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 spotlighted three notable titles from the 1930s that I expected to really love — and then didn’t, finding them a bit more mixed than anticipated…
DESIGN FOR LIVING (1933)
Logline: An interior designer struggles with equally strong feelings for her two best friends.
Author: Noël Coward | Original Director: Noël Coward
Original Broadway Cast: Noël Coward, Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt, Campbell Gullan, and more
Thoughts: I first read this well-known title many years ago for a piece about its big-screen adaptation, Ernst Lubitch’s proto-screwball Pre-Code classic that’s fun, but very different from its source material. That film keeps only the title and basic logline of Coward’s original text, which is about three Bohemian friends, two guys and a girl, who endure complicated romantic entanglements as she grapples with her affection for both. But while the movie is careful to position the woman as the center of a triangle, with her difficulty in choosing between her two beaus eventually culminating in them teaming up and allowing her to be with both simultaneously, the original play winkingly implies that their dynamic is even more unusual: it’s an actual three–sided triangle. That is, something like a throuple — a dynamic where each member has love for the other, and jealousy only occurs when two are together behind the third’s back. Specifically, the woman (Gilda) goes back and forth between each man — before leaving both for someone else entirely — but it’s implied that the fellas also behave, and indeed might have been, together in their own right. Oh, now, it was 1933 when Design For Living first premiered on Broadway, so only the heterosexual dynamics are explicit, but the plotting itself makes the implication hard to ignore, and the changes made for the movie only emphasize the more daring intentions of the original stage play… As for the play itself, rereading it now, I’d say it’s another textbook display of its author’s trademark style, with a slight story that boasts a deliberately cyclical structure meant to highlight narrative parallels, and by proxy, thin characterizations that don’t feel individualized because their similarities are accentuated instead. In this case though, the characters sound particularly underbaked compared to those in Coward’s better efforts — all we know about them really is their respective careers: artist, designer, and playwright — because the focus of the piece is entirely on its naughty premise, about three people in a relationship that they can’t escape, for they all have strong feelings for each other. That’s the draw of Design For Living both then and now, and it’s amusing for that reason alone.
Jackson’s Verdict: Not Coward’s best, but the sexy premise is a compelling hook.
END OF SUMMER (1936)
Logline: A wealthy mother and daughter find that their money complicates their love lives.
Author: S.N. Behrman | Original Director: Philip Moeller
Original Broadway Cast: Ina Claire, Kendall Clark, Doris Dudley, Van Heflin, Mildred Natwick, Osgood Perkins, Tom Powers, Shepperd Strudwick, Minor Watson, Herbert Yost
Thoughts: Somehow, I had gotten the impression that this was S.N. Behrman’s crowning achievement. That’s why, after favorable reactions to No Time For Comedy (1939) and Biography (1932) — and even Jacobowsky And The Colonel (1944) — I saved End Of Summer for savoring. Unfortunately, my expectations were too high, because this proved to be my least favorite of his plays so far. In a sentence, I found it too didactic, with the author’s trademark interest in timely social commentary overshadowing the comic but reflective humanity that he, typically, instills in his characterizations. That is, it was too obvious that End Of Summer was more a chance for Behrman to pontificate on sociopolitical topics — radical socialists, tolerant liberals, Freudian grifters — than a chance to study the characters themselves: a mother and daughter who both find tension in their romantic relationships as a result of their wealth, as money is both an enticement and repellant to their respective suitors. In terms familiar to my sitcom analysis, I’d say the show’s explicitly idea-driven premise hardened the characters into narrative devices; rather than exploring the leads in relation to each other, it was using them to instead explore the lofty notions they were designed to personify. This is not unlike those other Behrman plays I previously read and cited above, but those shows at least seemed to emphasize a superseding message about our shared experience as humans, with the characters serving as different types of people to examine rather than, merely, different ideologies to be debated. And in that regard, End Of Summer feels more essay than play, with the same general perspective as Biography, only much more ham-fistedly delivered. At least, that’s how I felt reading it, which, I must also note, probably didn’t strike me as one of the author’s finest because it was also heavier, not as light. Oh, don’t get me wrong — there are a few figures here with clear laugh-making depictions: the flighty heiress, the snarky leftist, the manipulative shrink — but it wasn’t as fun as the finer comedies with which I associate this otherwise great playwright.
Jackson’s Verdict: A little too heavy-handed to be considered this fine author’s best.
MORNING’S AT SEVEN (1939)
Logline: Four elderly sisters in rural America contemplate and face major changes in their lives.
Author: Paul Osborn | Original Director: Joshua Logan
Original Broadway Cast: Dorothy Gish, Jean Adair, Kate McComb, Effie Shannon, Thomas Chalmers, Russell Collins, Herbert Yost, John Alexander, Enid Markey
Thoughts: This remains one of the most popular 1930s plays — not only because it’s got one set and is thus easy to stage, but also because its setting is rural America, with an intimacy that’s ideal for smaller companies with a community ethos. However, I’m sad to say my expectations going in were probably too high again, for I found the whole thing a bit baffling. Naturally, I appreciated the main ideas: the eccentricities of small-town, too-close-for-comfort family members, and the general agita that plagues them via the threat of change. That makes for an easy thesis, reflecting humanity’s own fears, particularly as we age. And there are quite a few strong characters — particularly the four sisters who give the ensemble its shape, with a love triangle between two and one of their husbands providing the sort of kitchen-sink (or in this case, back-porch) tension you’d expect with such a premise. But this, and some of the other main narrative threads, are predicated on characterizations that strain credulity, undermining the naturalism this text otherwise seeks. And for as much as I think the women are interesting and well-defined, I find the men strange and under-developed. Specifically, the one husband who has “spells” related to existential dread can’t help but feel like the personified interjection of clumsy and faux-lofty messaging from the author, inviting a sense of absurdism that’s at odds with everything else. Also, the pompous husband’s refusal to let his wife spend time with her sisters — dividing the house after she defies him — eschews the motivated character drama at its core for plot conveniences. Then there’s the husband caught in the triangle between his silently suffering wife and the kooky spinster sister who’s been living with them for 50 years. The play never delves into the part he’s played in maintaining this awful arrangement, rendering him unsympathetic in a way that also hurts the credibility of the women. And then, there’s the middle-aged son whose reluctance to marry is understandable, but whose appeal to his long-time gal is totally elusive, making both sound more like devices than characters. Accordingly, Morning’s At Seven’s healthy charms are off set, for me, by its core shortcomings.
Jackson’s Verdict: Ideal to produce, but not a great work of dramatic craftsmanship.
Come back next week for a new Wildcard! And stay tuned Tuesday for more sitcom fun!