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1984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )

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1984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )

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PalJoey
#11984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 12:22am



The entire two-hour broadcast with Jason Robards, Elizabeth Wilson, George Rose (who replaced James Coco) and Colleen Dewhurst.

Directed (sublimely!) by Ellis Rabb and directed for television (also sublimely!) by Ellis Rabb and the legendary Kirk Browning.

Originally produced at the Paper Mill Playhouse and then on Broadway and then on Showtime and then on PBS Great Performances.

Released commercially only on VHS. Never on DVD. Never before on YouTube.

Got two hours? It's as heavenly as I remember.


http://youtu.be/mzuKHNvPThw

===

THE NEW YORK TIMES
STAGE: 'YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU'
By FRANK RICH
Published: April 5, 1983

AT the end of the new Broadway revival of "You Can't Take It With You," the cast refuses to take a polite curtain call. Instead, the actors pair off, collapse into one another's arms and take to dancing about the stage. And it isn't polite dancing, either: as choreographed by Reed Jones, the couples leap about, still in character, with such rowdiness that you'd think they'd all been at a party rather than performing a play. Actually, the 1936 George S. Kaufman-Moss Hart screwball comedy at the Plymouth is more party than play - but, either way, you're glad to be part of the merriment.

"You Can't Take It With You" has probably been ruined by more high school productions than anyone can count, and, let's face it, its confectionary charms are not foolproof: the writing is far too slipshod in design to be mistaken for classic farce, much too landlocked by its simple, best-things-in-life-are-free Depression escapism to speak to the ages. But the assets - sentimental warmth and giddy high spirits - are there, if only actors are willing to play them for keeps. Let's thank the director, Ellis Rabb, who also staged the hit 1965 revival of this work, for again assembling just such players and knitting them into a family that almost anyone would want to adopt for far longer than three acts.

As you no doubt know, Kaufman and Hart's characters are the Sycamore clan, an eccentric lot who have mostly dropped out from the troublesome real world. Grandpa (Jason Robards) gave up business 35 years earlier to enjoy himself collecting snakes and attending Columbia University commencements. Daughter Penny (Elizabeth Wilson) writes steamy plays simply because someone delivered a typewriter to the house by mistake. Her husband (Jack Dodson) builds firecrackers in the basement with Mr. DePinna (Bill McCutcheon), who dropped by years earlier to deliver some ice and never left.

Yet what makes "You Can't Take It With You" so consistently appealing in this production--even as the toothless jokes about Roosevelt and Trotsky have faded--is that Mr. Rabb and company do not settle for defining the principal characters exclusively by the comic traits that the authors rather mechanically doled out to them. Whenever the script gives them room, the actors insist on portraying these zanies as real people whose behavior is not merely a setup for gags but a valiant response to hard times.

When Mr. Robards speaks of how much he hated the "jungle" of the business rat race - and how much he prefers a bohemian life that allows him "just to go along and be happy"--he is expressing sentiments that we've heard in dozens of 1930's comedies. But what usually sounds like idle fantasizing is given so much conviction by this actor that we're half-tempted to quit our jobs and seize happiness just like him. (Only later do we realize, unlike the authors, that it takes an independent income or maybe a redistribution of wealth to put the plan into effect.) Miss Wilson's Penny, while a loon, is also a matriarch: when she speaks musically of planning a feast featuring Campbell's Soup, she gets the laugh but also finds poignancy in Penny's ability to cope no matter what.

Even the play's potentially drippiest passages become radiant under this approach. The romantic scenes between Penny's daughter, Alice (Maureen Anderman), and the well-bred boss's son, Tony (Nicolas Surovy), are sexy and touching because the young lovers are played as adults, not juveniles. Alice describes herself as "the Kay Francis" of her office, but the heavenly Miss Anderman is more Margaret Sullavan: the only "sane" member of her family, she's bursting with so much intelligence and love that we forget she's written according to type. The same goes for the earnest, determined Mr. Surovy, who whirls Miss Anderman around the darkened living room to "These Foolish Things" as if he can't wait to take her to bed (after a marriage ceremony, of course).

The better jokes are well served too. Mr. Robards is, as always, a flinty wit, and when he explains the stubborn logic by which he refuses to pay income tax, he could be the patrician George Burns. Mr. McCutcheon, hound-dog-faced and dumpy, is quite droll posing in a Roman toga. Miss Wilson, pure sunshine in her summer-print dresses, shows off her distinctively ditsy timing (of eyebrows and chin as well as of voice) when she none-too-innocently embarrasses Tony's stuffed-shirt parents by springing a free-association parlor game built around the words "sex" and "lust."

A few studied tableaux aside, Mr. Rabb rides the waves of chuckles and affection that flow through the homey set designed by James Tilton, and he usually has a secure hand on the farcical explosions that are sparked by unexpected firecracker displays and invasions from G-men.

In the large, powerhouse cast, there are only a few lesser lights. James Coco, as the Russian ballet teacher, is funnier than the balletomanes in Broadway's other current 1936 revival, but he falls into shtick that this production otherwise avoids. Carol Androsky is routine as his principal student and a trifle mature for Christopher Foster, who is charming as her xylophone-playing husband.

But Rosetta Le Noire and Arthur French, as the black servants, and Richard Woods and Meg Mundy, as Tony's Wall Street-snooty parents, all succeed in stretching period stereotypes into people. And, as an Act III dessert, we get Colleen Dewhurst, dripping in velvet and braying of "blintzes," as the Russian Grand Duchess who "hasn't had a good meal since before the Revolution" and now works as a waitress at Child's. It's a cameo role, but Miss Dewhurst, functioning as a cleanup hitter, knocks every laugh line clear out of the park.

Not long after her exit, the dancing begins, soon to be capped by a singalong in which audience and actors join to croon "Good Night, Sweetheart." By then we're feeling, as Mr. Robards says, that "life is kind of beautiful," and it's no easy thing to leave the festivities at the Plymouth to face the ruder life that lies in wait outside.

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman; directed by Ellis Rabb; scenery and lighting by James Tilton; costumes by Nancy Potts; musical staging, Reed Jones; production stage manager, Mitchell Erickson. Presented by Ken Marsolais, Karl Allison and Bryan Bantry.

At the Plymouth Theater, 236 West 45th Street.

Penelope Sycamore ....................Elizabeth Wilson
Essie ..................................Carol Androsky
Rheba ................................Rosetta Le Noire
Paul Sycamore .............................Jack Dodson
Mr. DePinna ...........................Bill McCutcheon
Ed .................................Christopher Foster
Donald ..................................Arthur French
Martin Vanderhof ........................Jason Robards
Alice ................................Maureen Anderman
Henderson ................................Orrin Reiley
Tony Kirby .............................Nicolas Surovy
Boris Kolenkhov ............................James Coco
Gay Wellington .........................Alice Drummond
Mr. Kirby ...............................Richard Woods
Mrs. Kirby ..................................Meg Mundy
Olga .................................Colleen Dewhurst
G-Men Page Johnson, Wayne Elbert and William Castleman















YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1984 TV production)


Updated On: 1/30/15 at 12:22 AM

Phyllis Rogers Stone
#21984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 12:26am

I've added this to my watch later list. Thank you!

Fantod Profile Photo
Fantod
#21984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 12:28am

Your Youtube channel is fabulous and your dog is adorable. Where do you find all of these video clips? I particularly love your video of Who's that woman.

EthelMae Profile Photo
EthelMae
#31984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 12:31am

OMG! Thank you. I saw it once on B'way. Never saw it again. Can't wait!

Huss417 Profile Photo
Huss417
#41984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 8:54am

Thanks for this PJ. Saw this production on Broadway. Cant believe its been almost 32 years. I am getting OLD. :)


"I hope your Fanny is bigger than my Peter." Mary Martin to Ezio Pinza opening night of Fanny.

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#51984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 9:37am

Watching this production will make you young again.


Owen22
#61984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 10:07am

Okay....now I know why it has always seemed to me that I saw this production, even though I didn't come to New York until later that year...

Huss417 Profile Photo
Huss417
#71984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 11:58am

"Watching this production will make you young again."

Thats the best news I have had in quite some time. :)


"I hope your Fanny is bigger than my Peter." Mary Martin to Ezio Pinza opening night of Fanny.

LarryD2
#81984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 3:46pm

Thank you for posting this. I saw this production on my first trip to New York, and it's as magical now as it was then. Truly one of the great theatergoing experiences of my life.

sinister teashop Profile Photo
sinister teashop
#91984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 7:31pm

George Rose plays Boris Kolenkhov in the television production, not James Coco, and he's magnificent in this.

Aside from the presence of some great actors I find the current production that's playing on Broadway vastly superior to the 1983 production.

Updated On: 1/30/15 at 07:31 PM

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#101984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 9:49pm

I hope you don't think the video was posted as a competition!

I love all versions of this play, including the Frank Capra movie!


South Fl Marc Profile Photo
South Fl Marc
#111984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 9:50pm

James Coco left the part shortly after opening night. George Rose was brilliant in the part (But then again he was brilliant in everything he did).

sinister teashop Profile Photo
sinister teashop
#121984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/30/15 at 11:36pm

Certainly not, PalJoey, thank you for posting. I did enjoy watching it.

EthelMae Profile Photo
EthelMae
#131984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/31/15 at 2:05am

Just watched it. Thank you again for posting this. As great as I remembered it.

bfreak
Scripps2 Profile Photo
Scripps2
#151984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/31/15 at 5:12am

Thanks for sharing - like PRS, I'm going to have to come back to this but that is a great cast for a great play that I have seen done all to rarely.

dramamama611 Profile Photo
dramamama611
#161984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/31/15 at 9:49am

Wow, pretty wonderful.


If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

CarlosAlberto Profile Photo
CarlosAlberto
#171984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/31/15 at 11:42am

1984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )

The 1979 television version is available from Warner Archive Collection.

Jean Stapleton and Art Carney head an all-star cast in this Emmy®-winning* adaption of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. When it comes to eccentric behavior, the Sycamores wrote the book. Grandpa (Art Carney) doesn't believe in paying taxes, daughter Penny (Jean Stapleton) writes terrible plays, son-in-law Paul (Eugene Roche) makes fireworks in the basement, granddaughter Essie (Beth Howland) is a talentless dancer and her husband Ed (Paul Sand) prints anything that pops in his head. So when "normal" granddaughter Alice (Blythe Danner) invites her prospective in-laws to what she plans to be a well-behaved introductory dinner, her fiancé (Barry Bostwick) brings them a day too soon and the real fun's about to begin. Broadcast on CBS-TV on May 16, 1979, and rarely seen since, You Can't Take It With You also features Kenneth Mars, Harry Morgan, Marla Gibbs and more as the Sycamores' zany circle of friends.



ORDER HERE Updated On: 1/31/15 at 11:42 AM

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#181984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/31/15 at 12:01pm

Great cast! I've never seen that one.


PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#191984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/31/15 at 12:03pm

The preview doesn't seem to be much fun.


CarlosAlberto Profile Photo
CarlosAlberto
#201984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 1/31/15 at 12:20pm

I've never seen it either and I agree from that preview it comes off as rather dull. I didn't even know it existed. I stumbled upon it while doing a search for the Capra version.

Thanks for linking the 1983 version PJ. I will be watching it later this evening.





Updated On: 1/31/15 at 12:20 PM

Scripps2 Profile Photo
Scripps2
#211984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 2/1/15 at 12:17pm

My deep affection for this play results from having seen the National Theatre production starring the recently-deceased Geraldine McEwan. I had to dig out the programme to find out when exactly it was and interestingly it was late 1983. A different director to the 1983 Broadway production (so not a transfer) but curious as to how many productions (on TV and stage) there were at that time and how I then had to wait until 2012 before getting another chance to see it on stage.

PalJoey Profile Photo
PalJoey
#221984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 2/1/15 at 12:50pm

Oh, I bet Geraldine McEwan was wonderful!


Scripps2 Profile Photo
Scripps2
#231984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 2/1/15 at 1:03pm

Yes, and very different as best I can recall, from her imperious TV roles. As a teenager I wouldn't have been experienced enough to know whether she nailed the accent.

broadwaydanwi Profile Photo
broadwaydanwi
#241984 PBS Television Production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1983 Broadway Revival )
Posted: 2/1/15 at 2:39pm

Thanks for posting this video online. I watched this production on TV many times as a teenager, and it's nice to have a chance to see it again. I wish it would be issued on DVD, along with about about 20 other theater-related productions I have only on VHS videotape.