As originally produced by The Theatre Guild, on the night of April 20, 1921, at the Garrick Theatre, New York City.
[CAST OF CHARACTERS]
(In the order of their appearance)
| Marie | Hortense Alden | ||
| Julie | Eva Le Gallienne | ||
| Mrs. Muskat | Helen Westley | ||
| “Liliom” | Joseph Schildkraut | ||
| “Liliom” is the Hungarian for lily, and the slang term for “atough” | |||
| Four Servant Girls | { | Frances Diamond Margaret Mosier Anne de Chantal Elizabeth Parker | |
| Policemen | { | Howard Claney Lawrence B. Chrow | |
| Captain | Erskine Sanford | ||
| Plainclothes Man | Gerald Stopp | ||
| Mother Hollunder | Lilian Kingsbury | ||
| “The Sparrow” | Dudley Digges | ||
| Wolf Berkowitz | Henry Travers | ||
| Young Hollunder | William Franklin | ||
| Linzman | Willard Bowman | ||
| First Mounted Policeman | Edgar Stehli | ||
| Second Mounted Policeman | George Frenger | ||
| The Doctor | Robert Babcock | ||
| The Carpenter | George Frenger | ||
| First Policeman of the Beyond | Erskine Sanford | ||
| Second Policeman of the Beyond | Gerald Stopp | ||
| The Richly Dressed Man | Edgar Stehli | ||
| The Poorly Dressed Man | Philip Wood | ||
| The Old Guard | Walton Butterfield | ||
| The Magistrate | Albert Perry | ||
| Louise | Evelyn Chard | ||
| Peasants, Townspeople, etc. | |||
| Lela M. Aultman, Janet Scott, Marion M. Winsten, KatherineFahnestock, Lillian Tuchman, Ruth L. Cumming, Jacob Weiser, Maurice Somers, JohnCrump. | |||
| Prologue | An Amusement Park on the Outskirts of Budapest | ||
| First Scene | A Lonely Place in the Park | ||
| Second Scene | The Tin Type Shop of the Hollunders | ||
| Third Scene | The Same | ||
| Fourth Scene | A Railroad Embankment Outside the City | ||
| Intermission | |||
| Fifth Scene | Same as Scene Two | ||
| Sixth Scene | A Courtroom in the Beyond | ||
| Seventh Scene | Before Julie’s Door | ||
| Produced under the direction ofFRANK REICHER | |||
| Costumes and scenery designed byLEE SIMONSON | |||
| Technical Director SHELDON K.VIELE | |||
| Scenery painted by ROBERTBERGMAN | |||
| Costumes executed by NETTIEDUFF READE | |||
| Stage Manager WALTERGEER | |||
| Assistant Stage Manager JACOBWEISER | |||
| Music arranged by DEEMSTAYLOR | |||
| Executive Director THERESAHELBURN | |||
[INTRODUCTION]
The première of “LILIOM” at Budapest in December, 1909, left both playgoer and critic a bit bewildered. It was not the sort of play the Hungarian capital had been accustomed to expect of its favorite dramatist, whose THE DEVIL, after two years of unprecedented success, was still crowding the theatres of two continents.
One must, it was true, count on a touch of fantasy in every Molnar work. Never had he been wholly content with everyday reality, not in his stories, or in his sketches or in his earlier plays; and least of all in THE DEVIL wherein the natural and supernatural were most whimsically blended. But in LILIOM, it seemed, he had carried fantasy to quite unintelligible lengths. Budapest was frankly puzzled.
What did he mean by killing his hero in the fifth scene, taking him into Heaven in the sixth and bringing him back to earth in the seventh? Was this prosaic Heaven of his seriously or satirically intended? Was Liliom a saint or a common tough? And was his abortive redemption a symbol or merely a jibe? These were some of the questions Budapest debated while the play languished through thirty or forty performances and was withdrawn.