New Britain Herald Newspaper, March 24, 1926, Page 19

By Polly Fergusson AKING unpleasant people pay is surely an enviable talent. All of us know persons whose glib selfichness or boorishness or silly pretensions are a con- stant irritation, but few of us know how to deal with them, much less turn them into handsome profits. It has remained fer George Kelly, suc- cessful young author and playwright, to show how it can be done. In his two big recent successes Mr. Kelly has presented portraits of two very unpleasant indi- viduals, drawn with vivid exactness from real life, Y “The Show-Off” dramatizes that well known affliction—the braggart, the fancy dresser, the loquacious talker, the arch- bluffer—who thrives so luxuriantly in America today. aig’s. Wife” is that most trying woman—the per- petual hous who henpecks her husband and makes a terrifying god of her house. Both are the sort of persons we have all met and disliked. Yet on the stage their appeal is esistible. The theatre-going public pays its money and chooses to see them, “The Show-Off” is one of the few plays of genuine artistic merit produced by an American playwright that has also been a huge popular success. Hailed as a work of high distinction by dramatic critics, it has, nevertheless, made a hit with the multitude and earned a large amount of money, The screen rights to the play have just been sold for $100,000, although it cannot be pic- turized for two years. And it is esti- mated that at the present scale of box-office profits “The Show-Off” will have earned a half-million dollars for and his producers by the time Whil s Wife"” is a tragedies seldom are as popular as comedies—it is predicted that it, too, will have a second New York season, “Making wunpleasant people pay?” emiled Mr. Kelly when asked to explain his sceret. “I don’t suppose it is any- thing new, is it? Cartoonists long ago discovered it, aithough, of course, they ggerate their types. I simply present mine as I see them all about me in real life. “Before I wrote ‘The Show-Off’ T was repeatedly warned that real life did not pay in the theatre,” he explained. “‘The people don't like it,’ experienced play- wrights cautioned me, ‘they get enough of it outside. When they go to the theatre, they want something better.” ‘“ _XS 4 appearing on Br season I saw tha apparent el I studied the list of cur t offer- ay each ights They al kinds but they ignor- ing the as most of u, i t wpoint of the midd d women, Of all the popular su 1t 1 saw reviewed in the pape ang true to life —as 1 “Now s m opinion that, to he et in a Long racing stables pool, nor yet in There were, it possibilities partment or 1 in North about us is tec niures—the he people ottage. T lay and 1 the pa interesting, life need not be Island villa, len swimming with large a big ci lov will rica ture, 1t me—my neigh- the people T met while Lhen I tu »f them a f all the warn- into me, 1 held to 1 pounded a play b veal, 1d suc- Show-Off, s or Rip Van Win- kle was of Irving I have known any ur Amuo jou ‘szadig Ldaqny Jo Jaqunu Success of George Kelly, Playwright, Attained by Sketching Pen Pictures for the Stage of Commonplace People—and How Real-Life Portrayal Pays Him Real Money whence this particular t in v York City, and virtually every city I h made on tour in this country. We all know exasperating type of fool—self-satisfied tha - tal equipment is superior others and that he would be a m: success if he had only a unity to succeed instead of a b holds a grudge st him mingly CYNCE 1Y cumstances of the p! themselves. The chief diff Aubrey Pipers is that jree them selves upon us, marry girls from fine families who fall for the lure of clothes and talk, and ave in bores to everybody but the on them. I have seen m families who have had fo contend h Aub Pip For Aubrey Pipers a age to come home to roost, either in their own homes or in those } WS, d selected my type, the cir- ey m ach since they s v feel they which they rhteously apprenticeship in the in Phi into vaude adelph e, he ing juvenile parts ct p every vaudeville that there were not writing them himsc least a dozen succes to his credit, in most ¢ he left the vaude te business in “Woman Propo: the or he one This got him nger plays, and tion of the L the result. cess then ment. In o b to help Mr. Kelly stag It is dou oadway produce would have cake but these three never doub from the moment the cussed the idea driving hom from the theatre, “Realism,” said Miss Stewart enthus that is what the It's gett theim is a very n a chance or coss asticail more realism, you can hear al “Yes, it agreed e nuch hard to writ “Not any’n he replied hard work. When a spect him of lying or I} y. I can’ body turning out a short a time. “My method? conceive in sc First of all, I select =z Z K L = | my characters, I devote a long period to each, gradually drawing from mem- ory a portrait of the person I have in mind, including as many of his odd little nerisms as I can remember, his its of thought and his peculiarities of speech. Then I say to myself: ‘This person is a e. I have known many like him or he What is the problem most often created by this type? When I have answered that question I almost have the necess circumstances for It remains only to work them ically. ite literally walking up and down oor, acting the part of each cha % and speaking the lines as I thin they wotld speak them in real life. Some- times I shout corrections at myself, like: ‘No, can't you sece she wouldn’t do that?’ or ike that out. He wouldn't put it h 3 'd say it like this!” Then I rush to my typewriter and type the lines down.” “Is Mrs. Craig the replica of some woman you know in real life?” he was asked. “Of dozens of women I have known in real life,” Mr. Kelly declared. “There are | of her in the majority of women, T believe; all those who are de. pendent wives, that is. Mrs. Craig sim- ply has an exaggerated phase of the terr experienced in milder form by almost every dependent wife—the terror of losing her husband and the security he provides her. “But you don’t approve of her?” ; but I think her logic is unassail- erted. “She realized that ¥ depended entirely on the v of her husband, and she there- t about dev z ways and means trol him. she told her niece wanted a wife and a home; them. And he can be per- of them, because the wife t happens to be one of the of the bargain was the se and protection that those condi- ly. And I have them. But, un- Craig, I can’t be absolutely sure i because I know that, to a very reat extent, they are the mercy of the mood of a man. And I suppose I'm practical-minded accept that as perma perma- too their So I must r myself. asks the niece. secure their ing into my owh hands the ¢ man upon which they are vs Mrs. Craig.” emphasis, much as Crystal m in the first act. characters from Herne “I alw see my the actor’s e KRR e TR <5 Dramatizing everyday life, making the ordinary citizen a stage character, a puppet which dances at the end of the string—that’s the way the “money rolls in” George Kelly conceived the idea of taking the middle stratum of society as the background for his drama instead of the surface or the dregs, and behold you, out stepped “The Show-Off” and “Craig’s Wife” to pack the theatres sum of money on his wife, and leaves her to the house which she prizes so highly. “And you believe that all dependent wives deliberately hoodwink their hus- bands?” was asked. “No; but I should say the majority do, at some time or other in their lives, A good many of them get over it after the first few years of uncertainty. But it is only to be expected, really, as long as they must depend upon their hus- bands for their living. Can't you pick out any number of couples among your e e The Head of the Clap Kelly “IDACK of every great man is a great mother,” is a bit of truth for the sophisticate to roll over his tongue and remark “Blah,” but he cannot “blah” the truth out of truth. Mary Kelly, who landed in this country sixty years ago as Miss Mary Costello, is the mother of four men who have achieved signal distinction in their lines . There's Walter, who has, as the Virginia Judge of the vaudeville stage, raised laugh- making to a fine art; P. H., the contractor, will live in the stone and steel of many of the finest structures of the East; TJack, the champion oarsman, has sculled himself to fame, and George is one of the foremost of American playwrights. standpoint,” he explained in ans comment. “My acting exper sen invaluable to me both in writ I don't see how ha. ing and in directing. a playwright can get along wi it it “The only difference between Mrs. Craig and large numbers of other de pendent wives,” he ontinued, he is not quite as clever as m them. She was laboring under an ol sion, and go she let her husband fin out.” “Craig's an who worships nothing else. She treats temple of some Egyptian deity must be disturbed in it—dus and her husband’s frier a ashes must be kept out. just a fussy housewife. doesn't fully realize it, her a s bol of her se severing a tie here riend there, she has been ¢ g her husband in her gainst the world so imprisonment and her own se- y. Craig, who and still in love with his wife, ious to her stra ed and very seri s her up. Then he discover that he really little in her life; that he mea tector and meal ticket and is simply erated — not too amiably — on that wre. So he does the only thing a man 1is romantic temperament could do and keep his self-respect, He settles a Wife” is the st her ho it like the Nothing wo £ of Those are the Kellys who have achieved the bay leaves, and there are three others, no less distinguished but moving in lesser orbits. They are Charles Kelly, a superintendent of construction, and Mary and Ann, both mothering homes of their own according to the precepts of their own mother. The boys are scattered now, but they all come “home to mother” to talk things over, and she is an empress in her own right in her home in Midvale avenue, close to Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and from her throne she administers rebukes and justice just as she did when P. H., the oldest, was just “a scramblin’ bit of a boy. " acquaintances where the wife is lually placing restrictions upon her man until he has virtually no life at all outside their home? Of course, I do not mean that a great many women go to the lengths Mrs. Craig resorted to— spying on her husband, tracing his tele phone calls and insulting his friends. She allowed her obssession to get the best her—an obsession that arose from wit- nessing her mother’s tragic experience with a husband who fell under the con- trol of another woman. “A great many women do } reason to fear the collapse of their se- curity, and they are not to be blamed for trying to safeguard their marriages. Under our Anglo-Saxon civilization mar- riage is a very casual undertaking. Both voung women and young men rush into matrimony without fi ng the cost at all—especially the fi al cost. “The average middle-clas 0 pendent. entirely upon at h chooses to give her in the allowance, settle v. That m isband have sufficed in the ge was still regarded manent institutior the wife was reasonably sure of a life job and a home. But w as a pe h divorce so popular and easy offers this security. temporary character A woman may spend t outh c. eir future, only to have the marriage collapse at the end ve real* of, say, five years, and leave her flat. “The man she married may have been what we call & good provider, and she may have had every reason to believe that his protection was hers for life. But here she is at the end of five years, a good deal of her youthful buoyancy gone with her illusions, fored to strike out for herself, with little traiuing for anything and no money of her own, un- less she is willing to accept help from the man who is casting her adrift. And Judges everywhere have re v been discouraging husbandly generosity by their anti-alimony proclamations. “As a result, women are beginning to ask quite frankly: ‘Where do I get of? in this marriage game? How can I make it secure my future?’ And, like Mrs. Craig, a good many realize that they won't get very far unless they do acquire the knack of managing their ba Of course, this truth has al- ays been more or less well understood by the sex, but the point is they are now admitting it. You would think that, since it exposes the tactics of a henpeck- ing woman, men would be more inter- ested in ‘Craig’s Wife’ than women, but such is not the case. The women have been flocking to see it. Fifteen hundred of them were there at one matinee.” “Well, if you think that Mrs. Craig and women of her type are right but that their methods are wrong, what do Yyou suggest as an alternative?” HE playwright ]»axxsnd'fflr a moment and eaid: “Honesty in the marriage game,” he replied. “If women fear they are going to be left, homeless and bank- accountless, by their husbands, they should tell their husbands so. The whole question of finances and provision for the wife should be thoroughly discussed and planned before marriage. Some adjust- ment should Le made which seems fair and safe to the wife. Then she need have no fear for the future. She need not attempt to control her husband like Mrs. Craig. “And I believe that the younger gen- eration will bring about some such re- form in the marriage customs. Many of the young couples I know, for in- stance, now discuss financial arrange- ments before marriage. The wife looks on her home-making as at any other and demands certain economio returns from it. A number of them have adopted the plan for dividing the hus- band’s income equally. Both contribute an equal percentage to the upkeep of the home, and both reserve equal amounts for recreation and savings ac- counts. That gives a wife som de- pendence “Are vou married, Mr » said emphatica . , how——" “I know what you are going to ask —‘How do I know thing about the difficulties ¢ how do I know thing about the psychology of a Show-Off? Merely by observation. I ¢ the people and the life t s on around me. Ly: the process of writ- I have been s from people for 3 nd some of what are these riders, avenue e underworld— any one and anything except that which the writer has at his elbow. If they would only observe and study the peo- ple and life on their own thrilling city block “They into pro for him. Copyrioht by Pudiic Ledger Company career Kell g a nowad deluged with reque play me to read t them I have r ould turn unpleasant people s,” the sentence was finished