Synopsis
Commentator and wit Sheridan Whiteside, having broken his hip in a fall from a Mesalia, Ohio porch, is forced by a doddering physician to remain in the home of his erstwhile hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest W. Stanley. Tended to by a crisp, long-suffering secretary, Maggie Cutler, and a befuddled nurse called Miss Preen, Whiteside prepares his annual Christmas broadcast while Mr. Stanley�s weird sister flits about and various friends travel cross country to crack wise at the invalid�s knee. Complications arise when Maggie falls for a local newspaperman, Bert Jefferson, who�s written a play worthy of Katherine Cornell. Whiteside, distressed at the thought of losing Maggie after 10 productive years, schemes to bring stage actress and sex predator Lorraine Sheldon to Mesalia so she can get her manicured hands on Jefferson�s manuscript as well as on Jefferson and thereby throw a monkey wrench into the impending engagement.
While Sherry nudges this mean-spirited action into play, he�s cheered by visits from cronies Beverly Carlton and Banjo, who are meant to stand in for Woollcott pals No�l Coward and Harpo Marx. Whiteside is also exasperated by the Stanleys, a stuffy couple bent on repressing the marital and professional aspirations of their two children, Richard and June. As all of these figures�plus four off-stage penguins and an octopus�populate Tony Walton�s sumptuous mansion-on-a-hill set, it looks as if Whiteside, who turns out not to be incapacitated after all, will once again get his selfish way. At the end, with Carlton and Banjo helping him and Sheldon swanning all over the furniture, the lovable curmudgeon does and doesn�t prevail. All ends happily nonetheless. |
