In the end—and this may explain why I love it so much—The Matchmaker is a genuine, good-hearted, good-natured comedy and there simply aren’t enough of them in the world’s repertoire. As a species, we have a tendency to wallow in our tragedies, often at the expense of those kinder spirits that put us back on our feet when we need a helping hand. Yes, all those thunderous theatrical ordeals are heart-stopping, yes, they’re cathartic, yes, they make us suffer, and sometimes we’re the better for it. But my loyalty is to those works of art that make my heart take wing. Jane Austen puts it this way at the end of Mansfield Park:

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.

Wilder himself puts it best of all:

Anybody can make a comedy which is cruel. It is very hard to make a comedy which is kind. To give a fellow feeling between the young and old, that is art.

And that is The Matchmaker.

KEN LUDWIG

Wesley Heights, Washington, D.C.

Ken Ludwig is a two-time Olivier Award-winning playwright whose work has been performed in more than thirty countries in over twenty languages. He has written twenty-four plays and musicals, among them Lend Me A Tenor, which won two Tony Awards, Crazy For You, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical, Moon Over Buffalo, and Baskerville. His shows have had six productions on Broadway and seven in London’s West End. His book How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare is published by Random House.

The Matchmaker: A Farce in Four Acts

The Merchant of Yonkers was produced by Herman Shumlin and directed by Max Reinhardt. The production was designed by Boris Aronson. The cast included Jane Cowl, June Walker, Nydia Westman, Minna Phillips, Percy Waram, Tom Ewell, John Call, Joseph Sweeney, Philip Coolidge, and Edward Nannery. It was first performed on December 12, 1938, at the Colonial Theatre, Boston. The New York engagement opened at the Guild Theatre on December 28, 1938.

The Matchmaker was produced for the Edinburgh Festival by Tennent Productions. It was directed by Dr. Tyrone Guthrie, and the production was designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch. The first performance was at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, on August 23, 1954.

The same production opened at the Theatre Royal, Hay-market, London, on November 4, 1954. Without changes in the principal roles—with the exception of that of Mr. Vandergelder, which was played successively by Sam Levene, Eddie Mayehoff, and Loring Smith—the play was performed at the Locust Street Theatre, Philadelphia, on October 27, 1955.

The cast of the play from Edinburgh to New York, with the exceptions noted, included: