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| The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: PurpleMoney 09:27 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| Why has this not been on Broadway in more than 70 years? | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: scfinSEA 06:08 pm EST 11/27/18 | |
| In reply to: The Philadelphia Story - PurpleMoney 09:27 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| I saw the 1980 Lincoln Center production. I thought it was very well cast. Blythe Danner was wonderful as Tracy Lord. Other standouts: Edward Herrman, Mary Louise Wilson, Cynthia Nixon. The evening I saw it, they were having microphone problems near the beginning of the play. Blythe Danner stopped the show and told them to shut off the mics. "We don't need them - we have been trained in the theatre!" They all went off-stage and started the play from the beginning. | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 10:40 am EST 11/28/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - scfinSEA 06:08 pm EST 11/27/18 | |
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| Was Danner correct in her assessment? Did you have any trouble hearing once they restarted the play? | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: scfinSEA 04:39 pm EST 11/28/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - JereNYC 10:40 am EST 11/28/18 | |
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| Not a bit - but I was in the front row. | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: davei2000 09:34 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
| In reply to: The Philadelphia Story - PurpleMoney 09:27 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| More like 37... | |
| Link | https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/the-philadelphia-story-4077 |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 10:09 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - davei2000 09:34 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| And despite all the excellent people in the cast, and Ellis Rabb as director, it was not terribly well-received. And it didn't really work that well. Long ago I heard that Richmond Crinkley vetoed one of Rabb's casting choices, and I think Rabb's choice might have helped. But probably not enough. I don't think the play holds up that well. Take away Hepburn, Stewart, Grant, Hussey and, well, all those people and you're in trouble. And I think there are attitudes expressed and seemingly endorsed in the play that I personally find bothersome. I almost always try to view works from the past as products of their time, and I feel that we can't throw away great plays even if some aspects are now troublesome. Maybe I just don't think The Philadelphia Story is good enough to overcome the stuff I find bothersome. Movies are different than stage revivals. In the 1980s (or maybe late 1970s?) there were rumors in the press of a Circle in the Square revival that would star Susan Sarandon (who doesn't really seem right to me for Tracy Lord) and Robert Redford returning to the stage, but it never happened, and RR never has come back to the stage. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 11:47 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 11:45 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - AlanScott 10:09 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| A reader who loves ''The Philadelphia Story'' (1940) recently wrote to Mick LaSalle, movie critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. LaSalle's response: “The Philadelphia Story” is definitely an expression of its time, and in its time it was definitely perceived as a great movie. But the best movies express the truth of their time, and not the lies that people lived with and accepted as truth. That’s where “The Philadelphia Story” falls short. The movie is 112 minutes of Katharine Hepburn apologizing for being strong and having a personality. It offers the spectacle of a totally acceptable woman somehow realizing that she is, in fact, horrible, and then it celebrates her making personality adjustments to please the colossally flawed men in her life. The fun starts when the Hepburn character, Tracy Lord, criticizes her father for being a serial philanderer. The father replies … that it’s all her fault, because if she were a more loving and less disapproving daughter, he’d have had no need to seek affection from younger women. And then the mother chimes in and tells her to butt out, and we’re supposed to think that the parents are right. ''But wait, it gets better. Then Tracy gets into a dispute with her husband (Cary Grant) and alludes to his alcoholism, which derailed their marriage. Well, guess what’s also her fault? His drunkenness. And no, that’s not played for laughs, either. Basically, this is the movie’s point of view: The guys are all right, even when they’re wrong, and the woman is always wrong, even when she’s right. As such, “The Philadelphia Story” is valuable as a record of the hoops a strong woman had to jump through, circa 1940, just to placate insecure masculinity. But I can’t settle in and enjoy it as a comedy, because it’s not funny, nor as a romance, because it’s so contrary to human nature. I just see it as an interesting curio, an anthropological relic, albeit one with Cary Grant, James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn around to make the misery more tolerable.'' |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: singleticket 01:05 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - WaymanWong 11:45 am EST 11/26/18 | |
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| As such, “The Philadelphia Story” is valuable as a record of the hoops a strong woman had to jump through, circa 1940, just to placate insecure masculinity. I wonder what Mick LaSalle thinks Elizabeth Imbrie, a working woman devoid of Tracy Lord's privilege, is doing in the story. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 05:48 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - singleticket 01:05 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
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| Having lived in San Francisco for many years and having been an avid reader of the Chronicle for much of that time, I would not advise anyone to take Mick LaSalle as their authority on any cinematic subject. That said, The Philadelphia Story does present two major problems to potential revivers on the stage, or so it seems to me. The major one, I think, is that the play was originally commissioned by Hepburn and expressly written as a vehicle for her. She can make it work by riding right over its rough spots with the force of her personality. It would be unlikely that anyone else would be able to do that quite so well with this particular material; other plays and musicals written originally as star vehicles tend not to revive well either without the stars they were tailored for. (Holiday, which--I agree with those below--is a stronger play, was not written as a vehicle for Hepburn.) There is also the problem that the play's underlying attitude--explicitly stated at one point--that the very rich somehow need ***extra*** tolerance and indulgence, more so than other people, is not exactly timely in the 21st century. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: singleticket 06:04 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - keikekaze 05:48 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
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| There is also the problem that the play's underlying attitude--explicitly stated at one point--that the very rich somehow need ***extra*** tolerance and indulgence, more so than other people, is not exactly timely in the 21st century. In the play or the film, do you think? I haven't read the play. I have read HOLIDAY and THE ANIMAL KINGDOM which I wouldn't say have any special pleading for the wealthy as much as an apt understanding of the price of wealth. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 06:24 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - singleticket 06:04 pm EST 11/26/18 | |
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| I confess I haven't read the play in ages, and I was thinking of a certain line in the movie version when I made my comment above. That exact line may not be in the play--but I suspect that something very much like it is, as I don't think Stewart would have taken such liberties with Barry as to reverse the meaning of something, or to introduce a new theme. | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 11:43 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - AlanScott 10:09 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| What has always troubled me about THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (and, of course, HIGH SOCIETY), is that Barry seems to be saying that what this powerful central female character REALLY needs is to have a few drinks to relax and a man to fuck her. I realize this is a story of it time, but that has always seemed a bit icky to me. The play's relationship to alcohol is a bit double edged...on the one hand, we have recovering alcoholic Dexter and the idea that his out of control drinking wrecked his marriage to Tracy. And then we have Tracy herself, the ice princess, who can only get off her high horse by drinking as much champagne as there is. I see difficulties ahead in the second Lord/Haven marriage as things only work for the newlyweds when he's sober and she's plastered. I've always wished that Tracy had a fourth choice...someone who loves her for who she actually is, not who she becomes when she's drinking too much. Actually, perhaps that person is George, her fiancé, since we don't actually see much of their relationship. Maybe he loves the icy reserve as much as he seems to hate the drunk version of his fiancée. The stage musical of HIGH SOCIETY (the one that was on Broadway in the '90's) also takes pains to make clear that Uncle Willie is, underneath all the charm, a sad drunk who knows that his drinking not only wrecked his own marriage, it ruined his entire life. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: StageDoorJohnny 12:34 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - AlanScott 10:09 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| I liked Danner, but I seem to remember Converse and Herrmann as only workmanlike. I liked Meg Mundy and Cynthia Nixon. But my biggest memory of the evening is sitting next to Margaret Hamilton | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:11 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - StageDoorJohnny 12:34 am EST 11/26/18 | |
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| I remember Herrmann being very good and Mary Louise Wilson being just right, and I think Nixon and Mundy were good. Converse was miscast. Rabb had wanted to cast John McMartin, and Richmond Crinkley vetoed it, saying he was too old. Converse was handsome but stiff, as he also was when he was a replacement in the Circle in the Square Design for Living a few years later. He's been good in other things, but maybe certain types of comedy just don't come naturally to him. Much as I love Blythe Danner, something didn't seem to quite click for her in that, at least as I recall it. It just occurred to me that this production reunited Danner and Converse from the television movie of Dr. Cook's Garden in which Bing Crosby gave perhaps the best performance of his career. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: PurpleMoney 10:04 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - davei2000 09:34 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| Yes, but it deserves a longer run! | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: Whistler 02:13 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - PurpleMoney 10:04 pm EST 11/25/18 | |
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| The Lincoln Center production had a huge, beautiful set and tiny actors in comparison. Even though I was sitting fairly close in, it didn't matter: the actors and acting seemed lost. Also, you really have to decide why you want to do this particular play when you can watch an almost perfect movie version of it. The same may be true with "Holiday. " A recent argument was made that Barry is better remembered than his contemporary Behrman because two iconic movies were made from Barry plays, and the same isn't true for Behrman. All we have is his scripts. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Last Edit: singleticket 09:52 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| Posted by: singleticket 09:47 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - Whistler 02:13 am EST 11/26/18 | |
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| A recent argument was made that Barry is better remembered than his contemporary Behrman because two iconic movies were made from Barry plays, and the same isn't true for Behrman. All we have is his scripts. I've only read two Berhman plays. I found THE SECOND MAN to be stuck in the jargon of its era and not particuarly engaging. NO TIME FOR COMEDY, however, I thought charming and timeless if, similar to what AlanScott says in the thread, you can swap the intellectual vanities of Berhman's era with our own. The play is also more engaging and wise than the botched film version. (Berhman could have used the wonderful Donald Ogden Stewart as a screen adapter as Barry was lucky enough to have had.) I haven't read Berhman's adaptation of Franz Werfel's JACOBOWSKY AND THE COLONEL but I could see it being revived in the future. |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 06:50 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - Whistler 02:13 am EST 11/26/18 | |
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| I saw the 1973 New Phoenix Repertory production of Holiday and the 1995 Circle in the Square production, and it played well both times. Both productions got generally favorable reviews. I think that in 1973, I hadn't seen the Hepburn-Grant film (which was the second film version of the play). By 1995, I'd seen the film a bunch of times. It didn't matter. Hepburn, Grant, Ayres, Horton and the rest were not missed. I think it plays well, holds up, and gives actors and audiences a lot to grab onto. We may yet see a terrific revival of Philadelphia Story, but I think it's a much harder nut to crack. | |
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| re: The Philadelphia Story | |
| Posted by: singleticket 09:25 am EST 11/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The Philadelphia Story - AlanScott 06:50 am EST 11/26/18 | |
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| I'd agree about HOLIDAY, an excellent play that holds up on its own. | |
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