American playwright George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) collaborated on a great number of successful plays that merged theatricality with satiric comedy.George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Nov...
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The theatre world affectionately dubbed George S. Kaufman "The Great Collaborator," and that epithet pinpoints his particular genius. Only one of his full-length plays was not a collaboration or adapt...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1939, Mersand discusses Kaufman's ability to satirize American character and culture.
George S. Kaufman's The American Way (1939) is hi...
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In the following essay, Mason examines Kaufman's use of fools and clowns, with particular focus on his use of the Marx Brothers in his comedies.
Theater suggests two coextensive worlds. An a...
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In the following essay, Sauer gauges Kaufman's development as a dramatist by the development of his skill in drawing characters.
George S. Kaufman's successes in the theater mark him ...
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In the following review, Nathan dismisses Fancy Meeting You Again, a play about reincarnation which Kaufman co-wrote with his wife, Leueen MacGrath.
George S. Kaufman's Fancy Meeting You Aga...
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In the following essay, Lembke argues that Kaufman's plays offer an important survey of the American social history of his time.
It is time that we took another look at the thirty-four plays...
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In the following tribute, Hecht laments that by the time of Kaufman's death, the kind of irony and satire he wrote had become passé.
In the last ten years of his life George S. Kaufma...
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In the following obituary, Freedley reviews Kaufman's career from his early days as a newspaperman through his collaborations with Moss Hart.
This little essay will only be concerned with th...
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In the following excerpted essay, Gould describes how Kaufman and Hart worked when they collaborated.
For exactly a decade, from 1930, with Once in a Lifetime, to 1940, with George Washington Slept...
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In the following discussion, Sheed argues that the wit of Kaufman and Parker should not be thought of as a compensation for or expression of a psychoneurosis, but that as writers they deliberately cre...
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In the following preface, Shyer discusses “nonsense plays” and Kaufman's contribution to the genre.
The next few pages … are devoted neither to the presentation nor disc...
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Kitty Carlisle Hart died last week. She admitted to 96. But she was as young as the spring air. She left behind friends from every meeting she attended, every restaurant she dined in, every street ...
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DELIRIOUSRunning time 102 minutes Written and directed by Tom DiCilloStarring Steve Buscemi, Alison Lohman, Michael Pitt
Tom DiCillo’s Delirious, from his own screenplay, presents a paparazzo...
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Kitty Carlisle Hart, whose long career spanned Broadway, opera, television and film, including the classic Marx Brothers movie "A Night at the Opera," died after a battle with pneumonia, her son sa...
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Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City, based on Mr. Miller's series of graphic novels, makes it look like we're at the end of Western civilization as we know it. One has only to itemize its ...
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Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, from a screenplay by Mr. Nolan and David S. Goyer, based on a story by Mr. Goyer and the Batman characters created by Bob Kane and published by DC Comics, plays o...
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George S. Kaufman
George S. Kaufman
Critical Essay by Joseph Mersand
Kitty Carlisle Hart, 96, the Last Charmer
