Customer Reviews

Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater

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The reader interested in Moss Hart and the golden age of Broadway will be much better served by going directly to Steven Bach's biography. Brown's workmanlike tome is short on style, short on feeling for the era (something Bach provides in spades), and the material from Hart's diaries doesn't amount to much. Compare Bach's thrilling re-telling of the birth of MY FAIR LADY with Brown's tepid version, to name one instance, and you'll see why Bach's is by far the better book. DAZZLER is indeed dazzling; Brown's PRINCE does nothing to de-throne Bach's definitive bio and lacks---dare I say---Hart.

Having recently discovered Jared Brown I have become a fan of his writing. "Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater" was a welcome addition to his list of biographies. Deeply researched and well written, it was a joy to read and a font of information. Hart was an extremely interesting man, and his relationship with his wife, Kitty Carlisle, was heartwarming; in fact Carlisle is every bit as interesting as Hart. Brown gives insight into the art of play writing, the emense amount of work involved and the talent of Hart and his early partner, George Kaufman. From writing Hart went to directing and was even more successful. A gem of a book.

MOSS HART A PRINCE OF THE THEATER is a major achievement. At first I wondered why even Moss Hart fans need another biography of the fellow so soon after Steven Bach's well-reviewed DAZZLER from a few years back. For indeed Moss Hart is rather a forgotten figure nowadays, even though the august Library of America published a collection not too long ago of Kaufman & Hart's biggest hits. Even his critically acclaimed musicals, JUBILEE and LADY IN THE DARK are today honored more in the breach than the observance, and his memoir ACT ONE is fading fast from cultural memory. That's not to say that, at any moment, he may return to our zeitgeist, and it's great having his widow still around and performing at age 90 something. Still I hesitated before taking Jared Brown's book off the shelf. LOL, Back Stage Books issued the review copies of this title with the publication date of "July 2007" printed on the back cover, so I didn't think there was any big hurry, that's for sure. They must have been thinking of 2006, it's just that there's not much urgency to the topic nowadays.

However once begun I warmed up plenty to Jared Brown, and yes, I can say that this book improves on DAZZLER. Brown attacks Bach for spreading the rumor that it was Moss Hart's aunt Kate who set those mysterious fires that plagued the backstage of Cole Porter's JUBILEE, and Brown put forth the theory that it must have been Hart's own mom, who was something of a mess mentally. She seems to have been a victim of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, which happens when people don't have enough drama in their lives they have to invent some. Hart's youth was marked by dark episodes in which a skull and crossbones would appear carved into his bedstead or the door to the family apartment, and threatening messages would cause the frightened family to flee to a "safe house." This happened over and over again for years, and now it seems obvious that the mother was doing it all the time. Sad.

Because of this unstable childhood, Hart grew into a man subject to crippling fits of depression. Even when everything was going right for him, gloom sometimes would descend on him like a trap over a rat. No one could touch him, not even Kitty Carlisle. She said it was like they were in two different countries, hers a bright sunlit land, his a room in hell.

Brown provides some new details regarding Hart's last play, THE NATURE OF THE BEAST, which aired on TV. How I wish this would be released on DVD! Nor had I any idea of how badly Danny Kaye behaved in Odense at the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen. All of the Danish material is new and perfectly fascinating: the film was criticized for its German flavor--even the name "Hans" is pronounced the way Germans do, not the way Danes do. Brown has been to the manuscripts and outlines for us the different stages of each of Hart's major works. Did you know that THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, which already has caricatures of Harpo Marx, Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, had a surrealist painter (Miguel Santos) modelled on Salvador Dali at one time?