will stick. to bear my grandmother to the a barge woman. (I think that was And some of the mud which has theater. And when the theater was the phrase.) been thrown by — well, we need reached, she was supreme. They name no names — has stuck, not called her the Duchess, not in What is the explanation of it all? only to me, but to others who are any spirit of parody, but because I don’t know. Sometimes I have perhaps less willing to defend she was a Duchess. She tolerated

20 \ GUTHRIE THEATER nothing that was slovenly. If she want — physical, mental, material. could take a ticket to any part of heard any unfortunate creature Yet you don’t give the impression the world. One could turn on the using words which offended her, of radiant happiness. You’re not like sunshine at will, one could play the that creature would soon be seen some of these other actresses who tunes which were most beautiful, slinking into obscurity through the look as if God had climbed into saturate oneself in all the lovely stage door. His heaven solely for their benefit things of the earth, and then what? in order to prove to them — and The play would still be a tragedy In the shadow of that spirit I have to their press agent — that all was — or, if that’s too strong a word lived. It was a great spirit, but it right with the world.” — it would still be a problem play was not only a theatrical spirit. For whose meaning always eluded one. anybody who imagines that the He was speaking the truth. After all, And one could still be sitting in an people of the theater live and have who IS happy? Am I? Sometimes, empty theater, the occupant of a their being only in the theater is a yes. I am not an author — only solitary stall, bitterly conscious of fool. an actress — and perhaps I am the emptiness of the gallery and violating all the laws of prose, when the boxes and seats around one. When I’m not in the theater, I don’t I insert into this otherwise wordy think of the theater. Of course, if I article a note of pure sentiment — I seem by accident to have hit am doing a new play which absorbs the sentiment which comes to me upon the secret of the whole thing me, if I am trying to interpret a when I think of my three children — the loneliness of all those of us character which fascinates me, for — the three separate and adorable who are trying to create You can’t a few days I become that character, justifications of my existence To me escape it. You are alone. Bitterly in my waking and sleeping those children sometimes appear and inevitably alone. Why — God moments. She is always with me, as the only excuse for my life. alone knows. And if I ever find the prompting me, pointing out little Forgive me this momentary lapse answer, I know that it will not be on things which I hadn’t noticed of an untutored pen. Broadway, but on the stage of life. before, showing me life through her eyes. But otherwise [its] the normal Otherwise, is one happy? Well run of existence. — one has all the materials. One

The theater is the theater, and life is life, and never do the twain meet, except between the hours of eight and eleven, when both I hope are “You don’t have to be bewildered by intensified. Apart from that, life stretches before one, endlessly Shakespeare. There he is. Leave him alone. diverse, to be seized and savored Say what he said, and thank your God from a thousand points of view, the pictorial, the poetical, the personal, that he has given you a trumpet through and since we must be alliterative, even the political. which you may blow so sweetly. You don’t have to be bewildered by Ibsen. There he The idea that an actress goes through the world with the smell is. Leave him alone. He will tell a woman’s of grease-paint ever in her nostrils life in three lines, and there, before you, is an idea which, one had hoped, had died in the early Victorian like a golden gift are those three lines. era. A period, by the way, in which the most eminent of my parodists Thank your God for them, because, if you seems naturally to belong. are true to yourself, the very saying of Well, there it is. Have I told too little or too much? I leave it for them will make you an artist. That at least you to decide. Somebody said to me the other day, “You ought to is what I feel about my own work.” be supremely happy. You have everything that anybody could

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 21 CULTURAL CONTEXT

The Lingo of the Stage

Editor’s note: The Cavendish family, Ah, the immortal passedo! the motif: recurrent melodic theme. in the words of Edna Ferber, is “the punto reverso! kind of stage family that thinks, a quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo pink lights: soft, pastel colors in talks, lives, breathes only theater,” & Juliet (2.3), where Mercutio theater soften the lines of both which means their language and mocks Tybalt’s pedantic dueling scenery and people on stage. conversation it peppered with style. references to their profession: prima donna: originally referred to plays, actors, terms and quotations. constructivist: Russian artistic the lead female singer in an opera Below is a selection of the jargon and architectural movement that company. the characters use. was first influenced by Cubist and Futurist art movements. rings down: signal given to PLAYS drop the curtain at the end of a German stuff: Gwen’s conflation performance. Castlemaine: a fictional play about of Constructivism with Dadaism, the Countess of Castlemaine, another modern art movement shouts and murmurs off: sound Barbara Palmer (1641-1709), who arising at the same time which effects heard offstage. The was one of the royal mistresses of originated in Switzerland but had a stagehand who produced these Charles II of England strong artistic patronage in Berlin. sounds was often attributed with the title of “shouts and murmurs” in Camille: stage play adapted in 1852 TERMS a show’s playbill. from Alexandre Dumas fils’ novel The Lady of the Camellias. blank verse: verse without rhyme, trouper: traveling performer especially that which uses iambic or actor, from late 19th century A Scrap of Paper: comedy written pentameter. American speech. by Victorien Sardou in 1860. call boy: stagehand that informs upstage: standing away from the She Stoops to Conquer: actors of their upcoming cues action and diverting attention from Restoration comedy by Anglo-Irish during a show. the proceedings. playwright Oliver Goldsmith that debuted in London in 1773. grease paint: part of an actor’s PHOTO: HEIDI BOHNENKAMP makeup routine starting in the Two Orphans: an 1874 play by the 1890s after electric lighting became French writers Adolphe d’Ennery commonplace in theaters. and Eugène Cormon set in the 1770s. ham: used to describe acting styles starting in the late 19th century and QUOTES AND REFERENCES devolved into a more negative term for over-acting by the 1930s. And now, thou cur, … At the last line, I hit. histrionism: theatrical practice; a reference to Cyrano de Bergerac, play-acting; any exaggerated where Cyrano duels Valvert and theatrical behavior. A compliment, composes a poem on the spot: as the style of acting during “I’ll make one while we fight; / And Aubrey’s time encouraged strike you at the final line.” histrionism.

Bill McCallum as Herbert Dean in The Royal Family

22 \ GUTHRIE THEATER CULTURAL CONTEXT

ACTORS AND DIRECTORS

Herbert Beerbohm Tree: (1853- 1917) one of the great figures of the English theater during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A successful actor-manager of his time, he also founded what became the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1904. Helena Modjeska: (1840- 1909) a Polish-American actress renowned in the U.S. for her specialization in Shakespeare. She left Poland for political reasons in 1876, Henry Irving: (1838-1905) and hoped to establish an one of the most famous international career to rival British actor-managers of his Bernhardt’s. She began to time and the first actor to learn English, moved to the be knighted for his theatrical U.S. and made her English- work. He made his debut in speaking debut in 1877 in 1856, performed across the San Francisco. U.K. as well as in Paris, the U.S. and Canada, making his farewell tour to the British Georges Pitoëff: (1884-1939) a Sarah Bernhardt: (1844- provinces in 1904-05. Russian-born theater director and 1923) the greatest French producer who popularized the actress of the later 19th works of contemporary playwrights century. She was a long- like Pirandello, Shaw, Chekhov, time company member with Wilton Lackaye: (1862-1932) an Schnitzler, Ibsen and O’Neill in Comédie-Française and ran a American stage and film actor French performance. number of her own theaters who successfully played almost in her career. During the everything – villains, leading roles, Max Reinhardt: (1873-1943) an siege of Paris in 1870, she character parts. Ill health forced Austrian-born theater and film turned the Odeon theater him to retire in 1927. director and theatrical producer. into a hospital and during He is now regarded as a prominent World War I helped raise Mary Mannering: (1876-1953) an director of early-20th century funds for the wounded. English actress who in 1896 moved German-language theater because to New York where she appeared of his innovative stage productions. on Broadway in 19 productions. Eleonora Duse: (1858-1924) Italian In 1911-12 she portrayed Domini Fannie Ward: (1872/5-1952) an actress-manager born into a family Enfilden in The Garden of Allah, American stage and film actress of performers. Her career is often adapted by Robert Hichens and whose career was built around divided into three parts: realistic Mary Anderson from Hichens’ appearing perpetually young. roles, then a phase when she was novel. She got more than her share of in a relationship with playwright publicity for her marriage, divorce, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and a later Richard Mansfield: (1857-1907) night club patronage and appears religious or mystical phase. She an English actor-manager best to have been famous for being was on a U.S. tour in 1924 when she known for his Shakespeare roles, famous. died. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and portrayal of both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 23 CULTURAL CONTEXT

Sir Charles Wyndham: (1837-1919) THEATERS during the 1800s, the theater an English actor-manager in the settled on the name the Old Vic at early 20th century and founder the end of the century. of London’s Wyndham’s Theatre in 1899 and the New Theatre in Theatre Royale: now known as 1903. He was also manager of the the Bristol Old Vic, the theater is Criterion Theatre in London. located in Bristol, England, and is the longest continuously-running theater in the English-speaking ORGANIZATIONS world.

Lambs’ Club: America’s first Century Theatre: Located on Wallack’s Theatre: name of a professional theatrical club. 62nd Street and Central Park series of theaters that opened in Founded in 1874 by a group of West, the theater opened New York starting in the mid-19th actors and theater enthusiasts, the in 1909 as the largest century. Dean refers to the one at club took its name from a similar playhouse in New York. It 30th Street and Broadway, which club established in 1869 in London was funded by a number was built in 1882 and torn down in which was named in honor of of millionaires who hoped 1915. drama critic and essayist Charles to create a theater immune Lamb and his sister Mary. The Club from commercial pressures, ~ Research by Stephanie Engel had a six-story clubhouse on 44th similar to state-supported Street with a banquet hall, billiard theaters in Europe. The size room and small-scale theater, in of the theater proved too addition to offices and sleeping unwieldy for the producers’ quarters for members. hopes, and the theater was later demolished in 1930 Theatre Guild: theatrical society because of poor acoustic founded in 1918 in New York quality. City by Lawrence Langner. The Guild produced high-quality, non-commercial American and foreign plays. The entire board of directors shared responsibility for play selection, management and subsequent production of each Daly’s Theatre: Broadway show; some famous plays produced theater built in 1867, under its patronage were Shaw’s renamed when purchased Heartbreak House, Gershwin in 1879 by Augustin Daly, and Heyward’s Porgy and Bess a theater impresario who and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s created a company and Oklahoma! produced there for 20 years.

Macauley’s in Louisville: leading theater in Louisville, Kentucky, from the late 19th to early 20th century. Actors like Sarah Bernhardt and Edwin Booth performed there during their careers. Old Vic: London theater that opened in 1818 under the name Royal Coburg Theatre. After changing names several times

24 \ GUTHRIE THEATER CULTURAL CONTEXT

People and Things of the Period

PEOPLE “I must say I met David Wark Griffith and you couldn’t ask for a Leonem Ascher: (1880-1942) an more perfect gentleman.” (Kitty, Austrian composer who wrote act one) several successful operas. His work spanned from 1909 to 1936, Otto Kahn: (1867-1934) New including a couple film scores. He York banker who specialized in immigrated to the U.S. in 1938 after reorganizing American railroad the German annexation of Austria. systems. He was also a prominent supporter of the arts. “Give me two years in Munich 20th Century Limited: an with my violin under Ascher, “Sunday he’s out at Otto Kahn’s. I express passenger train and I’ll show you what the stage tell you there is no other time for on the New York Central means to me!” (Tony, act two) it.” (Wolfe, p.34) Railroad that operated from 1902 to 1967. It traveled John D. Rockefeller: (1839- between Grand Central 1937) American oil tycoon and Terminal in New York City philanthropist considered to be the and LaSalle Street Station in wealthiest American of all time. Chicago. “That means he got to Chicago this morning. Naturally he got on the Century.” (Wolfe, act one)

“With Julie a millionaire’s bride, and Gwen a society matron, all Henri Bendel: (1868-1936) I need is you should marry John an American fashion D. Rockefeller and my season is designer who specialized in over.” (Wolfe, act three) custom-made dresses and provided exclusive imports Jack Delaney: (1900-1948) Jiddu Krishnamurti: (1895-1986) an from Paris. Starting in 1913, Canadian-American boxer Indian guru who was proclaimed he operated an eight-story who was the world light by theosophists to be the world’s women’s department store heavyweight champion in foremost mystical teacher. John on West 57th St in New York. 1926. In 1927, he tried to Barrymore met Krishnamurti “No, come at eleven — No — move up to the heavyweight in 1926 and struck up a mutual Bendel!” (Julie, act one) division and at the Garden friendship. fought a 10-round bout against Jimmy Maloney in “Or I may go away into India, with David Wark Griffith: (1875-1948), front of a capacity crowd (he Krishnamurti and study Hindu more commonly known as D.W. lost). The fight set an indoor philosophy!” (Tony, act two) Griffith, was an American film gate sales record that stood director, writer and producer. for many years. Baron vom Stein: (1757-1831) a Griffith pioneered modern “Say, do you think you could Prussian statesman who was the filmmaking techniques and get me into the Garden model for a character of the same produced significant films like The Friday night? I’ve never seen name in the late 19th-century Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. this Delaney.” (Jo, act one) drama Diplomacy, the English

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 25 CULTURAL CONTEXT

version of Victorien Sardou’s play exchange name (Bowling Green) Dora, written by B.C. Stephenson and the number (10516) in order to and Clement Scott. be connected.

“In a couple more years he’ll own “Bowling Green ten-five-one-six six toupees, and be playing Baron ... How soon can he get down Stein in an all-star revival of there?” (Gil, act two) Diplomacy.” (Wolfe, act two) Hispano Suiza: Spanish Elsie Dinsmore: main character in automotive/engineering a children’s book series written by company best known for THINGS Martha Finley between 1867 and its luxury cars and aviation 1905. engines pre-World War I. aeroplane: Flight was fairly new technology in the 1920s. In fact, “I thought she’d get tired of “… an Isotta Fraschini for 1927 was the year of the first moping in her room like Elsie twenty thousand and an nonstop solo flight across the Dinsmore.” (Fanny, act two) Hispano Suiza for twenty- Atlantic by American aviator five, a camp in the Sierras for Charles Lindbergh. General travel Isotta Fraschini: high-end Italian another fifty —” by airplane did not start until the motors brand known for its (Julie, act two) creation of commercial airliners in production of cars, trucks and 1933. engines for naval and aeronautical use. “I flew, of course. Came by Junior League: national women’s aeroplane from Chicago.” The Graphic: The New York organization aimed at improving (Tony, act one) Evening Graphic was a the community through volunteer sensationalist tabloid published work and building civic leadership Aquitania: a British cruise liner from September 1924 to July 1932 skills through training. During operated by Cunard Lines known by Bernarr Adolphus Macfadden. the 1920s, the Junior League of for its luxury interiors. Nicknamed The Graphic was founded to as Chicago pioneered the way for “Ship Beautiful,” the boat had an alternative health paper, but children’s theater, an idea that was Palladian lounges and Louis XVI- evolved toward first-person “news” subsequently taken up by more style first class dining rooms. accounts and crime stories, and than 100 other Leagues across the Mauretania: British luxury liner included a Broadway gossip country. built for speed and owned by column “Your Broadway and Mine” the Cunard Line. Built for speed, written by Walter Winchell until “I say, you couldn’t marry a good the ship won the prize for fastest 1929. Junior League actress, huh? Atlantic crossing of the time and Instead of my Gwen.” (Wolfe, act boasted the first steam-turbine “No, he isn’t expected…Who is it, three) engines on a passenger liner. please? … The Graphic?” (Della, act one) process server: a person who “Europe, of course. Tomorrow on executes the “service of process” the Aquitania ...” (Tony, act one) radio: radio-telegram; a message which notifies a defendant about a “They’ve been laying for him ever sent via telegraph. lawsuit against him or her. Personal since that Mauretania thing.” service, in which a process server (Julie, act one) “Tony, take care of yourself. Send hands it to a defendant, was preferred us a radio.” (Gwen, act two) because it was difficult to claim that Bowling Green ten-five-one-six: notice wasn’t given and traditionally Telephone numbers in the earlier was the only way to serve process. part of the 20th century used a combination of letters and numbers “It’s that God damned process server instead of just the numerals she’s got after me!” (Tony, act one) people use today. To place a call, one would give the operator an ~ Research by Stephanie Engel

26 \ GUTHRIE THEATER BUILDING THE PRODUCTION

From the Director: Rachel Chavkin

in on this family and the question as to how they’re all going to meet it. We will watch the family change itself over the course of the show. What starts very firmly in period ends up by the third act becoming contemporary, with Julie suddenly appearing like a Wall Street banker’s wife in Act 3, having made this adjustment and amputated herself to fit the vision of stability and efficiency that Gil brings in. I love Gil, and I hate him. When he walks into this Cavendish space, I think he will feel like cool water on what has been an insane picture, and he actually will be the first person in modern dress to hit the stage. That’s just who he is against this sort of Vaudevillian world.

The set will function in this way as well: I want people to feel like that it’s a realistic space to start. Then slowly we peel back more and more of the artifice. I had never been offered the opportunity to direct We have some very beautiful lights on rolling stands anything like this play. So when Joe Haj wrote to ask if I that will get introduced to the apartment towards was interested, I had to reread it because I hadn’t read the end of Kaufman and Ferber’s Act 1. It will feel like it since college. My first thought was “I just don’t know the world is beginning to crack a little bit. A large that this will be it.” Then I read it again and I thought, part of that is the feeling of impending change and “This is so beautiful.” future unsustainability that is also very much about underscoring Julie’s emotional journey as a deeply I feel very deeply and personally the central action of identifiable modern woman who is just trying to keep this play, which is three generations of women being her family together. together on stage and talking about whether you can actually be an artist and have a family and what There will be a number of streams of life in this show, that really means. That’s where my heart lies in this and the house servants Della and Jo are going to be production. And I promised Joe it’ll be funny. holding a huge amount of that together. The feeling is that Della and Jo in particular, but also our full servants I also think of this play through the lens of Chekhov’s corps, are quiet witnesses – almost like a film shoot The Cherry Orchard, and that’s where our design where the family and associates are the leads of the conversations began. This is a family whose way of film of their lives, but the servants are witnessing that life is being challenged and altered by the changing and helping it along. The artifice is removed entirely for economy of performance. There’s a significant death Act 3. center stage at the end of the show, and I find that mad and devastating. It’s about the future crushing Edited from comments made to the cast and staff on the first day of rehearsal.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 27 BUILDING THE PRODUCTION

From the Costume Designer: Brenda Abbandadolo

having the look of an Ophelia about her, and we decided she should actually be in an Ophelia costume. Gwen and Perry make a jump in Act 3 to the early ’60s. It’s like they made it to the Kennedy era but not any further. She has a very traditional dress: the mom who’s not quite the mom, she’s probably more in Saks or Bergdorf’s.

The matriarch Fanny definitely exudes splendor and theatricality. She’s very grand the first time we see her. Julie is actually very simple because she’s the stability, the breadwinner. She’s quite modern, in pants. Her Act 3 look is very modern, as she fills the shoes of a banker’s wife.

Tony is the most playful, and he acts out a lot. So he arrives in this absurd animal-like fur from Hollywood, The Cherry Orchard was a main theme for us, in covering his white suit. And he just keeps changing the sense of this family being stuck and never quite through the play, including wearing his father’s arriving despite how far they get. We do start the Lear robe, which we think he just puts on to help clothes relatively firmly in the ’20s (’20s-lite, is what I his mother. And in would call it, but it’s definitely period). As we progress Act 3, because he’s through the play we get to different decades, but they been to Germany, he never fully arrive. returns as a German Expressionist. The servants are some of the few characters that never change. They are the rock and the stability, so I don’t think of they anchor the family and take care of the space. Herbert and Kitty And they look like very classic 1920s servants. Dean as too comical in their clothes: Gwen, the young Cavendish ingénue, is in love, and they’re just fighting she’s going to represent an archetype of young love, for their relevance with clothes that will keep her young and light. She in an industry where will always be in pink. they’re becoming obsolete. The other idea we’re playing with is that these are actors, they’re theatrical, and they have costumes Edited from comments made to at their house, and they often wear those costumes. the cast and staff on the first day There’s a stage direction that describes Gwen as of rehearsal.

28 \ GUTHRIE THEATER ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For Further Understanding

EDITIONS OF THE PLAY Stage Door, New York; Dramatists Barrymore, Lionel, We Barrymores, Play Service, Inc., 1936 New York: Appleton-Century- The Royal Family by George S. Crofts, 1951 Kaufman and Edna Ferber, New ABOUT EDNA FERBER York: Samuel French, 1927 Cambridge Guide to American Ferber, Edna, A Peculiar Treasure, Theatre, edited by Don B. Wilmeth This is the acting edition of New York: The Literary Guild of and Tice L. Miller, Cambridge: the play. The version published America, Inc., 1939 Cambridge University Press, 1993 after 1976 includes suggested alterations to the playing text Ferber, Edna, A Kind of Magic, Kotsilibas-Davis, James, The based on the 1975 Broadway Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Barrymores: The Royal Family revival of the play. Company, Inc., 1963 in Hollywood, New York; Crown Ferber’s autobiography, in two Publishers, Inc., 1981 The Royal Family by George S. parts Kaufman and Edna Ferber, in Mordden, Ethan, The American Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Theatre, New York: Oxford Comedies, edited by Laurence ABOUT GEORGE S. KAUFMAN University Press, 1981 Maslon, New York: The Library of America, 2004 Goldstein, Malcolm, George S. Moses, Montrose J., Famous Actor- Kaufman: His Life, His Theater, New Families in America, New York: Maslon takes the text for this York: Oxford University Press, 1979 Thomas D. Crowell & Company, 1906 reading edition from the version published by Doubleday in 1928, Meredith, Scott, George S. Kaufman which includes a few lines that and His Friends, Garden City, N.Y.: were cut before it opened in 1927. Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1974

Teichmann, Howard, George S. ALSO BY KAUFMAN Kaufman: An Intimate Portrait, New AND FERBER York: Atheneum, 1972

Bravo!, New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1949 THEATER, BROADWAY AND THE BARRYMORES Dinner at Eight, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., Atkinson, Brooks, Broadway, New 1932 York: The Macmillan Company, 1970 Includes a chapter on the The Land is Bright, New York: Barrymores called “The Royal Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1946 Family of Actors”

Minick, Garden City, N.Y., Barrymore, John, Confessions of Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924 an Actor, Indianapolis: The Bobbs- Merrill Company, 1926 This volume includes the Edna Ferber short story “Old Man Barrymore, Ethel, Memories, An Minick” from which the play is Autobiography, New York: Harper, adapted. 1955

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 29