Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’m sharing the latest in my “potpourri” series on midcentury Broadway plays, specifically comedies, that I’m reading for (mostly) the first time. In this entry, I’ve got three memorable hits from the 1920s!
MERTON OF THE MOVIES (1922)
Logline: A small-town clerk goes to Hollywood with dreams of working alongside his idols.
Author: George S. Kaufman & Marc Connelly | Original Director: Hugh Ford
Original Broadway Cast: Glenn Hunter, Florence Nash, Alexander Clark Jr., Edward M. Favor, Gladys Feldman, Edwin Maxwell, J.K. Murray, John Webster, Esther Pinch, and more
Thoughts: The granddaddy of Broadway’s Hollywood satires, this adaptation of an earlier novel predates Kaufman’s better-remembered Once In A Lifetime by nearly a decade. Merton Of The Movies indeed reflects the fact that it’s from an earlier era, with a view of the motion picture world that isn’t nearly as critical or cutting as comedies about this subject would soon become. That is, the humor here comes more from parodying the types of films being made in the early 1920s, and lampooning the public’s growing infatuation with the movies, than from caricaturing the industry itself and how its proverbial sausages are made. Oh, yes, there are obvious allusions to real people like Mack Sennett, and the discrepancy between the idealistic and the jaded is also established as a fundamental tenet of this subgenre. However, truly specific and knowing satire feels beyond Merton‘s scope, and in some ways that sort of gentleness matches both the naiveté of its title character and of the medium in 1922, only a decade after Hollywood got its first film studio. (Although, compared to some of the real scandals of the period — like the Fatty Arbuckle case — Merton does seem quite toothless!) As for its title character, he doesn’t really drive the action — things happen to him, and he’s largely a gobsmacked participant or even a bystander, watching with starry eyes and a simplistic nature that keeps him behind the rest of the characters in terms of self-awareness. But he is a comic figure, especially as the play progresses and his delusional self-seriousness becomes increasingly spotlighted within the plot as a contrast to everyone around him. This is smart, for instead of just supplying the dumb optimism of most bumpkins from these Hollywood spoofs, he’s also overly grand himself — with an idea of motion pictures as an art that can be caricatured to the extreme, rendering him not just earnest, but overly earnest and therefore amusing. Accordingly, this ends up being a funnier play than its simple scenarios and basically ginger perspective would ordinarily enable, for Merton is ultimately comical. And while this type of play would be done much better later, for a formative sample, it’s still effective. (Interestingly, Red Skelton did film adaptations in the 1940s of both Merton Of The Movies, and the play below, The Show-Off.)
Jackson’s Verdict: Mild and simple, but likable and formative for its subgenre.
THE SHOW-OFF (1924)
Logline: An obnoxious braggart marries into a family that can’t stand him.
Author: George Kelly | Original Director: George Kelly
Original Broadway Cast: Louis John Bartels, Helen Lowell, Regina Wallace, Lee Tracy, Juliette Crosby, Guy D’Ennery, C.W. Goodrich, Francis Pierlot, and Joseph Clayton
Thoughts: Expanded out from a vaudeville sketch that had already toured the country, The Show-Off is a self-titled “transcription of life” that was praised for its naturalistic dialogue. And indeed, it’s still impressive today, managing to sound both idiomatic and funny without indulging the clichéd joke-writing of the era. This casual, everyday ethos, which even allows for a bit of family drama, helps Kelly’s central comic character Aubrey Piper, the eponymous show-off, pop with extra gusto, accentuating the humorously heightened qualities that render him such an archetypal example of the buffoon. In particular, Aubrey is an overly confident and therefore un-self-aware braggart who’s also something of a con artist, spouting trite socialist pablum while mooching off everyone around him, especially his in-laws. However, I imagine that reading this play today is a very different experience than theatergoers would have had back in 1924, for prior to Aubrey’s on-stage introduction in the text, he’s described in such a way by the other leads that, to a modern and too-savvy reader (like moi), it seems almost too leading. That is, one expects a twist — like the dramatic tension to become more about the family’s own animus toward him than anything he actually says or does. And with my (very 21st century) expectation that a central character would have more nuance than described, I think it truly took until Act II for it to become clear on the page that his in-laws are right; Aubrey is undoubtedly a bold BS’er who should not be given the benefit of the doubt — someone who’d be irksome in any context. I’m sure this was clear to 1924 audiences right away though — simply by his appearance alone (see photo), which primes him as ridiculous and therefore an obvious jerk. Of course, the final twist in the third act does have Aubrey responsible for the family’s windfall — both inadvertently and advertently (which is fun) — but The Show-Off, despite its naturalistic dialogue, is very much reflective of this era, where comedies would often be structured around an absurd comic character (think: Dulcy) who’s exactly as described and unyielding in that depiction throughout a three-act story. While other characters bend and change, Aubrey remains Aubrey — the force to which they must respond. And as a comic character under that definition, he isn’t good or bad, just a quintessential goof, coming from a play that laughs at him.
Jackson’s Verdict: Straightforward but funny.
EXPRESSING WILLIE (1924)
Logline: A young businessman’s mother recruits her son’s small-town ex to help draw him away from his phony new friends.
Author: Rachel Crothers | Original Director: Rachel Crothers
Original Broadway Cast: Louise Closser Hale, Richard Sterling, Chrystal Herne, Alan Brooks, Merle Maddern, Warren William, Molly McIntyre, Laura Richards, John Gerard, Douglas Garden
Thoughts: I’ve read this play twice now and I’m still confused about its comic intent. Like Rachel Crothers’ later Susan And God (1937), which I discussed in a Wildcard entry several years ago, Expressing Willie satirizes the elite’s weakness for new age self-help, taking aim at the ridiculousness of such hypocritical psychobabble and the shallow people drawn to it. Its plot is launched when the overbearing mother of a toothpaste magnate calls upon her son’s earnest small-town ex (Minnie) to help drag him out of the clutches of his new phony society pals (including a predatory girlfriend), whom she believes are taking advantage of his recent wealth and inflating his ego with their disingenuous propaganda about self-expression and inner greatness. The problem comes when the meek and mousy Minnie is drawn to the society crowd and falls victim to their credo, deciding to express the greatness she has inside — her piano playing — which sort of turns her into one of them, as she eagerly encourages her ex (Willie) to release himself too. That’s a funny premise, with an amusing ending, as the curtain falls on Willie trying to reconcile with Minnie, who is now too great to be interested in him. But here’s where I’m tripped up — if we’re to find the philosophy mockably bogus, how come it works on someone as seemingly earnest and sincere as Minnie? Is it because she actually is great, which means the philosophy is only mockably bogus when it’s disingenuous? Or is Minnie not earnest and sincere — is she just another shallow goof whose attraction to “self-expression” makes her the butt of the joke as well? I go back and forth about how I’m supposed to view her, for while her piano playing is defined as great and her newfound assuredness suggests that she is genuinely benefited by this kind of philosophy (however bogus for others), on the other hand, her later crusade to draw the “real” Willie out, only to reveal that she no longer wants him herself, is so amusing as a plot point that it feels like the philosophy itself is still being mocked, with her as another ambassador. Oh, I guess the play doesn’t need to commit to a distinction — perhaps this is intended as nuance — but I can’t help but wish the text was tighter and sharper in its focus, with the characters supporting the comic idea a bit more precisely.
Jackson’s Verdict: Interesting ideas that could probably use a tighter presentation.
Come back next week for another Wildcard! And stay tuned Monday for a musical treat!