The first
half, "A Day in Hollywood", presents a context for the Marxes with a revue representing 1930s movies in
general, portraying the styles, cliches and stars of Hollywood's golden era; original songs of the period were
chosen to illustrate the full spectrum, from the best (Two Sleepy People, Over the Rainbow) to the worst
(The Girl Friend of the Whirling Dervish. Who, it seems, "Gives him the runaround.") Similarly enshrined was
the Hollywood trailer, in a scene announcing the Marx Brothers in "A Night in the Ukraine".
For his Marx Brothers story, Vosburgh went to "The Bear", a
one-act farce by Anton Chekhov ("Russia's top gag writer"),
placing the Marxes into a pre-Soviet Ukraine. Groucho is cast as
Serge B. Samovar, a lawyer in the tradition of Waldorf T. Flywheel
and J. Cheever Loophole. The lawyer, born "beneath a lucky Tsar,"
introduces himself with a song, Samovar the Lawyer, akin to the
Kalmar-Ruby Hooray for Captain Spaulding and, especially, Doctor
Hackenbush. "They freed the crook and hanged the judge," sings
Samovar, establishing his credentials beyond question.
Margaret Dumont finds a parallel in Mrs. Natasha Pavlenko, a
wealthy widow for whom Samovar, arriving to collect a debt,
makes an unerring beeline. Chico works as footman to Mrs.
Pavlenko, sporting a lengthy, perplexing name beginning with
"Carlo", finishing in "Mozzarella" and containing numerous
syllables in between; when asked how he spells it, he replies
"wrong, every time."
His exchanges with the lawyer display
familial likeness to the best lines from the Marxes' vaudeville acts;
when Chico asks "Have a rough trip?" Groucho replies, "No thanks, I
just had one," leading one to suspect Uncle Al and the garbage man
to be observing from above. Harpo becomes Gino, the gardener, among whose duties are chasing Masha, the
maid and playing a bicycle wheel like a harp (after feeding the machine a carrot, then giving it a medical
examination). Present also are Harpo's Gookie expression, the business of producing countless articles from
his raincoat and the ink drinking from the film version of "Cocoanuts". Further in keeping with the Marxes'
epics, Vosburgh incorporated a romantic sub-plot (borrowed from another Chekhov work, "The Sea Gull")
involving Samovar's coachman Constantine (an aspiring playwright) and Nina, Mrs. Pavlenko's daughter.
It was such a success at the New End that it was
transferred to the Mayfair Theatre in the West End
in late March. where Alexander H. Cohen, the impresario
who'd previously introduced the colonies to "Beyond
the Fringe", saw it and bought the American rights.
A version directed by Tommy Tune tried out on April
18, 1980 in Baltimore and started at the Golden
Theatre in New York on May 1.
There was a brief legal problem as the decidedly
non-Marxist Marx heirs sued over the use of the Groucho,
Chico and Harpo characters, although an agreement was quickly
reached:
