Philip Barry

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Barry, Philip (1896–1949), born in Rochester, N.Y., graduated from Yale (1919), and studied in the 47 Workshop of G.P. Baker at Harvard, where he wrote You and I (1923), in which a father, trying to guide his son into an artistic career, reveals his own thwarted ambition. Following The Youngest (1924), a satirical play concerning the revolt of a youngest son from the bourgeois standards of his family, and In a Garden (1925), a sophisticated comedy, he wrote White Wings (1926), an ironic fantasy. His next play, John (1927), based on the life of John the Baptist, was unsuccessful, but Paris Bound (1927) was a popular comedy concerned with contemporary moral standards. After collaborating with Elmer Rice in writing a fanciful mystery play, Cock Robin (1928), Barry returned to his earlier theme of a child's revolt against the standards of her parents in Holiday (1928). Hotel Universe (1930) was a mystical play, and he further showed his interest in psychological investigation in Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1931) and in The Animal Kingdom (1932), plays concerned with modern marital relations. After two unsuccessful plays, The Joyous Season (1934) and Bright Star (1935), and Spring Dance (1936), an adaptation, he wrote Here Come the Clowns (1938), also published as a novel, War in Heaven (1938), in which an “illusionist's” hypnotic powers reveal the inner tragedies of a group of vaudeville actors. The Philadelphia Story (1939) is a drawing‐room comedy about a young heiress and an author; Liberty Jones (1941) is an allegory of the threats to democracy in the modern world; Without Love (1942) is a comedy of platonic marriage; and Second Threshold (1951) is a play left in manuscript and revised by Robert Sherwood.

Barry, Philip [ Jerome Quinn] (1896–1949), American dramatist. He achieved some success with his first professional production You and I (1923), but is best remembered for his light comedies. Paris Bound (1927) looks at upper-crust infidelity; Holiday (1928) deals with the revolt of youth against parental snobbery; The Animal Kingdom (1932) reverses the roles of wife and mistress by making the latter the loyal companion and therefore the true wife; and The Philadelphia Story (1939), his most popular play, is a deft comedy of manners and character which was a great triumph for Katharine Hepburn. His more serious work, including Hotel Universe (1930), a probing psychological drama, and Here Come the Clowns (1938), a mystifying but provocative allegory of good and evil, had less appeal. He left unfinished a comedy, Second Threshold, which was completed by his friend Robert Sherwood and presented in New York in 1951.

Philip Barry 1896–1949, American dramatist, b. Rochester, N.Y., grad. Yale, 1919, and studied under George Pierce Baker at Harvard. He is primarily known for his satirical, somewhat unconventional comedies of manners, such as Holiday (1928), Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1931), The Animal Kingdom (1932), and The Philadelphia Story (1939). His serious, symbolic plays— Hotel Universe (1930) and Here Come the Clowns (1938)—are clouded with mystical overtones. Barry's last play, Second Threshold, left unfinished at his death, was completed by Robert Sherwood and produced in 1951.