WESTSIDER MARC CONNELLY

WESTSIDER MARC CONNELLY
Actor, director, producer, novelist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist

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Eleven years ago, during my senior year in high school, I saw a movie just before Christmas that made a deep impression. It was a film of a stage play called The Green Pastures — a fascinating look at life in biblical times, performed by an all-black cast.

The memory of that film remained in my consciousness like a religious experience, although I never knew who wrote the play or when it was written. So it was a welcome surprise to learn that this week's interview would be with the play's author, Marc Connelly.

Connelly was born in a small Pennsylvania town in 1890, the son of a pair of travelling actors. He wrote The Green Pastures in 1930; it won that year's Pulitzer Prize for drama. In his 70-year career Connelly has written dozens of plays. One of the most versatile¹ talents in the American theatre, he has excelled as an actor, director, producer, playwriting professor at Yale, and popular lecturer. He has written musicals, stage plays, movie scripts and radio plays.

He was one of the original staff members of the New Yorker magazine, and became part of the famous round table at the Algonquin Hotel. One of his short stories won an O. Henry award. His first novel was published when he was 74 years old. Today, still an active playwright², he lives peacefully at Central Park West, comfortable in his role as an elder statesman of American letters.

I feel a certain freedom about repeating the comments Connelly made during our interview because the first thing he said at the door was "I never read anything about myself. … It's not modesty³; it's more terror — for fear that some dark secret will emerge."

Yes, he said, he's very busy these days. "I've just completed a comedy which I'm waiting to have done. I'd rather not mention the title before it comes out. It's a comic fantasy."

He recently taped an appearance on the Dick Cavett Show, which will be aired sometime this month. And he's working on a musical version of Farmer Takes A Wife, a Broadway play that he co-authored in 1934. It became a successful film the next year, with Henry Fonda's screen premiere.

"They're always reviving my plays. Last summer they did Merton of the Movies (which he wrote with George F. Kaufman in 1922) in that big theatre complex in Los Angeles. It was quite successful. The boy that plays John-Boy on the Waltons played Merton. It was quite good; I went to see it."

Much as Connelly dislikes certain TV shows, he thinks very highly of TV as a medium: "It's good, it's good. I like three or four shows. Mash⁴ is wonderful. I like Maude every now and then. And Carol Burnett. I might like Kojak if it didn't run every five minutes. Three times a night is too much for any TV show."

Any anecdotes⁵ about the "Vicious Circle" of the Algonquin Hotel — whose members included Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, Edna Ferber, Alexander Woollcott and George Kaufman? "Oh, I don't want to talk about the round table," he said. "Every time you turn around there's a new book about the round table. … I've written about George Kaufman and so have a hundred other people. It might be that he might get out of his grave and club us all for writing about him."

Although The Green Pastures is considered an American classic, it is now performed only by school and amateur companies. Its depiction⁶ of plantation⁷ life has become offensive to socially conscious blacks. "There are Negro snobs⁸," explained Connelly, "just like there are Irish snobs and Jewish snobs. As soon as people get in a position of economic power, they become sensitive about the way they are shown on the stage. It's a very human, inevitable⁹ reaction."

However, he thinks that his masterwork is as valid¹⁰ today as ever. "It's a statement about the fact that man has been hunting the divine in himself ever since he became a conscious animal. And this is the story of one aspect of his search for the divine in himself."

Connelly attends Broadway "when there's something I feel I want to see. I walk out on quite a few. Theatre is just as strong today. A seasonal¹¹ crop may be poor, but theatre itself is healthy. It's probably the greatest social instrument man ever invented. All religions have sprung from the theatre."

A Westsider since about 1920, Marc Connelly named Schwartz's Candy Store on West 72nd as one of his favorite neighborhood businesses. "It's one of the finest candy shops in New York," he said. "You can see my portrait there. And the A&P at 68th and Broadway. There's a checkout¹² girl there named Noreen who's one of the best checkout girls in America."

The interview came to an end when I again asked Connelly about television. Does he approve of it? "Of course," he said. "Any new public addition is going to be condemned¹³. They used to say, 'Don't go to the movies. … You'll go blind.' We're not blind and we still watch them."

1 versatile   

adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的

参考例句：

• A versatile person is often good at a number of different things.多才多艺的人通常擅长许多种不同的事情。
• He had been one of the game's most versatile athletes.他是这项运动中技术最全面的运动员之一。

2 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

3 modesty   

n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素

参考例句：

• Industry and modesty are the chief factors of his success.勤奋和谦虚是他成功的主要因素。
• As conceit makes one lag behind,so modesty helps one make progress.骄傲使人落后，谦虚使人进步。

4 mash   

n.麦芽浆，糊状物，土豆泥；v.把…捣成糊状，挑逗，调情

参考例句：

• He beat the potato into a mash before eating it.他把马铃薯捣烂后再吃。
• Whiskey,originating in Scotland,is distilled from a mash of grains.威士忌源于苏格兰，是从一种大麦芽提纯出来的。

5 anecdotes   

n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• amusing anecdotes about his brief career as an actor 关于他短暂演员生涯的趣闻逸事
• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman. 他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 depiction   

n.描述

参考例句：

• Double rhythms, resounding through the lyric depiction and connecting with each other, indicate the thespian place of mankind and the cognition of the writer to this thespian place. 这双重旋律互为表里，表明了人类的某种悲剧性处境以及作家对这种悲剧性处境的感受和认识。
• A realistic depiction of scenes from everyday domestic life. 日常家居生活的写实画。

7 plantation   

n.种植园，大农场

参考例句：

• His father-in-law is a plantation manager.他岳父是个种植园经营者。
• The plantation owner has possessed himself of a vast piece of land.这个种植园主把大片土地占为己有。

8 snobs   

（谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者

参考例句：

• She dislikes snobs intensely. 她极其厌恶势利小人。
• Most of the people who worshipped her, who read every tidbit about her in the gossip press and hung up pictures of her in their rooms, were not social snobs. 崇敬她大多数的人不会放过每一篇报导她的八卦新闻，甚至在他们的房间中悬挂黛妃的画像，这些人并非都是傲慢成性。

9 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

10 valid   

adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的

参考例句：

• His claim to own the house is valid.他主张对此屋的所有权有效。
• Do you have valid reasons for your absence?你的缺席有正当理由吗？

11 seasonal   

adj.季节的，季节性的

参考例句：

• The town relies on the seasonal tourist industry for jobs.这个城镇依靠季节性旅游业提供就业机会。
• The hors d'oeuvre is seasonal vegetables.餐前小吃是应时蔬菜。

12 checkout   

n.（超市等）收银台，付款处

参考例句：

• Could you pay at the checkout.你能在结帐处付款吗。
• A man was wheeling his shopping trolley to the checkout.一个男人正推着购物车向付款台走去。

13 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。