''Play It Again, Sam'' is a 1969 Broadway play written by and starring
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
. A substantial hit, it ran for more than a year and helped build Allen's reputation as a performer who could portray a comedic romantic lead as well as the neurotic persona for which he was best known at the time. The play became the basis for a
1972 film of the same name, starring Allen and directed by
Herbert Ross
Herbert David Ross (May 13, 1927 – October 9, 2001) was an American actor, choreographer, director and producer who worked predominantly in theater and film. He was nominated for two Academy Awards and a Tony Award.
He is known for directing ...
.
Plot
The play is about a recently divorced film magazine writer, Allan Felix, who is trying to restart his romantic life. Eventually he falls in love (and has a brief affair) with Linda, the wife of his best friend, Dick. During the course of the play, he repeatedly seeks advice from the ghost of his idol,
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film In ...
, but eventually decides that he needs to be himself rather than imitating Bogart. Telling Linda that the right thing for her to do is to return to her husband, Felix quotes the famous lines that Bogart delivers to
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary ''Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is often ...
in the last scene of ''
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
''.
Cast
*Woody Allen as Allan Felix
*Sheila Sullivan as Nancy
*
Jerry Lacy
Gerald LeRoy Lacy (born March 27, 1936) is an American soap opera actor best known for playing the roles of Tony Peterson, Reverend Trask, Reverend Gregory Trask, Mr. Trask, and Lamar Trask on the TV serial ''Dark Shadows''. He has also appear ...
as Bogart
*
Tony Roberts as Dick Christie
*
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton ('' née'' Hall, born January 5, 1946) is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Gl ...
as Linda Christie
*Barbara Brownell as Dream Sharon/Barbara
*Diana Walker as Sharon Lake
*Jean Fowler as Gina
*Cynthia Dalbey as Vanessa
*Lee Ann Fahey as Go Go Girl
*Barbara Press as Intellectual Girl
Production
![Woody Allen - Sam](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Woody_Allen_-_Sam.JPG)
Original production
After 2 previews, the
Broadway production
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...
opened at the
Broadhurst Theatre
The Broadhurst Theatre is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater at 235 West 44th Street (Manhattan), 44th Street in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1917, the theater was designed ...
on February 12, 1969 and ran for 453 performances before closing on March 14, 1970. Directed by
Joseph Hardy, the cast included Allen as Allan Felix,
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton ('' née'' Hall, born January 5, 1946) is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Gl ...
as Linda Christie,
Tony Roberts as Dick Christie, and
Jerry Lacy
Gerald LeRoy Lacy (born March 27, 1936) is an American soap opera actor best known for playing the roles of Tony Peterson, Reverend Trask, Reverend Gregory Trask, Mr. Trask, and Lamar Trask on the TV serial ''Dark Shadows''. He has also appear ...
as Bogart.
["Play It Again, Sam"](_blank)
at the Internet Broadway Database
The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It was conceived and created by Karen Hauser in 1996 and is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade assoc ...
. Allen left the show near the end of its run and was replaced by
Bob Denver
Robert Osbourne Denver (January 9, 1935 – September 2, 2005) was an American comedic actor who portrayed Gilligan on the 1964–1967 television series ''Gilligan's Island'', and beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on the 1959–1963 series ''The Ma ...
.
[Adam Bernstein]
"Bob Denver, 70; Brought Goofy Comedy to Role as TV's Gilligan"
''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', September 7, 2005.
It was while auditioning for this play that Diane Keaton first met Woody Allen and they began their professional and personal relationship.
London production
A production of ''Play It Again, Sam'' opened at the
Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend, and gra ...
in London's
West End on September 11, 1969, starring
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE (19 April 193527 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writ ...
. Australian actor
Bill Kerr
William Henry Kerr (10 June 1922 – 28 August 2014) was a British and Australian actor, comedian, and vaudevillian.
Born in South Africa, he started his career as a child actor in Australia, before emigrating to Britain after the Second Worl ...
played the Humphrey Bogart role.
Reception
The Broadway production received generally positive reviews, including several from critics who saw it as a tribute to Bogart.
[Henry Bial, ''Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage & Screen'' (]University of Michigan Press
The University of Michigan Press is part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including L ...
, 2005), .
Excerpts available
at Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
. UPI
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...
critic Jack Gaver thought it was "an amusing entertainment" in which "
thing of consequence happens". On the other hand, ''
New York's''
John Simon delivered a characteristically negative review, criticizing the "rawly autobiographical" content of the play as well as Allen's performance in it. Bob Denver's performance as Allen's late-run replacement was praised by ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' critic
Clive Barnes
Clive Alexander Barnes (13 May 1927 – 19 November 2008) was an English writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977, he was the dance and theater critic for ''The New York Times'', and, from 1978 until his death, ''The New York Post.'' Barnes had sign ...
for conveying "a genuine clown-like wistfulness" that Barnes had found lacking in Allen.
The production received three
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
nominations, for Hardy's direction and for the supporting performances of Keaton and Roberts.
The 1969 London production was later described in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''
's 2002 obituary of Moore as "a mistakenly Anglicised version" of the play.
[Ronald Bergen]
"Dudley Moore: Theatre and television comic, classical musician and jazz original, and briefly an unexpectedly adorable Hollywood movie star"
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', March 27, 2002. It received mixed reviews: ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' found Moore's "cuddly appeal" appropriate to the character,
but others thought Moore failed to capture the specifically "neurotic" image of "Jewish-American manhood" that the play required, while ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
''
's
Hilary Spurling
Susan Hilary Spurling CBE FRSL ( Forrest; born 25 December 1940) is a British writer, known for her work as a journalist and biographer.
Early life and education
Born at Stockport, Cheshire, to circuit judge Gilbert Alexander Forrest (1912–197 ...
found Moore to be "trapped with a fairly measly supply of jokes in a glum, transatlantic no-man's-land" and "sadly unconvincing as a gormless twit".
[Hilary Spurling]
"ARTS: Nut-and-apple case"
''The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
, September 19, 1969.
In his 2005 book, ''Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage & Screen'', theater historian
Henry Bial interpreted the play as one that "carries the banner for a Jewish masculinity that is explicitly contrasted with both Bogart and the only other male character in the play, Dick". In more general terms, Bial notes that Allen's character, like Bogart, "overcame being 'not too tall and kinda ugly' to succeed as a ladies' man."
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Play It Again, Sam
1969 plays
Broadway plays
Comedy plays
Plays by Woody Allen
Plays set in New York City
American plays adapted into films
Cultural depictions of Humphrey Bogart