George Washington Slept Here

George Washington Slept Here (1940), a comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. [Lyceum Theatre, 173 perf.] When Newton Fuller ( Ernest Truex) shows his wife, Annabelle ( Jean Dixon), a decrepit country home in which George Washington reputedly slept, Annabelle can only remark, “Martha wasn't a very good housekeeper.” But when Newton surprises his wife with the news that he has bought the place, she becomes angry enough to “spit from here to Mount Vernon.” The Fullers' problems have only begun. The old well, for example, has long since run dry. Even after the house is virtually in order, their family's problems have hardly ended. Their daughter, Madge ( Peggy French), is going around with a married actor in a local summer stock company, and they are visited by the demanding, difficult, but rich Uncle Stanley ( Dudley Digges), who suddenly seems all the more irritating when he announces he is broke. Worse, the Fullers learn it was not Washington who slept there, but Benedict Arnold. However, when the property is about to be foreclosed, Uncle Stanley slyly comes to the rescue. The last of the Kaufman‐Hart collaborations, the Sam H. Harris production was awaited with such exalted expectations that disappointment was almost inevitable. Malcolm Goldstein, Kaufman's biographer, condemned the comedy: “The play proceeds with intermittent merriment, but without a display of true wit. The characterization is slight and the twists of plot improbable, excessive, and dull.” Nevertheless, the play has enjoyed occasional successful summer stock revivals.