The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry

First published: 1939

First produced: 1939, at the Shubert Theatre, New York City

Type of plot: Comedy of manners

Time of work: The 1930’s

Locale: Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Principal Characters:

• Tracy Lord, a beautiful twenty-four-year-old high society woman
• Margaret Lord, her mother
• Seth Lord, her father
• Alexander “Sandy” Lord, her brother
• Dinah Lord, her younger sister
• George Kittredge, Tracy’s fiancé
• C. K. Dexter Haven, Tracy’s former husband
• Macaulay “Mike” Connor, a newspaper reporter
• Elizabeth “Liz” Imbrie, a newspaper photographer

The Play

As the curtain rises on The Philadelphia Story, Tracy Lord is in the sitting room of her family’s country house near Philadelphia hurriedly writing last-minute thank-you notes as her mother, Margaret Lord, brings in more gifts. Tracy is to be married the following day. During the ensuing conversation, it becomes clear that it is Tracy’s second marriage, following an elopement ten months previously, which terminated in divorce. As the scene progresses, the possibility of scandal escalates. Tracy’s former husband, C. K. Dexter Haven, is in the vicinity. Furthermore, Dinah Lord has found the proof sheets of an article which a magazine called Destiny is about to publish concerning the involvement of her father, Seth Lord, with a dancer, an affair which so angered Tracy that she has refused to invite her own father to the wedding. When Sandy Lord enters, it transpires that, as a journalist himself, he has made a deal with Destiny: In return for killing the article about Seth, they will be permitted to print the inside story on Tracy’s wedding. Sandy has even arranged for a fake telegram from Seth, regretting that illness will prevent his coming to the ceremony.

Soon the delegation from Destiny arrives: Mike Connor, who immediately displays his democratic disapproval of Main Line society, and Liz Imbrie, who is clearly in love with Mike. Although Sandy and Margaret hope to win over their guests, Dinah and Tracy assume the roles of spoiled and brainless socialites. When her fiancé, George Kittredge, enters, Tracy gushes over him; later, in a fit of invention, she introduces her uncle as her father, and pretends to forget the name of C. K. Dexter Haven, her former husband. Just as lunch is announced, Seth arrives, and Tracy’s real fury about the journalistic invasion becomes clear. The family troubles are his fault, she indicates, and then suggests the complexity of the situation by addressing him by her uncle’s name.

As the second act begins, it is obvious to the audience that in the conflict between the socialites and the reporters, the socialites are ahead; the very fact that Liz and Mike can talk about the simplemindedness of their hosts indicates that they have been deceived by them. As they talk, however, Mike and Tracy begin to draw closer; they have to admit that they both assume a toughness which is only superficial. In a later conversation with Dexter, Tracy again must approach the truth. Dexter’s gift to her, a photograph of their boat, brings back memories of their own happiness. Although Tracy has blamed Dexter for their divorce, he tells her that the cause was her own intolerance and that she will not be happy with a man such as George. When George pompously describes his plan to place Tracy on a pedestal, she begins to worry, and at the end of the scene, when her father, like Dexter, accuses her of spinsterish intolerance, Tracy is confused, for perhaps the first time in her life.

The second scene in act 2 takes place some hours later, after an all-night party. Once again, the Lords are scheming to outwit the press. With an inebriated and somewhat infatuated Mike cooperating, Sandy and Tracy plan to blackmail the publisher of Destiny in order to get all the publicity about their family stopped. Meanwhile, Tracy continues to spar with Mike; however, when she hears herself accusing him of intolerance, she stops and begins to see herself. Champagne and impulse reign; they kiss, they put in an emergency telephone call to summon the publisher, and they run offstage for a swim without suits. George arrives to check on Tracy’s conduct with Mike; Dexter unsuccessfully tries to send him home but at least manages to pocket Tracy’s telltale jewelry. When Mike enters carrying the naked Tracy, along with their clothes, however, even Dexter cannot cover up for her. He knocks Mike down, supposedly to prevent George from doing so, and George leaves in a huff.

The third act takes place just before the wedding. Tracy is hung over and confused. She has found a man’s watch beside her bed, and she has lost her bracelet and her engagement ring. When Dexter returns the jewelry and Dinah tells her about seeing Mike carrying Tracy into her bedroom, Tracy can only assume the worst. So does George, who sends a nasty note and then arrives in person to demand an explanation. Even though Mike assures George that nothing happened, Tracy sees her fiancé for the stuffed shirt that he is and breaks the engagement. Realizing that all the essentials for a wedding are in place except the bridegroom, Mike proposes, but Tracy refuses, leaving him free for Liz. Because the publisher has arrived and hired Mike back, he is too happy to be hurt by Tracy’s refusal. When Tracy admits that she has loved Dexter all along and that she wishes to remarry him immediately, Mike happily agrees to act as Dexter’s best man. There is only one more relationship unmended. After the other characters leave the stage to take their places at the ceremony, Tracy tells her father that she has now learned how to be human and therefore to be tolerant of others and, taking his arm, she exits.

Dramatic Devices

Because The Philadelphia Story is a traditional comedy of manners, the dramatic devices used are those typical of the genre. The expensive set decoration establishes the upper-class setting of the story. In this case, a sitting room and a porch are substituted for the usual drawing room, but there is no essential difference, because these are the public rooms which are meant to present the social group, here the Lord family, at its best.

Much of the humor arises from the attempt to keep private scandal hidden from the public, represented in this play by the reporters. Thus when Tracy hears that the reporters are coming, she goes to her room and changes costume, emerging in a demure, high-necked dress that she hopes will establish her propriety. The deception, however, cannot be maintained for long. Later, when Mike carries the naked, drunken Tracy through the other public area, the porch, on the way to her bedroom, Barry is emphasizing the fact that private behavior always becomes public knowledge. This type of revelation scene in comedy of manners is traditional, going back to the screen that falls to reveal the hidden Lady Teazle in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (pr. 1777). In these plays, that which is hidden is always discovered; the sitting room or the drawing room eventually becomes not a place of successful deception but instead a place where the truth is revealed, so that private lives and public lives become the same.

All traditional comedies also have a quality of magic. As complication follows complication, the audience is in suspense as to how the playwright will ever resolve the knotted strands of his plot. Barry skillfully introduces more confusion than would be necessary for the plot. For example, Sandy plans to explain Seth’s absence at the wedding by a telegram stating that he is ill. The telegram is garbled and obviously phony; further, before it arrives, Tracy has decided to pretend that her uncle is her father, and then when her father turns up, she introduces him as her uncle. Another example of the multiplication of complications is the fact that Tracy ultimately has three possible bridegrooms. At the end of the play, while the wedding guests wait, Tracy must quickly deal with a proposal from Mike before she can marry Dexter.

The third traditional element which Barry handles beautifully in his play is the visual expression of comic plot complications. In the public rooms where comedies of manners are set, characters come and go rapidly and unexpectedly, frequently encountering the very characters with whom contact is most awkward. Part of the interest of the play is watching the way in which highly polished ladies and gentlemen deal with this awkwardness. Whether they pretend unconcern, as when the Lords invite Tracy’s former husband to lunch, or whether they lapse into plebeian behavior, as when Dexter knocks Mike across the room, their behavior is always unpredictable. As the audience watches the playwright to see how he magically resolves plot complications, so it also watches the characters to see how they will use their own social finesse to deal with the encounters which he arranges for them. In his handling of the traditions of comedy, and particularly of those established for comedy of manners, Barry deserves to be ranked with his predecessors, from William Congreve to Noël Coward.

Critical Context

During his relatively brief career, Philip Barry alternated sophisticated comedies, such as The Philadelphia Story, which were highly successful, with serious plays, which rarely pleased the public. His first success, The Jilts (pr. 1922), which was later titled You and I (pr., pb. 1923), established his reputation as a delightful writer of comedy. He followed it with a similar play, The Youngest (pr. 1924, pb. 1925), which Barry himself disliked, but which ran for 104 performances on Broadway. In a Garden (pr. 1925, pb. 1926) was admittedly meaningful, but only the outstanding performance of Laurette Taylor kept the play on the boards for seventy-four performances, and the fantasy which followed, White Wings (pr. 1926, pb. 1927), lasted for only twenty-seven performances.

During the rest of his career as a playwright, the pattern continued. For example, two of Barry’s plays were written simultaneously and produced within two months of each other. The tragedy John (pr. 1927, pb. 1929) died after eleven performances; the comedy Paris Bound (pr. 1927, pb. 1928) lasted for 234. The serious play which critics admire most is Hotel Universe (pr., pb. 1930). The play incorporates the element of fantasy: Through a physicist’s manipulation of time, a group of sophisticated people are enabled to relive certain past experiences which have crippled them in the present. In what is a peculiar combination of psychoanalytic therapy and Roman Catholic confession and absolution, the characters are then healed and are able to proceed with their lives.

Although critics recognize Barry’s serious intent in such plays as Hotel Universe and although the public of his time tended to assume that because they were puzzled, he must be profound, later critical opinion sees him as a fairly pedestrian Catholic moralist rather than as a truly original thinker. The judgment of the public may have been better than his own. In brilliant comedies such as The Philadelphia Story, he best expressed his major themes: the folly and the destructiveness of prejudice, the need for tolerance and understanding in human relationships, the importance of forgiveness, and the sanctity of marriage.

Sources for Further Study

Brown, John Mason. “The American Barry.” Saturday Review of Literature 32 (December 24, 1949): 24-27.

Gassner, John. “Philip Barry: A Civilized Playwright.” In The Theatre in Our Times. New York: Crown, 1954.

Krutch, Joseph Wood. “Miss Hepburn Pays Up.” Nation, April 8, 1939, 410-411.

Roppolo, Joseph Patrick. Philip Barry. New York: Twayne, 1965.

Weales, Gerald. “Philip Barry.” In Reference Guide to American Literature. 2d ed. Chicago: St. James, 1987.