Samuel Nathaniel Behrman was an American playwright. A writer of “comedies of manners,” he was praised for his urbane dialogue and incisive characterization as he explored social, political, and moral issues while exposing the inconsistencies of human behavior.
Background
American dramatist, was born June 9, 1893, in Worcester, Mass. Son of Joseph and Zelda (Feingold) Behrman. After two years at Clark College (1912-1914), he was graduated from Harvard in 1916, studied drama under George Pierce Baker in the Harvard 47 Workshop the next year, and took an A. M. at Columbia in 1918.Behrman died in New York City, Sept. 9, 1973.
Education
He spent his childhood “immersed in assorted literature ’ and developed an early interest in the theater, writing a vaudeville skit, in which he cast himself, at the age of twenty.
In 1916 he graduated from Harvard, and then unable to find work as a playwright in New York, studied at Columbia University for an M.A. in English, which he received in 1918.
Career
Throughout his long career Behrman was preeminent as a writer of the comedy of manners, his plays being marked by irony, brilliant dialogue, a reflection of popular ideologies, and an urbane outlook on life. His first play, The Second Man (1927), stresses duality of character, and Biography (1932) is concerned with a bohemian in her relation to an intellectual reformer. Other of his comedies of manners are Serena Blandish (1929); Brief Moment (1931); End of Summer (1936); Amphitryon 38 (1937), adapted from the French of Jean Giraudoux; Wine of Choice (1938); The Talley Method (1941); I Know My Love (1949); and more recently But for Whom, Charlie (1964). Behrman plays concerned more with problem material include Rain From Heaven (1934), an attack on anti-Semitism and a warning against Nazism, and No Time for Comedy (1939), the story of a comic writer in a period of ominous events. In addition, Behrman wrote The Pirate (1942), a romantic extravaganza; Jacobowsky and the Colonel (1944), a comic melodrama based on a play by Franz Werfel; the books Duveen (1952), Portrait of Max (1960), The Suspended Drawing Room (1965), and People in a Diary (1972); and many motion-picture scenarios.
Works
book
Duveen (1952)
play
The Second Man (1927)
Other Work
Biography (1932)
Serena Blandish (1929)
Brief Moment (1931)
End of Summer (1936)
Amphitryon 38 (1937)
Wine of Choice (1938)
The Talley Method (1941)
I Know My Love (1949)
But for Whom
Charlie (1964)
Rain From Heaven (1934)
No Time for Comedy (1939)
The Pirate (1942)
Jacobowsky and the Colonel (1944)
Portrait of Max (1960)
The Suspended Drawing Room (1965)
People in a Diary (1972)
Membership
Member National Institute Arts and Letters.
Personality
As the detachment of comedy gave way to the seriousness needed for tackling weightier issues, he was often accused of being didactic, biased, and unfocused. "No Time for Comedy" (1939) about a comedy writer, who cannot reconcile his own taste for comedy with society’s wish for more serious drama, is a partially autobiographical play that reflects his creative state of mind during this phase of his career.