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Wow to Make a HALF MMJON Success of George Kelly, Playwright, Attained by Sketching Pen Pictures for the Stage of Commonplace People and How Real-Life Portrayal Pays Him Real Money ..7". "5V, By Polly Fergusson TVTAKING unpleasant people pay is " surely an enviable talont. All of us know persons whose glib selfishness or boorishness or silly pretensions are a con stant irritation, but few of us know how to deal with them, much less turn them into handsome profits. It has remained for George Kelly, suc cessful young author and, playwright, to show how it can be done. In his two big recent successes Mr. Kelly has presented portraits of two very unpleasant indi viduals, drawn with vivid exactness from real life. "The Show-Off' dramatizes that well- known affliction the braggart, the fancy dresser, the loquacious talker, the arch Wuffer who thrives so luxuriantly in America today. "Craig's- Wife" is that most trying type of woman the per petual housekeeper who henpecks her husband and makes a terrifying god of her house. Both are the sort of persons we have all met and disliked. Yet on the stage their appeal is irresistible. The theatre-going public pays its money and chooses to see them. "The Show-Off" is one of the few plays of genuine artistic merit produced by an American playwright that has also been a huge popular success. Hailed as a work of high distinction by dramatic critics, it has, nevertheless, made a hit with the multitude and earned a large amount of money. The screen rights to the play have just been sold for $100,000, although it cannot be pic turized for two years. And it is esti mated that at the present scale of box-office profits "The Show-Off" will have earned a half-million dollars for Mr. Kelly and his producers bv the time it is shelved. While "Craig's Wife" is a tragedy and tragedies seldom are as popular as comedies it is predicted that it, too, will have , a second New York season. "Making unpleasant people pay?" .smiled Mr. Kelly when asked to explain his secret. "I don't suppo.se it is any thing new, is it? Cartoonists long ago discovered it, although, of course, they exaggerate their types. I simply present mine as I see them all about me in real life. "Before I wrote 'The Show-Off' I was repeatedly warned that real life did not pay in the theatre," ho explained. "'The people don't like it,' experienced play wrights cautioned me, 'they get enough of it outside. When they go to the theatre, they want something better.' A S I studied the list of current offer ings appearing on Broadway each season I saw that nearly all playwrights apparently had the same idea. They were giving us slices of society life, underworld life and other special kinds of life, but they were completely ignor ing the greater part of life as most of us know it from the viewpoint of the middle-class men and women. Of all the popular successes that I saw reviewed in the papers, scarcely one rang true to life as 1 knew life. "Now it. was my opinion that, to be interesting, life need not be set in a Long Island villa, with large racing stables and a garden swimming pool, nor yet in some dive in a big city. There were, it seemed io me. just as many possibilities for, drama in a throe-room apartment or a two-sroiy brick dwelling in North Philadelphia. Life nil about us is teem ing with vibrant adventures the loves, laughs and sorrows of the people in the next flat or suburban cottage. That is the blood of America today and has been the Hood of America in the past and will be the blood of America in, the future. "I ?!udied those a' out me my neigh bors at home and the people I met while trouping on the road. Then I turned to the stage for replicas of them and I did not find one. In spite of all the warn ings I had had pounded into me, I held to the belief that a play built around real, homely, middle-class people would suc ceed. Anyhow, it was worth testing. So 1 wrote 'The Show-Off.' "Aubrey riper, the Show-Off, is not a creation cf my brain as Sherlock Holmes was of Doyle's or Rip Van Win kle was of Irving's. I have known any ui Xpio ou 'Fiodi,! Xojqny jo aaquinu '''' ' Philadelphia, whence this particular Aubrey hails, but in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and virtually every city I have made on tour in this country. We all know this exasperating type of fool self-satisfied that his men tal equipment is superior to that of others and that he would be a marvel of success if he had only an opportunity to succeed instead of a boss who seemingly holds a grudge against him. "ANCE I had selected my type, the cir- cumstances of the play suggested themselves. The chief difficulty with Aubrey Pipers is that they force them selves upon us, marry girls from fine families who fall for the lure of their clothes and talk, and arc insufferable bores to everybody but the girls who dote on them. I have seen many families who have had to contend with Aubrey Pipers. For Aubrey Pipers always man age to come home to roost, either in their own homes or in those of their in-laws, since they seldom achieve the golden lot which they feel they righteously de serve." At the time that Mr. Kelly wrote this first realistic play of his, he was only 30 years old, but he had served a long apprenticeship in the theatre. Leaving his home in Philadelphia at an early age, he went into vaudeville, play ing juvenile parts in one-act plays when the one-act play was the chief feature of every vaudeville bill. He soon discovered that there were not nearly enough good one-act plays to go around, so he started writing them himself. When he had at least a dozen successful one-act plays to his credit, in most of which he played, he left the vaudeville circuit for the legit imate business in Paul Armstrong's play, "Woman Proposes." This got him interested in writing longer plays, and "The Tfirch Bearers," a clever satiriza tion of the Little Theatre movement, was the result. Its instant an,! marked suc cess then encouraged him to test his views on the need for middle-class repre sentation in the theatre bv writing "The Show-Off." Fortunately, he had associated with him in the production of "The Torch Bearers" Miss Rosalie Stewart and Bert French, veteran vaudeville artists, both of whom admired his work and were ready, if necessary, to finance an experi ment. In other words, they were willing to help Mr. Kelly stage what he himself referred to as "his transcript from middle-class life." It is doubtful if any of the big Broadway producers at that time would have taken a chance on the play, but these three never doubted its suc cess from the moment they first dis cussed the idea driving home in a taxica'o from the theatre. "Realism," said Miss Stewart enthusi astically, "that is what the stage needs more realism. It's getting so artificial you can hear all the machinery creak." "Yes, it is a very interesting play," he agreed earnestly, when he was told how much "Craig's Wife" had pleased. "Was it hard to write?" "Not any" more so than the others," he replied. "But piaywrighting is darned hard work. There's nothing soft about it. When a writer tells me he dashes off a three-act play in thce weeks, I either suspect him of lying or I know it's a rotten play. I can't conceive of any body turning out a really good play in so short a time. "My method? First of all, I select Q o my characters. I devote a long period to each, gradually drawing from mem ory a portrait of the person I have in mind, including as many of his odd little mannerisms as I can remember, his habits of thought and his peculiarities of speech. Then I say to myself: 'This person is a type. I have known many like him or her. What is the problem most often created by this type? When I have answered that question I almost have the necessary circumstances for the play. It remains only to work them out dramatically. "I write literally walking up and down the floor, acting the part of each char acter nnd speaking tho lines as I think they would speak them in real life. Some times I shout corrections at myself, like: 'No, can't you sec she wouldn't do that?' or 'Strike that out. He wouldn't put it that way; he'd say it like this!' Then I rush to my typewriter and type the lines down." "Is Mrs. Craig the replica of some woman you know in real life?" he was asked. ''Of dozens of women I have known in real life," Mr. Kelly declared. "There are phases of her in the majority of women, 1 believe; all those who are de pendent wives, that is. Mrs. Craig sim ply has an exaggerated phase of the terror experienced in milder form by almost every dependent wife the terror of losing her husband and the security he provides her." "But you don't approve of her?" "No; but I think her logic is unassail able," he asserted. "She realized that her security depended entirely on the stability of her husband, and she there fore set, about devising ways and means to control him. As she told her niece: 'Mr. Craig wanted a wife and a home; and he has them. And he can be per fectly sure of them, because the wife that he got happens to be one of the kind that regards her husband and home as more or less ultimate conditions. And my share of the bargain was the se curity and protection that those condi tions imply. And I have them. But, un like Mr. Craig, I can't be absolutely sure of them; because I know that, to a very great extent, they are at the mercy of the mood of a man. And I suppose I'm too practical-minded to accept that as a sufficient guarantee of their perma nence. So I must secure their perma nence for myself.' ' 'How?' asks the niece. " "By securing into my owti hands the control of the man upon which they are founded,' says Mrs. Craig." TV TR. KELLY spoke the lines with tense emphasis, much as Crystal Heme speaks them in the first act. "I always see my characters from the txtor's Dramatizing everyday life, laking the ordinary citizen stage character, a puppet hich dances at the end of the string that's the way the "money rolls in" The Head of the Claji Kelly BACK of every great man is a great mother," is a bit of truth for the sophisticate to roll over his tongue and remark "Blah," but he cannot "blah" the truth out of truth. Mary Kelly, who landed in this country sixty years ago as Miss Mary Costello, is the mother of four men who have achieved signal distinction in their lines. There's Walter, who has, as the Virginia Judge of the vaudeville stage, raised laugh making to a fine art; P. H., the contractor, will live in the stone and steel of many of the finest structures of the East; Jack, the champion oarsman, has sculled himself to fame, and George is one of the foremost of American playwrights. Those are the Kellys who have achieved the bay leaves, and there are three others, no less distinguished but moving in lesser orbits. They are Charles Kelly, a superintendent of construction, and Mary and Ann, both mothering homes of their own according to the precepts of their own mother. The boys arc scattered now, but they all come "home to mother" to talk things over, and she is an empress in her own right in her home in Midvale avenue, close to Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and from her throne she administers rebukes and justice just as she did when P. H., the oldest, was just "a scramblin' bit of a boy." standpoint," he explained in answer to our comment. "My acting experience has been invaluable to me both in writ ing and in directing. I don't see how a playwright can get along without it. "The only difference between Mrs. Craig and largo numbers of other de pendent wives," he continued, "is that she is not quite as clever as most of them. She was laboring under an obses sion, and so she let her husband find her out." "Craig's Wife" is tho study of a woman who worships her house and nothing else. She treats it like the temple of some Egyptian deity. Nothing must be disturbed in it dust, neighbors and her husband's friends and cigarette ashes must be kept out. Yet she is not just a fussy housewife. Although she doesn't fully realize it, the house is to her a symbol of her security. Gradually, by severing a tie here and cutting off a friend there, she has been cleverly iso- lating her husband in her house and bar ring it against the world so as to insure his safe imprisonment and her own se curity. Craig, who is a romantic soul and still in love with his wife, remains oblivious to her strategy until an un expected and very serious occurrence shows her up. Then he is shocked to discover that he really counts very little in her life: that he means her pro tector and meal ticket and is simply tolerated not too amiably on that score. So he does the only thing a man of his romantic temperament could do and keep his self-respect. He settles George Kelly conceived the idea of taking the middle stratum of society as the background for his drama instead of the surface or the dregs, and behold you, out stepped "The Show-Off" and "Craig's Wife" to pack the theatres sum of money on his wife, and leaves her to the house which she prizes so highly. "And you believe that all dependent wives deliberately hoodwink their hus bands?" was asked. "No; but I should say the majority do, at some time or other in their lives. A good many of them get over it after the first few years of uncertainty. But it is only to be expected, really, as long as they must depend upon their hus bands for their living. Can't you pick out any number of couples among your own acquaintances where the wife is gradually placing restrictions upon her man until he has virtually no life at all outside their home? Of course, I do not mean that a great many women go to tho lengths Mrs. Craig resorted to spying on her husband, tracing his tele phone calls and insulting his friends. She allowed her obssession to get the best of her an obsession that arose from wit nessing her mother's tragic experience with a husband who fell under the con trol of another woman. "A great many women do have real reason to fear the collapse of their se curity, and they are not to be blamed for trying to safeguard their marriages. Under our Anglo-Saxon civilization mar riage is a very casual undertaking. Both young women and young nipn rush into matrimony without figuring the cost at all especially the financial cost. "The average middle-class wife is de pendent entirely upon what her husband chooses to give her in the way of an allowance, settlement or personal prop erty. That may have sufficed in the past, when marriage was still regarded as a permanent institution, for the wife was reasonably sure of a life job and a home. "But with divorce so popular and easy to get as it is today, marriage no longer offers this security. It has taken on the temporary character of any other job. A woman may spend the best years of her youth capturing some eligible male and planning daily for their future, only to have the marriage collapse at the end tliliilliiv of, say, five years, and leave her flat. "The man she married may have been what we call a good provider, and she may have had every reason to believe that his protection was hers for life. But here she Is at the end of five years, a good deal of her youthful buoyancy gone with her illusions, for pd to strike out for herself, with little trai.iing for anything and no money of her own, un less she is willing to accept help from the man who is casting her .adrift. And Judges everywhere have recently been discouraging husbandly generosity by their anti-alimony proclamations. "As a result, women are beginning to ask quite frankly: 'Where do I get off In this marriage game? How can I make it secure my future?' And, like Mrs. Craig, a good many realize that they won't get very far unless they do acquire the knack of managing their husbands. Of course, this truth has al ways been more or less well understood by the sex, but the point is they are now admitting it. You would think that, since it exposes the tactics of a henpeck ing woman, men would be more inter ested in 'Craig's Wife' than women, but such is not the case. The women have been flocking to see it. Fifteen hundred of them were there at one matinee." "Well, if you think that Mrs. Craig and women of her type are right but that their methods are wrong, what do you suggest as an alternative?" rpiIE playwright paused' for a moment and said: "Honesty In the marriage game," he replied. "If women fear they are going to be left, homeless and bank accountless, by their husbands, they should tell their husbands so. The whole question of finances and provision for the wife should be thoroughly discussed and planned before marriage. Some adjust ment should be made which seems fair and safe to the wife. Then she need ' have no fear for the future. She need not attempt to control her husband like Mrs. Craig. "And I believe that the younger gen eration will bring about some such re form in the marriage customs. Many of the young couples I know, for in stance, now discuss financial arrange ments before marriage. The wife looks upon her home-making as at any other career and demands certain economio returns from it. A number of them have adopted the plan for dividing the hus band's income equally. Both contribute an equal percentage to the upkeep of tho home, and both reserve equal amounts for recreation and savings ac counts. That gives a wife some inde pendence." "Are you married, Mr. Kelly?" "No," ho said emphatically. "Then, how " "I know what you are going to ask me 'How do I know anything about the economic difficulties of matrimony?' Well, how do I know anything about the psychology of a Show-Off? Merely by observation. I simply study the people and the life that goes on around me. "Every one is in the process of writ ing a play nowadays. I have been deluged with requests from people for me to read their plays, and some of them I have read. And wha,t aro these plays about? Oh, bareback riders, South Sea Island belles, 5th avenue heiresses, denizens of the underworld any one and anything except that which the writer has at his elbow. If they would only observe and study the peo ple and life on their own thrilling city blocks " "They could turn unpleasant people into profits," the sentence was finished for him. Co;iH;M ty futHo Ltisrr Cot pa