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. |
