You Can't Take It with You (1936), a comedy by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. [ Booth Theatre, 837 perf.; Pulitzer Prize.] Philosophic, seventy‐five‐year‐old Martin Vanderhof (Henry Travers) is the patriarch of a wacky New York City household. His daughter, Penelope Sycamore (Josephine Hull), writes plays that she never finishes, while her husband, Paul (Frank Wilcox), manufactures fireworks in the cellar. One of Vanderhof's granddaughters, Essie (Paula Trueman), practices ballet in the living room while her husband, Ed (George Heller), plays his xylophone and runs his printing press. Another granddaughter, Alice (Margot Stevenson), invites the parents of her rich fiancé, Tony Kirby (Jess Barker), to the house for dinner. The Kirbys arrive a night early, and in the middle of the mayhem, Paul's fireworks explode. The cops arrive, and, declaring Ed's printed material anarchist, everyone is hauled off to jail. Vanderhof has also been hounded by the government for never having paid any income tax, but when the government learns that Vanderhof's wife years before had buried a homeless milkman using Vanderhof's name, it concludes he is legally dead and not liable. Sam H. Harris produced the popular attraction, one of the greatest in all American farces. It has remained a favorite of amateur and summer stock groups and was given major New York revivals in 1965 and 1983. This last revival, which emphasized the sentimental aspects of the play, was staged by Ellis Rabb and starred Jason Robards Jr. and Colleen Dewhurst.

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.