Turns out, Behrman’s End of Summer plays even better than it reads!
On stage at the Metropolitan, it plays like a masterpiece of American self-portrait: a reflection on the American dilemma, the American dialectic.
I went to see it with John Metcalfe, antique clock restorer of legendary repute. He said that you almost don’t want to take time to laugh at the lines, many of which are funny, because you just can’t wait to hear the next one.
Behrman learned from Shaw and Chekhov and created a uniquely American drawing-room comedy of ideas, in which the Puritans, the robber barons, the lefties, the Fascists and more–as well as the people who just don’t know what to think of it all- are anatomized, typified, individualized.
Highly recommended.