When Walter Bobbie directs Ken Ludwig’s new adaptation of Hecht and MacArthur’s Twentieth Century, you can bet the jokes will run on time.

An interview by Marc Miller

FRONT & CENTER: Why do you think it’s been so long since this play has been produced on Broadway?

WALTER BOBBIE: A play that’s this fascinating and doesn’t get done for this long–at some point you have to go, “What’s wrong with this piece?” But it’s hard to say that Hecht and MacArthur didn’t nail it. It was originally produced a year after The Front Page, and I think there was no way for them to eclipse that success. This play got wonderful reviews.

Why was it necessary to “adapt” a classic 20th century play?

BOBBIE: It’s very, very hard to find the resources to do a play with 28 characters. Ludwig compressed the play to 12. You can not usually go through the plays of Hecht and MacArthur or Kaufman and Ferber and reduce the casts. But because this play takes place in three train compartments, it compressed itself effortlessly. What’s happened as a result is that all of the characters seem to have more space and more time on stage, and therefore seem enriched by this adaptation. I don’t think you’ll notice anything missing. In some ways it has been improved, refreshed, by Ken. It has buoyancy.

It says on the credits that the Hecht and MacArthur play was itself based on another play by somebody else.

BOBBIE: It’s a fascinating story. There was a man named Charles Mulholland, and he was a young press agent. He took a ride on the Twentieth Century to do some business, and he wrote and copyrighted a play called The Napoleon of Broadway. He sent it to four producers. Jed Harris said, “I will do this play if you let Hecht and MacArthur rewrite it.” He said he would let Hecht and MacArthur adapt the play if he would continue to own 50 percent of the rights. Mulholland grew to be one of those wild New York eccentrics who wrote 60 plays. They seem to be one-man plays–Pythagoras I Am, Napoleon I Am, Hannibal I Am. He would do them in coffee shops. He was a Quentin Crisp-like character who dressed in lamé and had bags of jewelry and hundreds of shoes. But what exists of Mr. Mulholland’s play in the original Twentieth Century is hard to decide.

I’m intrigued that Julie Halston will be playing “Oliver” Webb, and I’m assuming that maybe that’s a surprise Ken Ludwig put in. But don’t spoil it for me.

BOBBIE: Okay – I won’t!

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