Insights A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival Born Yesterday The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately produced on the Festival’s stages. The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720. Bruce C. Lee, communications director and editor; Phil Hermansen, art director. Copyright © 2011, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long as you do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. For more information about Festival education programs: Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880 www.bard.org. Cover photo: Anne Newhall (left) as Billie Dawn and Craig Spidle as Harry Brock in Born Yesterday, 2003. Contents BornInformation Yesterday on the Play Synopsis 4 Characters 5 About the Playwright 6 Scholarly Articles on the Play A Pygmalion Tale, but So Much More 8 Well in Advance of Its Time 10 Utah Shakespeare Festival 3 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Synopsis: Born Yesterday Born Yesterday opens in the sitting room of suite 67D in the finest hotel in Washington, D.C. Colorful and lavishly decorated, it is “a masterpiece of offensive good taste.” The time is shortly after the end of World War II. Waiting in the suite is Paul Verrall, a newspaper reporter for The New Republic’s Washington bureau. Young and idealistic, he is investigating Washington skullduggery and hopes to interview mil- lionaire junk man Harry Brock, who has rented this suite. Brock is a businessman who operates on the shady side of the street, and Verrall wants to find out what it is that brings him to Washington. Brock soon arrives with his entourage, including his brother, Eddie, and his lawyer, Ed Devery. Also with him is his beautiful but poorly educated and rough-around-the-edges girlfriend, Billie Dawn. Brock grants Verrall the interview but, other than giving him trivial background information on his life, reveals nothing about why he is in Washington. After the interview Brock meets with Senator Norval Hedges, and reveals his plan. Brock has realized that there is a fortune to be made overseas from scrap left over from the war in Europe and has hatched a scheme to import it back to the United States. Brock, however, does not want to be bothered with tariffs and other impediments. Senator Hedges, who is being bribed by Brock, is developing the Hedges-Keller Amendment, which would guarantee that the State Department would be unable to interfere with Brock’s business. This, then, is why Brock is in Washington—to make sure that Hedges is doing the job he is getting paid to do. Another stumbling block in his scheme, as Brock sees it, is Billie. During the evening with Senator and Mrs. Hedges, Billie’s lack of social graces embarrasses even the boorish junk man himself. Determined to make her fit in, he hires Verrall to educate her. Verrall is initially skeptical but soon finds that, in spite of her lack of formal education, Billie is capable of learning quickly. The more she learns and reads about the world around her, the more she begins to understand the nature of Brock and his schemes. More painfully, she begins to realize how Brock has been using her as a tool to further his plans—and how he has been both physically and emo- tionally abusive. Events come to a head when Billie refuses to sign her name to documents which she has discovered are part of Brock’s crooked scheme to create a junk cartel and amass a fortune at the expense of the public. Brock’s reaction to Billie’s refusal to sign the documents is violent. He strikes her and sends her from the hotel. Billie realizes that she can no longer be with Brock, and that during the course of her education, she and Verrall have fallen in love. In a parting act of defiance, Billie gives the incriminating documents to Verrall. Despite Brock’s rage, Billie and Verrall refuse to back down or return the documents. Billie lets Brock know that he had “better behave” or she will reveal everything she knows about his shady deals. Incredulous, Brock watches his carefully constructed scheme collapse as Billie and Verrall walk out of the hotel and into their own future. 4 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Characters: Born Yesterday Billie Dawn: A charming but poorly educated ex-chorus girl, Billie Dawn is entirely lacking in social graces. Her natural honesty and desire to improve her lot in life, however, soon cause her to experience a wonderful transformation. Harry Brock: A vulgar and egotistical junkman, Harry Brock has come to Washington full of fraudulent schemes. Loud and verbally and physically abusive of those around him, includ- ing Billie, he soon finds his crooked machinations going awry when he crosses her. Paul Verrall: A young, idealistic reporter, Paul Verrall has been investigating political skulldug- gery in Washington. He is hired by Harry Brock to educate Billie Dawn and eventually sees past her rough exterior and falls in love with her. Ed Devery: Harry Brock’s lawyer, thirty years ago Ed Devery was considered a man destined for greatness. Now, with Brock as his only client, the future looks far less bright—but with a salary of $100,000 a year and plenty of fine Scotch, Devery is past caring. Senator Norval Hedges: Pale, thin, and worn down at sixty years old, Senator Norval Hedges is a nervous politician currently on the payroll of Harry Brock, who plans on using the senator for his own means. Mrs. Hedges: The wife of Senator Norval Hedges Eddie Brock: Brother of Harry, Eddie Brock often handles the little details of his older broth- er’s business, “greasing the wheels,” as it were, with tips and pay-offs. The Assistant Manager Helen: A maid A Bellhop Another Bellhop A Barber A Manicurist A Bootblack A Waiter Utah Shakespeare Festival 5 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 About the Playwright: Garson Kanin By Sarah Johnson From Insights, 2003 Once asked how he dealt with the passing away of his closest contemporaries, Garson Kanin replied “the really great ones don’t die” (People, 13 October 1980, 51). With his own death on March 13, 1999 Kanin himself passed into the realm of the really great, the notewor- thy, and the never forgotten. His love affair with the written word began at a very young age. Nora Johnson noted that “Garson Kanin has been marinating in theatre since before most of us were ever in the audi- ence” (“Fun, Sex and Music,” New York Times Book Review, 23 November 1980, 42). Born on November 14, 1912 in Rochester, New York, Kanin dropped out of high school during the Great Depression to work in vaudeville as a musician and comic. He entered the business mainly to support his family, but was “bitten by the theatre bug” and moved to New York City to train at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1932. He made his Broadway debut in Little Ol’ Boy in 1934, but quickly left acting to work as a production assis- tant for Little Ol’ Boy director George Abbott. Employed by Abbott for several more shows, he moved on to directing with 1937’s Hitch Your Wagon, which in turn landed him a contract with Samuel Goldwyn. After a year on the Goldwyn staff, Kanin was frustrated over the lack of directing opportunities and signed on with RKO, where he directed such classic comedies as Bachelor Mother; Tom, Dick and Harry; and My Favorite Wife with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. Drafted by the army in 1941, Kanin used his experience to make documentary shorts for the offices of war information and emergency manpower; of these the most notable is True Glory, General Eisenhower’s official report of the war in Europe. The film won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary, as well as other awards and citations. In December, 1942 Kanin married Ruth Gordon, Hollywood actress and author. The pair- ing was extremely successful, both professionally and personally. Their combined efforts result- ed in two vehicles for (and lifelong friendships with) Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy: the critically acclaimed and highly successful Adam’s Rib and Pat and Mike. In total the couple wrote only four screenplays together, three of which garnered Academy Award nominations. Although their collaboration efforts were both lucrative and well received, the couple decided to part their professional ways. In an interview with Contemporary Authors in 1981, Kanin recounted why: “We weren’t really comfortable at work; we quarreled when we worked together. We never quarrel in private life. It soon became apparent that if we didn’t get a pro- fessional divorce we would have to get a real one” (Gale Group: Detroit. 1999, 290). Gordon went on to concentrate on acting and Kanin pursued other forms of writing. Kanin began writing plays, short stories, journals, and novels. But his professional apex came with the completion of his play, Born Yesterday.