WORKS

These materials appear with the kind permission of Ford's Theatre and are drawn from the program of their production of The Matchmaker. The commentary is by Amy Boratko, who served as dramatic historian for the production and who has added additional materials for this website presentation. We give our thanks to the staff at Ford's and, in particular, to Ms. Boratko for her impressive contribution.

In addition, The Matchmaker is the featured work in our new newsletter, including commentary on the play by Wilder himself, in his own handwriting, and Playbills from the plays two differing versions, along with a history of these versions by Tappan Wilder.

Join now and receive a copy of the newsletter, which also features an interview with actress Pat Carroll, as well as memories of Wilder by writers, friends, and family.

Featured Work:
The Matchmaker

By Amy Boratko

Thornton Wilder is often identified as a major American writer. Yet, the reach of his achievements and intellect is international. Born at the dawn of the twentieth century and raised between China and California, Wilder picked up a global education—speaking many languages and exposed to many cultures and literatures. He studied archaeology with the same voraciousness as he poured over Goethe's dramatic works. Never remaining idle, he devised massive projects for himself—dating the Spanish Golden Age plays of Lope de Vega or adapting James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake for the stage. He circulated among great thinkers and writers—Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Sigmund Freud, John dos Passos, and Philip Barry. But not all of his life was spent mired in academia. Acting in summer stock performances of The Skin of Our Teeth and Our Town, he physically inhabited the characters he wrote. A staunch supporter of democracy, Wilder enlisted in the military during both world wars and used his extensive travels, lectures, and writings to promote his ideas of freedom. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and was one of the few Americans to win the peace prize of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association.

A Note on Farce
The Matchmaker belongs in a selective club of comedy: the farce. It's filled with mistaken identities, secret rendezvous obscured by screens and hidden behind doors, separated lovers, exciting twists and turns, and a light, bantering tone à la Oscar Wilde. Unlike some of the more realistic stories on today's sitcoms, the situations in a farce seem farfetched. In Clark Kent fashion, a single piece of clothing (a pair of glasses, a woman's scarf around a man's shoulders) disguises identity. But, in all this improbable zaniness, according to Wilder, the root of this type of comedy is not silliness; the farce is based on deeply imbedded logic and order. For Wilder, "the pleasures of farce, like those of a detective story, are those of development, pattern, and logic." Though the farce looks like a wild, chaotic romp, Wilder built The Matchmaker on a firm, grounded foundation. Despite appearances, Wilder has his farce under control.

Hello, Again…and Again!
A Wilder Adaptation Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart adapted The Matchmaker into the 1964 Broadway success Hello, Dolly! This transformation from play to musical is part of a long series of adaptations, spanning two centuries and two continents. Wilder, well versed in eighteenth and nineteenth century European drama, sought to write a modern, American version of Johann Nestroy's 1842 Einen Jux will er sich machen "A Roaring Good Time." This Austrian "king of comedy" wrote the farce, trying to perfect John Oxenford's 1835 A Day Well Spent. A one-act, rapid-fire British farce, A Day Well Spent took the classic pairing of a curmudgeon and his young, marriageable charge and added an interesting subplot. Oxenford introduces the characters of Bolt and Mizzle, the miser's employees who shirk work to have a big city adventure.

Out of the Austrian and English plays grew Wilder's 1938 The Merchant of Yonkers. German director and producer Max Reinhardt picked up the project. The collaboration was a dream come true for Wilder, who passionately followed Reinhardt's work. Despite an all-star team assembled to work on the farce, The Merchant of Yonkers was a dismal failure in New York. The play ran for a scant 39 performances.

Fifteen years later, another distinguished director, Tyrone Guthrie, expressed interested in Wilder's dramatic writing. He wanted to remount The Merchant of Yonkers, but Wilder still felt the stigma of failure attached to his "ugly duckling" play. Instead of abandoning the project, Wilder reworked the play and created The Matchmaker. The new product was not a complete overhaul, but a careful and thorough revision of the original text. Because the talented Ruth Gordon was cast as Dolly Levi, Wilder retooled and expanded the matchmaker's role to fit the talent of his lead actress.

The new collaboration was a success at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. And more praise followed a run at the Theatre Royal in London. The Matchmaker hoped to strike up a similar relationship on the American stage, but the Philadelphia premiere brought back haunting memories of the now-forgotten Merchant of Yonkers. The lukewarm reception was short-lived, and The Matchmaker found an audience in Boston and gained enough steam to propel it to a Broadway debut.

The comedy opened in New York on August 12, 1955, and enjoyed a healthy run on Broadway. Translations of The Matchmaker flourished in Europe. In West Germany, distinguished actresses yearned to have their chance to take star-turns as Dolly Levi. Through The Matchmaker, Wilder seemed to find the adaptation he started in 1937. This story still had a bit more life left— and a few more adaptations to go. Stewart and Herman streamlined the number of characters, added songs and dance numbers, and created the Hello, Dolly! phenomenon. Carol Channing—very different from the petite Ruth Gordon—originated the title role in 1964. Winning ten Tony Awards, the musical matched—or even surpassed—the commercial success of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. It also spawned the film version (another adaptation) starring Barbra Streisand. The financial rewards from Hello, Dolly! allowed the aging Wilder to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Unlike Nestroy or Oxenford, Wilder reaped the benefits of adapting and adaptations.

The Matchmaker, Its Versions and Its History
By Amy Boratko

At first glance, The Matchmaker might inspire a feeling of déjà-vu The cantankerous curmudgeon, the naïve ingénue, the brass and buxom heroine, the bumbling servant, and the sly servant conjure up feelings of nostalgia for other theatre experiences of the past. Have you seen Dolly Levi before? What about Horace Vandergelder? Chances are that you have. And that is exactly what Thornton Wilder intended with The Matchmaker. By invoking theatrical gestures from ancient Rome, Moliére's France, and nineteenth century Europe, Wilder creates, in this piece, a collage honoring the art he loved.

The characters of The Matchmaker can trace their ancestral line all the way back to ancient Rome. Plautus's Pot of Gold uses the stock character of the miser who hordes money, even to the detriment of his family. Euclio, the penny-pincher, finds a pot of gold to use for his daughter's dowry, but he decides to hide the money for himself. His own stinginess and avarice lead to comic situations. While Euclio is much more simple and exaggerated than Horace Vandergelder, the characters share a love for money and living economically. The use of Plautus puts Wilder in good company, as Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is an adaptation of Plautus's Menaechmi.

Moliére took up the fragment of Plautus's comedy and adapted it to create his The Miser (L'Avare). Wilder looks all the way back to this adaptation to find material for The Matchmaker. In The Miser, Harpagon (the miser) employs Frosine to find him a wife. Frosine describes the poor, innocent Marianne in a comically exaggerated fashion. Wilder uses this scene, sometimes nearly word-for-word, in The Matchmaker. When Dolly Levi describes the fictional Ernesta Simple to Vandergelder, she must reach back to Frosine's words and tactics. Though it is an age-old scam, Vandergelder still takes the bait.

More playwrights throughout years took up these same stock characters and plots and began to put their own individual twists on them. Wilder, well versed in eighteenth and nineteenth century European drama, sought to write a modern, American version of Johann Nestroy's 1842 Einen Jux will er sich machen (He wants to have a lark). This Austrian "king of comedy" wrote the farce, trying to perfect John Oxenford's 1835 A Day Well Spent. A one-act, rapid-fire British farce, A Day Well Spent took the classic pairing of a curmudgeon and his young, marriageable charge and added an interesting subplot. Oxenford introduces the characters of Bolt and Mizzle: the miser's employees who shirk work to have a big city adventure.

Out of the Austrian and English plays grew Wilder's 1938 The Merchant of Yonkers. German director and producer Max Reinhardt picked up the project. The collaboration was a dream-come-true for Wilder, who passionately followed Reinhardt's work. Despite an all-star team assembled to work on the farce, The Merchant of Yonkers was a dismal failure in New York. The play ran for a scant 39 performances. Fifteen years later, another distinguished director, Tyrone Guthrie, expressed interested in Wilder's dramatic writing. He wanted to remount The Merchant of Yonkers, but Wilder still felt the stigma of failure attached to his "ugly duckling" play. Instead of abandoning the project, Wilder reworked the play and created The Matchmaker. The new product was not a complete overhaul, but a careful and thorough revision of the original text. Because the talented Ruth Gordon was cast as Dolly Levi, Wilder retooled and expanded the matchmaker's role to fit the talent of his lead actress.

The new collaboration was a success at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. And more praise followed a run at the Theatre Royal in London. The Matchmaker hoped to strike up a similar relationship on the American stage, but the Philadelphia premiere brought back haunting memories of the now-forgotten Merchant of Yonkers. The lukewarm reception was short-lived, and The Matchmaker found an audience in Boston and gained enough steam to propel it to a Broadway debut. The comedy opened in New York on August 12, 1955, and enjoyed a healthy run on Broadway. Translations of The Matchmaker flourished in Europe. In West Germany, distinguished actresses yearned to have their chance to take star-turns as Dolly Levi. Through The Matchmaker, Wilder seemed to find the adaptation he started in 1937.

This story still had a bit more life left-and a few more adaptations to go. Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman streamlined the number of characters, added songs and dance numbers, and created the Hello, Dolly! phenomenon. Carol Channing-very different from the petite Ruth Gordon-originated the title role in 1964. Winning ten Tony Awards, the musical matched-or even surpassed-the commercial success of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. It also spawned the film version (another adaptation) starring Barbara Streisand. The financial awards from Hello, Dolly! allowed the aging Wilder to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Unlike Nestroy or Oxenford, Wilder reaped the benefits of adapting and adaptations.

Though more playwrights will continue to expand upon all of Wilder's works and these characters and plots handed down throughout the centuries, each playwright's adaptation is significant in the mark it makes on tradition. Each playwright not only uses the source material for his own purposes, but he or she creates something entirely new and different. Almost all of Shakespeare's works are adaptations, and, perhaps, Wilder was trying to be a Shakespeare of his day.