The Players Revivals 1928: "The Beaux' Stratagem" by George Farquhar
By TOWNES COATES
For their seventh annual revival, The Players turned to the last and most enduring comedy of Irish playwright George Farquhar. He wrote "The Beaux' Stratagem" in 1707, while dying and destitute, completing it in six weeks and living just long enough to learn it was a success.
The play follows two financially ruined gentlemen, Aimwell and Archer, who arrive in the country town of Lichfield posing as master and servant, each in search of an heiress to mend his fortunes. It is a comedy of poverty disguised as gentility, an apt choice for a club that has always found time to explore social pleasures in the space between the role and the person playing it. The revival opened June 4, 1928, at Hampden's Theatre on Broadway at 63rd Street, formerly the Colonial, which Player Walter Hampden had taken over and given his own name. It was staged by Player Howard Lindsay, then a decade away from the writing partnership with Russel Crouse that would produce "Life with Father" and, later, the book for "The Sound of Music." As was the club's custom, the framing was entrusted to distinguished hands: the Prologue was written by the poet Edgar Lee Masters, of "Spoon River Anthology," and the Epilogue by the great producer-playwright David Belasco.
The cast was the sort of assembly only The Players could summon. Fay Bainter played the unhappily married Mrs. Sullen; the veteran Henrietta Crosman was Lady Bountiful; and Helen Menken took Dorinda. Among the supporting ranks were the future "Arsenic and Old Lace" stars Josephine Hull, cast well down the bill as a servant, and Dorothy Stickney, as Cherry the innkeeper's daughter. Even the roster of Travellers who filled out the inn carried notable names, including Frederic Dorr Steele, the illustrator whose drawings had fixed the popular image of Sherlock Holmes for a generation of American readers. Farquhar's rueful, generous comedy ran the customary week in June.
So well received was the revival, however, that discussion of an "all star tour" began almost immediately. It was announced in October that The Players would send a company on the road, managed by producer George C. Tyler, and playing engagements in prestige theatres. It opened in Philadelphia in November, and subsequently played in Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Cleveland.
The Players Revivals were a series of short engagements in Broadway houses mounted by the club between the world wars. With a membership comprised of producers, directors, actors, designers, and lovers of the stage, the club was well-suited to produce these plays, which were staffed entirely by club members and colleagues. The 8–10 performance runs served as a source of income for the club.
Townes Coates is a writer and producer of documentary film. He serves as the Chairman of The Players.
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