The Theatre Group at SBCC will present the classic comedy, HARVEY by Mary Chase, directed by R. Michael Gros, Feb. 27-March 16, in the Garvin Theatre.
HARVEY features cast members: Ryan S. Baumann, George Coe, Nita June Davanzo, Sean Jackson, Don Margolin, Kathy Marden, Lynn Robinson, Matt Smith, Hannah Steinmann, Elaine Wagstaffe, Raymond Wallenthin and Madison Widener.
The story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play: Elwood P. Dowd is middle-aged, mild-mannered and relatively wealthy. He is convinced he is attended by a 6-foot-plus tall white rabbit named Harvey, who has become his greatest friend.
Harvey is invisible to everyone except Elwood whose insistence on Harvey’s existence creates a social nightmare for his widowed sister Veta and her daughter Myrtle Mae.
The women decide to have Elwood committed to Chumley’s Rest, but it seems the imaginary Harvey has unexpectedly tangible powers, and soon everyone is falling under his invisible charms.
As lighthearted chaos ensues, Elwood goes missing, and it more and more seems Harvey may be less imaginary than anyone thought.
Mary Chase received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work in 1945. It has been adapted for film and television several times, most notably in a 1950 film starring James Stewart.
How did Mary Chase come to write Harvey and set herself up to be judged again by the Broadway theatre critics? In her own words from the CBC interview:
“I came to write Harvey after having a bad flop on Broadway in the ’30s. I decided at that point that the theater was probably not for me and I settled down to raise my three boys. I had come to terms with myself and my life and I was quite happy.
“I was married to a wonderful man and had three fine boys. Then, one day in the early years of World War II, something happened which changed my life.
“Across the street from our house was an apartment house. As I was leaving every morning at 8:15 with my boys, a woman would emerge from the door of the apartment house and go in the opposite direction, to the bus to go downtown to work.
“I didn’t know the woman, but I heard she was a widow with one son in the Naval Air arm who was a bombardier in the Pacific. One day, I heard that her son was lost.
“Things like that were happening to so many people then, it wasn’t what jolted me so much as the fact that in a week or ten days I saw this woman leaving the apartment house, going a little more slowly to catch the bus to go back to work. She began to haunt me.
“Could I ever think of anything to make that woman laugh again? I knew she wouldn’t laugh at a comedy about sex or money or politics. I kept looking for ideas and rejecting them.
“Then, one morning, I awoke at five o’clock and saw a psychiatrist walking across our bedroom floor followed by an enormous white rabbit and I knew I had it. I worked on it for a year and a half and sent it to my friend, Brock Pemberton, Antoinette Perry’s partner.
“Antoinette Perry is a Denver woman (she became the director for Harvey), and I knew them both. They had produced my first play – a flop, a bad one. So I sent them this play, and it opened to rave reviews and ran four and one-half years.
“I came back to Denver after the opening and the woman across the street had moved, and I didn’t know where she moved, so I never met her. But I kept receiving letters from people who had cousins and brothers and sons in the war, saying ‘We’ve seen the show and we’ve had the first laugh since.’ ”
Harvey premiered on Broadway on Nov. 1, 1944, at the 48th Street Theatre and closed Jan. 15, 1949, after 1,775 performances. The original production was directed by Antoinette Perry, produced by Brock Pemberton, and starred Frank Fay as Elwood P. Dowd and Josephine Hull as Elwood’s sister Veta. Elwood was later played during this run by Joe E. Brown, Jack Buchanan and James Stewart.
Garvin performances will be Feb. 27-March 16, 2019, 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sundays. Previews at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27-28.
The 2 p.m. performance on Sunday, March 3, will be live-captioned for the hearing-impaired. All performances have the assisted listening system available and the Garvin Theatre is wheelchair accessible.
Ticket prices are: Previews $18 general/$15 seniors/$10 students; Thursday evening and Sunday matinees $24 general/$19 seniors/$14 students; Friday, Saturday evening $26 general/$21 seniors/$17 students.
For information or reservations, call the Garvin Theatre Box Office at 805-965-5935 or buy tickets online at www.theatregroupsbcc.com.
The Garvin Theatre is on the SBCC’s West Campus, 900 block of Cliff Dr. Parking is free.
— Pamela Lasker for the Theatre Group at SBCC.