Idiots Delight

Home > Literature and the Arts > Literature in English > American Literature

Idiot's Delight (1936), a comedy by Robert E. Sherwood. [Shubert Theatre, 299 perf.; Pulitzer Prize.] The Hotel Monte Gabrielle had been an Austrian sanatorium until the area was ceded to Italy after World War I. Now, with another war looming, a handful of guests, caught by border closings, sit languidly in the hotel's cocktail lounge, unsure just when the war will begin and how sides will be drawn. As one guest remarks, “The map of Europe supplies us with a wide choice of opponents. I suppose, in due time, our government will announce its selection—and we shall know just whom we are to shoot at.” Into their midst comes the mediocre American song‐and‐dance man Harry Van ( Alfred Lunt) and his bevy of girls, returning from a Balkan tour. Among the guests, Harry spots a supposed Russian countess, Irene ( Lynn Fontanne), who is traveling with a rich munitions manufacturer, and recognizes her as a former trouper with whom he once had a brief fling in Omaha. As the war clouds darken, they gingerly resume their old affair. The other guests leave, but Harry stays behind to convince Irene to flee with him and create a new mind‐reading act. They share a bottle of champagne and sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as bombs begin to fall. Brooks Atkinson observed of this strongly pacifist and ardently antifascist comedy presented by the Theatre Guild, “Mr. Sherwood has spoken passionately about a grave subject and settled down to writing a gusty show.” The comedy became the musical DANCE A LITTLE CLOSER (1983), which librettist‐producer Alan Jay Lerner updated to the eve of World War III, with Len Cariou and Liz Robertson as the central couple. The show closed on opening night, leaving only a superior score by Charles Strouse (music) and Lerner (lyrics) and marking the sad end of Lerner's long and illustrious career. Notable songs: Dance a Little Closer; Another Life; There's Always One You Can't Forget.

Idiot's Delight, play by Robert Sherwood, produced and published in 1936, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

At a resort hotel in the Italian Alps, “in any imminent year,” several foreign travelers are detained because the nearby frontiers have been closed. Among them are Harry Van, an American vaudeville promoter, and his troupe known as “Les Blondes”; the Cherrys, a honeymooning English couple; Dr. Waldersee, a German scientist who is working on a cancer cure; Quillery, a radical French pacifist; and Achille Weber, a munitions manufacturer, and his Russian mistress Irene. Harry recognizes the exotic Irene as a vaudeville performer with whom he once had a casual love affair in Omaha, although she denies this and maintains an affected pose. The outbreak of a world war is announced, and Quillery, learning that planes from a local base have bombed Paris, delivers a violent patriotic outburst and is arrested and shot. Irene tells Weber “the truth” concerning his responsibility for death and destruction; this he cannot forgive, and the following day he refuses to endorse her questionable passport. Waldersee abandons research to join the “obscene maniacs” at home, Cherry goes to join the army, and even Dumptsy, the gentle little waiter, appears in uniform. Only Irene cannot cross the frontier, but, when she confesses to Harry that she did know him, “slightly, in Omaha,” he suddenly decides to remain with her, and they are trapped when the hotel is destroyed during an air raid.