Fiorello! by Jerome Weidman, George Abbott, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (1960)

Summary:  The play follows the life and career of a New York City lawyer-turned-politician named Fiorello La Guardia over the course of ten years (beginning just before World War I).  The first scenes of the play depict Fiorello as a young mayor and savior to the common man, specifically immigrants and women who are striking at a dress factory for living wages.  Building on this popular appeal, Fiorello decides to run for United States Senate...and wins!  After signing a controversial draft bill, he enlists to fight in the first World War and eventually returns home with a war record and a large ego.

After returning home, he runs for mayor in 1929 and loses, largely due to his ego and refusal to listen to his advisers.  Shortly after hearing that he has lost this election and corrupt backers of his opponent were attempting to kill him, he receives word that his wife has died.  Relatively undaunted, Fiorello decides to marry his longtime secretary and begins campaigning for the next mayoral election immediately.  In 1933, he becomes the mayor of New York City once again.

Thoughts:  My New York City history perhaps isn't what it should be, because I had no idea that Fiorello La Guardia was an actual person who served three terms as mayor of New York City.  The name of the airport makes much more sense now.  Though the musical apparently takes some liberties with the details of his personal life, it is a somewhat exciting tribute to a very important person to the people of New York in the 20s and 30s.

Fiorello La Guardia.  Photo from Wikicommons.

There are few songs from this musical that are easily recognizable, though "Politics and Poker" and "Little Tin Box" are occasionally still played on Sirius XM Radio, especially because of the recent death of composer Jerry Bock. 

The lyrics assigned to women in the musical are a bit cringe-worthy, specifically Marie's "The Very Next Man" at the end of Act 2.  Desperate to be married, Marie sings, "No more daydreams for me/Find the finest of bridal suites/Chill the champagne and warm up the sheets/I'm gonna marry the very next man/And if he likes me/Who cares how frequently he strikes me/I'll fetch his slippers with my arm in a sling/Just for the privilege of wearing his ring" (134).  Marie's wishes come true a few pages later when Fiorello decides he will need a wife during the next campaign and states, "I think you can learn to love me" (146).

The Great White Hope by Howard Sackler (1969)

Summary:  Sackler’s dramatization of the life of boxer Jack Johnson (named Jack Jefferson in this play).   After winning the World Heavyweight Championship in the first few pages of the play, Jack spends the rest of his life dealing with fallout surrounding this event.  The central dramatic conflict of the play is the search for a “great white hope”—a white boxer who will fight Jack and win.  After he gets into some trouble with the law (for having sex with his white girlfriend), Jack flees the country and is repeatedly approached with offers trading his inevitable jail time in exchange for throwing a fight (losing on purpose).

Thoughts:  The play is a powerful statement about race in America, race in sports, race in families and race in sexual relationships.  Interestingly, the photo on the front of the play and the text on the back of it led me to believe that this would be a play about Jack’s rise to glory—when it is actually just the opposite.  Jack is triumphant in the first few pages of the play, but the bulk of the play’s 239 pages depict his descent into depression and desperation.  A particular low-point in Jack's departure from the glory days depicts him and his girlfriend Ellie in a performance reminiscent of a minstrel show. 

Additionally, the blurbs on the back of this play made me think about the tendency toward hyperbole when writing about culturally and literarily significant works. While I did enjoy this play and certainly do think it is important, I wonder if readers today would still draw comparisons between it and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. 

Both bad pictures courtesy of my phone and UNM's 95 cent Bantam edition of the play, April 1969.

All The Way Home by Tad Mosel (1961)

Summary:  The Follet Family is spread out across Tennessee and meet together in Act One for an annual picnic where familial tensions and allegiances are explored for the first time. The family quietly notes that this will probably be the last time they see their Great Grandma. In Act 2, a phone call summons Jay home because his own aging father (John Henry) is in some sort of medical trouble. He makes the trip and subsequently calls home to say that he will be back home soon because it was a false alarm. When he doesn't come home, the phone eventually rings again to inform his pregnant wife Mary that he has been instantly killed in an accident. The third and final act of the play is set in the hours before the funeral, and once again explores how families interact with each other in times of both normalcy and tragedy.

Thoughts:  This play is an adaptation of James Agee's novel A Death in the Family (which also won a Pulitzer Prize). Though the play is set in 1915 and contains references to the "war between the states" and repeated usages of the N-word, it retains timeless appeal because it examines the way that normal families interact--strained individual relationships and a common bond. I think that this play will continue to retain much of its timelessness because of the central idea that families (consciously or unconsciously) prepare for certain deaths, but not others.

A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee (1967)

Summary:  Agnes and Tobias are a married couple living in the comfort of the suburbs, clearly affluent enough to never discuss working outside of the home or any sort of financial strain.  Instead, they spend much of their time finding creative and emotionally destructive ways to fight with each other, often surrounding the topic of Claire—a seemingly permanent houseguest (and the alcoholic younger sister of Agnes).  There is news that their 30(ish) year-old daughter Julia is expected back home, fresh off her fourth failed marriage.  In a dramatic break from the routine, Edna and Harry arrive at the end of Act 1.  They are, apparently, Agnes and Tobias’s closest friends.  More interestingly, they are suddenly terrified of being alone in their house, for reasons unspecified throughout the play.

Thoughts:  So many of the plays I have read thus far have been about the way that couples fight with each other, but there is nothing reminiscent of polite veneer (Dinner with Friends, Rabbit Hole, The Subject was Roses) in this play.  Agnes and Tobias know how to hurt each other, and their fighting is reminiscent of another more famous Albee couple—George and Martha (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)  They fight about Claire, they fight about Julia, they fight about Edna and Harry…they fight, seemingly, because they love to fight and excel at it.

The dialogue in this play is interesting enough to make it remarkable, but the play comes to an absolute stunning halt at the end of Act 1 when Edna exclaims, “WE WERE FRIGHTENED….AND THERE WAS NOTHING” (47).  Tobias, Agnes and Claire attempt to figure out what is going on…and the last line of Act 1, only two pages later is Claire’s response, “Don’t you know yet?  (small chuckle)  You will.”  We never know definitively what this fear is—the hints are towards nuclear war, but no one ever says outright.  Eventually, the play ends with a long monologue by Tobias concerning the nature of friendship, love and responsibility.

The Subject was Roses by Frank Gilroy (1965)

Summary:  John and Nettie Cleary have just welcomed their son Timmy home from World War II.  As such, there are feelings of happiness, relief and the awkwardness that accompanies the return of a third person to a two-party household.  As the play progresses, the troubled nature of each relationship in the play (John and Nettie, Nettie and Timmy, John and Timmy) is illuminated.

Thoughts:  Again, a play where not much happens outside of the small New York apartment where it is set over the course of one weekend.  This family doesn’t have horrendous problems, but they have clearly never talked openly about the interpersonal issues that they do have.  Upon his return from war, Timmy is drinking perhaps too much, making grown-up decisions about his faith and future…and his parents are clearly not ready to let him go after just getting him back.

"[The Subject was Roses] is my signature play, for which I am grateful.  But my dream is some day to be introduced as the author of something other.  So far no cigar, but it ain’t over. 
The Pulitzer guarantees the first line of my obituary. 
I wouldn’t give it back.  But it screwed me up for several years as you’ll see."

-Gilroy’s introduction to this play in Frank Gilroy Volume 1 (Smith and Kraus).