Dramatic structure can seem awfully clinical—a grad student’s concern— until you see two plays stumble for lack of it and a third shine because it’s exquisite. In You Can’t Take It With You, now being revived Off–Off Broadway by the tiny T. Schreiber Studio, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman put every character, every entrance, every line at the service of their marvelous comic machine. Some of the jokes pay off in seconds, others build for hours, and the whole thing has been engineered so ingeniously that even now, at 70, the script has more vitality than just about anything in town.
I’d like to say this is one of those Cinderella moments where the non-Equity upstarts pull off a triumph. Alas, the casting is, to put it with maximum kindness, erratic. The show lands maybe half the laughs, and fares little better with the drama. But when you’re dealing with one of the most perfect comedies ever written, it still makes for a pretty good time.
I’m sure Gurney and LaBute will get more chances to reclaim their receding early form, and I’m glad that some producers are spelunking in libraries for obscure plays to revive. Still there’s something demented about a self-proclaimed theater capital in which audiences can go decades without the chance to see the great works credibly performed. Do most plays strike you as dull, sloppy, unfunny affairs? Part of the explanation lies in the fact that You Can’t Take It With You last had a major New York revival in 1983.
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