The Marriage-Go-Round

The Marriage-Go-Round is a 1958 play written by American producer, writer and director Leslie Stevens [1] (1924-1998). and a 1961 film adaptation, also written and produced by Stevens, that starred Susan Hayward, James Mason and Julie Newmar.

It was inspired by a suggestion that dancer Isadora Duncan supposedly made to playwright George Bernard Shaw: the two of them should have a child because "with your mind and my body, think what a person it would be!". The play, a sex comedy, was a Broadway theatre success with a run of over 700 performances; the film, a box-office failure. The play's original production on Broadway starred Charles Boyer as Dr. Paul Delville, a professor of cultural anthropology at a New York college, Claudette Colbert as Dr. Content Lowell, the Dean of Women at the college and Delville's wife, Julie Newmar as Katrin Sveg, and Edmon Ryan as Ross Barnett.

Performance history in South Africa

1959: Taubie Kushlick directed the play for Kushlick-Gluckman which was staged at the Intimate Theatre together with Leon Gluckman in September 1959, with Gordon Mulholland, Fiona Fraser, Peggy Moran, Sonnette Heyns as Katrin Sveg, and Geoffrey Morris as Paul Delville, the Professor.

1986: Presented by Pieter Toerien at the Alhambra Theatre, Johannesburg in May 1986 under the direction of Rex Garner starring Bill Flynn with Jeremy Crutchley, Patricia Sanders, George Korelin, Malcolm Terrey and others.

1986: Produced in South Africa by Pieter Toerien in 1986. Directed by Rex Garner, assisted by Jimmy Bell, performed at the Baxter Theatre, featuring Gordon Mulholland, Clare Marshall, Anneline Kriel and Robert Haber.

Sources

Wikipedia [2].

Photograph of Sonnette Heyns and Geoffrey Morris with the following caption: "Scene from 'The Marriage go-Round'. This is the second offering of the Kushlick-Gluckman season". (NELM Collection: GLUCKMAN, LEON]: 1995. 2. 3. 1. 1. 992)

Barrow, Brian & Williams-Short, Yvonne (eds.). 1988. Theatre Alive! The Baxter Story 1977-1987.

Tucker, 1997. 124-5, 141, 448.

The Marriage Go-Round theatre programme, 1986.

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