Professor Hamilton's Diary: Dec. 11, 1935

They see 'a modern play' at Albright College

After work and supper tonight, the Hamiltons took in a play at the “newly equipped” theatre in the Albright College chapel. It was The Animal Kingdom by acclaimed playwright Philip Barry, which premiered on Broadway in 1932 and was made into a movie starring Leslie Howard, Ann Harding, and Myrna Loy the same year.

While the professor said the performance “well done,” he remarked in his diary, “It is a modern play — with plenty of realism — and seemed strange for the college!”

Having read the plot details, I’d have to agree with him. Paid subscribers can read on about the play and the playwright Philip Barry, whose outstanding body of work includes The Philadelphia Story.

A reminder, readers, that only paid subscribers will learn what happened to Professor Hamilton and his family after the diary ends on Dec. 31. Give yourself an early Christmas gift and sign up today for just $5 a month or $50 a year. That way you will also be ready to enjoy the diaries of Mrs. Ross, a Washington, D.C. matron writing about the early days of World War II in 1942; Walter E. Askew, chief of police in Newnan, Ga. in 1930; and Myra Jackson, a young farm wife and mother living in Petrey, Alabama in 1932. For various reasons, the diaries are incomplete, but each provides fascinating insights into America during those turbulent years. I am very excited to share them with subscribers!

The photo of the dapper playwright, taken in 1931, was accessed via Wikimedia Commons.