If Eugene O'Neill represents the tragic mask of American drama, then
George S. Kaufman can easily lay claim to its smiling counterpart. No
other comic dramatist in America has enjoyed more popular success and
perennial influence or been more fortunate in his choice of
collaborators, who included George and Ira Gershwin, Moss Hart, Irving
Berlin, and the Marx Brothers.
Here, in the most comprehensive collection of his plays ever assembled,
are nine classics: his uproarious "backstage" play The Royal Family
(1927, written with Edna Ferber); the Marx Brothers-inspired mayhem of
Animal Crackers (1928, with Morrie Ryskind), in a version discovered
in Groucho Marx's papers and published here for the first time; June
Moon (1929, with Ring Lardner), a hilarious look at a young composer
trying to make it big on Tin Pan Alley; Once in a Lifetime (1930, with
Moss Hart), one of the first and best satires of Hollywood; Pulitzer
Prize winners Of Thee I Sing(1931, with Morrie Ryskind and Ira
Gershwin) and You Can't Take It with You (1936, with Moss Hart);
Dinner at Eight(1932, with Edna Ferber), a tart ensemble piece that
mixes comedy and melodrama; Stage Door (1936, with Edna Ferber), his
much-loved story about young actresses trying to make it big in New York
City; and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939, with Moss Hart), an
unforgettable burlesque of America's cult of celebrity.
Bursting with vernacular wit, farcical ingenuity, and theatrical
panache, these plays have remained beloved favorites and exuberant
reminders of Broadway in its glory days.
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