The drama
opened at Broadway’s Morosco Theatre in the first of 360 performances, staged
by Kelly himself. And, in what many observers believed was a consolation prize
for being bypassed the prior year, Columbia University awarded him the highest
prize in American theater, the Pulitzer Prize, midway through its run.
Coming on
the heels of his prior Broadway success, the comedy The Show-Off, Kelly should
have been able to look forward to additional adoring audiences. But, at age 38,
he would never create another hit. When he died 50 years later, he was all but
forgotten—a fate that largely continues to this day. (Many familiar with the life story of Grace Kelly know that she made her professional acting debut at age 19 in her uncle's satire, The Torch-Bearers.)
In a post from last spring, I wrote about the 1936 film adaptation of this domestic
drama, starring Rosalind Russell. I intend to write yet another post, on the
1950 remake starring Joan Crawford, later this year.
But the
play itself is little seen these days. Even a couple of other plays by Kelly, Philip
Goes Forth and The Fatal Weakness, have been mounted in the late
dozen years by the estimable Off-Broadway troupe The Mint Theater.
Why did
Kelly fall off his high place in American theater?
*Audiences
rejected his continued turn toward drama. Kelly’s next three plays, Daisy
Mayme, Behold the Bridegroom, and Maggie the Magnificent, flopped.
Even before the Great Depression ensued, audiences preferred his comedies.
*Changing
times brought changing audience and critical tastes. Once Kelly returned to
comedy in 1931 with Philip Goes Forth, theatergoers were more open to
plays by the likes of Clifford Odets that addressed the multiple crises
affecting the nation. Kelly decamped for remunerative but unsatisfying work in
Hollywood as a screenwriter. When he returned to Broadway later in the Thirties
and Forties, he continued to work in the vein of the character-driven, “well-made
play” tradition, at a time when younger playwrights like Tennessee Williams and
Arthur Miller were experimenting with different stage forms.
*His
economic and social conservatism left him out of sync with the times. Kelly
despised the New Deal and regarded the politically progressive Group Theater as
faddish. A deeply religious Roman Catholic, he was similarly dismissive of
psychology and the greater sexual frankness associated with Williams and
William Inge.
*He had
rigid views of how his plays should be staged. Kelly insisted not only that
he direct his own plays but that actors interpret his lines exactly as he dictated
them. This did not allow for much in the way of innovation or in allowing the
introduction of collaborators who could approach his work with a fresh eye.
*In
particular, “Craig’s Wife” is often regarded as misogynistic. The title
character of Kelly’s most honored work made a fetish of her home, to such an
extent that it destroyed her marriage and left her isolated at the play’s end.
The 1936 film version introduced elements that would motivate her unrelenting
materialism, but these are largely absent from the play itself.
*He had
no interest whatsoever in promoting himself. It wasn’t only that Kelly felt
that his work should speak for itself, but he desired to maintain his private
life. Not only would there be no interviews during his career, but, with the
destruction of nearly all his personal papers a few years before his death, no
opportunity for a posthumous biography that might intrigue readers with previously
guarded secrets. In the years since Kelly’s death in 1974, it has become
increasingly believed that those “secrets” related to his sexual orientation. A
lifelong bachelor, Kelly introduced William Eldon Weagley as his “valet,” even
to his Philadelphia-based siblings, but their 55-year relationship strongly
suggests that the playwright was gay.
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