Author: Hilda
Manning
Number of pages: 81
What I’m watching: TV: Cadfael, Community,
Once Upon a Time, Misfits Movies: Muppet
Treasure Island, Sunday in the Park with George, MST3K: The Magic Sword,
Mysterious Island, Hercules
What I’m playing: Injustice: Gods Among Us, Uncharted 3, Far Cry 3, From
Dust, Dead Space 3, Skyrim
Dammit,
I did it again! Stuff happened, and I didn’t blog. I got a cat.
Professor George Bailey
I just graduated with a Bachelor of
Arts in Psychology and English from Cardinal Stritch University, so I had a few
weeks of projects, papers, and exams. And, like my last double-post, I have two
plays ready to review.
So,
picking out my next book, I had several things in mind. I wanted an easier read
than Shakespeare because I was so busy and I knew figuring out Shakespeare’s
language would slow me down. I also just wanted to find a play that I liked. A
few months in and I haven’t found a book I want to keep. And with that frame of
mind, I selected Why Worry?
So
the book opens with a brief introduction of this play, written in 1940. “There
have been plays about eccentric families in the past, but we feel confident in
claiming that never on stage has there been seen a collection of more lovable
nit-wits than Hilda Manning presents in this sparkling new farce” (3). That’s
pretty presumptuous. “Here’s the situation: Mrs. Desdemona Dalrymple is the
widow of the celebrated Shakespearean-“ (3). Darn it, I was trying to avoid
Shakespeare. Maybe it won’t be a big deal. “Shakespearean actor, Brutus Dalrymple.
She lives in the past, still glorying in the triumphs of her famous husband. To
keep his spirit alive, she has named her children after characters in
Shakespeare’s plays: grown-up Hamlet and Viola, and nine-year-old Ophelia” (3).
Ugh, it’s a huge deal. “Furthermore,
she will permit them to speak only in the language of the classics; they call
each other ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and talk in blank verse” (3). Fuck! All I wanted
was a play that wasn’t Shakespeare’s
language. The editor or whoever wrote this inflated praise goes on to write
about another character, Tokay, “the Japanese house boy and poet. Tokay is one
of those actor-proof parts, with some of the funniest lines in a very funny
play; the audience will love him” (4). To quote Confucius, “He who speaks
without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.”
On
the page of character descriptions, Tokay is described as “short and wiry, with
typical Oriental grace in his movements. He is exceedingly polite, always
grinning and bowing to others” (7). Holy crap, this play is going to be racist.
The play was written a year before the Pacific War, so it has a different
racism than the anti-Japanese sentiment during WWII.
So, Hamlet and Viola hate being
trained for Shakespearean acting by their mother, but have trouble explaining
it to Desdemona. Tokay is the family’s servant, and his first line and stage
directions are indicative of his entire role in the show. He gets asked to
answer the doorbell and responds, “The bell? Oh, yes; I complying quickly. (Grins, bows, and hurries off)” (11).
Simple, happy obedience and broken English cover about 90% of Tokay’s
action and dialogue through the play. He is such a stereotype, and apparently
in 1940, that makes him hilarious. There are some other characters: Bill the
clumsy vacuum salesman and Jerry, Desdemona’s lawyer who loves her. He tells
her why they should get married, and she answers “Your arguments are stale; I
know them well and they impress me not” (24). What’s he see in her? The rest of
Act I plays out with Desdemona accepting an old friend’s dying wish in a letter
to care for his daughter. Desdemona remembers the daughter as an infant. Doris,
the daughter, shows up as a teenager, and Desdemona remembers that Doris was a baby, but that was 15 years ago.
What an idiot! But I guess that’s the joke. The play did call her a nit-wit.
Act
II is more of the same. Hamlet, Viola, Ophelia, and now Doris all are
instructed by Desdemona to talk like Shakespeare, even though they’d rather
speak normally. Ophelia is probably my favorite character. She’s kind of funny
because she’s a little kid. Honestly though, the whole play is revolving around
the gimmick of classical language versus vernacular and it drags so slowly.
Halfway through the play, Tokay is still “hastening to obeying summons of bell”
(42). Oh yeah, the rest of the time he’s not answering the door, he writes
half-nonsensical poems. All the characters are flat, and I’m bored. Viola sighs,
“thee, thou, blank verse – I’m sick of it – sick and tired of it” (42). Me too.
At
one point, Hamlet is a total dick to Tokay. Tokay is reading Doris one of his
poems:
TOKAY.
(Reads)
“I
obtaining in Japan lady friend having very nifty faces,
I
going get her some day, you bet, to taking her other places,
I
having reason to doing this, you see, I having slight cases of love,
She
making me always thinking of pretty animals, like for instance
dove!”
DORIS. Well, I like that very much,
Tokay. You send that to your lady friend, and I bet she’ll be very touched.
TOKAY. (Rises, grinning and bowing) Oh yes! Sure! I sending it to her.
Only slightly difficulty, she not having able to read.
HAMLET.
(Enters C. from R.) Well, you back,
Doris?
DORIS.
Looks that way.
HAMLET.
Haven’t you got anything to do in the kitchen, Tokay?
TOKAY.
Oh, yes. Sure.
HAMLET.
Well, do it!
TOKAY.
(Bows) I complying with greatest of
ease. (47)
Tokay is more obedient than Ella of
Frell. He reminds me of Wong from The
Shakiest Gun in the West. And Mrs. Dalrymple really is an idiot.
She doesn’t know who Benny Goodman is or what okey-doke means or how much fifty
grand is. I’m not sure if she’s just pretending not to know contemporary things
or she really is that out of touch with the times.
Hamlet
and Doris run off to become dancers. Desdemona calls her a “hussy” (63). That’s
pretty strong language, uncharacteristic of Mrs. Desdemona, and undeserving for
Doris. Bill takes Mrs. Dalrymple’s oil stocks and leaves the house unnoticed. Desdemona’s
mean old mother-in-law Gertrude shows up demanding those exact same stocks.
Apparently Brutus had only been holding on to the stocks for his mother and
she’s here to claim them or the fifty grand they’re worth. Gertrude later
returns with Mike, an asshole of a cop, to arrest Mrs. Dalrymple if she doesn’t
have the stocks or money. One last racist stereotype that Tokay’s character had
been missing gets filled in:
MIKE. (From off L.) Out o’ de
way, Buddy! (Enters C. from L., pushing TOKAY in front of
him and followed by AUNT GERTRUDE.)
TOKAY.
I not liking this-
MIKE. Oh, you not liking this, hey?
Well, look out before I lose my temper – (Raises
his hand to strike; as he does so, TOKAY grasps his arm, twists it expertly, and he lands on his back on the
floor. He looks up dumbly) What hit me?
TOKAY.
(Grins, bows) Having honor to be
championship of jiu jitsu!
(64-65)
Of course Tokay is a master martial
artist.
So
Bill shows up with a giant wad of money. He gives fifty grand to Gertrude, and
she leaves. Turns out he didn’t steal the stocks. He was doing the noble deed
of going to his father, who turns out to be an expert in oil stocks. His father
got a great deal on selling the stocks. Bill returned with a buttload of money
for Mrs. Dalrymple. He and Viola get together in the end. Hamlet and Doris
return together. Jerry and Mrs. Dalrymple get together, and she loosens up on
talking like Shakespeare all the time. Everyone’s got a match, just like the
end of a real Shakespearean comedy.
Why Worry? was awful. Characters were boring,
a single premise was dragged out for three acts. There was the bare minimum of
conflict in the plot. I only found a handful of lines even remotely funny. If
you want a good comedy about a quirky family, I recommend You Can’t Take It With You. And Hilda Manning’s play is
astonishingly racist. Speaking of racist, one of the inside cover’s adverts is for
The Nutt Family, another play which
includes “two blackface parts, Orestus and Cerise, who bring down the house
every time they are on.” Why are they blackface roles and not roles for black
people? I don’t get it. And after Tokay was described as the assuredly funniest
character, I doubt the veracity that these two would bring down the house. Damn,
I was disappointed by this play. Why
Worry? just sucks.
Verdict (Is the book staying or going?): The play shall goeth.
Works
Cited
Manning, Hilda. Why Worry? New York: Samuel French, 1940. Print.
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