| Harvey | |
|---|---|
 First edition 1953 | |
| Written by | Mary Chase |
| Characters | Elwood P. Dowd Veta Louise Simmons Betty Chumley E.J. Lofgren Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet Judge Omar Gaffney William R. Chumley, M.D. Lyman Sanderson, M.D. Miss Johnson Ruth Kelly, R.N. Myrtle Mae Simmons Duane Wilson Harvey |
| Date premiered | November 1, 1944 (1944-11-01) |
| Place premiered | 48th Street Theatre New York City, New York |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Setting | The library of the Old Dowd Mansion The Reception Room at Chumley's Rest |
Harvey is a 1944 play by the AmericanplaywrightMary Chase. She received thePulitzer Prize for Drama for the work in 1945. It has been adapted for film and television several times, most notably in a1950 film starringJames Stewart andJosephine Hull.
Elwood P. Dowd is an affable man who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey – whom Elwood describes as a six foot, three-and-one-half inch [page 51 of playbook, Elwood states "six feet one and a half!" Jimmy Stewart's height is six foot three and a half] (192 cm) tallpookah [Chase uses the spelling p-o-o-k-a as noted especially by the character Wilson who is reading the definition from a dictionary on page 33 of Chase's playbook] resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit. Elwood introduces Harvey to everyone he meets. His social-climbing sister, Veta Simmons, increasingly finds his eccentric behavior embarrassing. She decides to have him committed to asanitarium. When they arrive at the sanitarium, acomedy of errors ensues. When Veta confesses that she has seen Harvey too, the young Dr. Sanderson commits Veta instead of Elwood. But when the mistake comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion.
When Elwood shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood has had a strange influence on the staff, including sanitarium director Dr. Chumley. Only just before Elwood is to be given an injection that will make him into a "perfectly normal human being, and you know what bastards they are!" (in the words of a taxi driver who has become involved in the proceedings) does Veta realize that she would rather have Elwood the same as he has always been – carefree and kind – even if it means living with Harvey.
Act I
Act II
Act III – Chumley's Rest (Chumley, Wilson, Myrtle Mae, Judge, Sanderson, Kelly, Veta, Elwood, Lofgren)
The only character to appear in all scenes is Elwood.
Harvey premiered onBroadway on November 1, 1944, at the48th Street Theatre and closed on January 15, 1949, after 1,775 performances, making it the fifth longest-running Broadway show up to that point.[1]The original production was directed byAntoinette Perry and produced byBrock Pemberton and starredFrank Fay as Elwood P. Dowd andJosephine Hull as Elwood's sister Veta.[2][3]Elwood was subsequently played during this run byJoe E. Brown,James Stewart,James Dunn,Bert Wheeler, andJack Buchanan.[4]
The play also had a production in 1949 atLondon'sPrince of Wales Theatre starringSid Field andAthene Seyler; then, after Field's death,Leslie Henson,[5] who moved it to thePiccadilly Theatre and also took it on a national tour.[note 1]
Dooley Wilson starred as Elwood in the 1951 Negro Drama Guild production, which also featuredButterfly McQueen as Myrtle Mae.[1](p84)
A Broadway revival at theANTA Theatre ran from 24 February – 2 May 1970, and starredJames Stewart andHelen Hayes. In 1975 Stewart appeared in a West End revival at thePrince of Wales Theatre, withMona Washbourne in the role of Veta.[6]
According to theatre historian Jordan Schildcrout, the reputation of the play, which had become a staple of amateur theatre groups, improved in the late 1980s because of critically esteemed professional revivals at theWoolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C., in 1987 and theGuthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1989.[1](p85) Other major productions at regional theatres followed at theSteppenwolf Theatre (1990),Cleveland PlayHouse (1991),Seattle Rep (1993), andLa Jolla Playhouse (1994).
A further West End revival played at theShaftesbury Theatre in 1995 starringGorden Kaye andRue McClanahan.[7]
TheRoundabout Theatre Company production[8]of the Broadway revival opened in previews on May 18, 2012 (officially on June 14), atStudio 54. Directed by Scott Ellis,Jim Parsons starred as Elwood, with a cast that featuredJessica Hecht,Charles Kimbrough,Larry Bryggman,Morgan Spector, andCarol Kane.[9]
In 2015Harvey had another run in theWest End from March 17 to May 2 at theTheatre Royal Haymarket.James Dreyfus played Elwood P. Dowd withMaureen Lipman as Veta.[10]
Universal Pictures acquired the film rights for a then record $1 million[11]and the play was adapted for film by Chase,Oscar Brodney, andMyles Connolly in 1950. Directed byHenry Koster, it starredJosephine Hull (who won an Academy Award for her performance) andJames Stewart.
Three US television adaptations have been made:
In addition, versions of the play were produced for West German television in 1959, 1967, 1970 (withHeinz Rühmann) and 1985 asMein Freund Harvey (My Friend Harvey).
The play was adapted asSay Hello to Harvey, a stage musical by Leslie Bricusse, opening on September 14, 1981 inToronto, where it closed prior to Washington DC and New York engagements. As Ken Mandelbaum noted in his 1991 bookNot Since Carrie:
On August 2, 2009, it was revealed thatSteven Spielberg had committed to a new adaptation of the play, to be a co-production between20th Century Fox andDreamWorks, with a screenplay written byJonathan Tropper.[13]On December 4, 2009, Spielberg announced that he had quit the project, partly due to his inability to find an actor willing and able to play Elwood Dowd.[14]
