You Can't Take It with You by Moss Hart

First published: 1937

First produced: 1936, at the Booth Theater, New York City

Type of plot: Farce

Time of work: 1936

Locale: New York City

Principal Characters:

• Penelope “Penny” Vanderhof Sycamore, a mother in her mid-fifties
• Essie Sycamore Carmichael, her daughter, a dancer and candy maker
• Ed Carmichael, Essie’s husband, a xylophonist and printer
• Paul Sycamore, Penny’s husband, a fireworks maker
• Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, the person around whom the family revolves
• Alice Sycamore, a nearly normal younger daughter of Penny and Paul
• Anthony “Tony” Kirby, Jr., Alice’s boyfriend
• Mr. De Pinna, a former iceman who has been in the house for eight years
• Rheba, the maid
• Donald, Rheba’s boyfriend
• Boris Kolenkhov, a ballet teacher and wrestler
• Mr. Kirby, Tony’s father, a powerful businessman
• Mrs. Kirby, Tony’s mother, a conventional woman

The Play

You Can’t Take It with You opens with Penny Vanderhof Sycamore typing at a play in the living room of a house near Columbia University. She is working on her eleventh play in the eight years since a typewriter arrived at the house, quite by accident; in this household, the delivery of a typewriter is enough to begin a literary career. Essie Carmichael enters from making candy in the kitchen, and the nonstop action begins. While Essie practices dancing, Penny tries to extricate her heroine from the monastery in which she has spent the last six years. At times, she wonders aloud whether to return to sculpture. Mr. Sycamore and Mr. De Pinna arrive from making fireworks in the basement; they plan a grand display including balloons. Ed Carmichael begins playing the xylophone. When Donald arrives to visit Rheba, he brings flies for Grandpa’s snakes. Ed plans to print some sayings from Trotsky to package with Essie’s next batch of candy.

Grandpa Vanderhof, still spry at age seventy-five, has just attended a graduation at Columbia University. When Alice arrives home, she seems very different from the other inhabitants. While Alice talks about her boyfriend and boss, a government man makes inquiries about Grandpa’s back taxes. Grandpa has not been paying taxes; indeed, he has been doing whatever pleases him since he walked away from his job thirty-five years ago. Grandpa buried an unnamed milkman as a Vanderhof when he died eight years before the time of the play. Now when mail comes for Grandpa, no one thinks to give it to him. Having seen none of the government’s letters, he does not know that the government wants back taxes. Tony visits Alice to meet the family. Kolenkhov begins a dance lesson with Essie. At any slight lull in the action, a new set of fireworks booms out of the basement. The absurdities continue in the second scene. Alice explains to Tony that her family is not normal; various members of the household readily demonstrate that fact. Nevertheless, Tony plans to marry Alice.

In act 2, Grandpa brings a drunken actor home to help Penny with her play. Alice announces that she has invited the Kirbys to dinner. As the family makes grand plans for the dinner, the Kirbys arrive a night early. Grandpa explains something of his philosophy to Mr. Kirby. He does what pleases him rather than conforming to what the world requires for success. He points out that he does not need bicarbonate and that he enjoys freedom from taxes and business worries.

Kolenkhov shows that he is also a wrestler by throwing Mr. Kirby to the floor. Before a second dinner is ready, Mrs. Kirby starts their exit by pleading a headache. While Penny tries to invite the Kirbys to return the next night, Alice tells Tony that that would not work. Before the Kirbys can leave, FBI men stop everything and arrest everyone, including the Kirbys. They are investigating the printed sayings that Ed has put in Essie’s candy packages. Grandpa explains that Ed just likes to print words that sound nice. The agents also discover the gunpowder from the illegal fireworks operation in the basement, and they lead Mr. De Pinna from the cellar. Before they leave for the jail, Mr. De Pinna’s pipe (left in the basement during the commotion) sets off the whole year’s supply of fireworks. The second act ends in mayhem.

Like the first two acts, the third contains frantic activity and fast-paced dialogue. Donald reads the news account of the night in jail. Rheba explains Mrs. Kirby’s reaction to a stripteaser who sang a stripping song while Mrs. Kirby was being searched. Rheba regrets that no party will use the party food. Every piece of the fireworks has exploded. Alice will not return to work and is ready to leave everything behind. Kolenkhov brings the Grand Duchess Olga Katrina, now a waitress in New York, to visit, and she fixes her special blintzes for dinner. Tony tries to keep Alice from leaving. Mr. Kirby comes to find Tony. Before he can rescue Tony, he finds himself discussing life and happiness with Grandpa Vanderhof; Grandpa points out that Mr. Kirby worries himself to make more money although he has all he can use. He concludes, “you can’t take it with you.” His philosophy is simple: Enjoy life by doing what one wants and avoiding doing things merely to please others or to make money. Tony reminds his father of his youth when he tried to run away from business, but Mr. Kirby retorts that he is thankful that his father knocked those ideas out of him. Tony points out that he still has a saxophone in the back of his closet. He adds that he intended to bring his parents on the wrong night; he wanted them to see a real family.

Grandpa suggests that most people would not be willing to settle for what they eventually get; Mr. Kirby agrees to eat the duchess’s blintzes; the United States government even apologizes for trying to collect taxes from a man who has officially been dead for eight years. Grandpa offers a simple grace:

Well, Sir, here we are again. . . . Things seem to be going along fine. Alice is going to marry Tony. . . . Of course the fireworks blew up, but that was Mr. De Pinna’s fault not Yours. We’ve all got our health and as far as anything else is concerned we’ll leave that to You. Thank you.

Everyone begins talking in different directions once again.

Dramatic Devices

You Can’t Take It with You presents the audience with a variety of action. Snakes, a typewriter, a saxophone, a xylophone, and dancing all abound. Offstage are the basement with its fireworks manufacture and the kitchen with its candy making and meal preparation. Any lull in the onstage action is sure to start fireworks from the basement. The dialogue is typical of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Grandpa argues that he should not pay the income tax by asking what the government would do with the money. He continues, “What do I get for my money? If I go into Macy’s and buy something, there it is—I see it. What’s the Government give me?” After listening to the agent’s list of things that government supplies, Grandpa decides that he might pay seventy-five dollars. The dialogue leaps from subject to subject, its logic apparent only to the characters themselves. As Essie asks Ed to remember the music he just played on his xylophone, Penny interjects, “Ed, dear. Why don’t you and Essie have a baby?” Ed and Essie answer, but Penny is already back working with her manuscripts.

A rickety card table used for typing, cages for snakes, a xylophone, and the dining table fill the set; the family really lives in this room. Entrances are timed for comedic effect. Immediately after Alice asks that a nice dinner be planned for Tony’s parents on the next evening, the Kirbys show up in full evening dress. As the Kirbys start to leave, the government agents arrive and arrest everyone. While Mr. Sycamore stalls Alice’s request for a taxi, Tony arrives to intervene. Exits also offer grounds for comedy. The tax agent starts to leave after threatening Grandpa, only to be warned to watch out for the snakes and then to be frightened by an explosion from the basement. He literally jumps out of the room. Penny’s word association game is filled with words that embarrass Alice: potatoes, bathroom, lust, honeymoon, sex.

The action on the crowded set includes Essie dancing through conversations, Kolenkhov throwing Mr. Kirby to the floor in a wrestling demonstration, and the pompous entrance and attempted exit of Mr. and Mrs. Kirby. Sound effects range from Penny typing and Ed printing to the music of Ed’s xylophone and the frequent explosions of the fireworks from the basement.

The hobbies chosen by each of the characters help to build the characterization. Each of the images created by the hobbies indicates how far the Vanderhof family departs from the accepted norm in its pursuit of true happiness. Money, success, and power have no place in their activities. The Kirbys, in contrast, choose hobbies that are fashionable for the rich and powerful: Mr. Kirby raises orchids, and Mrs. Kirby pursues spiritualism. Alice explains to Tony, “Your mother believes in spiritualism because it’s fashionable, and your father raises orchids because he can afford to. My mother writes plays because eight years ago a typewriter was delivered here by mistake.”

Critical Context

You Can’t Take It with You is one of six plays, two musicals, and one one-act written by the team of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Best known of the other plays are Once in a Lifetime (pr., pb. 1930), The Man Who Came to Dinner (pr., pb. 1939), and George Washington Slept Here (pr., pb. 1940). Kaufman and Hart were the most successful collaborators of their generation. Despite a few topical references to the contemporary scene, You Can’t Take It with You wears well. Some revivals change the topical references; others allow them to provide historical authenticity.

You Can’t Take It with You reflects the Depression era from which it comes. The madcap farce of antimaterialism opened in December of 1936. By February, 1937, its seats were selling four months in advance. It was not until the heat waves of July and August that there were empty seats, and even then they had been sold. Its initial run included 837 performances. The combination of the notion of seeking happiness by pursuing activities for their own sake and the delightful spectacle of the Vanderhofs penetrating the pomposity of the Kirbys perfectly fit the needs of late Depression-era audiences. It was selected as the Pulitzer Prize winner for the best play of 1937.

The main idea that the good life comes from doing what one wants to do rather than what others consider reasonable or even normal serves as a sound comic base. When pushed to farce, it becomes an entertaining tale of a madcap family juxtaposed with a staid family from the successful social world of American business. Despite their unmethodical actions, the Vanderhofs do seem to offer sense. They urge members of the audience to seek their own paths rather than to conform to the ways of their society. They may be mad, but they are lovable. These eccentrics provide a form of almost sensible insanity; when contrasted to the power-crazed successes of their day, they seem both happier and more sensible. You Can’t Take It with You provides both entertainment and insight into the mindset of the Depression era as it warns against taking standard ideas of success too seriously.

Sources for Further Study

Brown, John Mason. “The Sensible Insanities of You Can’t Take It with You.” In Two on the Aisle: Ten Years of the American Theatre in Performance. New York: W. W. Norton, 1938.

Goldstein, Malcolm. George S. Kaufman: His Life, His Theater. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Gould, Jean. “Some Clever Collaborators: George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.” In Modern American Playwrights. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1966.

Harriman, Margaret Case. “Hi-yo Platinum! Moss Hart.” In Take Them Up Tenderly: A Collection of Profiles. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1945.

Hart, Moss. Act One: An Autobiography. 3d ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

Mason, Jeffrey D. Wisecracks: The Farces of George S. Kaufman. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1988.

Mason, Richard. “The Comic Theater of Moss Hart: Persistence of a Formula.” Theater Annual 23 (1968): 60-87.

Meredith, Scott. George S. Kaufman and His Friends. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974.

Pollack, Rhoda-Gale. George S. Kaufman. Boston: Twayne, 1988.

Teichmann, Howard. George S. Kaufman: An Intimate Portrait. New York: Atheneum, 1972.