BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THEATER

MARLON BRANDO
As his fellow-student Elaine Stritch later remarked, “Marlon’s going to class to learn the Method was like sending a tiger to jungle school.”
 Claudia Roth Pierpont. " Method Man:the greatest American actor lost his way" in THE NEW YORKER (October 20, 2008)
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GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

"I relish the snappers  by Shaw. One of his plays waa turned down by a certain producer.At last, afterv Shaw was famous, he cabled him to offer a production,. Shaw cabled back: BETTER NEVER THAN LATE."

Oscar Levant. The Unimportance of Being Oscar (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1968
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USING METAPHORS & IMAGERY IN WRITING THE PLAY --A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

"I see that I have used a lot of metaphors. I know no other way to treat this subject. In the play I used for this theme a poetic image; As a figure for the superhuman context I took the largest, most alien, least fundamental thing I know, the sea and water. The references to ships, rivers, currents, tides, navigation, and so on, are all used for this purpose. Society by contrast figures as dry land."

Robert Bolt. Preface to his play A Man For All Seasons (New York: Vintage Books, 1990)
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Mary Picon picked on
Mary Martin who wasn't deterred
by Walter Kerr.

Burnham Holmes
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Dionysius Lardner Bouficault

Lardner "Dion" Boucicault /ˈdaɪˌɒn ˈbuːsɪˌkoʊ/[1] (né Boursiquot; 26 December 1820[2] – 18 September 1890) was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. The New York Times hailed him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century."
Wikipedia
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BLACKFACE ON BROADWAY--GEORGE GIVOT

"When Mae West wrote the play The Constant Sinner, she wanted to cast African American Lorenzo Tucker as her character's black lover.[14] This would have been extremely controversial in the segregation-era United States of the 1930s, so she reluctantly agreed to have Givot perform in blackface instead.[14] The producers insisted that Givot remove his wig at the end of every performance to show the audience he was white.[14] The Constant Sinner ran on Broadway for 64 performances from September to November 1931."

Wikipedia -- George Givot
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THE CHILDREN OF PARADISE

"The title itself refers to those who inhabit the highest balconies (and the cheapest seats) in the myriad Boulevard du Crime theaters. These spectators are the equivalent of Shakespeare's groundlings, those whose love of theatrical spectacle is in inverse proportion to their ability to pay for it. 'Their lives are small,'someone says, 'but their dreams are grand.'"

Kenneth Turan. Not to be Missed: Fifty-Four Favorites From a Lifetime of Film. (New York: PublicAffairs, 2014)
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Henrik Ibsen had two children -- a son and a daughter.
Now anybody who has raised children knows that the teen-ager years are very difficult. Teen-agers argue with their parents and then run into their rooms and slam the door. Is it just possible raising teen-agers gave Ibsen the idea of having Nora slam the door at the concusion to The Doll's House. Just saying.
                          LJP

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SINCLAIR LEWIS'S NOVEL-- IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE

"...few people remember the play that the book inspired. It 
Can't Happen Here was one of the most popular nationwide theater events of the Great Depression, staged by a remarkable, largely forgotten branch of Roosevelt's New Deal. The play reached hundreds of thousands of audience members. It also helped provoke a real life drama: a congressional investigation whose star was an undercover agent."

Adam Hochschild "It Can't Happen Here" in Smithsonian
(November 2023)

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MY LIFE IN THE RUSSIAN THEATRE

This is not going to take much time.
1st I had no plays directed by Stanislavsky.
No plays performed
In the Bashkir Republic. Do not ask why.

Not one review in Circassia.
In St. Petersburg (old style),
I might have been a household word
If my name meant kitchen utensile.

2nd: Russian People of all classes
Have absolutely no idea I exist,
Altho I frequently wake up
At 3 A.M. to shout “Dostoyevski,

Or declaiming “Olga! Olga Serbyrrvna,
When are we leaving for Moscow?”


Louis Phillips