"Oh, he was fun to live with," she
said quietly.
Reflecting on the theater world she
shared with her playwright-director hus-
band and the nerve-jangling premiere of
Light Up the Sky, Hart is a disarming
blend of cultured New Yorker, veteran
stage actress and Southern belle.
Her careful diction tends to elongate
one-syllable words into two, and she has
a way of expressing herself by indirec-
tion, veering away from topics she might
consider indelicate, with flashes of wit
and forthrightness that suggest the stuff
that must have gotten her throu g h the
bad times — a troubled childhood, mar-
riage to a man with an artistic tempera-
ment, a long widowhood. Though these
days, my dee-ruh, life is mostly good.
Since her husband's death 37 years
ago, she's had a good run as an actress; a
remunerative, amusing stint on the tele-
vision game show "To Tell the Truth";
an illustrious 25-year career with the
New York State Council on the Arts
(including 20 years as its head); and,
most recently, a national tour of her
one-woman-show, The Greats of the
American Theater — Hart's own history
of the American musical.
"I try to live in the present," Hart
said matter-of-facdy. "You know, dear,
my neighborhood has changed a lot over
the years. There used to be a newsstand
on the corner and a drugstore across the
street. Now it's Versace and all those
designers, and the people you need have
moved on. But that's the way things go.
Times changes, you know. Things come
and go in waves."
One crest Hart is riding these days is
a revived interest in her husband's plays.
His long, fruitful collaboration with
George S. Kaufman produced some of
the great classics of the American the-
ater: The Man Who Came to Dinner,
Once in a Lifetime and You Can't Take It

With You.

Solo writing credits for the stage
include Lady in the Dark and Winged
Victory, he also wrote the screenplays for
A Star Is Born and Gentlemen's
Agreement, the movie that exposed post-
World War II anti-Semitism to a nation-
al movie audience.
Once in a Lifetime was staged last June
by David Mamet's off-Broadway Atlantic
Theater Company. Also in June, the
New York Drama Department produced
the Hart/Irving Berlin collaboration As

Thousands Cheer. You Can't Take it With
You, revived earlier last year at the Arena

Stage in Washington, D.C., was once
again on view at last summer's Shaw
Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake,
Ontario, while Steppenwolf Theater's
version of The Man Who Came to Dinner

was a hit in London. A new film version
of that play is due out later this year.
Light Up the Sky, the first play Hart
wrote after working with Kaufman, had
its first major New York revival in 1990.
"It makes me very happy to see Moss
so enormously revived," Hart said. "You
see, Moss understood the human heart,
and that's why he wrote such good plays.
They're very well made, of course, but
they're also parables. Light Up the Sky
isn't just about the theater; it's universal.
We all know characters like those."
The Harts, though, knew the
real-life theater people upon whom
the play's characters are based. The
play's diva, Irene Livingston, is
thought to be based on the leg-
endary stage actress Gertrude
Lawrence; Carleton Fitzgerald, an
egotistical director ever on the verge
of tears, is rumored to be Guthrie
McClintic, the leading Broadway
director who discovered actor
Gregory Peck.
Sidney Black, the huckster produc-
er and his bimbo figure-skater wife,
Frances, are modeled after producer
Billy Rose and his wife, Eleanor
Holm, a famed swimmer.
Other roles cut closer to the emo-
tional core. Peter Sloan, the idealistic
young writer with the disastrous open-
ing-night show, and Owen Turner, the
jaded playwright who happens upon the
scene, seem to be self-portraits; they are
treated with rather gentle self-mocking.
The role of Irene's mother, Stella, has a
personal cast as well.
"You're not supposed to say, are you?"
Hart said of matching historical figures
with fictional characters, a tinge of
reproach coloring her deeply timbred
voice. "Stella was definitely my mother,
though — they were both great card
players — and though my mother didn't
have quite so much bravura, they did
share some traits."
Hart, nee Katherine Conn, had a
painful relationship with her mother.
Mrs. Conn was, by daughter Kitty's
reckoning, a hysteric who found fault
with everything she did (although she
did approve of Kitty's nom de guerre after
a numerologist informed her that it
promised great wealth).
With such rich material to tap from
life, its not surprising that Moss Hart's
depiction of the friction between mother
and daughter has more resonance than
some of the play's other roles. As for
Kitty Hart — well, she's often portrayed
Irene, but she'd like to tackle the role of
Stella as well.
"I'd be very good at Stella. I'm old
enough now And I damn well know her
well enough," Hart said.

-T 1141RT
____ P 7

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1999

79

