GRANDPA’S GRACE
Well, Sir, we’ve been getting along pretty good for quite a while now, and we’re certainly much obliged. Remember, all we ask is just to go along and be happy in our own sort of way. Of course we want to keep our health, but as far as anything else is concerned, we’ll leave it to You. Thank You.
When and Where:
Monday February 13 2012, 7:00, in Room 9
Friday February 17 at 1:30 in Room A
Tuesday February 28 at 7:00 in Room 9
What:
You Can’t Take it with You by Kaufman & Hart
Who:
UUCPA Thespians
Why:
To enjoy one of the top comedies of all time.
The curtain rises to show us the living room of Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, “but the term is something of an understatement. . . . For here meals are eaten, plays are written, snakes collected, ballet steps practiced, xylophones played, printing presses operated. In short, [a room] of living in the fullest sense of the word.”
Here you will meet – – no, better than “meet” – – Here you may BE Grandpa, “who made his peace with the world long, long ago;” his daughter, Penny, who “writes plays because eight years ago a typewriter was delivered here by mistake;” his granddaughter, Essie, who “want[s] to be a dancer;” or any of half a dozen other zany characters including Mr. De Pinna, who “came to deliver the ice” eight years ago and just stayed.
Then there is Penny’s younger daughter, Alice, who is somewhat “apart from the rest of the family . . . she is in contact with the world” and is in love with Tony Kirby, “a very nice young man,” even if he is “the Boss’ son.” Throw in the senior Kirbys, pillars of Wall Street; Mr. Kolenkhov, a “very, very Russian ballet teacher;” and agents from the IRS and the Justice Department – – and you have a mix that is uproariously funny but also gives some food for thought.
I don’t regret many things in my life, but I do regret that in the winter of 1937, when I was a high-school student on Long Island, I didn’t go to New York to see the original Broadway play starring Josephine Hull and Henry Travers. But I’ve seen (more than once) the Frank Capra Oscar-Winning 1938 movie with Lionel Barrymore, Spring Byington, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, and Mischa Auer (hey, imagine “you” being one of those stars for an evening), as well as countless amateur and community theater stage productions including the excellent one at Gunn High School this past fall.
And I’m really looking forward to reading it with the Thespians in February. Come join me – you’ll be glad you did. Send me an e-mail or call me if you’d like more information. Let me know you’re coming – or just show up.
UUCPA Thespians, Philip Hodge, Chair