In 1958, Rona Jaffe’s book The Best of Everything about a trio of women in a secretarial pool at a Manhattan publishing house hoping to balance careers with the pursuit of a husband, children, and other parts of the American Dream, was a best seller.
In 1959, it was made into a movie with a lot of star power: Joan Crawford, Hope Lange, Diane Baker and Suzy Parker.
In 2012, Julie Kramer, working with collaborator Amy Wilson, got the rights to do the adaptation from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. She distilled the 437-page book into a 90-minute one-act play, keeping it in set in 1952 as Jaffe had. (She also produced and directed it in New York City.) Although Kramer had done extensive work as a director (including Mary Poppins at TUTS), before venturing into playwright work, she’d taken a how-to course on how to write one.
“I loved the book and I thought it would be a great play,” she said. “I stayed pretty true to the book. One of the things that interested me was the way that the book had all this incredible dialog and all these incredible characters so most of the dialog in the play is from the book directly,”
The play was subsequently licensed for productions throughout the country and now, Main Street Theater is bringing Kramer’s adaptation to Houston audiences in a regional debut. It arrives at an auspicious time since the book has just been re-issued in paperback with attention from New Yorker , NPR and Atlantic, Kramer said.
“There’s been some attention around how the book feels very current in ways that are both thrilling and unnerving,” she said. Being specific about a time period as opposed to updating a play allows the audiene to see what major forces were in the works back then, and how do they relate to now, Kramer said.
The Main Street production is directed by Julia Oppenheim, with a cast that includes Fritz Eagleton, Lindsay Ehrhardt, Carol Germano, Kara Greenberg, JJ Johnston, Amanda Martinez, Ginger Mouton and Skyler Sinclair.
Besides massaging the bulk of the book down to manageable size, Kramer decided that all the action would take place in the office with references to outside activity. She also focused even more on the women involved and less on the men (who are portrayed in some productions as cardboard cutouts.)
“There are only two male actors in the play and one of them plays most of the men in the play. I really wanted to create a world that was primarily female on stage. This is a play about the girls in the typing pool, not the men in the offices,” she said.
The end of the play is also different than the book’s, she said, without going into too many details, other than to say she wanted to stay with the same characters who audiences had seen throughout the play instead of introducing someone entirely new at the end.
She was very interested in exploring the relationship between Caroline the protagonist and her boss Miss. Farrow. “These are two generations of women who are in the workforce and have a competitive relationship. I was interested to explore that in a little more interesting way.”
While Kramer thinks conditions for women working in offices have improved, she added: “I do think that the world does not make it easy though. There’s still this culture of scarcity around opportunity and there’s still this feeling that there’s one woman who gets to do the stuff. Are you going to be that one and so I think it is left to us to not allow that to become what we’re doing.”
Kramer set it in the office. “At that time I was working as a secretary and I had a vantage point of that and also of executives. I just think it’s an interesting pathway. It still is a particularly female role for whatever reason. And just the way life and career bleed together and the way that feels complicated. The way you make friends there and it becomes this little microcosm of your world where you’re very separate from your family.”
Kramer had done some writing in college and was in a comedy group there and when she first moved to New York. Once there she got some chances to direct and work as a dramaturg and found out she liked working with the structure of plays.
Asked why her play has done so well across the country, Kramer said: “It has a lot of fantastic roles for women which is unfortunately is hard to find. And I do think it’s pretty funny. It has serious themes in it and upsetting things that happen but it’s also a pretty fun play.
“I think the people who know the book, know the movie, have an affection for it. It was also an inspiration for Mad Men. I think people like these stories about back-talking dames and the cads who ruin them. I love these stories about girls in the city making their way and being witty and fabulous and broken. I think it’s just a timeless tale for better and worse.”
Performances are scheduled for May 20 through June 18 (with previews May 13, 18 and 19) at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays at Main street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Boulevard. For more information, call 713-524-6706 or visit mainstreetheater.com. $35 – $59.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
