Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’m sharing the latest in our “potpourri” series on classic Broadway plays, specifically comedies, that I’m studying for (mostly) the first time. In this entry, I selected pieces that all have some kind of affiliation to the creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, the great Carl Reiner, who was born 102 years ago this week!
ANNIVERSARY WALTZ (1954)
Logline: A married couple’s anniversary is derailed by a new TV and an old secret.
Author: Jerome Chodorov & Joseph Fields | Original Broadway Director: Moss Hart
Original Broadway Cast: MacDonald Carey, Kitty Carlisle, Phyllis Povah, Howard Smith, Warren Berlinger, Jean Carson, Mary Lee Dearring, Andrew Duggan, Pauline Myers, Don Grusso, Donald Hylan, Terry Little
Thoughts: Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch, but here’s the Carl Reiner connection: he appeared in the 1959 film adaptation, Happy Anniversary, playing the main character’s business partner (created onstage by Andrew Duggan). It’s not a meaty role by any means, but I’m glad to have an excuse to highlight Anniversary Waltz because it’s much better than I expected, for despite being a commercial success at the time — directed by Moss Hart and starring his elegant wife — it was not critically well-received. And, from watching the movie (which is limp), it’s not hard to see why — low-stakes marital discord is often clichéd in the two-hour narrative form, and its text indulges a lot of topical references that may land as cheap, unmotivated laughs. However, I think most of those references are earned by the story’s inclusion of a new television set as a point of contention for the central couple, and with the benefit of distance, all the TV jokes, and the different views about TV, give us a view into the early 1950s — a snapshot of a particular era, which is one of the great things about all works of art. Also, I personally don’t believe the TV gags get in the way of the characters or the story, which otherwise hinges on the husband’s casual reveal to his in-laws that he and their daughter were sexually intimate prior to their marriage. This is the big and also era-revealing comic dilemma — with the TV mostly serving as a running device that justifies the hilarious end-of-the-second-act complication, when their precocious daughter goes on a children’s panel show and tells the world of her parents’ recent drama. To that point, the kids — and most of the characters (excluding the wife, played later in the run by a pre-Danny Thomas Marjorie Lord) — are fairly well-defined, with specific comic attitudes that deliver enough amusing moments to sustain the runtime. In fact, the text’s only major weaknesses to me are that it’s deliberately un-clever, which is what makes it appear clichéd, and that the third act is a letdown after a solid first act setup and second act escalation. Oh, and in now being a time capsule, readers today might blanch at the casualness surrounding the husband’s physical rage. But I think, à la Ralph Kramden, there’s a way to play that oafishly and thus register it as harmless. So, while I can’t pretend this is a classic, it’s funnier and more enjoyable than its reputation suggests — it’s a fun, fine example of a 1950s comedy.
Jackson’s Rating: 6/10
ENTER LAUGHING (1963)
Logline: A delivery boy aspires to become an actor in 1930s New York.
Author: Joseph Stein, based on Carl Reiner’s novel | Original Broadway Director: Gene Saks
Original Broadway Cast: Alan Arkin, Vivian Blaine, Irving Jacobson, Alan Mowbray, Meg Myles, Sylvia Sidney, Monroe Arnold, Barbara Dana, Pierre Epstein, Tom Gorman, Marty Greene, Michael J. Pollard, Charles Randall, Shimen Ruskin, Walt Wanderman
Thoughts: Based on Carl Reiner’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name (which he later adapted and directed for the big screen), Enter Laughing is the most famous title in this post. It’s a charming, sentimental, amusing story that follows a young man in the Bronx who goes against his parents’ wishes and pursues a job in acting, even though he’s very inexperienced. The scope and focus of the play — despite having a lot of scenes — is fairly limited, tracking the audition, rehearsal, and performance of his first stage role, and in terms of plot, much of it may look trite and familiar today, where many of the comic ideas explored here have since been seen ad infinitum. Of course, some of those ideas weren’t totally original as of 1963 either — for instance, the bad actor reading stage directions as if they’re dialogue was not new — but there’s a compelling and authentic sense of innocence and earnestness in Enter Laughing that stems from the main character and thus helps undergird some of these tired notions, so they at least feel earned and even revealing. To that point, the core strength of this show is that there are many well-defined, comedically drawn characters, specifically in support — like the parents, along with the sexy actress and the director — that would be both fun to play and probably fun to watch as well. In fact, this really seems like a play whose appeal would be much more evident in performance than on the page, for the humanity instilled in this young man’s journey demands personification. That is to say, there are no obvious weaknesses to Enter Laughing by way of structure or character — it’s a straightforward tale, told without pretenses — but there’s a flatness to simply reading it, because there’s nothing beyond the text to enhance its inherent quaintness, which, again, comes both from the overfamiliarity of these ideas (they have only accelerated since 1963), and the overarching depiction of the main character, whose own simplicity marinates the story and its telling. Heck, the whole thing reads like a memory — a sweet, warm, rough-edges-smoothed-out recollection. As a piece of theatre, that holds value. As a piece of comedic storytelling, well, it’s merely average — successful only because it creates plenty of room to be elevated by actors who bring their own value.
Jackson’s Rating: 6/10
SOMETHING DIFFERENT (1967)
Logline: A playwright tries to recreate the circumstances that led to his last hit.
Author: Carl Reiner | Original Broadway Director: Carl Reiner
Original Broadway Cast: Bob Dishy, Gabriel Dell, Linda Lavin, Maureen Arthur, Helena Carroll, Claudia McNeil, Victoria Zussin, Mr. Starkman, Mr. Battle, Mr. Jones, Mr. Mansfield
Thoughts: The other two plays in this post are sweet but safe — obedient examples of mid-century Broadway and its theatrical conventions. Something Different is indeed something different — an attempt by author (and director) Carl Reiner to present a slightly absurdist show with heavy doses of metatheatricality. Now, if you’ve read William Goldman’s famous study of the 1967-1968 season, you’ll remember a very interesting section on this play, which had a notoriously labored out-of-town tryout as the entire third act — all of it — was excised ahead of its official Broadway premiere. That third act was a play-within-a-play, following the less complicated first two, which are ostensibly about a playwright who had success over a decade ago and is now trying to rediscover his own genius by replicating the circumstances under which he wrote his prior hit; namely, he tries to recreate his mother’s kitchen in the Bronx and find someone to play her — first his wife, and then, once she proves incapable and strikes up an affair with the guy he hired to literally deliver roaches (the opposite of an exterminator), the buxom actress whom he interviews. All that’s left today for reading — and performing — are those first two acts, which, to be fair, are enough on which to predicate a strong reaction. In brief, it’s funny but weird. It’s weird because there’s a lot of things that don’t make sense, simply for the sake of not making sense. That is, the absurdist nature of the play doesn’t have a tangible point or thematic purpose, like in say, The Skin Of Our Teeth. This means, it’s an unfocused and somewhat unprofessional piece of drama. And yet, it’s loaded with moments of outrageous comedy — truly brilliant, humorous beats that would be a feast for performers and a treat for audiences, rendering it, comedically, a success… or at the very least, interesting. Accordingly, it’s a difficult play to review in the context of this recurring series, for every other work we’ve read thus far has been traditional like those above… this one isn’t. And while it’s, yes, funny — which seems to be its primary goal — it’s clearly imperfect by way of character and story: something that would be true regardless of whether it included its ambitious and perhaps thematically revealing (but likely even more confusing) third act. Personally, I prefer the more motivated Reiner of Dick Van Dyke, but seeing him stretch himself here is exciting.
Jackson’s Rating: 6/10
Come back next week for a new Wildcard and more Two And A Half Men!