Insights - Utah Shakespearean Festival

InsightsA Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare FestivalBornYesterday

Billie Dawn: A charming but poorly educated ex-chorus girl, Billie Dawn is entirely lacking insocial graces. Her natural honesty and desire to improve her lot in life, however, soon causeher to experience a wonderful transformation.Harry Brock: A vulgar and egotistical junkman, Harry Brock has come to Washington full offraudulent schemes. Loud and verbally and physically abusive of those around him, includingBillie, he soon finds his crooked machinations going awry when he crosses her.Paul Verrall: A young, idealistic reporter, Paul Verrall has been investigating political skullduggeryin Washington. He is hired by Harry Brock to educate Billie Dawn and eventuallysees past her rough exterior and falls in love with her.Ed Devery: Harry Brock’s lawyer, thirty years ago Ed Devery was considered a man destinedfor greatness. Now, with Brock as his only client, the future looks far less bright—but witha salary of $100,000 a year and plenty of fine Scotch, Devery is past caring.Senator Norval Hedges: Pale, thin, and worn down at sixty years old, Senator Norval Hedgesis a nervous politician currently on the payroll of Harry Brock, who plans on using thesenator for his own means.Mrs. Hedges: The wife of Senator Norval HedgesEddie Brock: Brother of Harry, Eddie Brock often handles the little details of his older brother’sbusiness, “greasing the wheels,” as it were, with tips and pay-offs.The Assistant ManagerHelen: A maidA BellhopAnother BellhopA BarberA ManicuristA BootblackA WaiterAbout the Playwright:Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-78805

6Garson KaninBy Sarah JohnsonFrom Insights, 2003Once asked how he dealt with the passing away of his closest contemporaries, GarsonKanin replied “the really great ones don’t die” (People, 13 October 1980, 51). With his owndeath on March 13, 1999 Kanin himself passed into the realm of the really great, the noteworthy,and the never forgotten.His love affair with the written word began at a very young age. Nora Johnson noted that“Garson Kanin has been marinating in theatre since before most of us were ever in the audience”(“Fun, Sex and Music,” New York Times Book Review, 23 November 1980, 42). Bornon November 14, 1912 in Rochester, New York, Kanin dropped out of high school duringthe Great Depression to work in vaudeville as a musician and comic. He entered the businessmainly to support his family, but was “bitten by the theatre bug” and moved to New York Cityto train at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1932. He made hisBroadway debut in Little Ol’ Boy in 1934, but quickly left acting to work as a production assistantfor Little Ol’ Boy director George Abbott.Employed by Abbott for several more shows, he moved on to directing with 1937’s HitchYour Wagon, which in turn landed him a contract with Samuel Goldwyn. After a year onthe Goldwyn staff, Kanin was frustrated over the lack of directing opportunities and signedon with RKO, where he directed such classic comedies as Bachelor Mother; Tom, Dick andHarry; and My Favorite Wife with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.Drafted by the army in 1941, Kanin used his experience to make documentary shorts forthe offices of war information and emergency manpower; of these the most notable is TrueGlory, General Eisenhower’s official report of the war in Europe. The film won the 1945Academy Award for Best Documentary, as well as other awards and citations.In December, 1942 Kanin married Ruth Gordon, Hollywood actress and author. The pairingwas extremely successful, both professionally and personally. Their combined efforts resultedin two vehicles for (and lifelong friendships with) Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy:the critically acclaimed and highly successful Adam’s Rib and Pat and Mike. In total the couplewrote only four screenplays together, three of which garnered Academy Award nominations.Although their collaboration efforts were both lucrative and well received, the coupledecided to part their professional ways. In an interview with Contemporary Authors in 1981,Kanin recounted why: “We weren’t really comfortable at work; we quarreled when we workedtogether. We never quarrel in private life. It soon became apparent that if we didn’t get a professionaldivorce we would have to get a real one” (Gale Group: Detroit. 1999, 290). Gordonwent on to concentrate on acting and Kanin pursued other forms of writing.Kanin began writing plays, short stories, journals, and novels. But his professional apexcame with the completion of his play, Born Yesterday. Wildly successful, Born Yesterdayopened on Broadway on February 4, 1946, running 1,642 performances until closing onDecember 31, 1949. In 1950 Kanin adapted his hit for the screen, catapulting actress JudyHolliday to stardom in one of her best screen roles, the persona of Billie Dawn.It seems as if the success of Born Yesterday was the affirmation Kanin needed to know thathe could write for others; in turn, he began to write for his own gratification. Over the nextthirty years he concentrated on penning books and plays to amuse himself. In several of hisworks, both fiction and nonfiction, Kanin drew on the anecdotal material of his journals andthe insights he had gained through experience in show business. In a telephone interview onApril 9, 1981 with Contemporary Authors Kanin related his love affair with remembering theUtah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

past:The notebooks I have written since 1935 at the insistence of Thorton Wilder, whom I metthat year, now run four to five million words. Indeed they have provided me with much material.Many things I would have otherwise forgotten were well remembered because they werewritten down (Volume 78, Gale Group, Detroit, 1999, 291).He began to actively pursue portraying the important personages and aspects of the entertainmentworld that he had been privy to, including the greatly received Tracy and Hepburn:An Intimate Memoir, prompting further forays into the secretive side of the silver screen inHollywood, Moviola, and Together Again.During an interview Kanin was once asked if there was one facet of his career so far that hehad enjoyed the most. He replied “Yes, it’s what I do now, . . . and the reason I continued wasthat I was scared. I didn’t have sufficient confidence in my abilities as a writer to believe that Iwould ever be able to make a living as a writer. . . . It took me some time to dredge up sufficientcourage to say ‘I’m not going to do anything but write.’ That’s what I’ve been doing for thepast several years and it seems to be going well” (Contemporary Authors, Vol. 78, Gale Group,Detroit, 1999, 292).t certainly did go well for Kanin. Doris Brumbach declared that “if youth is wasted on theyoung, old age has not been wasted on Garson Kanin (“Nonfiction in Brief: ‘It Takes a LongTime to Become Young,’” The New York Times Book Review, 26 February 1978, 22). Hecontinued to write and direct the projects that were close to his heart until his death in 1999.When Kanin died he was hailed as “The Man for-All-Theatre-Seasons,” a celebrated playwright,film writer, director, and author, whose career spanned over fifty years.His secret? Kanin once joked, “A man ninety years old was asked to what he attributed hislongevity. ‘I reckon,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘it’s because most nights I went to bedand slept when I should have stayed up and worried.’” I, for one, am glad that Kanin got somuch sleep.A Pygmalion Tale, but So Much MoreBy Heidi MadsenFrom Insights, 2003Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-78807

Born Yesterday is set in the very year of its composition, the year of the presidential successionof Harry S. Truman, the year of the A-bombs, 1945. World War II was coming to an end, and thetheatre was shifting from plays that analyzed politics, war, and the evils of fascism to plays thatanalyzed people—plays such as Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams’s AStreetcar Named Desire. But, playwright Garson Kanin was still preoccupied with things political.He may have had some misgivings about the American people, how they felt about their country,how well they understood and appreciated their government, and whether or not they recognizedtheir prevailing personal responsibilities to it.Kanin’s script in its original form included elements which were later removed due to tensionsinside the U.S. associated with the Cold War. No one at this time was above scrutiny. Hollywoodwas followed with fascinated attention as usual—but the government was searching the stars forsigns of propaganda.As a result, Born Yesterday lost a significant amount of its charge, political metaphors werediluted, and the play became the Pygmalion tale which it is thought of today.Kanin wanted to address the subject of dictatorship. At the start of the war, before knowledgeof the Holocaust, there were many, including scholars and American heroes, who bought intothe ideology of the dictator with its claims and promises of social and economic equality. Someeven participated in the infamous Berlin book burnings where the work and words of wonderfulminds—Eintsein, Thomas Mann, Jack London, H.G. Wells, and thousands of others—went up insmoke. When Helen Keller was informed that her book, too, had been selected for incineration sheresponded: “Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas” (www.ushmm.org/outreach/propag.htm,Nazi Propaganda and censorship). This, then, is truly the prevailing theme of Born Yesterday.With hints of farcicality to lighten the underlying seriousness of the subject, Kanin would placedictatorship inside modern American culture and call it Harry Brock, self-made millionaire andscrap-metal war profiteer from Plainfield, New Jersey.In the opening act of Born Yesterday, Brock has just arrived in Washington, D.C. along with hisentourage: his lawyer (every dictator needs a lawyer) Ed Devery, an alcoholic and ex-secretary to asupreme court justice; his cousin and stooge Eddie Brock; and his girlfriend of nine years, formerchorus girl Billie Dawn.Brock is determined to do business where he wants, how he wants, and as big as he wants. Hehas come to Washington to secure legislation that will help his million-dollar junk business and hasbought himself a senator, Norvall Hedges, to help ensure this.Typical of the male tendency to choose beauty and then become dissatisfied with it, whenSenator and Mrs. Hedges meet Billie, Harry begins to worry: “Every time she opened her mouthtonight, something wrong came out.” Devery, who is paid to give unwanted advice, suggests he sendher home, but Brock has a better idea. He will hire Paul Verrall, a reporter with The New Republic,to show her the ropes and hopefully smarten her up a little.At first, Verrall sees Brock’s proposition only as a way to discover more about him and his businessdealings—already alert to the fact that they were not entirely on the level—and to find outexactlywhat Harry is doing in Washington. Verrall needs names, facts, and specific misdeeds beforehe can “get it to the people.” However, he knows that “a world full of ignorant people is dangerous”;and, notwithstanding his obvious attraction to the ex-chorus girl, he desires to empower Billie withinformation which could free her from those who would degrade her through the misuse of theirpower. She is “breathtakingly beautiful,” but she does not have to stay “breathtakingly stupid.”Requiring only a jump-start from Verrall, Billie begins to read and to exercise her mind; shevisits the National Gallery. She recalls her roots--the worthy care of a concerned father who wantedher to make her way through life reputably, usefully, and felicitously.8Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

momentum soon afterward. The play’s subject matter portended such significant trends as the rise ofwomen’s movement, consumerism, the resurgence of higher education, and the phenomenon our generationhas come to know as “whistle blowing.”Playwright Garson Kanin could scarcely have imagined the progressive changes that would developas a residual of societal reform movements in the fifty years since Born Yesterday was penned in 1947.Astonishingly, the behavioral tendencies of his characters have a shared resemblance to numerous socialand political developments that have taken place during the ensuing six decades.Kanin, also husband to legendary actress Ruth Gordon, wrote and directed numerous works forthe Broadway stage, as well as several more for the silver screen. At the head of the class stands BornYesterday, most likely due to its enlightening power over postwar America, just beyond the midpoint ofthe twentieth century. The play was more than entertainment: it served a dual purpose, offering an accessiblemodel for the way attitudes about ethical behavior, the pursuit of knowledge, and male-female relationshipsmight be reformed.Born Yesterday made its New York debut at George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s Lyceum Theatre,premiering on February 4, 1946, subsequently moving to Henry Miller’s Theatre on 42nd Street. Theshow ran for a whopping 1,642 performances, a staggeringly large number of outings fora non-musical. Shortly after it closed, Kanin signed a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to have the playadapted for nationwide distribution in Hollywood. The screen version was to be directed by the late,great George Cukor (also the director of The Philadelphia Story, A Star is Born, and My Fair Lady). Bothof the original productions of Born Yesterday received an enormous boost from the performances of oneof the greatest stars of the 1950s, the inimitable and somewhat forgotten Judy Holliday, who was featuredas the female lead in both mediums.Holliday was born Judith Tuvim (her surname can be loosely interpreted in Yiddish as “holiday”) onJune 21, 1921. Her Queens, New York family was of Russian-Jewish descent. Attracted to the performinglife well before her teenage years, Holliday eventually signed on with Adolph Green’s group of nightclubbingpost-vaudevillians, The Revuers, after turning eighteen. By the early 1940s, this reasonably successfulact found itself in Los Angeles, and, like so many other performers of the era, both Judy and hercolleagues signed on as Hollywood contract players at Twentieth-Century Fox. After being dropped bythe studio, she returned to New York where she was almost instantly recruited to replace Jean Arthur lessthan a week before Born Yesterday’s out-of-town tryout in Philadelphia. Holliday seized the opportunityand turned it into gold, becoming an “overnight” sensation in what became her career-making signaturerole.Her character, Billie Dawn, was the seven-year “fiancée” and trophy girl of shifty New Yorkjunk-tycoon Harry Brock (played brilliantly on Broadway by Paul Douglas and matched on film by toughguy Broderick Crawford). In the role, Holliday successfully masked her innate intelligence, transformingherself into the classic ditzy blond and ex-chorus girl. For her efforts, she was honored with the ultimatetrifecta of awards for an actress in a leading role: a clean sweep of the Tony, the Oscar, and the GoldenGlobe!This past century-and-a-half of American history is full of non-fictional characters that shouldremind audiences of Harry Brock. You know them. They were the low-born, hard-fought successstories of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa, Al Capone, and Don King. New York’s infamous TammanyHall was chock full of Harry Brocks, led most notably by the notorious “Boss” Tweed. Brock’s charactercan be interpreted somewhat euphemistically as the seething underbelly of modern American businessculture: always looking for legally defensible ways to carry out illegal or barely legal (and lucrative) acts.Today, the U.S. continues to be scarred by such scandal. The likes of Enron and World Com have becomeall-too familiar to us. An easy identification with corruption in the present-day can be made throughHarry Brock.10Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880

e paid.The plan backfires completely on a dumbstruck Harry Brock, who sees his plans to corner the scrapiron market by way of bribery and chicanery torn to shreds. Of equal import, he loses both the girl andhis corporate shill to a return to idealism inspired by the man he put on his own payroll! A Pygmalionesquerelationship develops between Billie Dawn and the handsome tutor, and she discovers the valueand power of consideration, morality, and thought through Verrall’s teachings. To his surprise, Paul ispowerless to do anything but fall in love with his pupil, and he demonstrates to Billie exactly how she hasbeen played for a fool by her manipulating boyfriend and his lawyer.Born Yesterday is a play loaded with priceless lines, many of which serve to indicate Kanin’s politicaland social leanings. In the opening segment of the play, attorney Devery remarksdefensively: “Just because I’m a lawyer does not mean I own the law!” From Verrall, we receive thefollowing gem of a thought: “A world full of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in.”Revived both on the New York stage and as a Hollywood film, the show has in modern timesfeatured such luminaries as Edward Asner and Madeleine Kahn in lead roles. In their most recent filmreincarnations, Billie Dawn and Harry Brock were played by Melanie Griffith and John Goodman, withGriffith’s then-husband Don Johnson appearing as Paul Verrall.In conclusion, Born Yesterday is far from an old warhorse in revival. It is a true chestnut,maintaining both strength and substance as a play. In tribute to Kanin’s monumental talent andforethought, it proves that, even in today’s world, we can learn valuable lessons concerning ethical behavior,the value of teaching and learning, and human relationships.12Utah Shakespeare Festival351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880