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    A Study Guide for George Kaufman/Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It with You"
    A Study Guide for George Kaufman/Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It with You"
    A Study Guide for George Kaufman/Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It with You"
    Ebook43 pages24 minutes

    A Study Guide for George Kaufman/Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It with You"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for George Kaufman/Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It with You," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535843461
    A Study Guide for George Kaufman/Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It with You"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for George Kaufman/Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It with You" - Gale

      3

      You Can’t Take It with You

      George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart

      1936

      Introduction

      You Can’t Take It with You opened in New York in December of 1936 to instant critical and popular acclaim. This depiction of a delightfully eccentric family, the third collaboration by playwrights George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, proved to be their most successful and and longest-running work. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1936, the comedy went on to run 837 performances on Broadway. Kaufman and Hart sold the film rights to Columbia Pictures for a record-setting amount, and the 1938 film won an Academy Award for best picture. Perenially appealing to audiences, You Can’t Take It with You has become an American classic, regularly produced by high schools, colleges, and community theaters around the country. Successful Broadway revivals in 1965 and 1983 also attest to the play’s timeless appeal.

      You Can’t Take It with You relates the humorous encounter between a conservative family and the crazy household of Grandpa Martin Vanderhof. Grandpa’s family of idiosyncratic individualists amuse with their energetic physical antics and inspire with their wholehearted pursuit of happiness. Kaufman and Hart fill the stage with chaotic activity from beginning to end. Critics have admired the witty one-liners, the visual theatricalism, and the balanced construction of the play’s three acts. Although You Can’t Take It with You is undeniably escapist theater which prompts immediate enjoyment rather than complex analysis, it has clearly influenced American comedy. The formula originated by Kaufman and Hart—a loveable family getting into scrapes and overcoming obstacles—has been adopted as a format by most of today’s television situation comedies.

      Author Biography

      George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart are remembered as masters of comedic playwriting. Each made important contributions to the American theater on his own, but they are best known for the successful and influential comedies they wrote together in the 1930s.

      George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 16, 1889, the descendent of early German Jewish immigrants. After graduating from high school in 1907, he briefly attended law school. Disenchanted with legal studies, he dropped out and proceeded to take on a series of odd jobs, ranging from salesman to stenographer. At the age of twenty he left Pittsburgh for New York City and began writing for the New York Evening Mail. After a stint as a columnist for the Washington Times—which ended when his editor objected to the young columnist’s harsh satire—Kaufman

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