The Playwright
Elmer Rice (1892 - 1967) was born Elmer Leopold Reizenstein in New York City. His first play to reach Broadway, On Trial, was first performed on August 19th, 1914; it is, in fact, available for free at Google Books as it is old enough to be in the public domain. At this point, Rice was still writing under his birth name; he later anglicized his surname, likely for professional reasons.
He's best known for two plays. The Adding Machine, first produced in 1923, is probably his most famous play at this point in time, finding its way on to the occasional must-read list of plays for theatre students due to its influence on American Expressionism (right up there with The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill).
His second-best-known play, Street Scene, was first produced in early 1929 and was the winner of that year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Rice was also one of the founding members of The Playwrights' Company in 1938, making him one of the people who kept theatre alive and going in New York throughout the Great Depression and World War II.
Respect the Rice.
It was first staged at the Coronet Theatre on December 14th, 1945, starring Betty Field in the title role. The production was successful enough to warrant a run lasting exactly one year, plus a revival six years later that was... not as successful. It was also adapted into a movie that was released in 1948.
The protagonist and title character is Georgina Allerton, a twenty-something woman who lives with her parents in the big city and is given to flights of fancy not unlike those of Walter Mitty. As she gets lost in fantasy (which happens repeatedly), the set is moved about and the actors play out her daydreams.
It's a two-act farce that takes place over a 24-hour period in Georgina's life. In it, Georgina wakes in the morning, feeling the strain of unrequited love for her brother-in-law. She fantasizes her way through breakfast with her folks, spending the day at work as manager of an independent bookstore, and going on a date to see The Merchant of Venice that evening, events all leading to a whirlwind romance with the one man who was willing to criticize her novel.
And, of course, there is a happy ending.
Near as I can tell, this play has not gotten a lot of attention, despite the fact that it looks very appropriate for commercial and community theatre. The casting and set requirements are both within the grasp of most low-budget theatres, especially if doubling is used. The DPS site calls it "One of the author's most glamorous plays." I don't disagree, but a better word to describe it is charming. It is one of the author's most charming plays.
In terms of content... Honestly, this script is far less complicated and dated than, say, Marriott and Foot's English farce, No Sex Please, We're British, which recently swept through our region like a pithy little fungus infection. And it's far less controversial (in a horribly racist way that nobody used to think twice about) than, say, Peter Pan. I suppose it's a little sexist, but try finding a play from the 1940's that isn't.
[Protip: Every public library in the country has an Inter-Library Loan system, by which you can get books (including scripts) for free, assuming there's a library in the country that has the book in question. This has been, for me, a very useful tool as a play reader. Check it out.]
Of course, who knows what this'll look like when it's actually staged. Please don't hurt me if your production bombs.
Yep, that's a dick joke and a slam against Freudian psychology all in one go.
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| Young Rice. Birds eat him and explode. |
He's best known for two plays. The Adding Machine, first produced in 1923, is probably his most famous play at this point in time, finding its way on to the occasional must-read list of plays for theatre students due to its influence on American Expressionism (right up there with The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill).
His second-best-known play, Street Scene, was first produced in early 1929 and was the winner of that year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Rice was also one of the founding members of The Playwrights' Company in 1938, making him one of the people who kept theatre alive and going in New York throughout the Great Depression and World War II.
Respect the Rice.
The Play
Dream Girl survives, in part, because of its inclusion with Rice's two most famous plays in the anthology Elmer Rice: Three Plays, published in 1965. It looks as though the Dramatists Play Service holds the rights; they printed the last acting edition back in 1998, so not terribly long ago.It was first staged at the Coronet Theatre on December 14th, 1945, starring Betty Field in the title role. The production was successful enough to warrant a run lasting exactly one year, plus a revival six years later that was... not as successful. It was also adapted into a movie that was released in 1948.
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| Pictured: One of the nice things about the 1940's. We should cherish these; there weren't very many. |
The protagonist and title character is Georgina Allerton, a twenty-something woman who lives with her parents in the big city and is given to flights of fancy not unlike those of Walter Mitty. As she gets lost in fantasy (which happens repeatedly), the set is moved about and the actors play out her daydreams.
It's a two-act farce that takes place over a 24-hour period in Georgina's life. In it, Georgina wakes in the morning, feeling the strain of unrequited love for her brother-in-law. She fantasizes her way through breakfast with her folks, spending the day at work as manager of an independent bookstore, and going on a date to see The Merchant of Venice that evening, events all leading to a whirlwind romance with the one man who was willing to criticize her novel.
And, of course, there is a happy ending.
Near as I can tell, this play has not gotten a lot of attention, despite the fact that it looks very appropriate for commercial and community theatre. The casting and set requirements are both within the grasp of most low-budget theatres, especially if doubling is used. The DPS site calls it "One of the author's most glamorous plays." I don't disagree, but a better word to describe it is charming. It is one of the author's most charming plays.
In terms of content... Honestly, this script is far less complicated and dated than, say, Marriott and Foot's English farce, No Sex Please, We're British, which recently swept through our region like a pithy little fungus infection. And it's far less controversial (in a horribly racist way that nobody used to think twice about) than, say, Peter Pan. I suppose it's a little sexist, but try finding a play from the 1940's that isn't.
[Protip: Every public library in the country has an Inter-Library Loan system, by which you can get books (including scripts) for free, assuming there's a library in the country that has the book in question. This has been, for me, a very useful tool as a play reader. Check it out.]
Of course, who knows what this'll look like when it's actually staged. Please don't hurt me if your production bombs.
GEORGINA: I wonder how long a person can go on like this without developing a psychosis or something. For all I know, I may have a psychosis already. Good grief, what a thought! I wish I could remember that awful nightmare I had last night. Still, they say it's awfully hard to make anything out of your own dreams. That damned little psychic censor gets in your way. And besides, I really don't know very much about dream symbols. Just the obvious ones, like Maypoles and church steeples--and I never seem to dream about them. Oh, well, to hell with it!
Yep, that's a dick joke and a slam against Freudian psychology all in one go.
