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Animal Kingdom, The
Animal Kingdom, The (1932), a comedy by Philip Barry. [Broadhurst Theatre, 183 perf.] Tom Collier ( Leslie Howard) has summoned his father ( Fredrick Forrester) and his friend Owen Arthur ( G. Albert Smith) to his home to announce his intention to marry Cecelia Henry ( Lora Baxter). Owen insists Tom and Cecelia have not one thing in common and information slips out about Tom's longtime mistress Daisy Sage ( Frances Fuller). When Tom visits Daisy to tell her of his wedding plans, Daisy is pained but understanding. Studying a picture of Cecelia, Daisy warns Tom, “Look out for that chin.” After the marriage, Cecelia becomes possessive and intrusive. She forces Tom to fire his houseman ( William Gargan), whom she doesn't like, and interferes in his business affairs. When she doesn't get her way, she has convenient headaches or even locks the door against her husband. Taking his rehired houseman with him, Tom leaves Cecelia. He tells his houseman, “I'm going back to my wife.” Of course, he means Daisy. In his preface to Barry's collected plays, Brendan Gill wrote that The Animal Kingdom “is a comedy simple in theme and economic in plot . . . the dialogue is at once the wittiest and most natural‐seeming that Barry had yet achieved.”
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Cite this article
Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Animal Kingdom, The." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Animal Kingdom, The." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-AnimalKingdomThe.html Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Animal Kingdom, The." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-AnimalKingdomThe.html |
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Animal Kingdom, The
Animal Kingdom, The, play by Philip Barry, produced and published in 1932.
Tom Collier, a wealthy young man, after years of happiness with his mistress Daisy Sage, a painter, breaks with her and resumes his former social position. He marries Cecilia Henry, who, though outwardly a good wife, actually fails to understand and sympathize with his views of the world. Eventually he discovers that it is his wife, not his former mistress, who lives in the wrong world for him, and he returns to Daisy. |
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Cite this article
James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Animal Kingdom, The." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Animal Kingdom, The." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-AnimalKingdomThe.html James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Animal Kingdom, The." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-AnimalKingdomThe.html |
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