Lady in the Dark

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Lady in the Dark (1941), a musical comedy by Moss Hart (book), Kurt Weill (music), Ira Gershwin (lyrics). [Alvin Theatre, 467 perf.] Although Liza Elliott ( Gertrude Lawrence) is a successful fashion magazine editor, privately she is an unhappy woman. She tells her analyst that while her dreams are filled with familiar figures, they act in unfamiliar ways. Most prominent in her dreams are Kendall Nesbitt ( Bert Lytell), her lover and the man who has helped her to the top of her profession; Charley Johnson ( MacDonald Carey), her crusty advertising manager; Russell Paxton ( Danny Kaye), the magazine's effeminate photographer; and Randy Curtis ( Victor Mature), a handsome but stupid movie star. By recounting her dreams, Liza comes to realize that her father's disdain for her when she was a child has warped her relations with men, yet she finds a soul mate in Charley. Notable songs: My Ship; The Saga of Jenny; Tschaikowsky; This Is New. Prompted by Hart's interest in psychoanalysis, the script was innovative in that all but one of the musical numbers were presented as part of Liza's essentially surrealistic dream sequences. The Sam H. Harris production was one of Larwence's greatest triumphs and it made a star of Kaye.