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The Merchant of Yonkers
Premiering on Broadway in December 1938 and running for 39 performances, The Merchant of Yonkers is the first of two plays Thornton Wilder wrote based on the 1835 one-act A Day Well Spent by John Oxenford and a 1842 play by Johann Nestroy. The second of Wilder's plays, The Matchmaker, would go on to inspire the 1964 musical Hello, Dolly!
- GenresPlays
180 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1939
39 people want to read
About the author
Thornton Wilder
217 books504 followersThornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 28, 2017
Reviewed in conjunction with The Matchmaker and Hello, Dolly!
Based on an Austrian play that drew its inspiration from a one-act play by John Oxenford, The Merchant of Yonkers would later be repurposed by Mr. Wilder as The Matchmaker, which would in turn inspire the most famous of the group, Hello Dolly. Decades later, the Austrian play would be loosely adapted by Tom Stoppard as On the Razzle.
Confused yet? Yeah, me too.
Having read everything but Nestroy’s Einen Jux will er sich machen (which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been translated into English), I think my favorite of these related plays (and musical) is The Matchmaker. Wilder’s addition of Dolly adds a great deal to the tale of a curmudgeonly shopkeeper looking for love. I also thought The Matchmaker’s ending stronger than The Merchant of Yonkers’s. The two plays are remarkably similar until the last act, at which point The Matchmaker feels like a much-improved draft. The dialogue is snappier, the order more sensical, and Dolly’s closing monologue richer.
Hello, Dolly, in comparison, hits the ground running – both of Wilder’s productions spend too much time on the set up – but I found the resolution the weakest. Why the ending was streamlined from the humorous crossed wires of Wilder’s plays eludes me, as it would have played well with the musical’s overall tone.
One final note: It’s a shame the Barbra Streisand film is not better. The dance numbers, cinematography, and settings are gorgeous, and Streisand, despite being entirely too young for the role, has the talent to make the role sing (pun intended). Some of the casting decisions utterly derailed the production, particularly Walter Matthau as Cornelius. I generally like Matthau, but the age difference – and the decision to eliminate the longstanding friendship between Dolly and Horace – doesn’t reflect well on Dolly. In aging down Dolly, they needed to similarly age down Horace. James Garner would have been an excellent choice, as he could play the charming curmudgeon like nobody’s business.
Similarly, Irene needed a better comedienne, and it mystifies me why, when the 1960s had so many funny women, Fox opted for an unknown actress who seemed uncomfortable playing to the humor of the role.
In closing, now I really, really want to see Bette Midler play Dolly on Broadway. And I also think, in this age of remakes, bringing The Matchmaker to screen would not be the worst idea a studio could have.
So, yes, I do recommend reading all of these plays. It’s interesting to see how one idea and story can shift and change in the hands of different writers but also what remains throughout all of the iterations. Recommended.
Based on an Austrian play that drew its inspiration from a one-act play by John Oxenford, The Merchant of Yonkers would later be repurposed by Mr. Wilder as The Matchmaker, which would in turn inspire the most famous of the group, Hello Dolly. Decades later, the Austrian play would be loosely adapted by Tom Stoppard as On the Razzle.
Confused yet? Yeah, me too.
Having read everything but Nestroy’s Einen Jux will er sich machen (which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been translated into English), I think my favorite of these related plays (and musical) is The Matchmaker. Wilder’s addition of Dolly adds a great deal to the tale of a curmudgeonly shopkeeper looking for love. I also thought The Matchmaker’s ending stronger than The Merchant of Yonkers’s. The two plays are remarkably similar until the last act, at which point The Matchmaker feels like a much-improved draft. The dialogue is snappier, the order more sensical, and Dolly’s closing monologue richer.
Hello, Dolly, in comparison, hits the ground running – both of Wilder’s productions spend too much time on the set up – but I found the resolution the weakest. Why the ending was streamlined from the humorous crossed wires of Wilder’s plays eludes me, as it would have played well with the musical’s overall tone.
One final note: It’s a shame the Barbra Streisand film is not better. The dance numbers, cinematography, and settings are gorgeous, and Streisand, despite being entirely too young for the role, has the talent to make the role sing (pun intended). Some of the casting decisions utterly derailed the production, particularly Walter Matthau as Cornelius. I generally like Matthau, but the age difference – and the decision to eliminate the longstanding friendship between Dolly and Horace – doesn’t reflect well on Dolly. In aging down Dolly, they needed to similarly age down Horace. James Garner would have been an excellent choice, as he could play the charming curmudgeon like nobody’s business.
Similarly, Irene needed a better comedienne, and it mystifies me why, when the 1960s had so many funny women, Fox opted for an unknown actress who seemed uncomfortable playing to the humor of the role.
In closing, now I really, really want to see Bette Midler play Dolly on Broadway. And I also think, in this age of remakes, bringing The Matchmaker to screen would not be the worst idea a studio could have.
So, yes, I do recommend reading all of these plays. It’s interesting to see how one idea and story can shift and change in the hands of different writers but also what remains throughout all of the iterations. Recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review