Director Scott Elliott explains the popular glamour of The Women.

FRONT & CENTER: How did you decide to direct a stage production of The Women? Were you familiar with the classic film version?

Elliott: A few years ago, when I was at Roundabout directing Three Sisters, Todd Haimes asked me what other plays I would like to do. I suggested The Women, and Todd read it and loved it, and ever since then we’ve both been planning to do it. We talked about it every year, but since I also run my own theatre company and work in Hollywood, it took a while to find the right season to do it. It came together this year and a wonderful cast fell into place. There are 26 people in it, which can be intimidating, but it’s fun to work on a comedy since the rehearsal room atmosphere is very up.

I had seen the movie about five years ago. I knew it had a cult following, but I had no idea of the magnitude. When I realized the film was based on a stage play, I picked up the script just out of curiosity. The play is very different, and that’s what drew me to it. A lot of people only know the movie and don’t even know that it was a play first. When I found out I was going to do this production, though, I deliberately didn’t re-watch the film. I was tempted, because I was curious, but I decided it would be better not to.

The brilliance of Clare Boothe Luce’s writing is that the characters are wonderfully funny archetypes, but they’re also quite complex—especially the central character of Mary Haines. There are three drafts: the original one Luce completed in May 1936, a later draft done in December 1936, and a revised version (which is the most recent). Luce made the characters increasingly complicated, and some material was censored from the early versions, which I’m restoring with permission from the estate.

The film is very stereotypical. But that was Hollywood in the day. In the play you imagine Mary as the sort of Park Avenue girl you might read about in the social columns today. In the movie she’s a dewy, likeable, luscious woman who’s getting screwed over by her husband. But in the play she has blinders on. She’s living her life the way she thinks she’s supposed to, she’s got everything compartmentalized, and there’s a great formality to her relationship with her child. All that changes, of course, and the play is really about her transformation: the divorce and its impact on her. Her veneer cracks, and she becomes a richer, more modern woman as a result. It’s delightful in that way.

F & C: Is the world Luce satirizes specific to her era, or does it still exist today? How do you approach that when designing the production?

Elliott: You could certainly set this play today. But setting it in the period forces me to think in a more expansive way. Our design will be completely based in the period. The fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi is creating the costumes, and the clothes are Isaac’s take on what was in the pages of Vogue in the 1930s. It’s brilliant. I think Isaac is a genius. I actually own some of his clothes, and I always admired what he did in his shows, both fashion and off-Broadway. I also loved the movie Unzipped, where you see what a great sense of humor he has. When I was first thinking about the production I thought this would be something he would really excel at, so I just called him up and asked him if he wanted to do it. As it turned out, he loves the movie too, so he wanted to do it. He thinks about it like a stage designer. It all looks beautiful but it also adds up to something in the end. There are real ideas behind it, which I love.

It’s a huge project. There are approximately 200 outfits, head to toe. A lot of people from the fashion industry have been helping us, because Roundabout is a non-profit theatre, and this show is as big as a musical. A company Isaac works with is donating the coats, and a shoe company he works with is giving us the shoes, so we’ve pulled in a lot of help.

Derek McLane, the set designer, has come up with an inventive set to match—a sexy, sleek, New York backdrop, with parts that move to reveal locations as the scenes go on. The floor is big and completely pink, pretty and feminine, but strong at the same time. The design is fun, and that’s what I wanted—a production that is delightful and bubbly, like champagne. Because to depict the ugliness underneath this world—which Luce absolutely wanted to do—you first need that glitter and glamour in place.

F & C: Who was the playwright skewering in her satire?

Elliott: I think she was skewering herself in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of self-satire and self-parody in it. And all of her friends too. Luce may have seen herself in the character of Nancy Blake, who is a writer and outsider, but since Luce married rich she could also be Mary Haines. There’s probably a part of herself in all of them. I think that’s why the play is so funny and truthful at the same time. This extraordinary woman reveals herself in so many ways.

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