Act One

[MrMiniver]

+1

 

Now why would you want to go ahead and share your IQ with the whole group?

[uwsman2]

I saw the play yesterday and found it very enjoyable. Judging just by the photo of Moss Hart in the program (nice page of bio) the actors looked vaguely enough like him to be passable. One doesn't need close resemblance for a dramatic work. The point is that the play is well made, well cast, well directed, great sets, nicely paced. And lots of fun.

[Frankly Rich]

Now I have read Act One in its entirety. It was pretty interesting once he started play writing, but the family drama was probably necessary background. I was disappointed to learn that he left so much out and even lied about his aunt Kate's passing. Nothing about his bouts of depression or bipolar disorder, nothing about gay life- his?- and apparently he held deep secret feelings of hatred for most of his friends. I did see how difficult it was to write a play and get it staged, not to mention become a hit. But the revelations of his diary as told by Frank Rich are disappointing. Early in the book he talks about the viciousness of the theater community, with almost everyone taking glee in others' failure, and the two-faced way people acted. It sounds like he was among the worst. None of this , of course, takes away from his successes, but I wish he had been more truthful. (Beloved Bandit wasn't even his first failure!)

That he died in Palm Springs seems appropriate!

 

Of note is this NY Times review of a subsequent Hart biography, Dazzler: http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/29/reviews/010429.29leithat.html

 

Vanity Fair looked at his diary in 2012: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/05/moss-hart-diaries-kitty-carlisle-marlene-dietrich

[MrMiniver]

It was written in the late 1950s. Enough said.

[Frankly Rich]

I realize that in the late 50's, discussions or especially admissions of homosexuality were not going to exist, nor, for that matter, was a discussion of mental healthy. The gist of it is that at the same time he was writing the book, he was keeping the diary, where he said things about people directly contradicting things he was saying in the book. That's dishonest at any time period.

[MrMiniver]

Have you heard the phrase "can't see the forest for the trees?"

[+ WilliamM]

Have you heard the phrase "can't see the forest for the trees?"

 

Let's see if I have this right:

 

The trees are that "Act One" is a novel, not an autobiography.

 

The forest is your first comment: "You can't be interested in the theater and not have read ACT ONE. It's really not possible."

 

Got it.

[Frankly Rich]

Moss Hart thought the theater world was vicious, with few if any real friends. So he wouldn't be surprised by the occasional sniping of our small group, and we should be thrilled that we don't qualify for membership in his group that met at Rudley's:

 

"I made my way from the Madison Hotel to a restaurant called Rudley's, where at 4 o'clock every afternoon a small group, of which I was a member, forgathered for coffee...it was a group of "have-nots," an acid brotherhood of kindred spirits all desperately trying to fight their way into the theater and unseat the mighty...we were all a supercilious and malicious lot...no aspect of the theater pleased us. Let Woollcott praise a play, and we immediately damned it and, in the bargain, accused him of logrolling for his friends. Let Percy Hammond jeer at a performance and we were quick to defend it. If an actor or actress pleased the public, they did not please us. Our condemnation and contempt were reserved for success, and our enthusiasm for calamitous failures. Very few American plays or playwrights...met with our approval, and when we did give it, it was grudging and reluctant. We were bitter, jealous, prejudiced and thoroughly unfair, and I can recall no discussions on the theater since then that were as deeply satisfactory.