 STREET
SCENE
a musical drama in two acts. Book by Elmer Rice. Lyrics by Langston
Hughes. Music by Kurt Weill.
First produced at the Shubert Theatre, Philadelphia, 16 December 1946
Adelphi Theatre, Broadway - 9 January, 1947 (148 Perfs)
Produced by Scottish Opera at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow on 23 May 1989
SYNOPSIS
ACT I
Outside an East Side New York tenement on a June evening, the inhabitants
are commiserating about the weather (Ain't It Awful, the Heat? )
- Mrs. Fiorento, The Jones, The Olsens and Abraham Kaplan, a left-winger
pouring scorn on the 'capitalist press'. The women gossip about the man
who is a regular visitor to Mrs. Maurrant, but stop when she joins them.
Kaplan's son Sam comes by to ask if Rose, Anna Maurrant's daughter, is
at home, but is disappointed. Frank Maurrant, a Broadway stagehand, arrives
home; he flares up in anger at his daughter not being home yet and at
his wife not being sure where she is. Anna tries to excuse his behaviour
to the others but is obviously worn out with his bullying and drudgery,
though she clings to the hope of 'a brighter day' (Somehow I Never
Could Believe). Her 'visitor' comes by: Mr. Sankey, "the collector
for the milk company", ostensibly on his way to the drugstore. Anna
quickly follows him, and the neighbours continue to cluck about it. Mrs.
Fiorentino's husband Lippo arrives, with ice-cream cones for everyone,
which are rapturously received (Ice-Cream: Sextet).
Willie Maurrant is not home yet and his father threatens to beat the
daylights out of him; this starts an argument with Kaplan, who Maurrant
threatens to beat up, bitterly denouncing "the kind of things going
on nowadays" (Let Things Be Like They Always Was). The Hildrebrands
arrive home - proud of daughter Jenny, who has just graduated with a
prize, but dejected because tomorrow they are to be dispossessed. The
neighbours cheer them up with a little party; Willie Maurrant comes home,
crying from a fight with the local bully, who had called his mother a
whore. The group breaks up, but with menace in the air. Sam muses on
his own loneliness in such a crowd of people (Lonely House).
Rose arrives, accompanied by Harry Easter, a predatory boss with a tempting
line (Wouldn't YOu Like to be on Broadway?). She persuades him
to go as her father appears and there is the expected row. Mr. Buchanan,
another neighbour, asks her to go fetch the doctor for his wife who is
in labour.
Dick McGann and Mae Jones enter; he is having difficulty in getting
any response from her and declares his love in a brilliant dance routine
(Moonfaced, Starry-Eyed). Rose returns and is hustled by Mrs.
Jones' son Vincent, who beats up Sam when he tries to protect Rose. Their
ensuing scene together shows that she has only affection for Sam, while
he is deeply in love with her.
ACT II
SCENE I
Early next morning; the street is awakening and the kids play games
on the way to school. Maurrant is leaving for New Haven, accuses his
wife of wanting to know his time of return because she is expecting a
visitor. Both Rose and she remonstrate with him, but he leaves, with
dark threats (There'll Be Trouble). Mrs. Maurrant sees Willie
off to school with a rare demonstration of affection (A Boy Like You)
and Sam makes a desperate plea to Rose to escape together, but she asks
for time to consider.
The action is now speeded up almost cinematically: Sankey arrives and
goes upstairs to Mrs. Maurrant; the City Marshal arrives to dispossess
the Hildebrands; Maurrant reappears, slinks upstairs - and then there
are two shots, a fall, Sankey appears at the window in terror and another
shot rings out. Frank escapes in the confusion and Rose returns, only
to see her mother being carried off in an ambulance, as the crowd share
her grief (The Woman Who Lived Up There).
SCENE II
That afternoon- The Hildebrands' furniture is still being removed. Two
nursemaids revel in the evening paper's details of the murder (Lullaby).
Rose, now in mourning, tells Sam that her mother died in hospital. Maurrant
is caught and led on between two policemen; he begs for a chance to speak
to Rose and pathetically tries to justify himself (I Loved Her Too).
Sam tries to persuade Rose to go away with him, but she insists that
she can't belong to anyone and he must come to terms with himself. She
leaves, to collect her little brother and rebuild their lives; two people
arrive to take the Hildebrands' flat, the neighbours continue to grumble
about the weather - and life on the New York street goes on.
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