Apr 122012
The Women.
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An Acid-Etched Classic Of Its Kind,
Although she had a significant literary and later political career, in theatrical circles Clare Boothe Luce is best recalled for THE WOMEN, a play that opened in New York in 1936 with an all-female cast. Critics were not enthusiastic, but the show was a huge hit with audiences, racking up over six hundred performances in its initial run and going on to a wildly successful tour–something almost unheard of for a non-musical. Directed by George Cukor and starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell, the 1939 film version was a legendary smash, and the play has been twice revived on Broadway and performed numerous times in regional, academic, and community theatre.
The play concerns Mary Haines, a wealthy and happily married socialite who is friends with Sylvia Fowler–a poisonous gossip who discovers that Mary’s husband is having a torrid affair with sexy shop girl Crystal Allen. Mary takes her mother’s advice and ignores the affair, hoping it will blow over; Sylvia, however, explodes it into a front-page scandal, and divorce is the result. Along the way we receive portraits of the women of the era: wealthy women, titled women, clerks, secretaries, models, maids, cooks, and, of course, wives, some happy, some unhappy. One divorce follows another; one scandal errupts after another.
THE WOMEN was written in a era in which it was assumed that a woman’s only real satisfaction was marriage to a successful man, and it reflects the attitude of the day. Unlike the celebrated film, which focused on acid comedy, the play is as much drama as comedy, moving at a fast clip and taking pot shots at virtually every female stereotype imaginable. It is wickedly funny, yes, but it is also a surprisingly effective argument for feminism in its portrait of a distinctly anti-feministic society.
At some point in the 1960s Luce updated the play slightly, removing many distinctly 1930s references and replacing them with then-contemporary ones. This was a mistake, for the play works best as a period piece, a sharp gaze into what it was like to be a woman in the United States of the late 1930s. Fun to read but best seen in performance, it is a classic of its kind. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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|I Want to Find the Original Version,
This script was a treat to read and to compare with the 1939 movie version of “The Women”. Apparently, it is the revised version from the 1973 revival, with references to things such as James Bond and the Beatles. I only wish I could lay my hands on the version of the play which premiered in 1936.
Still, witty and acerbic.
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|Great Quality,
I was concerned when I ordered this for my sister as a gift; many reviews said that the book was in bad shape when they recieved it. The one I recieved was great. In fact, I could tell by the spine that it had never even been opened.
My sister loved it and quickly thumbed through it. She said that it was so close to the movie dialog and she loved reading along. More than anything, she loved the keepsake, since she is an old movie buff.
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