Harvey

Harvey (1944), a comedy by Mary Chase. [48th Street Theatre, 1,775 perf.; Pulitzer Prize.] Flibbertigibbet Veta Louise Simmons (Josephine Hull) and her haughty, homely spinster daughter, Myrtle Mae (Jane Van Duser), are exasperated with Veta's boozy but mild‐mannered brother, Elwood P. Dowd (Frank Fay), who has befriended Harvey, an invisible rabbit who stands over six feet tall. When Elwood introduces Harvey to the socially prominent Mrs. Chauvenet (Frederica Going), Myrtle Mae is furious and insists Uncle Elwood be sent to a “booby hatch” called Chumley's Rest. When Veta visits the home, she is mistaken for a prospective patient and confusion reigns until matters are cleared up and Elwood is admitted. But at the last minute Veta realizes that she prefers Elwood as the harmless, benign man he has always been rather than as an unhappy resident at Chumley's, so Elwood returns home, taking Harvey with him. Originally called The Pooka (a Celtic term describing a fairy spirit in animal form), Brock Pemberton produced the play against the advice of his fellow professionals and after all his initial choices for Elwood turned him down. His casting of Fay, a recovering alcoholic who had fallen on hard times, was a desperate inspiration. John Chapman of the Daily News called the comedy “the most delightful, droll, endearing, funny and touching piece of stage whimsy I ever saw.” It has been revived regularly in theatres across the country and in New York, where James Stewart and Helen Hayes starred in a popular 1970 production. A musical version called Say Hello to Harvey, starring Donald O'Connor and Patricia Routledge, closed on the road in 1981. Mary Coyle CHASE (1907–81) was born in West Denver, Colorado, and had a long career there as a journalist before writing her first play for the Federal Theatre Project and a second for Broadway, both of them failures. After the success of Harvey she wrote The Next Half Hour (1945), Mrs. McThing (1952), Bernadine (1952), and Midgie Purvis (1961).

Mary Chase 1944

Mary Coyle Chase’s Harvey has been an American favorite since it was first brought to the Broadway stage in 1944. Before it opened, there were not very high expectations: the author had only written one play previously, which had been a quick failure. Harold Lloyd, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Benchley, and Jack Haley all turned down the lead role before Frank Fay accepted it. Fay, a retired vaudeville actor, astounded the critics with his performance. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1944, and its initial run lasted for four years — 1,775 performances. It has continually been revived around the globe since then. It was also adapted to film in 1950, starring Hollywood legend James Stewart, and has become one of Stewart’s best-loved films.

The story is about Elwood P. Dowd, a good-natured, mild-mannered eccentric who is known in all of the cafeterias and saloons in his small town. Elwood is polite and cheerful and always friendly toward any strangers he might encounter, and he has just one problematic character trait: his best friend is an invisible six-foot-tall rabbit, Harvey. Wherever he goes, he brings an extra hat and coat for Harvey, and he buys theater tickets and railroad tickets in twos so that they can go everywhere together. His sister and her daughter try to have Elwood committed to the local sanitarium, where the behavior of the prominent psychologist and his staff raise the age-old question of who is more dangerous to society: the easy-going dreamer with a vivid imagination or the people who want him to conform to the accepted version of reality.