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Jane
S. N. Behrman
New York:
Random House, 1952
First edition in dust jacket |
| Jane
provides the final study by Behrman of a heroine imbued with
a comic spirit. Opening in England as farce in 1947, then in
Westport, Connecticut, as light comedy entitled The
Foreign Language, and finally arriving on Broadway in
1952 as serious comedy, Jane never "jelled" in the
judgment of Guild producer Theresa Helburn. In 1958 Behrman
executed a fourth interpretation of Jane; or
You’re As Young As You Feel for a star-studded
Off-Broadway company that operated for a time in Fort Lee,
New Jersey. Based on a short story by W.S. Maugham, Jane
portrays a wealthy matron-widow involved with a "youngman."
Jane’s young man is shockingly more than twenty years her
junior, and the "arrangement" lies not beyond the charge of
exploitation by her sister-in-law, a charge which Jane
dismisses. The marriage does not survive, as her family had
gloatingly forecast, but none of them seems capable of
understanding the satisfying self-realization that Jane
experienced on the way to her next matrimonial liaison with
someone of her own age. With bright, witty repartee and
characters who verge on comedy-of-manners archetypes,
Jane suggests a retreat to sanctuary for Behrman
following the severe critical reception of Dunnigan’s
Daughter. Critics did indeed urge him to return to his
forte, and Behrman appears to have taken immediate action
with or without their advice. A number of years passed
between Jane’s initial debut in Blackpool, England,
and the New York premiere. Behrman had, in the meantime,
mounted two plays for Broadway: the commercially successful
I Know My Love and the failed "Let Me Hear the
Melody." He was credited with two Hollywood screenplays,
The Pirate (1948) and Quo Vadis (1951); and his
profile on Lord Joseph Duveen appeared in the pages of the
New Yorker. |
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