Wanda at 48

The first Kurt Vonnegut story I ever read was Cat’s Cradle, a quirky apocalyptic novel published in 1963. I picked it off a drugstore paperback bookrack during some summer month in 1966 or 1967. Cat’s Cradle is science fiction, more or less, and I commonly read science fiction recreationally during my teens as I still do today. It already had something of a cult status, but I wasn’t aware of that back then, nor was I familiar with the author. I’m pretty sure I picked it out based solely on the description on the cover. Thereafter, however, I did make a point of seeking out Vonnegut, usually buying the hardcovers of his new works rather than waiting for the paperbacks. As the 1960s closed, Vonnegut tried his hand at drama. His play Happy Birthday, Wanda June, starring Kevin McCarthy and Marsha Mason, opened at the de Lys in New York on October 7, 1970 and closed March 14, 1971.

I was a broke college freshman in Washington, DC, at the time, so I didn’t see it then, but I did buy the book, which I have read with pleasure repeatedly since and still own. There also was a 1971 movie starring Rod Steiger and Susannah York. It is not uncommon for authors to hate movie adaptations of their work, sometimes with cause and sometimes without; Stephen King famously disliked Stanley Kubrick’s award-winning version of The Shining, for instance. Vonnegut in the intro to Between Time and Timbuktu had this to say: “I might as well say something about the filming of my play Happy Birthday, Wanda June. It was one of the most embarrassing movies ever made, and I am happy it sank like a stone.” In truth the movie isn’t as bad as all that. It isn’t actually bad at all, though there is no denying that the script, which repeatedly breaks the fourth wall, works far better as a play with a live audience than on the screen. I was pleased to get a chance last Saturday (48 years late) finally to see it on an off-Broadway stage.

Harold Ryan is a Hemingwayesque character: soldier, mercenary, hunter, and adventurer. He has been lost in the rain forest for eight years in the company of Looseleaf Harper, who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. Harold is presumed dead, so his wife Penelope (an obvious nod The Odyssey) has been dating a vacuum cleaner salesman named Herb and the very pacifistic Dr. Norbert Woodley. Both of them are despised by Paul, the son of Penelope and Harold. It is Harold’s birthday, so, in an attempt to please Paul, Herb buys a birthday cake even though it reads “Happy Birthday, Wanda June.” Wanda June is a 9-year-old who was hit by an ice cream truck earlier that day, which is why the cake was never picked up at the bakery. She provides some surreal narration as do other deceased characters. Harold is not dead, and his sudden arrival home creates an uproar. During his eight years in the forest a major cultural shift has occurred with regard to sex. He is dismayed to find that his notion of manliness is an atavism and that his wife is no longer the air-headed carhop he married.

The Wheelhouse production of this play currently at The Duke theater made some directorial choices at variance with both the original production and the movie including a different ending. In 1970 Kurt Vonnegut experimented with different endings, so it is possible the Wheelhouse ending was one of them, but it is not the ultimate one in 1971 or the one found in the published play. It is one that puts Harold in a far worse light, which is in keeping with the Wheelhouse choice to present him as animalistic (literally sniffing around) and crude to point of pantomiming sex acts. McCarthy and Steiger in the role, by contrast, made him gruff, blustery, and offensive, but not a comic book villain: villain, yes, but not to such an extreme. Since Vonnegut remarked on his own inability “to make Harold or anybody thoroughly vile,” I think McCarthy and Steiger had it right. The point, after all, is that there is some appeal to Harold – he did after all fight Nazis and explore the wild among other impressive things – even though his time has passed to the point that he has (without changing) become a villain. The 21^st century tendency to portray opponents – not just on stage but in real life – as not just wrong but evil might have influenced the presentation of Harold as so much more detestable. That said, the play still works, and I like everything else about the Wheelhouse presentation. The surreal elements were handled well within the limits of the sets, and the small cast was used creatively. All of the actors, including Jason O’Connell (Harold Ryan), were enjoyable and effective. Vonnegut’s offbeat sensibility is as captivating as ever and his dark humor still bites.

Despite my reservations above, this is still very much a Thumbs Up review. It is worth catching at The Duke during its final weeks. Happy Birthday, Wanda June is revived elsewhere around the country from time to time as well, and I recommend not waiting 48 years to see it.

Introductory Scene from The Wheelhouse Production of Happy Birthday, Wanda June