I can’t believe it has been over a month since I last wrote a Shows for Someday entry. Time passes, dear friends! For those of you waiting breathlessly to hear about the Broadway fate of The Little Hut…let’s just put it this way: though the show’s flyers proclaimed “3 Years In Paris! 3 Years In London!” it turned out to only be three weeks on Broadway.
Playbill cover
The Little Hut opened on Broadway in 1953 at Broadway’s Coronet Theatre (now called the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, home to the musical smash The Book of Mormon). It’s hard to imagine this small cast play without huge stars in a venue of that size.
That may have been what was lacking to put the show over, even in 1953. The Broadway cast was somewhat underwhelming; this show is a “personal appearance” play if there ever was one and the show itself was probably better served by the star casting it received in subsequent stock productions. Critical consensus indicates that Roland Culver, Anne Vernon, and Colin Gordon were all competent actors. Yet they were nowhere near as famous as other above-the-title names appearing on Broadway in fall 1953. What The Little Hut wants in its casting is three actors of similar star wattage, so you don’t tip off what the ending is going to be. Ideally, the show is cast with actors with whom the audience already has history.
Playbill title page
The Little Hut managed 29 performances, from Oct 7-31, 1953. The reviews weren’t dreadful, but they certainly weren’t what was needed for a show to secure a three year Broadway run in a large theatre, either. And apparently the opening night audience was notably chilly toward the piece. A little sample, starting with The New York Times:
“If The Little Hut had not been so fabulously successful for three seasons in London it might not seem so ordinary when it is produced here now. The play talks its one situation to death before the evening is over and it does not make the audience feel especially lively. Without a brilliant cast, The Little Hut is more of a soporific than a bombshell. None of the current cast has that much comic electricity. You have a feeling that The Little Hut does contain a lot of entertaining iniquity…but [here it has] literal players. They cannot stand to one side and distort The Little Hut into something fantastic. They act as though they half believe what they are saying. The Little Hut cannot survive honest playing.” –Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times
“A light French farce with some crisp English humor…given a most engaging performance by three players from abroad. The first audience was rather social and therefore quite cold…There are a few explosive laughs, but in the main Miss Mitford prefers to play down her jokes for the sake of playing up the fun. The Little Hut is the sort of comedy Lunt, Fontanne, and Coward would have enjoyed doing when they were fooling around in Design for Living 20 years ago. A light comedy, a little comedy, and its leisured pace and admitted thinness may not appeal to devotees of our native Seven Year Itch kind of fun. But I enjoyed it very much. ” –John Chapman, New York Daily News
Chapman felt so strongly about the bad first-night audience (all the major critics attended the same performance then) that he wrote a follow up piece headlined “When a Comedy Needs Some Friends: A Slight but Delightful Play, The Little Hut, All but Murdered by Its Audience” going on to write:
“The posh [theater party audience] is poison; its manners are bad, its wits are dim, and it is interested in nothing but itself. Instead of showing good spirit [they] just sat on their decolletages, their hip pockets and their hands. The second might went better, I have been told, and the third night I dropped in again…it was going fine; the audience was right up there with the actors…so there may be hope for The Little Hut. In our current slam-bang theatre we have shown little patience with leisure, with whimsy or nonsense. If we can’t get socked, we won’t go. The Little Hut is not a socker, and as a shocker it is quite mild. But with the right audience—an audience which is willing to meet the authors and the actors halfway, or right above the footlights—the comedy is a great deal of fun. I hope that audiences will find this comedy in increasing numbers and accept it in the spirit in which it is offered—which is a happy spirit.”
“Seems a shocking subject when first presented. But its humorous flavor develops and soon the audience is taking it with tongue in cheek and much laughter…especially with the artful direction of Peter Brook. It is strictly a burlesque story and with plenty of laughs.” – Mark Benson, Associated Press
”The Little Hut opens and may remain a while. A mixture of old stuff and delightful nonsense, it still should enjoy a happy, if somewhat shorter life, over here. If there are stretches when the fun seems to be spread rather thin, when the play is light but not ebullient, it may be because it relies too heavily on a debonair, casual attitude toward infidelity as a kind of running gag. For the most part, the dialogue is lighthearted and sparkling, and the situations are delightfully ludicrous. Peter Brook’s direction was characterized by impeccable taste and a thorough appreciation of the play’s gaiety and charm. Anne Vernon…brought a happy, abandoned animal quality to the part of the wife, along with an enchanting Gallic accent. Colin Gordon was very intense, very British, as her lover. Roland Culver played the undeceived husband with subtle intelligence and great good humor.” –Carl Jacobs, Cincinnati Enquirer
“Last night the overseas hit opened at the Coronet Theater, in Miss Mitford’s version, and all I can say is that something is wrong. Somewhere between London and New York it has lost a good deal of the wit and sparking fun that it must possess for British theatergoers. The performance, in spite of some lively dashing around, bogs down too often into draggy sessions of small bright talk. The performance doesn’t flow smoothly. Judging by the comment that drifted over here from London regarding [the cast there], the new set of principals doesn’t have as much skill and personal authority to cover up the play’s weak spots and flimsiness. The fun comes piece-meal, in scraps of dialogue. Oliver Messel’s setting… immediately establishes the fact that the play is to be taken as a comic fantasy. Too bad it isn’t more comic. Whatever it has in London, it doesn’t have at the Coronet.” –Louis Sheaffer, Brooklyn Eagle
Original Broadway Windowcard, 1953
Nonethelss, the script was published by Random House in their Fireside Theatre series. And, like many of the plays we’ve featured in Shows for Someday , it had an interesting afterlife, which we’ll explore in installment #3. Thanks for reading!