This is more than historical preservation. But there's nothing painstaking about the results, which seem both wholly faithful to the times and fresh as paint. Kaufman, who concocted the story of romance and land speculation in "the lovely land of Florida, sunny Florida by the sea." The Marx Brothers took it from there, adding so many comic bits and off-the-cuff quips of their own that the opening night curtain, it is said, didn't come down until 11:30.Īrena has painstakingly reassembled the script from various and sundry sources, including the 1929 motion picture version.
#Marx brothers coconuts zip#
No small part of the evening's pleasure is discovering the lilt in "A Little Bungalow," the insouciance of "Lucky Boy" and the Jazz Age zip in "Everyone in the World Is Doing the Charleston."Īs for the comedy, it was supplied by that king of the wisecrack, George S. If the rest of the numbers are lesser Berlin, lesser Berlin is still better than most of what is perpetrated these days in greater New York. The former was provided by Irving Berlin, who cut the show's one hit song, "Always," during the Philadelphia tryout. "The Cocoanuts" comes to us from another time, when musical comedies were just what they claimed to be: music and comedy. You can only tear down, after all, that which has been carefully built up beforehand, and Wager is a directorial craftsman of the first order. He takes a kid's delight in nonsense, but he has the meticulousness of a Swiss watchmaker, without which nonsense degenerates into chaos. Wager knew what he was doing back then, and, if anything, he knows even more now.
![marx brothers coconuts marx brothers coconuts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nPTqrFas9Bo/hqdefault.jpg)
Arena hasn't had such high time with low comedy since its 1982 production of "Animal Crackers," which just happened to be the Marx Brothers' Broadway fandango of 1928.ĭirector Douglas C. Otherwise, you might as well let yourself go. But the latent anarchist who slumbers inside all of us is tickled scarlet.
![marx brothers coconuts marx brothers coconuts](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BQIAAOSwKIhf6AJG/s-l300.jpg)
The rational mind staggers under the onslaught of puns, sight gags, mixed metaphors and rude remarks. It's probably the hippo's tutu, the hummingbird's pecs and the honey on your pizza, too.
![marx brothers coconuts marx brothers coconuts](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fa/a7/0c/faa70ce8852534c8a43ed30c1189039a--coconuts-feature-film.jpg)
It's the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas, the cream in your coffee. "The Cocoanuts," the Marx Brothers' 1925 musical comedy lovingly reconstructed by Arena Stage in the Kreeger Theater, is a delicious evening of sweet delirium.