 First edition hardback | |
| Author | Truman Capote |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Southern literature |
| Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | 1951 |
| Media type | Print: (Hardcover / paperback) |
| Pages | 216 pp |
| OCLC | 282815 |
The Grass Harp is a novel by Truman Capote published on October 1, 1951 [1] It tells the story of an orphaned boy and two elderly ladies who observe life from a tree. They eventually leave their temporary retreat to make amends with each other and other members of society. [2]
Not wanting to take up his incomplete first novel, Summer Crossing , Capote began writing The Grass Harp in June 1950 and completed it on May 27, 1951. The novel was inspired by memories of his childhood in Monroeville, Alabama, particularly of a treehouse constructed in the 1930s in a large walnut tree in his cousin Jenny's backyard. This large tree house, accessible by an antique spiral staircase, featured cypress wood construction and a tin roof, and was furnished with a rattan sofa. Capote spent time in this tree house with his cousin Sook or other childhood friends such as Harper Lee. [3] The novel was additionally inspired by his cousin Sook's dropsy medicine, which she made yearly until the age of 62. She took the recipe for it to the grave, despite Jenny's wanting first to patent the recipe and then to sell it to a manufacturer. [4]
Capote completed The Grass Harp while he was vacationing in Taormina, Sicily. The last section was airmailed to the publishers Random House just days after he finished writing it, but it was not published for four months because the editors, specifically Bob Linscott, did not care for the ending of the novel. [5] Linscott thought that the ending was weak because, once the characters were up in the tree house, Capote "didn't know what to do with them." He asked Capote to rewrite the ending, and Capote made some changes in it, but he did not completely rewrite it. [6]
Truman Capote initially wanted to title the novel Music of the Sawgrass. It was Bob Linscott who gave it the title The Grass Harp. [6]
The story begins with Collin Fenwick losing his mother, and then his father, and moving into his aunts' (Dolly and Verena) house. Catherine, the servant, also lives in the house and gets along, for the most part, only with Dolly. Dolly is famous for her medicine, which she makes by going out into the woods with Catherine and Collin and randomly picking plants. They then go to an old treehouse, which is propped up in a Chinaberry tree. One day, after Dolly has an argument with Verena (Verena wants to mass-produce Dolly's medicine), Dolly, Collin, and Catherine leave their home and start walking. They go to the treehouse in the Chinaberry tree, and decide to camp out there. Verena, meanwhile, informs the sheriff of her sister's disappearance; the Sheriff organizes a search party, and eventually arrests Catherine. During the course of the novel, others come to live in the treehouse, such as Judge Cool and Riley Henderson. In a climactic event, a confrontation among the search party and the residents of the tree house leads to Riley getting shot in the shoulder. After Judge Cool discusses the situation, everyone agrees that it was a pointless struggle, and old relationships are invigorated once again. Many people leave as friends. The story ends with how a "grass harp, gathering, telling, a harp of voices remembering a story."
The New York Herald Tribune lauded the novel as "Remarkable...infused with a tender laughter, charming human warmth, [and] a feeling for the positive quality of life." The Atlantic Monthly commented that "The Grass Harp charms you into sharing the author's feeling that there is a special poetry - a spontaneity and wonder and delight - in lives untarnished by conformity and common sense." Sales of The Grass Harp reached 13,500, more than double those of either A Tree of Night or Local Color, two of Capote's prior works. [1]
The Grass Harp was Truman Capote's favorite personal work, despite its being criticized as overly sentimental. [6]
The Grass Harp was favorably reviewed when it was published, and it attracted the interest of the Broadway producer Saint Subber, who traveled to Taormina to urge Capote to write a stage adaption of the work; his offer opened up new possibilities for income at a time when Capote was still struggling to make his way. Working with intense concentration, Capote managed to complete a draft of the play in a year's time. He was personally involved in the selection of a production team. Capote's stage adaptation of his novel, produced by Saint Subber, directed by Robert Lewis, opened on March 27, 1952 at Broadway's Martin Beck Theatre, where it ran for 36 performances. The cast included Mildred Natwick as Dolly Talbo, Ruth Nelson as Verena Talbo, Jonathan Harris as Dr. Morris Ritz, Sterling Holloway as The Barber, Gertrude Flynn as The Baker's Wife, Val Dufour as The Sheriff, Jane Lawrence as The Choir Mistress, Lenka Peterson as Maude Riordan, and Alice Pearce as Miss Baby Love Dallas. [8] Music was by Virgil Thomson and scenery and costumes were by Cecil Beaton. [9]
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In the late 1960s the novel was adapted into a musical. The book and lyrics were by Kenward Elmslie and the music by Claibe Richardson. [10] The initial 1967 tryout of the musical was performed by Trinity Square Repertory Company at the Rhode Island School of Design auditorium, in Providence, Rhode Island. Directed and staged by Adrian Hall, the cast included Barbara Baxley as Dolly Heart Talbo, Carol Brice as the black maid Catherine Creek, Carol Bruce as Verena Talbo, Elaine Stritch as the evangelist Baby Love. After the Providence tryout, Larry Fineberg optioned the property for Broadway, casting Mama Cass as the evangelist Miss Baby Love. However, Fineberg was unable to raise capital funds, and the producing rights were optioned by Richard Barr. [11]
In October 1971, the Michigan University Professional Theatre Program presented The Grass Harp musical with the university's music and drama departments supplying musicians and performers. Initially as an evaluation by the Broadway producers Richard Barr, Charles Woodward, Michael Harvey, and Associate Producer Michael Kasden. Celeste Holm, a close friend of Claibe Richardson, appeared in the Michigan University Professional Program's production as "Miss Baby Love". She was replaced with Karen Morrow for the Broadway production. [12]
The musical adaptation opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on November 2, 1971, after previews from October 26, 1971, and closed on November 6, 1971. Directed by Ellis Rabb, the choreography was by Rhoda Levine, Scenic Design and lighting by James Tilton, and costumes by Nancy Potts. Orchestrations were by Jonathan Tunick and Robert Russell Bennett, Theodore Saidenberg was musical director, musical arrangements were by J (Billy) Van Planck, and dance and incidental music was by John Berkman. [10]
The cast featured Barbara Cook as Dolly Talbo, Carol Brice as Catherine Creek, Karen Morrow as evangelist Miss Baby Love, Ruth Ford as Verena Talbo, Russ Thacker as Colin Talbo, Max Showalter as Dr. Morris Ritz, John Baragrey as Judge Cool, Kelley Boa, Trudy Bordoff, Colin Duffy, Eva Grant, and David Craig Moskin as Miss Baby Love's orphans, known as the "Heavenly Pride and Joy", Christine Stabile as Maude Riordan, and Harvey Vernon as Sheriff Amos Legrand. [13]
The musical previewed and opened during a major New York City newspaper strike preventing advertising and reviews, with no advance theater party ticket sales guarantee.
Richard Barr, Charles Woodward, Michael Harvey, and Michael Kasden gave the company the option of maintaining three more weeks for the productions' performance schedule, or closing after only seven performances, using the show's banked funds to produce a Broadway cast album. The musical orchestration was recorded in Cologne, Germany, with the Cologne Symphonic Orchestra ensemble. Returning to the States, the original cast was recorded in New York City, with the Painted Smiles Grass Harp vinyl album released a year after the musical's closing date. Because of timing, one musical number was forced off the vinyl, but added when the Painted Smiles Grass Harp audio CD was released. The Grass Harp album cover art was designed by Kenward Elmslie's fine artist-painter friend Joe Brainard. Claibe Richardson's Advertising Agency Art director-designer friend Jim Pearsal designed the Chappell Music Publishing's sheet music design-cover art work. Pearsal's twisted chinaberry tree house design, the Chappell Music Publishing sheet music cover art, replaced the original Brainard vinyl record "Grass Harp" cover art work when the Painted Smiles audio CD was issued. Initially, criticism of the show's sound system caused problems, with Truman Capote declaring "mike it". The producers could not afford to "mike" each member of the ensemble. The Grass Harp production was the last musical presented on Broadway without mikes for the cast.
The scenic designer had incorporated "burlap fabric" in the production's wing and border designs, causing the deadening of the performer's vocal projections. This poor choice of stage material in the set's design with the absence of microphones for each cast member, especially the children, was the one major technical problem for the producers.
Barbara Cook and the cast appeared on a CBS television Sunday morning talk-interview show, presenting several of the musical numbers with Richardson at the grand piano, during the musical's preview week and opening night performances.
In 1995, Stirling Silliphant and Kirk Ellis adapted the novel for a feature film directed by Charles Matthau. The cast included Matthau's father Walter, Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, Edward Furlong, Nell Carter, Jack Lemmon, Mary Steenburgen, Sean Patrick Flanery, Joe Don Baker, Bonnie Bartlett and Charles Durning.
Monroeville is the county seat of Monroe County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census its population was 5,951.
Truman Garcia Capote was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966). His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television productions.
Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, was an earlier draft of Mockingbird that was published in July 2015 as a sequel.
Barbara Cook was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals Plain and Fancy (1955), Candide (1956) and The Music Man (1957) among others, winning a Tony Award for the last. She continued performing mostly in theatre until the mid-1970s, when she began a second career as a cabaret and concert singer. She also made numerous recordings.
John Paul Dunphy was an American novelist and playwright. Dunphy was widely known as the partner of American author Truman Capote.
Joan Hume McCracken was an American dancer and actress who became famous for her role as Sylvie in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma! She also was noted for her performances in the Broadway shows Bloomer Girl (1944), Billion Dollar Baby (1945) and Dance Me a Song (1950), and the films Hollywood Canteen (1945) and Good News (1947).
Capote is a 2005 American biographical drama film about American novelist Truman Capote directed by Bennett Miller, and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role. The film primarily follows the events during the writing of Capote's 1965 nonfiction book In Cold Blood. The film was based on Gerald Clarke's 1988 biography Capote. It was released on September 30, 2005, coinciding with what would've been Capote's 81st birthday.
Karen Morrow is an American singer and actress best known for her work in musical theater. Her honors include an Emmy Award and a Theatre World Award, and an Ovation Award and five Drama-Logue Award nominations.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote published in 1958. In it, a contemporary writer recalls his early days in New York City, when he makes the acquaintance of his remarkable neighbor, Holly Golightly, who is one of Capote's best-known creations. In 1961 it was adapted into a major motion picture of the same name.
"A Christmas Memory" is a short story by Truman Capote. Originally published in Mademoiselle magazine in December 1956, it was reprinted in The Selected Writings of Truman Capote in 1963. It was issued in a stand-alone hardcover edition by Random House in 1966, and it has been published in many editions and anthologies since.
House of Flowers is a musical by Harold Arlen and Truman Capote. A short story of the same name was published in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958).
Kenward Gray Elmslie was an American author, performer, editor and publisher associated with the New York School of poetry.
The Thanksgiving Visitor is a short story by Truman Capote originally published in the November 1967 issue of McCall's magazine, and later published as a book by Random House, Inc. in 1968. The story takes the form of a childhood tale about a boy and his bully problem. The story has a strong moral lesson related to revenge. It is a sequel to Capote's A Christmas Memory.
Summer Crossing is the second novel written by American author Truman Capote. He started the novel in about 1943 and worked on it intermittently for several years before putting it aside. Capote's manuscript came to light almost 20 years after Capote's death and the novel published in 2005.
Claibe Richardson was an American composer.
Other Voices, Other Rooms is a 1948 novel by Truman Capote. It is written in the Southern Gothic style and is notable for its atmosphere of isolation and decadence.
The Grass Harp is a 1995 American comedy-drama film based on the novella by Truman Capote. The screenplay, which was the final work of Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, was adapted for the film. Directed by Charles Matthau, the film features a cast including Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Edward Furlong, and Nell Carter. Piper Laurie won the Best Supporting Actress award from the Southeastern Film Critics Association for her performance in the film.
"Children on Their Birthdays" is a short story by Truman Capote, published serially in the late 1940s and appearing in A Tree of Night and Other Stories in 1949; it is noted as one of his better quality early short stories.
Brooklyn Heights: A Personal Memoir is an autobiographical essay by Truman Capote about his life in Brooklyn in the late 1950s. While it was eventually combined with the original photo illustrations by David Attie in a coffee table edition, and has been included in anthologies as well, it was first published in the February 1959 issue of the mid-century travel magazine Holiday.
The Grass Harp is a play written by Truman Capote based on his novel of the same name. Producer Saint Subber staged it on Broadway in 1952. It was Capote's first play.
