Beggar on Horseback

Beggar on Horseback (1924), a play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. [ Broadhurst Theatre, 224 perf.] Neil McRae (Roland Young) is a talented serious composer who barely makes a living doing hack orchestrations. He is so impractical that his neighbors, Cynthia Mason (Kay Johnson) and Dr. Albert Rice (Richard Barbee), must look after him without seeming to do so, while Gladys Cady (Ann Carpenter), daughter of a rich widget manufacturer from Neil's hometown, is determined to marry Neil. Mr. Cady (George W. Barbier) encourages the match, offering to take Neil into the widget business, and promising that it will even be all right for Neil to compose popular songs on the side, so long as the songs make a million dollars. When Neil takes a sleeping pill Dr. Rice has given him, he dreams of marriage to Gladys, whose wedding bouquet is made of banknotes, and of their home where six butlers announce every caller and where he must fill out requisition forms to obtain a pencil. His new life drives Neil to murder his in‐laws. At his trial “Judge” Cady, proclaiming, “This thing of using the imagination has got to stop,” sentences Neil to work in an art factory, mass‐producing masterpieces. When he wakes from his dream, Neil decides to marry Cynthia instead of Gladys. Producer Winthrop Ames had given the authors a copy of a German play, Hans Sonnenstössers Höllenfahrt, and asked them to adapt it. For all practical purposes, the finished work was a new play, but it fell in with the vogue for Expressionism. Alexander Woollcott wrote that it represents “the distaste that can be inspired by the viewpoint, the complacency and the very idiocy of Rotarian America. It is a small and facetious disturbance in the rear of the Church of the Gospel of Success.” A lavish 1970 revival at Lincoln Center, described by John Chapman of the New York Daily News as the “most elaborate production I have ever seen at the Vivian Beaumont,” was a “gigantic, monstrous curio” that put the struggling company deeper in debt.

Edward Everett Horton (left) in a scene from the 1925 film version of Beggar on Horseback

Beggar on Horseback is a play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly.

A parody of the expressionistic parables that were popular at the time, it rails against the perils of trading one's artistic talents for commercial gain. At its core is Neil McRae, a poor, young classical composer. Concerned about how hard he's working at odd jobs to make ends meet, his friends - a doctor visiting from back home and his neighbor, Cynthia Mason, in whom he has more than a passing interest - urge him to marry Gladys Cady, whose father is a wealthy industrialist. Unfortunately, the man also favors the Tin Pan Alley school of musical composition, against which McRae is staunchly opposed. Conflict arises when he is offered a job making widgets at a substantial salary if he agrees to give up his "foolish" interest in the classics.

The original Broadway production opened on February 12, 1924 at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it ran for 223 performances. The cast included Roland Young, Osgood Perkins, and Spring Byington.

The play was revived with most of the original cast a mere 7 months later, opening on March 23, 1925 at the Shubert Theatre, where it ran for 16 performances.

Forty-five years later, after 13 previews, another revival opened on May 14, 1970 at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre, where it ran for 52 performances. The cast included Leonard Frey and Susan Watson.

A 1925 silent film version was directed by James Cruze, and starred Edward Everett Horton.

External links

• Internet Broadway Database (I.B.D.B.) list-- "Beggar on Horseback (1924)

• Beggar on Horseback at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e George Kaufman Plays and musicals Some One in the House (1918) · Dulcy (1921-1922) · To the Ladies (1922) · The '49ers (1922) · Merton of the Movies (1922-1923) · Helen of Troy, New York (1923) · The Deep Tangled Wildwood (1923) · Beggar on Horseback (1924) · Be Yourself (1924) · Minick (1924-1925) · The Butter and Egg Man (1925-1926) · The Cocoanuts (1925-1926) · The Good Fellow (1926) · The Royal Family (1927-1928) · Animal Crackers (1928-1929) · June Moon (1929-1930) · The Channel Road (1929) · Once in a Lifetime (1930-1931) · The Band Wagon (1931-1932) · Of Thee I Sing (1931-1933) · Dinner at Eight (1932-1933) · Let 'Em Eat Cake (1933-1934) · The Dark Tower (1933-1934) · Merrily We Roll Along (1934-1935) · First Lady (1935-1936) · Stage Door (1936-1937) · You Can't Take It with You (1936) · I'd Rather Be Right (1938) · The Fabulous Invalid (1938) · The American Way (1939) · The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939-1941) · George Washington Slept Here (1940-1942) · The Land Is Bright (1941-1942) · The Late George Apley (1944-1945) · Seven Lively Arts (1945) · Hollywood Pinafore (1946-1947) · Bravo! (1948) · The Small Hours (1951) · Fancy Meeting You Again (1952) · The Solid Gold Cadillac (1953-1955) · Silk Stockings (1955-1956) Musicals based on his plays Sherry! (1967) · Merrily We Roll Along (1981) Films Someone Must Pay (1919) · Someone in the House (1920) · Dulcy (1923) · To the Ladies (1923) · Merton of the Movies (1924) · Welcome Home (1925) · Beggar on Horseback (1925) · The Butter and Egg Man (1928) · The Cocoanuts (1929) · Not So Dumb (1930) · Animal Crackers (1930) · The Royal Family of Broadway (1930) June Moon (1931) · The Expert (1932) · The Tenderfoot (1932) · Make Me a Star (1932) · Once in a Lifetime (1932) · Dinner at Eight (1933) · Beggar on Horseback (1925) · Roman Scandals (1933) · |The Man with Two Faces (1934) · You Can't Take It with You (1938)

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