The Male Animal

The Male Animal (German translation: “Das Tier im Manne”) is a play by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent . It premiered on January 9, 1940 at the Cort Theater in New York City . The play cheerfully portrays the involuntary politicization of an intellectual who has turned away from the world. It is the only attempt by the satirist and caricaturist Thurber in the field of drama. With the co-author, the theater man Nugent, Thurber had been known and friends since his youth. Despite the brief abandonment of his actual areas of activity caricature and satire in favor of drama , Thurber succeeds in bringing his most remarkable ability as a creator to these areas: his analytical eye for social phenomena.

action

The piece is set in a university town in the Midwest. There's a party going on at the home of young English professor Tommy Turner. Turner, a weak, somewhat unworldly intellectual, and his pretty wife, Ellen, who is inspired by naive lust for life, host a group of people who are quite representative of university life: the former football star Joe Ferguson, his successor Wally Myers, the influential, extremely conservative curator Ed Keller and the Dean of the English faculty, Frederick Damon, with his wife. For Keller, above all else, the university is a nursery for talented football players. The entertainment revolves around the upcoming "game of the year" against Michigan. Turner is completely disinterested in the associated problems - such as which player will be used. He has other worries: Michael Barnes, a young, idealistic hothead, has accused the Board of Trustees of fascist methods in an article for the dismissal of three professors suspected of communism , while Turner presented the model of the liberal university professor. Keller demands that Turner publicly distance himself from the article and further refrain from reading a letter from Vanzetti with his students. He was sentenced to death as an anarchist in the infamous trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927 . But Turner does not take a position, as he suddenly has a completely different problem: He realizes that the stupid muscle man Ferguson has only come into his house to continue his teenage flirt with Ellen, who in turn is impressed by him again. Turner realizes that, here as there, he must overcome his staunch aversion to resolute action. He remembers that in nature the males fight for the females, that they “don't sit around and talk, but act”. So he acts and is promptly beaten up by Ferguson. However, he evades when Ellen tries to take him at his word and run away with him. Now she is gradually beginning to understand her husband, who has meanwhile declared war on Keller and his clique for the sake of the independence of research and teaching. Ready to support him in this, she stays by his side.

interpretation

In their play, the authors denounce the narrowness of those who suspect the specter of communism behind all the liberal views prevailing in the university and elsewhere. This criticism of the political atmosphere of the thirties is combined with a punchy satire on football hysteria as an expression of the level of education sought by influential philistines.

filming

The play was also filmed by Nugent himself in 1942 with Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland in the two main roles (German film title: Subject: the man ).