Walking Down Broadway: Young Romance in the Jazz Age

Although Ruth Sherwood and her sister, Eileen are certainly the most famous small town girls from Ohio who settled in New York looking for love and adventure, they were only following a trail blazed by a pair of friends named Marge and Elsie. Never heard of them? It's no wonder. Seven years before Ruth McKenney's collected autobiographical stories were publish in The New Yorker as My Sister, Eileen -- later to be adapted as a hit Broadway play and an even bigger hit musical, Wonderful Town -- Dawn Powell completed her 1931 romantic comedy/drama Walking Down Broadway, which is only now getting its premiere production, courtesy of The Mint Theater.

Like McKenney, Powell was an Ohio girl who moved to New York to become a writer. Although not especially appreciated in her day, interest in her novels, plays and short stories has grown in the past 20 years with many literary critics ranking her among the more notable American writers of the early 20th Century. Fortunately for New Yorkers, The Mint Theatre specializes in seeking out underappreciated works such as Walking Down Broadway, and has given it a vibrant and humourous premiere.

Although written in 1931, director Steven Williford sets the play a few years earlier, as the script makes no mention of The Great Depression. Marge (Christine Albright) and Elsie (Amanda Jones) are 20-year-old best friends from Marble Falls, Ohio who jumped at the chance to move to New York when secretarial work became available, ready for romance and adventure. But after 8 months of sharing lonely nights in their small rooming house apartment on the Upper West Side, the two of them decide to overcome their shyness and do what other young single girls looking for boyfriends did in the days before internet dating; they put on pretty dresses and walked up and down Broadway, trying to catch the eyes of cute boys. When the play begins they've just arrived home for some innocent socializing (the door must stay open) with the two young lads they met that evening.

Elsie is ready to party all night ("I'd rather fall asleep at my typewriter every day at 2PM from too much whoopee.") and snappy fella Dewey (Ben Roberts) is happy to oblige. When former Follies Girl, Eva (Carol Halstead) emerges from the shared bathroom that connects their apartments, the boys are intrigued by this older woman (30!!) they've seen in print ads, and she invites the crew to come to her room for drinks and dancing to the radio music, but Marge and Chick (Denis Butkus) would rather spend some quiet time talking and getting to know each other. The ensuing pair of romances the girls experience cause them to lose their innocence in more ways than one.

The thrust of Powell's humor and drama is the clash between optimistic youth ready to take on the world and the world-weary New Yorkers who deflect the eventual blows with well-aimed wise-cracks and some seasoned game-playing. Halstead is especially adept at the drop-dead put-down ("I'm always glad to help a woman tell a man to go to hell.") while Jones and Roberts peculate with sophomoric energy. Albright and Butkus are sweetly romantic as they try to hold onto their ideals in a mature relationship.

The boys have an older roommate, the womanizing Mac (played with slick dash by Anthony Hagopian), who knows the value of good looks and a stylish wardrobe. ("A guy with a little class and a good blue suit can go anywhere.") Cherene Snow has a very funny cameo as an often-married maid who's quick with free advice. ("The things I do for men before the wedding day ain't nothing compared to what they have to do for me after we're married.")

The production looks wonderful with Roger Hanna's remarkably detailed sets for such a small space switching from the girls' apartment to the one the boys share. Brenda Turpin does fine costume work, as does Stephen Petrilli with lighting. Jane Shaw's sound design effectively mimics the sound of Manhattan's streets.

Williford's direction emphasizes the earnest excitement of seeing New York through youthful, newly independent eyes. Nearly 75 years after Dawn Powell finished this play, New York remains the place where people run off to find love and adventure and to get caught in its fascinating rhythm.

 

Photos by Richard Termine: Top: Carol Halstead and Christine Albright
Center: Denis Butkus and Christine Albright
Bottom: Ben Roberts and Amanda Jones

 

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