Theatre
The Philadelphia Story
Philip Barry · 1939
Synopsis
On the Lord estate near Philadelphia, Tracy, divorced from C. K. Dexter Haven after ten months of marriage, is to marry George Kittredge the next day, a former miner turned head of a coal company. So that a magazine will give up an article about her father's affair with a dancer, her brother Sandy brings into their home two journalists from Destiny, Mike Connor and Liz Imbrie, who have come to cover the wedding. Dexter, invited by the younger sister Dinah, returns too, and the father, separated from his wife, arrives unexpected. The eve of the wedding passes in champagne, confessions and a swimming pool.
Context
The play was written for Katharine Hepburn, who financed part of it and took a percentage rather than a fee; Howard Hughes gave her the adaptation rights. Produced by the Theatre Guild at the Shubert Theatre on 28 March 1939, it ran for a year, before a tour. Hepburn sold the rights on to MGM on condition that she play the part, and George Cukor's film, in 1940, relaunched her career. Tracy is modelled on a Main Line heiress, Helen Hope Montgomery Scott. In 1956, High Society made a musical comedy of it.
Who it is for
A comedy in three acts, with fast-moving dialogue, about an old-money family of Philadelphia. Adapted into French by Pierre Laville in 2009, under the title Vie privée.
Prizes and reception
Four hundred and seventeen performances on Broadway; the 1940 adaptation earned James Stewart the Oscar for best actor.
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