Play Guide

Theatre Calgary’s Play Guides and InterACTive Learning Program

are made possible by the support of our corporate sponsors:

The Play Guide for The Philadelphia Story was created by:

Zachary Moull

Assistant Dramaturg

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The Philadelphia Story runs from Jan. 27 to Feb. 22, 2015

For tickets, visit theatrecalgary.com or call (403) 294-7447

Front cover image by David Cooper

Table of Contents

THE BASICS

Cast and Creative Team ..................................................... 01

Time and Place ................................................................. 02

Story ................................................................................ 02

Who’s Who? ...................................................................... 03

EXPLORATIONS

The Story of The Philadelphia Story .................................... 04

Philip Barry ....................................................................... 06

The Shaw Festival ............................................................. 07

Acting for the Long Run:

An Interview with Actor Gray Powell ......................... 08

The Main Line ................................................................... 11

Glossary of Terms in The Philadelphia Story ........................ 12

CONVERSATIONS

Conversation Starters ........................................................ 14

Organized Gossip .............................................................. 15

From Stage to Screen ........................................................ 16

Movie Night: Comedies of Remarriage ................................ 17

Sources ............................................................................ 18

THE BASICS - 1 -

Cast and Creative Team

Theatre Calgary presents the Shaw Festival production of

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY

By Philip Barry

THE CAST Guy Bannerman William (Uncle Willie) Tracy Tess Benger Dinah Lord Fiona Byrne Liz Imbrie Sharry Flett Margaret Lord Darcy Gerhart May, a maid Aaron Hastelow Dr. Parsons Hal Kerbes Edward, a butler Thom Marriott George Kittredge Patrick McManus Macaulay (Mike) Connor Jeff Meadows Alexander (Sandy) Lord Moya O’Connell Tracy Lord Gray Powell C. K. Dexter Haven Ric Reid Seth Lord Kiera Sangster Elsie, a maid Jonathan Tan Mac, the night watchman

THE CREATIVE TEAM Dennis Garnhum Director William Schmuck Set and Costume Design Kevin Lamotte Lighting Design Jeremy Spencer Original Music and Sound Design Rachel Peake Assistant Director Jon Grosz Assistant Designer Andrew Smith Assistant Lighting Design John Stead Fight Coordinator Meredith MacDonald Stage Manager Amy Jewell Assistant Stage Manager Justin Born Apprentice Stage Manager

THE BASICS - 2 -

Time and Place

The Philadelphia Story takes place in the Lord family’s grand house on their

country estate outside of Philadelphia, over the course of twenty-four

hours in late June, 1939.

Story

What's worse than having a scandal-seeking tabloid reporter infiltrate

your wedding? Your ex-husband could show up too.

Beautiful, wealthy, and about to marry an all-American dream man, Tracy

Lord has her perfect plans threatened by the most awkward kind of

uninvited guests. With not one but three eligible bachelors, can she keep

her wedding – and her heart – on track?

Moya O'Connell as Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story (David Cooper)

THE BASICS - 3 -

Who’s Who?

Tracy Lord: A beautiful and wealthy young woman on the eve of her

second marriage.

Margaret Lord: Her mother.

Seth Lord: Her estranged father.

Alexander (Sandy) Lord: Her older brother.

Dinah Lord: Her younger sister, age 15.

William (Uncle Willie) Tracy: Her uncle.

George Kittredge: Her fiancé, a self-made Pennsylvania coal magnate.

C. K. Dexter Haven: Her ex-husband, a wealthy neighbour.

Macaulay (Mike) Connor: A short-story writer and tabloid journalist.

Liz Imbrie: Mike’s colleague, a photographer.

Other characters include the Lord family’s household servants (butlers,

maids, and a night watchman) as well as a parson.

Thom Marriott as George Kittredge, Moya O'Connell as Tracy Lord, Patrick

McManus as Mike Connor, Fiona Byrne as Liz Imbrie, and Gray Powell as

C. K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story (David Cooper)

EXPLORATIONS - 4 -

The Story of The Philadelphia Story

Before it was a hit Hollywood film starring Katharine Hepburn, The

Philadelphia Story was a hit Broadway play – also starring Katharine

Hepburn. In fact, Philip Barry’s play and Katharine Hepburn’s career are

intimately connected with each other.

Hepburn was one of the most

successful film actresses of the

mid-1930s, but she fell out of

favour towards the end of the

decade. Always known as one

of Hollywood’s smartest and

most outspoken actresses,

Hepburn eventually acquired a

reputation for getting into

conflicts with directors and

studio bosses. Her brash

confidence – along with so-

called eccentricities such as

preferring men’s clothing off-

camera – meant that she didn’t

comfortably fit the role of

starlet. After a couple of flops in

a row, Hepburn was promptly

declared “box office poison” by

a powerful guild of independent movie theatres. “They say I’m a has-

been,” she told a reporter in 1938. “If I wasn’t laughing so hard, I might

cry.”

When her film work dried up, Hepburn’s good friend Philip Barry

approached her with a treatment for a play about a Philadelphia socialite,

who bore some similarities to the actress herself. Hepburn grew up in a

wealthy family, graduated from the elite Bryn Mawr College, and was

Katharine Hepburn and co-star Jimmy

Stewart in a publicity photo for The

Philadelphia Story, 1940 (MGM)

EXPLORATIONS - 5 -

even been briefly married to the son of a prominent old-money

Philadelphia family. Barry had made his career writing “Barry girls” –

strong, witty, glamorous heroines – and Hepburn was his perfect star. She

eagerly signed on, even agreeing to forego a salary in exchange for a stake

in the project, and Barry crafted the role of Tracy Lord just for her.

The Philadelphia Story was the hit of the Broadway season in 1939. It won

praise not only for Hepburn’s radiant performance, but also for Barry’s

nuanced portrayal of social and economic class, which was rare during the

Great Depression, when the wealthy were often shown in caricatures of

greed or snobbery. Said George Cukor, who would direct the film

adaptation: “Those people are both rich and human.”

Every Hollywood studio executive wanted the film rights to The

Philadelphia Story, but no one wanted Hepburn in the lead role. On screen,

they thought, Tracy Lord would be a vehicle for a more marketable star

like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford. But the studios were in for a surprise –

Hepburn had already snapped up the film rights herself. She sold the

rights to MGM for an enormous sum, kept creative control over many

aspects of the project, and returned to Hollywood on her own terms.

“Sometimes I wonder if men and women

really suit each other. Perhaps they should

live next door and just visit now and then.”

– Katharine Hepburn

EXPLORATIONS - 6 -

Philip Barry

Philip Barry was one of the most popular Broadway playwrights of the

1920s and ‘30s. A promising writer even as a child, he went to college at

Yale and studied playwriting in

a Harvard workshop with

George Pierce Baker, a pioneer

of theatre education who also

taught such luminaries as

playwright Eugene O’Neill and

critic Brooks Atkinson. Barry

had his first play on Broadway

by the age of 26 – You and I, a

comedy he had written while

still a student.

Although Barry wrote in a

variety of genres, he was most

successful at comedy, creating

what critics called a particularly

American version of the classic

comedy of manners that

explored the quirks of the nation’s upper class. Barry’s best-known plays

are the comedies Holiday (1928) and The Philadelphia Story (1939), both of

which were adapted into major Hollywood films starring Katharine

Hepburn and Cary Grant.

“The time to make your mind up about

people is never.”

– Tracy Lord in Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story

Philip Barry, 1931 (Bain News Service)

EXPLORATIONS - 7 -

The Shaw Festival

Dennis Garnhum, Theatre Calgary’s artistic director, directed this new

production of The Philadelphia Story in the spring of 2014 at the world-

renowned Shaw Festival in beautiful Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The

production ran there for more than 70 performances over the course of the

summer. Nearly the entire original cast made the journey to Calgary this

January, along with the show’s designers. They spent a week of rehearsal

with Dennis to fit the production to the Max Bell stage.

The Shaw Festival was founded in 1962 to celebrate the works of Irish

dramatist George Bernard Shaw, who wrote plays such as Major Barbara,

Pygmalion, and Saint Joan. As the festival grew, its mandate expanded to

include plays from or about Shaw’s era (he lived from 1856 to 1950).

Under current artistic director Jackie Maxwell, the festival grew its new

play development program and began to include the work of

contemporary playwrights “whose work, like Shaw’s, continues to

question the status quo in new and different ways.”

Today, the Shaw Festival produces an annual season of 10 to 12 plays

running spring to fall, with a typical year seeing more than 700

performances for some 250,000 audience members. Travelers come from

across Canada and around the world to experience stunning classic and

contemporary theatre in the heart of Ontario’s Niagara wine country.

For more information about the Shaw Festival, visit www.shawfest.com.

“The Shaw Festival is a theatre company inspired by the work

of Bernard Shaw. We produce plays from and about his era and

contemporary plays that share Shaw’s provocative exploration

of society and celebration of humanity.”

– The Shaw Festival’s mandate

EXPLORATIONS - 8 -

Acting for the Long Run An Interview with Actor Gray Powell

Gray Powell plays C. K. Dexter Haven, Tracy Lord’s ex-husband and unexpected

wedding guest in The Philadelphia Story. A longtime Shaw Festival ensemble

member, he’ll be returning there this summer for his ninth season. We spoke to

him on the first day of the production’s one week of Calgary rehearsals.

Did you have a moment when

you knew that acting was what

you wanted to do?

I don’t know if there was a

moment. When I was a kid I

liked school plays, doing

improv, going to theatre camp. I

gravitated towards those things.

But in high school, I was the

type of student who was

interested in a lot of things, but

not very passionate at that point

about anything specific. There

was a drama teacher when I was in Grade 11 who pointed me out and

said “I’d like you to play Mortimer in Arsenic in Old Lace” or something

like that. And the fact that he had faith in me said something. I went, “Oh,

this is cool.” It was literally that boring – just me thinking “this is cool.”

Then I went to the University of Toronto, and Ken Gass [the founder of

Factory Theatre] was our first-year instructor. There was a passion that

came from Ken, a real passion for Canadian theatre. It made me want to

try to make a go at it.

How did you find your way to the Shaw Festival?

I graduated in 2000 and submitted stuff to Christopher [Newton] when he

was Artistic Director and nothing, nothing, a couple times nothing. Then I

crashed an audition when Jackie [Maxwell] was Artistic Director. I found

Gray Powell as C. K. Dexter Haven and

Moya O'Connell as Tracy Lord in The

Philadelphia Story (Emily Cooper)

EXPLORATIONS - 9 -

out the day before where they were having the auditions, and I hung

around for a few hours until everyone was done and they let me in. It was

the end of a long day for them. I think I had a Michael Hollingsworth

monologue and maybe a Henry monologue from Shakespeare – neither

were even within the Shaw Festival mandate. Nothing came of that. Then

in 2006, a couple years later, I got a late call from my agent saying there

was a spot in general auditions, and I went in for that, and then they

brought me in for a callback for The Circle, a Somerset Maugham play that

Neil Munro was directing. It was just by luck. I just happened to fit that

slot at the right time.

You’ve worked for several years now within the Shaw Festival’s

mandate to produce plays from Shaw’s era or in the spirit of his writing,

dealing with social questions and complexities. What draws you to

these plays?

I think that’s exactly it. With Shaw in particular, there’s the long thoughts

and the long arguments, which we just don’t have as much anymore in

our writing. Christopher [Newton] used to say that it was the beginning of

the modern age. Shaw was born as the photograph was being invented,

and the telephone – these new ways of communication. And he died just

after the Second World War. A lot of humanity is compressed in that

hundred years. That’s fascinating to me.

Tell me about C. K. Dexter Haven. He’s a bit of a cad...

Oh yeah, he’s a bit of a rebel. I mean, he is a rebel within his particular

world, within his own set. What connected me to Dexter was his desire

not to give up on the humanity of Tracy. The only thing he wants is for

her to show him that she’s a real person and that there is more than just

the idea of this woman and of this set of people – there’s a depth there, a

humanity.

There’s a film adaptation of The Philadelphia Story that many people

have seen. In your creative process, do you take that into account or do

you put it aside?

EXPLORATIONS - 10 -

I’ve never seen the film. I’ll watch it at some point. For me, it doesn’t help.

I’ve done a few roles now where there’s a film version, and there’s no

reason for me to watch the film for inspiration. It’s all in the text of the

play. And I hear that the film of The Philadelphia Story is quite different for

Dexter anyway – they kind of amalgamate him and Sandy. For this

production, Dennis [Garnhum] was really trying to bring out the heart

that he saw in the story. He wanted to have the conversation with us as

players to figure out what our story was going to be.

In a Shaw Festival season, actors typically rehearse and play two roles at

the same time. You were Cliff Bradshaw in Cabaret at the same time as

Dexter in The Philadelphia Story. What’s it like to be in the midst of two

creative processes at once? Do they ever cross-fertilize?

No, if anything they re-energize. I find it allows me to shut off one part of

my brain while I work out other things in another show. You can rest

from a show and then come back to it, which allows you not to obsess too

much. I like it, but I’ve talked to actors who don’t. It’s very different from

a three- or four-week rehearsal process.

You get to live with the characters for longer.

Yeah, the pressure to get a show up and going is not as great. We’ve got a

little more time to let it gestate. And over the course of the run, you’re

growing as well. You’re always finding stuff. It’s wonderful to work with

a company every day, to have that long rehearsal period, to spend eight

months of the year on stage.

How does it feel to be coming back to the play after a couple of months?

Well, we’ve basically just got off the plane and we haven’t really cracked

this one yet. But in the fall, we remounted Arcadia after having a year off.

I’d never done anything like that before. It’s a bit bizarre because you

remember so much. You realize how much your body retains after a long

run of a show. The challenge is not to get too caught in the rhythms and

patterns that were there, and to recognize that there are places to fine-tune

or tweak things. But it’s fun to feel it all pour out again.

EXPLORATIONS - 11 -

The Main Line

The Philadelphia Story actually takes place beyond the Philadelphia city

limits, in an area known as the Main Line. Named after the railway line

that stretches west from the

city, the Main Line’s landscape

is a series of picturesque towns,

elite private colleges, and grand

country estates.

In the midst of the Great

Depression, the Main Line was

a true bastion of privilege and

old money. The programme

notes for The Philadelphia Story’s

1939 premiere described it as “a

vague mixture, to common city

folk, of debutantes, horses, teas,

balls, parties, promiscuous youths, society, and money, particularly the

last two.” It was worlds away from the industrial city just a few miles east,

let alone the blue-collar coal mining region to the north.

Playwright Philip Barry was a frequent visitor to Ardrossan, the Main

Line home of his college friend Edgar Scott and his wife, the famous

socialite Helen Hope Montgomery. Set in the countryside near the town of

Villanova, Ardrossan was one of the grandest estates in the region. It

boasted a 50-room manor house built in the Georgian style, alongside

dozens of outbuildings and hundreds of acres of green pasture.

After the economic challenges of the Great Depression and World War II,

many original Main Line families subdivided their estates or sold out to

real-estate developers. Today, much of the area looks like any other

affluent North American suburb.

Rockefeller Hall dormitory on the campus

of Bryn Mawr College, Katharine Hepburn’s

Main Line alma mater (Montgomery

County Planning Commission)

EXPLORATIONS - 12 -

Glossary of Terms in The Philadelphia Story

Quakers

Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 by William Penn, a wealthy Quaker

who came to North America from England. The Quakers, known

internally as the Society of Friends, had split with the Church of England

and believed in principles such

as pacifism, a personal

relationship with God, and the

priestliness of all believers.

Many Quakers followed Penn

to his new colony to flee

religious discrimination in

England, much like the Puritans

who settled New England in

the early 17th century. In

honour of Penn and the

contributions of the state’s

Quaker community to public

life, Pennsylvania’s nickname is

the Quaker State.

Jeffersonian Democrat

A Jeffersonian Democrat holds political views in line with those of

Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the United States and its

President from 1801 to 1809. Jefferson believed in limiting privilege and

aristocracy. He promoted agrarianism and rural life, while distrusting the

rising urban merchant class and manufacturing industries.

Anthracite

Anthracite is a high-quality type of coal mined in central Pennsylvania. It

was widely used in home heating and power generation, as well as

industrial processes such as iron smelting.

William Penn, 1718

EXPLORATIONS - 13 -

Guffey Coal Act

The Guffey Coal Act, officially called the Bituminous Coal Act, was a

piece of legislation spearheaded by Pennsylvania Senator Joseph Guffey

and passed by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government in 1937. The Act

regulated the unpredictable coal industry by letting the federal

government set up price controls and production quotas.

Wanamaker

John Wanamaker founded Wanamaker’s, Philadelphia’s first department

store, in 1876. Wanamaker was

a retail pioneer, credited with

inventing the price tag and

popularizing the money-back

guarantee. The flagship store

was a renovated Philadelphia

train station hall that contained

the world’s largest pipe organ,

bought from the 1904 World’s

Fair. While the Wanamaker’s

chain is no more, this store is

still in operation as a Macy’s.

Wilkes-Barre

Wilkes-Barre is located on the

banks of the Susquehanna River

in the heart of Pennsylvania’s

anthracite coal-mining region,

about 100 miles north of

Philadelphia. The city’s economy, heavily based on industrial resources

like coal and iron, peaked in the first half of the 20th century.

Stinger

A stinger is a potent cocktail made with three parts brandy and one part

white crème de menthe, served cold.

The Grand Hall of Wanamaker's in 2008

(wikimedia user Nikita52389)

CONVERSATIONS - 14 -

Conversation Starters

If you were in Tracy Lord’s place, who (if anyone) would you marry?

What makes a couple well-suited to each other?

What’s the worst fault or behaviour you could forgive your partner for?

What would be unforgiveable?

Based on the perspectives expressed by characters in the play, how have

attitudes about marriage and divorce changed over the past 75 years?

Mike Connor repeats a proverb: “With the rich and mighty, always a little

patience.” What does he mean by this?

Playwright Philip Barry often wrote about the upper classes. What do you

think is his opinion about the behaviour of the wealthy and their role in

our society? What’s your perspective on this today?

Sandy Lord warns his family that they “don’t know what being under the

microscope does to people.” In our time, it’s become more routine for our

private lives to receive public attention. Has this scrutiny ever altered

your own behaviour?

Gray Powell as C. K. Dexter Haven, Moya O'Connell as Tracy Lord, and Tess

Benger as Dinah Lord in The Philadelphia Story (David Cooper)

CONVERSATIONS - 15 -

Organized Gossip

“Journalism is organized gossip.” – Oscar Wilde

According to essayist Joseph Epstein, the best (or worst) gossip is:

Feasible – it sounds like it could have happened.

Uncheckable – it can’t be easily disproven.

Deeply damning – it’s something that the subject of the gossip

would want to keep secret.

Originally a private activity, gossip has been more and more public ever

since the invention of the printing press and the rise of mass-market

newspapers. Readers have always wanted scandalous details about public

figures and those with high social status: royalty, politicians, athletes,

artists, and the wealthy. In the 1930s, most major American newspapers

ran a gossip column, and gossip magazines were particularly interested in

the lives of Broadway performers and movie stars. In the decades since,

the distinction between gossip and hard news has become even less clear.

Someone who is damaged by malicious public gossip can sue under

defamation laws: slander if the defamation is verbal, and libel if it’s in print.

Truth is a defense against such charges in the United States (although this

is not always the case in Canada), and libel claims are weighed against the

freedom of the press and the public’s right to know. Epstein writes that,

when the desire for privacy meets the drive for publicity, “privacy goes

down to defeat nearly every time.”

Do you gossip about people in your personal or work life? Have

there ever been unexpected consequences?

Do you follow the personal lives of any celebrities or public

figures? If so, what fascinates you about them?

When is the private life of a public figure newsworthy?

CONVERSATIONS - 16 -

From Stage to Screen

Theatre and film present different creative challenges and opportunities to

artists, so there are lots of reasons why a film adaptation might differ from

an original stage play. In adapting a play, screenwriters and movie

directors might choose to use storytelling techniques that are better suited

to film, or to tailor a role for a particular star actor. As well, American

films in the 1930s and ‘40s were subject to censorship based on the

Production Code, which set out rules for what could or couldn’t be shown

on screen.

Find the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls”, a 1927 precursor to the Production Code, at this link:

http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/syllabi/w/weisenfeld/rel160/donts.html

The Philadelphia Story was adapted into a film in 1940, directed by George

Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart.

The screenplay was written by Donald Ogden Stewart based on Philip

Barry’s original play.

The play was adapted again in 1956, this time into the movie musical High

Society. Written by John Patrick with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, High

Society was directed by Charles Walters and stars Grace Kelly, Bing

Crosby, and Frank Sinatra. (To complete the circle, a stage adaptation of

High Society appeared on Broadway in 1998).

What are the major differences between the original play and

either of these adaptations?

Why do you think the film adaptors made these changes?

Have any of your favourite books or plays been adapted for the

screen? How did you feel about the film version?

CONVERSATIONS - 17 -

Movie Night: Comedies of Remarriage

The Philadelphia Story is an example of what scholar Stanley Cavell called

"comedies of remarriage," a film subgenre that was popular in the 1930s

and '40s. In these films, writes Cavell, “the drive of the plot is not to get

the central pair together, but to get them back together, together again.”

Film producers were attracted to these plotlines because they allowed

them to portray complex relationships without running afoul of the

Production Code’s restrictions on immorality, adultery, and pre-marital

relations. As well, stories of married couples splitting and reconciling

were particularly resonant in an era when divorce was still largely taboo.

Comedies of remarriage tend to fit into the larger genre of screwball

comedy, which feature strong heroines, witty dialogue, and surprising

plot twists. Here are a few examples beyond The Philadelphia Story:

The Awful Truth

Dir. Leo McCarey, 1937. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play a divorcing

couple who go to great lengths to sabotage each other’s new romances.

His Girl Friday

Dir. Howard Hawks, 1940. In this adaptation of the Broadway play The

Front Page, Cary Grant plays a newspaper editor who brings his former

star reporter – and ex-wife – back to cover one last big story.

Adam’s Rib

Dir. George Cukor, 1949. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play two

married lawyers who find themselves on the brink of divorce while

battling on opposite sides of a court case.

“A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil.

She wants to see what she is getting.”

– Helen Rowland

CONVERSATIONS - 18 -

Sources

Berkowitz, Edward D. Mass Appeal: The Formative Age of the Movies, Radio,

and TV. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2010.

Callahan, Michael. “The Story Behind The Philadelphia Story.”

Philadelphia, November 26, 2010.

Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1981.

Epstein, Joseph. Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit. New York: Houghton Mifflin

Harcourt, 2011.

“John Wanamaker.” They Made America. WGBH History Unit, PBS, 2004.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/wanamaker_lo.html

O’Reilly, David. “House So Grand, Even Tinseltown Had to Tone it

Down.” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 6, 2007.

“Quakers.” BBC, 2009.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/quakers_1.shtml

“The Quakers.” History Channel.

http://www.history.com/topics/quakers

Pender, Judith Midyett. “The Philadelphia Story.” In The Columbia

Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. New York: Columbia UP, 2007.

Pender, Judith Midyett. “Philip Barry.” In The Columbia Encyclopedia of

Modern Drama. New York: Columbia UP, 2007.

“Shaw Festival Mandate and History.”

http://www.shawfest.com/about-the-shaw/mandate-and-history/

Yearley, C. K. “Guffey Coal Acts.” In The Dictionary of American History.

New York: Scribner, 2003.