Biography April 23, 2007

S. N. Behrman's sparkling comedy 'Biography' took Broadway by storm in 1932 becoming the (then) longest running show on the Great White Way. Dazzling Marion Froude, good-hearted and charming, could boast -- but she wouldn't -- the widest circle of friends in Manhattan. Now they're at war. Marion's newest beau, a fiery young activist, has asked her to write a tell-all memoir about her free-spirited life as an artist to the rich and famous, and her romantic conquests among them. But when rumors of the memoir reach an old flame, now running for the U.S. Senate, he blusters back into Marion's life, vowing to use all his influence to crush her book. Marion, determined to steer a middle course in an age of extremists, just wishes everyone would calm down. Behrman's lively portrayal offers the audience a New York City that was -- and still is -- a maddening, marvelous clash of cultures, cliques, ideologies and ethics.