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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.