New Britain herald., 1926-03-24
By Polly Ferguson

MAKING unpleasant people pay is A'A surely an enviable talent. All of us know persons whose glib selfshness or boorishness or silly pretensons are con- stant irritation, but few of us know how to deal with them, much less turn them into handsome profits.
 It has remained for George Kelly, suc- cessful young author and playwright, to show how it can be done. In his two big recent successes MT. Kelly has presented portraits of two very unpleasant indi- viduals, drawn with vivid exactness from real life.
 "The Show-Of'' dramatizes that well. known af1iction-the braggart, the fancy dresser, the loquacious talker, the arch bluffer-who thrives so luxuriantly in America today. "Craig's Wife" is that most trying type of woman-the per petual housekeeper who henpecks her husband and makes terrifying god of her house, Both are the sort of persons we have all met and disliked. Yet on the stage their appeal is irresistible. The theatre-going public pays it's money and chooses to see them.
 "The Show-Off" is one of the few plays of genuine artistic merit produced by an American playwright that has also been huge popular success. Hailed as work of high distinction by dramatic critics, it has, nevertheless, made hit with the multitude and earned large amount of money. The screen rights to the play have just been sold for $100,000, although it cannot be pie turized for two years. And it is esti- mated that at the present scale of box-ofice profits "The Show-Of" will have earned half million dollars for MT. Kelly and his producers by the time it is shelved. While "Craig's Wife" is a tragedy-and tragedies seldom are as popular as comedies-it is predicted that it, too, will have a second New York season.
 "Making unpleasant people pay?" smiled Mr. Kelly when asked to explain his secret. q don't suppose it is any thing new, is it? Cartoonists long ago discovered it, although, of course, they exaggerate their types, simply present mine as l see them all about me in real life.
 Before I wrote 'The Show-Off' I was repeatedly warned that real life did not pay in the theatre" he explained. "'The people don't like it, experienced play wrights cautioned me, they get enough of it outside. When they go to the theatre, they want something better "A S studied the list of current offer
 A ings appearing on Broadway each season l saw that nearly all playwrights apparently had the same idea. They were giving us slices of society life, underworld life and other special kinds of life, but they were completely ignor- ing the greater part of life as most of us know it--from the viewpoint of the middle-class men and women. Of all the popular successes that 1 saw reviewed in the papers, scarcely one rang true to life -as knew life.
 "Now it was my opinion that, to be interesting, life need not be set in Long Island villa, with large racing stables and garden swimming pool, nor yet in some dive in big city. There were, it seemed to me, just as many possibilities for. drama in q thTcc-room apartment or a two-stoly brick dwelling in North Philadelphia Life all about us is teem- ing with vibrant adventures-the loves, laughs and sorrows of the people in the next flat or suburban cottage. That is the blood of America today and has been the blood of America in the past and will be the blood of America in the future.
 'I studied those about me-my neigh bors at home and the people l met while trouping on the road Then turned to the stage for replicas of them and did not find one. In spite of all the warn- ings had had pounded into me, held to the belief that play built around real, homely, middle-class people would sue ceed. Anyhow, it was worth testing. So l wrote The Show,Of.'
 Aubrey Piper, the Show-Off, is not a creation of my brain as Sherlock Holmes was of Doyle's or Rip Van Win kle was of Irving's have known any u! 6Iuo lou 's1ed!d Go1qnY 10 Ieqwuu