Micro

1.How Much Is That?
With the play set in the midst of the Depression and World War II, the Stanley family seems very well off for the midwest in this time period. Mr. Whiteside announces his plans to sue the Stanleys for $150,000. This along with other monetary references in the play begs the question of how much those sums would be today:

$150,000 (amount Whiteside plans to sue for)= $2,301,784.48 in 2008.
$784 (phone bill Mr. Stanley rants about)=$12,030.66 in 2008.
$1500 (amount Whiteside makes per appearance)=$23,017.84 in 2008.
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

This information provides clues necessary for designing the proper set and costumes to reflect the affluence of certain characters.

2.Hollywood, darling...
Although the 1930s were generally a very strong decade for the American film industry, 1939 was an extraordinary year, even by Depression standards. This was a year in which two of the American Film Institute's ten most popular films of all time were released—Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, both directed by Victor Fleming.http://www.enotes.com/1930-arts-american-decades/hollywoods-golden-year

Most of the experts recognize 1939 as the greatest of all years of Hollywood film making, before or since. It is truly phenomenal that such a number of excellent classics were all released in one year.http://hollywoodthirties.50webs.com/stage12.html

With all the Hollywood name dropping that occurs, researching the year in film and stage is vital to the actors in this piece. Awe and recognition of Hollywood should be present in the wordy dialogue and characters centered around the biz.

3.1939s Thanksgiving: a nation divided
At the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, Thanksgiving was not a fixed holiday; it was up to the President to announce what date the holiday would fall on. Considering statistics major businesses presented him, he moved Thanksgiving up one week earlier in 1939 to provide more shopping time during the Depression. Changing the date of Thanksgiving seemed harmless enough, but in actuality proved quite controversial. Certain states refused to celebrate Thanksgiving with the president, calendars were wrong, schools schedules were upset and the average family had no idea when to celebrate their holiday. So much outrage prompted Congress to pass a law on December 26, 1941, ensuring that all Americans would celebrate a unified Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year. http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/thanksg.html

The holiday season in 1939 for the Stanley's would have been affected by this discrepancy. Since the action centers around Christmas and the weeks leading up to it, these facts would be of value to actors and bring new understanding to certain lines of text.

4.Ohio's Factory Life
Every state had it's exhibit in the New York World Fair in 1939. Better relationships between labor and employer was the main theme for the Ohio exhibit. The state's great industries of ceramics and pottery, aviation, rubber and steel constantly moved before each visitor on a revolving display. http://www.pmphoto.to/worlds_fair/wf_tour/court_of_states/ohio.htm

The Great Depression especially hurt Ohioans. In Ohio, by 1933, more than forty percent of factory workers and sixty-seven percent of construction workers were unemployed. Approximately fifty percent of industrial workers in Cleveland and eighty percent in Toledo were unemployed. www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=500

Mr. Stanley owns a factory in Mesalia, a fictional town, Ohio. His business success would have been threatened by the Wagner Act and labor unions constantly. Much of the town would have been involved in factory work and it's scandals, making the Stanleys very visible in the public.

5.Christmas Cheer
Traditional American Christmas dinner consists of roast turkey with vegetables and sauces, goose, duck or ham served with cranberry sauce and rich fruity Christmas pudding. Since it snows in many states on Christmas, dinner is usually set indoors. Holiday home décor in America generally include holly and mistletoe along with Christmas trees decorated with tinsel, baubles, popcorn strings, candy canes and electric lights. http://www.worldofchristmas.net/christmas-world/usa.html

34-year old copywriter Robert L. May wrote the story of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer in 1939, and 2.4 million copies were handed out that year. http://www.allthingschristmas.com/traditions.html

Since our setting is Christmastime, appropriate decor should adorn the tree and household and traditions should be kept in mind that were consistent with the times, paying extra attention to things that might be too modern, like Rudolph.

6.Quacks and Xrays
X-rays were first discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923), and the potential of being able to look inside the body without resorting to surgery was quickly realized by physicians. Despite this, take up of the technology was initially slow, and it was not until the 1930s that most hospitals had specialist X-ray departments and equipment.http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=6692

In the 1930s the biggest health concern of America was how to pay for medical needs.Before the Depression, physicians charged a fee-for-service on a sliding scale and collected their bills as best they could. While doctors as a group fared better than many other professions during the Depression, in many cases they also saw their incomes halved. http://www.bookrags.com/history/america-1930s-medicine-and-health/

Medical attention in the 30s was a luxury and Mr. Whiteside's treatment should look and feel as such.

7. John and Sarah
The low social statud of domestic service, absence of vocational or educational requirements, and discrimination elsewhere seem adequate to explain that nearly half of all domestic servants in 1940 were negro. In Ohio in 1940, 57.1 families per 1,000 hired domestic workers, there is also some evidence that a major war accelerates the decrease of such servants. They mostly lived with the family, earning a mean weekly wage of $3.16 which would be equivilant to $48.49 in 2008. (per westegg) http://www.nber.org/bookcv/DOMESTIC%20SERVANTS%20IN%20THE%20UNITED%20STATES%201900-1940-STIGLER_GEORGE-1946.CV.pdf

John and Sarah further establish the Stanley's social status. The production should take into account the servant/family relationship. What kind of education have they had? Are the Stanleys generous? Will they leave with Whiteside?

8. Gettin' Hitched
In the early 20th century when courtship moved from public acts conducted in private spaces (for instance, the family porch or parlor) to private or individual acts conducted in public spaces, such as movie theaters and dance halls, removed by distance and by anonymity from the sheltering and controlling contexts of the home and local community. http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001456.cfm

Millions of men and women had been forced to postpone marrying during the hard times of the 1930s and separation brought about by the war. Not surprising, then, that they married in record numbers in the late 1940s...Half of our men are married before they are 24 years old, and half of our women before they are 22. Over three-fourths of our men and women are married by the time they are 30 years old. (yr. 1948)http://www.pobronson.com/factbook/pages/25.html#1705

Examining courtship trends from the thirties would be integral to staging Maggie and Bert's scenes together. Contact that seems innocent today would have been rather risque. The couple are also quite older than the average person getting married, indicating more education, experience and prosperity. Also, June and Sandy's attempt to elope appears typical in light of this information.

9. The Missus
After the initial surge of support for women's rights with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, feminist fervor diminished throughout the latter '20s and all but disappeared during the Depression. And with that reduced support for women's rights came a renewed promotion of the traditional belief that women belonged in the home -- not in the workplace. http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1988-9/moran.htm

Mrs. Stanley's dialogue stands out amongst others as being characteristically submissive to Mr. Stanley. Historically, women's opinions in the thirties were of little importance, thus in this production, the heirarchy of the family should reflect those values.

10. Radio
The 1930s were truly the golden age of radio. Radio had been a nationwide phenomenon during the 1920s, broadcasting jazz; it was a fixture of the 1940s, connecting the home front to the war; but during the Depression era of the 1930s radio was something more than an entertainment or communications medium. It was a source of solace, of relief from everyday troubles; a means of escaping hardship, if only for a few minutes. It also embodied the political tensions of the decade. During the 1930s, radio was at the center of American culture.
http://www.enotes.com/1930-media-american-decades/golden-age-radio

Of utmost importance in presenting the Man Who Came to Dinner is the man himself, Mr. Whiteside. Through his antics, the audience must also be able to recognize his charm that booms through America's favorite form of entertainment. The radio on set should also be fairly prominent.