Biography theatre review behrmann

Behrman was also a very good ladies' tailor when he chose to be, and, in the course of a long, busy and consistently graceful career, he provided Ina Claire.
Comedy is the saving grace which makes life bearable.— S. N. Behrman in his own memoir, published a year before his death in 1973.
Behrman's Biography, currently enjoying an infrequent revival at The American Century Theater, is a depression-era meditation on love, art.

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Biography: Manhattan Theatre Club, March 16, 1980

New York Times, March 17, 1980

Stage: 30's 'Biography' By Behrman Is Revived

By WALTER KERR

Ellen Terry once complained to George Bernard Shaw that a part he'd written for her simply didn't suit her, whereupon Shaw — in righteous wrath — responded that he might not be a great playwright but that he was an excellent ladies' tailor. S. N. Behrman was also a very good ladies' tailor when he chose to be, and, in the course of a long, busy and consistently graceful career, he provided Ina Claire with several svelte, snugly fitting vehicles that did the immaculate actress no harm at all.

"Biography," which the Manhattan Theater Club has taken off the rack in the closet for the first time in 47 years, is the most memorable of these, and I am still mourning the fact that I didn't see it on his first trip around. (The Great Depression was at its worst in 1933, and even the price of a second-ba

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Behrman’s Biography, smart and witty at American Century

Sophistication, wit and a vivid leading female character are front and center in S.N. Behrman’s Biography. Thank you, American Century Theater for finding this forgotten gem.

If you like your theatre smart and your characters fascinating, Biography is absolutely worth a look. This is high style, handsomely done.

It’s 1931, and we find the same echelon of people that you would find in a Fred Astaire film or the “Thin Man” series, where even down on their luck people dress with elegance and style. They speak that way, too, thanks to Behrman’s sparkling dialogue, as when the leading lady questions her former beau’s career aspiration with “Do you want to be a senator, or can’t you help it?”

Along with several gentleman callers, the audience enters the world of the portrait artist and femme supréme, Marion Froude. Marion escaped her small town Southern roots and embraced the world, in every way possible. After her mercurial adventures abroad, she has settled in a New York City apartment with no prospects for new com

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Biography: Guild Theatre, December 12, 1932

New York Times, December 13, 1932

S. N. Behrman's "Biography," With Ina Claire as a Theatre Guild Actress.

By BROOKS ATKINSON

Although Mr. Behrman's new play, "Biography," is not as deep as a well nor as wide as a church, door, it will serve. It is the somewhat nebulous story of a famous woman of the world who upsets one part of it by writing an intimate autobiography. Ina Claire plays the principal role. Unless memories are fading she has not appeared on the local stage since the crackling days of "Our Betters," and it is high time that that defect was remedied. For Miss Claire plays with dignity, wit, poise and dexterity, tossing off a line when a good phrase comes her way and loosing a warm flood of emotion when the play is in that mood. She is ably assisted by an excellent band of actors in a performance which, paradoxically enough, seems remote and tepid from a seat in the forward