A History of the American Film

The title sounds serious, but the show is playful and funny. It’s full of music and madcap comedy and movie parody. It helps if you’re a movie buff. But even if you’re not, you can have fun with the crazy comedy in this play.

​It follows the stories of 5 archetypal Hollywood characters – the good girl, the tough guy, the tough gal, the good guy, and the wisecracking friend – as their lives crash through American history and American film styles. (The prototypes are Loretta Young, Jimmy Cagney, Bette Davis, Henry Fonda and Eve Arden.)

The story – in which characters die only to show up again later, just fine – dashes through four decades and has several songs, including the falling-in-love song Shanty Town Romance, the speakeasy song They Can’t Prohibit Love, the Busby Berkeley extravaganza We’re in a Salad, the provocative nightclub song Euphemism for Sale, and the World War II celebration song Apple Blossom Victory.

“​…Christopher Durang has written one of the funniest, zaniest, most entertaining plays of the last decade. …What we see is the American way of life reflected through a distortion mirror. … It’s true that Durang has serious points to make…but this is no message play, thank goodness. Most everything in it is pure, unadulterated, uproarious fun. …[Durang’s] witty comedy about the movies is a splendid, constantly surprising treat.”
– Stanley Eichelbaum, San Francisco Examiner (on Mark Taper production)

“…a grand popular entertainment. …a significant act of film criticism as well as wise social commentary. Mr. Durang has the waggishness of four Marxes and the malice of Jonathan Swift. Through the history of the American film, we see a history of America – the turn from patriotism to cynicism, from optimism to sensationalism…. A History of the American Film is an A-movie, a glorious montage of myth-America.”
– Mel Gussow, New York Times (on Arena Stage production)

Produced through special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.