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1. Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman ( / ˈkaʊfmən / KOWF-mən; [1] January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984 [2]) was an American entertainer and performance artist. While often called a "comedian", Kaufman preferred to describe himself instead as a "song and dance man". He has sometimes been called an " anti-comedian ". [3]
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Further Reading
- Sources
George S. Kaufman and Moss Hartare remembered as masters of comedic playwriting. Each made important contributions to the American theater on his own, but they are best known for the successful and influential comedies they wrote together in the 1930s. George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 16, 1889, the descendent of e...
Act I, Scene i
You Can’t Take It with Youtakes place in the living room of Grandpa Martin Vanderhof’s home in New York City. The action begins on a Wednesday evening in 1936. The curtain rises on an eclecti-cally decorated room containing a solarium full of snakes, a xylophone, and a printing press in addition to more common furniture items like chairs and tables. The first scene of the play introduces the members of the eccentric Vanderhof-Sycamore household as they come in and out of the living room. Gran...
Act I, Scene ii
Scene ii takes place later that same night. Alice and Tony have returned to the house after their date. They begin a conversation confessing how much they love each other. Alice admits she loves Tony but does not think they can ever marry because his traditional family could never accept her unconventional relatives. Tony does not think this is necessarily the case and convinces Alice that all that matters at the moment is their love for one another. The two become engaged and Tony departs. A...
Act II
Act II opens a week later. Penny is talking to a drunken actress, Gay Wellington, who soon passes out on the couch. Tony Kirby and his parents are coming for dinner the next night, and Alice is getting things ready, consulting a list of things that need to be changed and put away. The rest of the family engage in their various amusements. Penny decides to complete a painting of Mr. De Pinna as a discus thrower which she began years ago, so he puts on a Roman costume and poses for her. Kolenkh...
Ed Carmichael
Essie’s husband Ed, as the stage directions inform, is a “nonedescript young man” in his thirties. He is a musician and composer who likes to play the xylophone as well as ply his trade as an amateur printer. As a hobby, he uses his hand-press to print sayings which he comes across in the writings of the revolutionary Russian Communist Leon Trotsky, such as “God Is the State; the State is God.” Proud of his work, he encloses these printed bills in the boxes with Essie’s candy. Although Ed pri...
Essie Carmichael
Mrs. Sycamore’s eldest daughter, Essie Carmichael, is a 29-year-old aspiring ballerina. She dances her way through the play, improvising steps to her husband Ed’s xylophone music and eagerly following the instructions of her dance instructor, Mr. Kolenkhov. She makes candy, naming her newest confections “Love Dreams,” but she never takes off her ballet slippers even when she dons her candy-making apron. Like the other Sycamores, Essie is both happily absorbed in tasks which amuse her and whol...
Mr. De Pinna
Described in the stage directions as a “bald-headed little man with a serious manner,” the middle-aged Mr. De Pinna arrived at the Vanderhof residence eight years ago to deliver ice and ended up moving in. Although a minor character, he shows how open and accepting the Vanderhof-Sycamore family can be: everyone is obviously welcome in this house. Mr. De Pinna has clearly taken to this family’s way of life. He helps Paul make firecrackers, poses in Roman costume for Penny’s painting of a discu...
You Can’t Take It with Youcontrasts the eccentric family of Grandpa Martin Vanderhof with the conservative Kirby family. Vanderhof s granddaughter Alice becomes engaged to her boss’s son Tony Kirby. Although a dinner party meant to bring the two families together ends with an explosion and a night in jail, by the play’s end both Tony and his father...
You Can’t Take It with Youhas three well-balanced acts. Act I introduces the members of the eccentric Vanderhof-Sycamore family and sets up the play’s central conflict: Alice Sycamore becomes engaged to her boss’s son, Tony Kirby, but she does not think his family can accept hers. Act II depicts the laughably disastrous encounter between the two fa...
In the mid-1930s when Kaufman and Hart wrote You Can’t Take It with You, Americans were suffering through one of the worst economic periods in the history of the United States, an era known as the Great Depression. Many Americans lost their life savings, homes, and jobs in the stock market crash of 1929 and the numerous bank failures which followed...
On its opening night in December of 1936, You Can’t Take It with Youbecame an instant commercial hit. Since then, the play’s popularity has never waned; it has been successfully staged by theaters of all sizes for over six decades. Yet even while praising the skill with which Kaufman and Hart constructed their clever comedy, critics have generally ...
Erika Kreger
In this essay Kreger places Kaufman and Hart’s play within the context of the Great Depression, noting that the work served as a welcome escape from the trials of 1930s America. In the 1930s, Americans needed to laugh. The United States was suffering through the harsh economic times of the Great Depression and people went to theaters and movie houses to forget their troubles. So it is not surprising that in 1936 George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s You Can’t Take It with Youwas a commercial succ...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. Harvey, Mary Coyle Chase’s 1944 comedy. This play, like You Can’t Take It with You,won a Pulitzer Prize, and tells the story of another classic American eccentric, a charming man who keeps company with a huge, imaginary rabbit named Harvey. 2. Act One,Moss Hart’s well-received 1959 autobiography. This work offers insight into both the Broadway theater at mid-century and the Hart-Kaufman collaboration. 3. The Man Who Came to Dinner, Kaufman and Hart’s 1939 play. This fourth Kaufman-Hart col...
John Mason Brown
In this review that first appeared in the New York Evening Post, December 15 & 19, 1936, Brown praises the lighthearted nature ofYou Can’t Take It with You. Brown was an influential and popular American drama critic who wrote extensively on British and American drama. In a world in which the sanity usually associated with sunshine is sadly overvalued, You Can’t Take It With Youis something to be prized. It is moonstruck, almost from beginning to end. It is blessed with all the happiest lunaci...
Atkinson, Brooks. “The Giddy Twenties” in his Broadway,MacMillan (New York), 1970, pp. 227-37. Cavell, Stanley. Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage, Harvard UniversityPress, 1981, pp. 1-42. Frye, Northrop. “The Mythos of Spring: Comedy,” in his The Anatomy of Criticism, Princeton UniversityPress, 1957, pp. 163-186. Goldstein, ...
Atkinson, Brooks. Review of You Can’t Take It with You in the New York Times,December 15, 1936. A Celebration of Moss Hart,University of Southern California, April 12, 1970, p. 16. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden,Bantam, 1989, p. Ill, 172-73, 178.
Apr 4, 2022 · In true Andy Kaufman fashion, his feud with Jerry Lawler was staged. Many years after Kaufman and Lawler appeared on "Late Night," Lawler revealed their feud was entirely staged and that the pair were actually close friends, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Mar 27, 2023 · Marty Puccio began dating Lisa Connelly (pictured) when they were both in their late teens. As reported by The Miami Herald, Connelly was smitten with Puccio and had dreams of a bright future. However, their relationship was far from healthy.
Nov 21, 2004 · Kaufman’s first significant partner was Marc Connelly, with whom, in 1921, he wrote his first hit, “Dulcy” (the play that made Lynn Fontanne a star), and two other hits, “Merton of the Movies”...
Oct 20, 2022 · On the Timeless Beauty of Jerry Lawler Kicking Andy Kaufman’s Ass. Pro wrestling guru Jim Cornette explains the magic behind one of his sport’s all-time greatest feuds. DC. by Duncan Cooper.
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Sep 19, 2012 · One such rivalry is the one between Jerry "The King" Lawler and actor Andy Kaufman, which was unequivocally one of the greatest wrestling angles ever.
