By Mervyn Rothstein
10 Oct 2009

Animal Crackers' Mara Davi and Joey Slotnick
photo by Eric Y. Exit

Goodman Theatre in Chicago serves Animal Crackers, the 1928 Marx Brothers musical comedy.

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"At the root of a Marx Brothers comedy," Henry Wishcamper says, "is an anarchic sensibility, a spontaneity, and a desire to point out the hypocrisy and the ridiculousness of people of the highest station. That's something that never grows old."

Audiences at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago have the opportunity to savor the ageless lunacy of Marx Brothers humor, because Wishcamper is directing a revival of Groucho, Chico and Harpo's 1928 Broadway musical, Animal Crackers (now extended to Nov. 1).

The show, the basis for the 1930 movie of the same name, was written by Broadway legends George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind (they also wrote the librettos for George and Ira Gershwin's Strike Up the Band and Of Thee I Sing). The music and lyrics are by two comparable songwriting legends, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby ("Who's Sorry Now," "I Wanna Be Loved by You"); the Animal Crackers score includes their classic "Three Little Words."

Animal Crackers begins at an estate in the Hamptons. A famous sculpture is stolen at a socialite's party honoring Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (that's Groucho). Or, as Kalmar and Ruby's time-honored lyrics put it, "Hooray for Captain Spaulding, the African explorer/ - Did someone call me Shnorrer? - /Hooray, hooray, hooray." Zaniness takes over as the guests set out to catch the thief.

Wishcamper is known on Broadway as the assistant director of August: Osage County, Shining City, Absurd Person Singular and Match, and has directed plays in New York and elsewhere. The Animal Crackers revival was born when Robert Falls, the Goodman's artistic director and Wishcamper's boss on Conor McPherson's Shining City, "asked me to give him some ideas of shows I might be interested in doing at the Goodman," Wishcamper says.

"I started talking with my wife, and she remembered seeing Animal Crackers at the Huntington Stage in Boston when she was in middle school. She absolutely fell in love with it — it was one reason she started working in theatre. It made immediate sense to me, and Bob was truly excited." (Wishcamper's wife, Jenny Mannis, is the show's costume designer.)

"I love the fact that it was written in the days before the book musical as we know it today really took shape," Wishcamper says. "Its much more of a revue structure that has a lot of the Marx Brothers' old vaudeville influence. It's more than simply a re-creation of the Marx Brothers routines. It has a really fun 1920s Tin Pan Alley jazz score. And its a great show for kids."

The 1928 production had a cast of 70 (yes, 70 — those were the days!), including the fourth brother, Zeppo. At the Goodman, a cast of nine plays multiple roles. Joey Slotnick (of Ethan Coen's Offices Off-Broadway) is Captain Spaulding. Jonathan Brody is Emanuel Ravelli, the Chico role. "Jonathan's an amazing pianist, so he's able to do all the Chico piano stuff live," Wishcamper says. And Molly Brennan, a member of Chicago's 500 Clown troupe, is "the Professor," the Harpo role.

More than 80 years have passed since the shows premiere, but there is clear relevance to today. The musical's Hamptons setting provides "a very similar environment to what we experienced just before our economy crashed," he says. "What the Marx Brothers are saying about the people they are lampooning really applies to the lifestyle many people had until quite recently."

Jonathan Brody, Stanley Wayne Mathis and Molly Brennan in Animal Crackers.
photo by Eric Y. Exit