Act One
Adapted by Don Mackay from Moss Hart's autobiography
Directed by Chris Canute
Until August 2
Ensemble Theatre, Sydney
Bookings 9929 0644
Review by Mark Stoyich
I've never read the autobiography of Broadway playwright Moss Hart, but presumably it's highly theatrical and perfectly suited to being turned into a play, which is what Don Mackay has done.
Act One is utterly fascinating to anyone who loves theatre. Glenn Hazeldine gives it all he's got as the young writer from the Bronx who goes from rags to riches literally overnight due to the success of his first play, Once in a Lifetime, co-written with George S. Kaufman.
What makes it unlike a Hollywood movie success story is the very real poverty Hart escapes from. When his father loses his job at the cigar factory, he throws out Hart's much-loved aunt because she's given away his copy of a Eugene Debs play to a neighbour ("nasty socialist rubbish").
Hart spends his adolescence working in a malodorous tannery, and then worse, much worse, six years in amateur theatre in the roaring '20s. He finally gets a job as an office boy with a low-rent theatrical producer who needs a play in a hurry.
Hart writes his first play overnight, something called Beloved Bandit, which his boss, unwisely, thinks will be a hit.
Then enters into his life the first rich person Moss has ever known, an angel (only theatrically) called Mrs Harris who, as played by Annie Byron, comes on vampishly waving a long cigarette holder, thereby bringing on the mostly elderly audience's emphysema. Mrs Harris is a millionaire who's survived the sinking of the Titanic, but Hart barely survives the sinking of Beloved Bandit, a colossal failure even out in the sticks.
In the US fashion, Hart picks himself up, brushes up his writing skills by working as an entertainment director in holiday resorts in the Catskills, and heeds advice to write comedy.
Mrs Harris introduces him to George S. Kaufman, the David Williamson of '30s Broadway, an immensely successful writer of comedies and Hart's hero. This strange, enigmatic man is brilliantly underplayed by David Webb.
Most of Act One's act two is the story of Hart and Kaufman's collaboration on the writing of Once in a Lifetime, an excruciating process that looked at first as though it would not succeed.
In face-to-audience narration (with a bit of audience participation), Hart describes in cringe-inducing detail what it's like when a comedy flops, the peculiar sound it makes while flopping, the almost awe-filled silence when there should have been laughter.
How Hart and Kaufman rewrite their way out of these fiascos, and overcome their class and personality differences, provides as much suspense as any murder mystery.
When their play opens on Broadway, it's a huge hit, and Hart celebrates by moving his family out of their crummy flat and deliberately flooding it. Theatre meant something back then. Act One is a fun way to remember it.