The Show Off

              1926

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The Show-Off
The Comedy Sensation Of the Year


THE SHOW-OFF
GEORGE Kelly, author of this transcript of life, chose Philadelphia as the place in which his characters were to live and breathe and have their being.  He might just as well have chosen Oshkosh, Kokomo or Coshocton, for in every town there is a Show-Off.  The only wonder is that he has not been translated to the stage long ago.  Call him what you like—the town cut-up,the wise guy,the smart aleck, he is always the same, existing in all times and in all places.  He thinks he is really important when he makes himself conspicuous.  He plays to the galleries.  He constantly exhibits his vanity and selfishness in office, store and factory, at the club and on the street.

New York critics testify that The Show-Off is one of the outstanding successes of recent years.  The play ran well into its second season at the Playhouse in New York.  Its Chicago run also was phenomenal.  It topped the list in Burns Mantle's book of Best Plays and was nominated for the Pulitzer prize.



GLIMPSING THE STORY
The Show-Off is an amusing study of the life of a typical American family located in Philadelphia.  The play provokes laughter and tears in its relation of the rather general tendency of American youth to marry without the slightest regard for the economic consideration incident to the establishment and maintenance of a home.

Amy Fisher, daughter of an everyday family, is keeping company with Aubrey Piper, a flashy clerk in a Pennsylvania freight office.  She marries him in defiance of the counsel of her mother, brother and elder sister, who have come into some knowledge of Aubrey's
 true worth, if any.  The cold economical fact which the enraptured lovers are obliged to contemplate after their marriage, and the efforts of Amy's family to spare the tragedy of her husband's incompetence and inability to support her, make a sketch of life in America today as irresistibly amusing as it is mercilessly faithful.



INTRODUCING THE SHOW-OFF
An abnormal streak of egotism characterizes The Show-Off.  His whole object in life is to hear himself talk.  It matters not at all that his boasting is without foundation.  He loves the sound of his own voice.  His tongue outraces his brain by a wide margin.  All he demands is an audience, and he cares not whether this audience be his barber, an insurance agent, a cigar store clerk or the members of his immediate family.  Loud and continuous laughter is the warning which invariably heralds his approach and departure.

It is impossible to insult The Show-Off.  Even when those who are compelled to listen to him are bored to extinction he keeps on going.  He is impervious to ridicule and even direct insult.  He is self-satisfied, a poseur and a four-flusher, net.  He is one who can strut, sitting down.  He is convinced that everyone else on earth is a boob, a half-wit or a come-on.  The audience laughs at him and not with him.

The Show-Off is famed for his sign on the dotted line.  His idiotic self-sufficiency and vanity make every man in the audience want to flatten him out and reduce him to his proper equation in the scheme of life.  In real life he inspires a feeling that kicking is in order, but on the stage he makes a prime comedy character.

The playwright exercises his utmost skill in developing The Show-Off.  He gradually reveals a latent common sense underneath his ego-encrusted exterior, and at the end of the play there is a feeling that while The Show-Off always will be a flamboyant admirer of his own self, he nevertheless will be just lucky enough to attain success.




THE SHOW-OFF
Sees by the Papers

One of the best of all American comedies.  An authentic nugget in this, the golden age of the American Theatre.—
Heywood Broun, New York World.


An extraordinarily entertaining comedy—a genuinely indigenous play of American life, salty, humorous, true.—
Alexander Woollcott, Herald.


The season's comedy topnotch, without any exception.—
Alan Dale, American.


The laughs crackle like pine knots in an open fireplace.—
Burns Mantle, News.


Destined to a long and prosperous sojourn.—
John Corbin, Times.


'The Show-Off' makes George Kelly pretty nearly our favorite American playwright.  We are sure he is the White Hope of American Comedy.—
Robert C. Benchley, Life.


A thoroughly diverting evening.  I heartily commend it to your attention.—
George Jean Nathan, Judge.

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