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 more gems from the mid-1920s!
THE BUTTER AND EGG MAN (1925)
Logline: A young Midwesterner looking for a good investment buys into a disastrous stage play.
Author: George S. Kaufman | Original Director: James Gleason
Original Broadway Cast: Gregory Kelly, Sylvia Field, Robert Middlemass, Lucile Webster, John A. Butler, Marion Barney, and more
Thoughts: This showbiz comedy by George S. Kaufman (written without a collaborator) is often cited as a precursor to Mel Brooks’ The Producers. It’s about two veteran theatrical producers who sweet talk a naive out-of-town backer into investing in their play, and then agree to his offer to be bought out during a disastrous out-of-town tryout, only to come crawling back after a Broadway opening suggests it’ll be a smash. Of course, there are big differences — the producers here aren’t exactly conmen; they’re earnestly trying to put on a play. And they actually aren’t the leads — the star of this show is the naive backer, the so-called “butter and egg man,” who buys the play outright after he feels dismissed by the producers for not listening to his ideas, recruiting his own “butter and egg man” to come aboard in the process. And then the entire third act, post-Broadway opening, is about his seeming transformation into the cocky veteran producers — with an eventual twist in the form of a threatened plagiarism suit that entices him to sell back the play to the (unknowing) original duo and leave the theatrical business behind for good. So, it’s a bit more good-natured than the entirely cynical Producers, offering an exploration of the eponymous butter and egg man as a prime focus, taking him from rube to pro before giving him a happy ending with a windfall, a girl, and a return back where he belongs. That makes for a simple and textbook sort of plotting — with a somewhat slow first act setting up the two funnier set pieces that follow, in Act II’s hotel room before and after the out-of-town debut, and Act III’s office after the New York opening. And although a lot of these ideas now seem familiar because they’ve been used in a lot of similar works since then (not just by The Producers), this is still an affably charming and straightforward comedy of the period, with a couple of solid characters who bring laughs. Upon first reading, I didn’t think it was spectacular relative to everything else, but recounting its strengths here is improving my overall perspective — it’s too well-designed to dismiss, with a lot of great things going for it. Another formative 1920s comedy. (No wonder it’s been adapted to film so many times!)
Jackson’s Verdict: Well-designed and thematically formative.
FALLEN ANGELS (1925)
Logline: While their husbands are out, two friends await a visit from their mutual former lover.
Author: Noël Coward | Original Director: Stanley Bell
Original West End Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, Edna Best, Arthur Wellesley, Gerald Ames, Mona Harrison, Austin Trevor
Thoughts: I’ve read this Noël Coward gem a few times and I always appreciate its simple premise about two married women who get drunk while nervously awaiting a former lover whom they both share. In terms of plot, Act I sets up the lover’s pending visit as the women debate whether to avoid him, before resolving to stay in Act II, where a drunken quarrel erupts because of their competitiveness. Then in Act III, misunderstandings lead each woman to suspect the other has run off with said lover, resulting in confessions to their husbands and then the eventual arrival of the man in question, who, sensing what has happened, pretends to have coordinated a ruse with the ladies to arouse their husbands’ jealousy. (If this sounds familiar to you sitcom fans, it was copied almost exactly for a very funny third season episode of Maude, “Lovers In Common.”) In truth, not much happens — the bulk of the play is just the two pals drunkenly reminiscing and arguing, with laugh-getting intrusions from an absurd maid. Like all of Coward’s work, its strength is its snappy and often amusing dialogue, and while I have the same basic critique of Fallen Angels that I do all his plays — the characters tend to sound the same and are hard to distinguish — the simple construction and the comical idea itself creates enough opportunity for performers to enliven the material and make it riotously funny, so I don’t care too much. Indeed, I’ve seen clips of productions that really make this seem like a winning comedy, and accordingly, I think the playwright’s ability to write for actors in performance compensates for some of the perhaps so-so character work. And, to be fair, while the husbands are indistinguishable and the two women are basically the same (delineated only by the proposition that one is a bad influence over the other), they all exist in the same world. Also, the fact that their relationship histories are so alike is vital to the premise — which means, their similarities motivate the comedic tension and justify all the plot turns, with a narrative symmetry that, as in Hay Fever, is absolutely intended. In that regard, it all works, and Fallen Angels, though seldom regarded as one of Coward’s classic titles, is a prime sample of his genius.
Jackson’s Verdict: Made for funny actors!
DAISY MAYME (1926)
Logline: Two sisters are threatened when their wealthy brother and orphaned teenage niece invite a strange woman to stay for a while.
Author: George Kelly | Original Director: George Kelly
Original Broadway Cast: Jessie Busley, Alma Kruger, Carlton Brickert, Josephine Hull, Madge Evans, Roy Fant, Nadea Hall, Frank Rowan
Thoughts: Like George Kelly’s classic The Show-Off, Daisy Mayme is about a comic character who’s injected into an otherwise mundane middle-class family, totally disrupting them. Only, the comic character in question, the eponymous Daisy Mayme, isn’t actually annoying like Aubrey Piper, and in fact, it’s only a few people who take issue with her presence — the most extreme of whom is actually the bigger comic force, driving the tension that sustains the play. In that regard, this is sort of a reverse Show-Off — with its subject obviously sympathetic, and the arc of the plot revolving around her increasingly positive effects on a family, while those who were quick to judge are instead depicted as the fools. As a piece of drama, I find it thoughtful — boasting a meaty setup centered around adult siblings, one of whom has just died, leaving her 17-year-old daughter in the care of their bachelor brother, who’s the most financially well-off. The play’s conflict is sparked when the brother and his orphaned niece return from a trip to Atlantic City with a middle-aged woman whom the niece has befriended and invited to stay for a few weeks. This upsets his two other sisters, one of whom, in particular, sees the intruder as a threat to her and her daughter’s financial prospects. There are lots of knotty familial dynamics in that plot, and George Kelly, with his emphasis on everyday, naturalistic dialogue, really does this type of drama well. In terms of comedy, the two women at loggerheads — Daisy and the scheming sister Laura — are the boldest and therefore most helpful in yielding big character moments, and there’s a funny ninety-year-old neighbor who pops in during Act II to further goose the laughs. But, overall, this isn’t the riot that The Show-Off was. This is a quieter, often slower play — taking a while to actually get going, with many exchanges that feel incidental to the main action, therefore acquitting the text as less efficient or effective as a whole. And, in general, I think this piece is more charming and conceptually smart than truly hilarious. However, I’m sure the right performers could work wonders — for instance, Jean Stapleton played the title character in a production right after All In The Family ended, and a bootleg video of her performance proves that she indeed made it quite funny! So, this one’s got potential.
Jackson’s Verdict: Interesting ideas from a text that could be elevated in performance.
Come back next week for a new Wildcard! And stay tuned Tuesday for more Mother!