| re: "The Show Off" (or "The Show-Off") by George Kelly .... | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 10:02 pm EST 02/12/19 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 10:01 pm EST 02/12/19 | |
| In reply to: "The Show Off" (or "The Show-Off") by George Kelly .... - Ann 07:17 pm EST 02/12/19 | |
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| One little thing first: ibdb is wrong that the APA-Phoenix production of The Show-Off that starred Helen Hayes and Clayton Corzatte played in rep when it returned in September 1968. If it had played in rep, it could not have played 19 performances in two-and-a-half weeks. It did start performances in mid-week, with the return of Pantagleize from the previous season giving its last performance on a Thursday, and The Show-Off starting its return the following day. It had played with three plays in rep in the first run. After playing its return at the Lyceum, it set off on a very successful three-month tour that almost but not quite saved the APA-Phoenix from the financial troubles that led the combined companies to disband in 1969, with each going back to producing on its own and less ambitiously than for their several years together on Broadway. (The APA had produced very ambitious repertory seasons Off-Broadway prior to the merger, some of those seasons at the Phoenix’s Off-Broadway house on the Upper East Side.) During the summer of 1968, the APA-Phoenix produced an hour-long musical revue called New York and Who to Blame It On, which played in parks around the city. Some years the company played in Ann Arbor during the summer, but it seems not to have done that in 1968 (at least not that I’m finding). There have been three film versions of The Show-Off. The first was a silent. Spencer Tracy plays Aubrey Piper in the second. Red Skelton stars in the third, which softens the character and the piece as a whole. The Roundabout also revived it in 1978 when they were on West 23rd Street. That production starred the older Paul Rudd (more in line perhaps with Boyd Gaines, although I think Rudd did sometimes play more tensely neurotic characters than Gaines has tended to play). The Torch-Bearers was revived in 2000 by the Drama Dept. at Greenwich House, directed by Dylan Baker, with Marian Seldes, Faith Prince, David Garrison, Judith Blazer and Joan Copeland. I saw a production in 1984 at the Hartman in Stamford, Conn., with Jan Miner, Joyce Bulifant and David Cryer. I’m not sure this play quite holds up. There’s also a very free movie version with Will Rogers, and the ideally cast Alison Skipworth and Billie Burker, retitled Doubting Thomas. It’s too bad that it didn’t stick more closely to the play. In 2003, the Pearl, when it was still at Theatre 80 St. Marks, did Kelly’s Daisy Mayme. The production was a bit uneven but the play holds up. And there are the two film versions of Craig’s Wife, the first starring Rosalind Russell, and the second, with a title change to Harriet Craig, starring Joan Crawford. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the first, but I think the second one holds up pretty well. Crawford is well-cast in ways that we can appreciate more now than audiences at the time would have been able to do. It would be nice to be able to see the first film again, especially since Dorothy Arzner directed it. There is some danger that this one might come off as misogynistic, even though I think it’s clear that the other women in the play are meant to contrast with the title character’s destructively, almost psychotically controlling nature. In 1974, there was a revival of this play at the WPA, with Cara Duff-McCormick in the title role. I wish I knew Kelly’s work better. Maybe some day I'll see some of the ones I've never seen and read some of them. I don't think I've ever read any of his plays. I've got Craig's Wife in an anthology. The trouble with anthologies is that you forget what plays you have. |
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