The Late Christopher Bean

By Sidney Howard

Actors' Theater, 410 West 42nd Street, New York
Monday November 23 2009.

I went to the Actors’ Theatre at the Beckett Theatre, 42nd Street, to see a revival of this very funny play about losing money. It was written by Sidney Howard, who won an Academy Award for the screen play of “Gone With the Wind,” and it was last seen in New York at its first season in 1932, though it was revived for Jean Stapleton in Washington DC 20 years ago.

The superficialities of time and place have aged of course (a rural doctor’s house no longer has live-in domestic staff, telegrammes no longer exist (alas) and tastes in dress and furnishings have changed, even in Massachusetts).  But the premise, that it is a tragedy to lose money you never had, seemed to resonate with the Manhattan audience.

All the actors were strong and well cast. The star of the show is said to be James Murtaugh who played the patriarchal doctor, but my attention was fixed on Cynthia Darlow. Her portrayal of a frustrated matriarch who has had to “make do” for decades, and whose cork is popped by the appalling circumstances that unfold for her and her family, was shatteringly hilarious.