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| The Matchmaket | |
|---|---|
 The Matchmaker theatrical set drawing by Bernard Gray | |
| Written by | Thornton Wilder |
| Characters |
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| Date premiered | 1954 |
| Place premiered | Broadway |
| Setting | New York City |
The Matchmaker is a 1954 Broadway play by Thornton Wilder, a rewritten version of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers .
The play has a long and colorful history. John Oxenford's 1835 one-act farce A Day Well Spent had been extended into the full-length play Einen Jux will er sich machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842. In 1938, Wilder adapted Nestroy's version into the Americanized comedy The Merchant of Yonkers , which attracted the attention of German director Max Reinhardt, who mounted a Broadway production, which ran for 39 performances. [1]
Fifteen years later, director Tyrone Guthrie expressed interest in a new production of the play, which Wilder extensively rewrote and rechristened The Matchmaker. The most significant change was the expansion of a previously minor character named Dolly Gallagher Levi, who became the play's centerpiece. A widow who brokers marriages and other transactions in Yonkers, New York at the turn of the 20th century, she sets her sights on local merchant Horace Vandergelder, who has hired her to find him a wife. After a series of slapstick situations involving mistaken identities, secret rendezvous behind carefully placed screens, separated lovers, and a trip to night court, everyone finds themselves paired with a perfect match.
The play starring Ruth Gordon as Dolly and Sam Levene as Horace Vandergelder, debuted at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland on November 4, 1954; at the Edinburgh Festival, in Berlin—for the troops and at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London's West End. Due to a salary dispute with Broadway producer David Merrick, Sam Levene left the production after playing the role of Horace Vandergelder for over a year in Europe. Loring Smith replaced Levene as Horace Vandergelder and opened on Broadway December 5, 1955 at the Royale Theatre, later transferring to the Booth to complete its run of 486 performances. [2] Ruth Gordon's performance in the title role earned her a Tony Award nomination as Best Actress; Guthrie won as Best Director. [3]
The characters and original cast of The Matchmaker are recorded at the Internet Broadway Database. [3]
The 1958 film version, adapted by John Michael Hayes and directed by Joseph Anthony, starred Shirley Booth as Dolly, Anthony Perkins as Cornelius, Shirley MacLaine as Irene, Paul Ford as Vandergelder, and Robert Morse reprising his Broadway role as Barnaby. [4]
The story enjoyed yet another incarnation in 1964 when David Merrick, who had produced the 1955 Broadway play, partnered with composer Jerry Herman to mount the hugely successful, Tony Award-winning musical Hello, Dolly! starring Carol Channing. [5]
A film version of Hello, Dolly! was released in 1969 starring Barbra Streisand in the lead role. [6]
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth — and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day.
Hello, Dolly! is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder.
David Merrick was an American theatrical producer who won a number of Tony Awards.
Betty Lynn Buckley is an American actress and singer. Buckley is the winner of a Tony Award, and was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Olivier Award. In 2012, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath. He participated in the 1848 revolutions and his work reflects the new liberal spirit then spreading throughout Europe.
Einen Jux will er sich machen (1842), is a three-act musical play, designated as a Posse mit Gesang, by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy. It was adapted from John Oxenford's A Day Well Spent (1835), and first performed at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 10 March 1842. The music was by Adolf Müller.
Sam Levene was a Russian-American Broadway, films, radio, and television actor and director. In a career spanning over five decades, he appeared in over 50 comedy and drama theatrical stage productions. He also acted in over 50 films across the United States and abroad.
David Burns was an American Broadway theatre and motion picture actor and singer.
Hello, Dolly! is a 1969 American musical romantic comedy film based on the 1964 Broadway production of the same name, which was based on Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker. Directed by Gene Kelly and written and produced by Ernest Lehman, the film stars Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau, Michael Crawford, Danny Lockin, Tommy Tune, Fritz Feld, Marianne McAndrew, E. J. Peaker and Louis Armstrong. The film follows the story of Dolly Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to Yonkers, New York in order to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. In doing so, she convinces his niece, his niece's intended and Horace's two clerks to travel to New York.
On the Razzle is a play by Tom Stoppard which premiered at the Royal National Theatre, London in 1981. It is an adaptation of the 1842 Viennese play Einen Jux will er sich machen by Johann Nestroy, which had been adapted twice by Thornton Wilder. The first Wilder version, 1938, entitled The Merchant of Yonkers, was faithful to the original material, but the second Wilder version, 1955, renamed The Matchmaker, expanded the previously secondary role of Dolly Gallagher Levi, who later became the heroine of the Jerry Herman musical hit, Hello, Dolly!. Stoppard's adaptation eliminates the Dolly character.
The Merchant of Yonkers is a 1938 play by Thornton Wilder.
Loring B. Smith was an American vaudeville, stage, film, radio and television actor, frequently of broadly comic and gregarious characters who enjoyed a 65-year career in every aspect of the entertainment business.
The Matchmaker is a 1958 American comedy film directed by Joseph Anthony. The film stars Shirley Booth in her final film, Anthony Perkins, and Shirley MacLaine. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on the 1955 play of the same name by Thornton Wilder. The costumes were by Edith Head.
Rosamund Mary Greenwood was a British actress who was active on screen from 1935 until 1990.
Katherine Baldwin is an American singer and actress known for her work in musical theater. She received a Tony Award nomination for her work in the 2009 Broadway revival of Finian's Rainbow. She also co-starred opposite Bette Midler, David Hyde Pierce, and Gavin Creel in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, for which she received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle award nominations for her work as the saucy millineress Irene Molloy. Baldwin continued with the production until it closed in August 2018.
Jay Garner, born James H. Garner Jr., was an American actor.
David McAlister was an English actor on television, in musicals, on stage and in film, known for his voice-over work.
Wenzel Johann Scholz was an Austrian actor in Laibach, Klagenfurt, Graz and in Vienna above all ay the Alt-Wiener Volkstheater, who became known especially as brilliant partner of Johann Nestroy in his posses and Lustspiels.
Dolly Gallagher Levi is a fictional character and the protagonist of the 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers and its multiple adaptations, the most notable being the 1964 musical Hello Dolly! Levi's main profession is matchmaking in Yonkers, New York. She also begins a romantic involvement with businessman, Horace Vandergelder, when she sends his niece on a date with a local town boy.
Harvey Evans was an American stage and film actor. He was noted for having appeared in the original Broadway productions of West Side Story, Follies, and Hello, Dolly!, among others.
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