JM Barrie's "What Every Woman Knows"

[Wellesnet]

75 years ago, on 24 September 1939, Orson Welles's production of J.M. Barrie's play "What Every Woman Knows" was broadcast on "The Campbell Playhouse," CBS-Radio. Like "Peter Ibbetson", this broadcast also featured Helen Hayes as co-star, one of eight appearances she made on the Campbell Playhouse.

All of J.M. Barrie's other works will always be in the shadow of "Peter Pan", but it's worth noting that the first American production of "What Every Woman Knows" in 1908 starred Richard Bennet, who would later play Major Amberson in Welles' film. Wiki: "Written before women's suffrage, the play posits that "every woman knows" she is the invisible power responsible for the successes of the men in her life."

The broadcast can be heard at archive.org
https://archive.org/details/otr_campbellplayhouse

Synopsis:

The Wylies, a well-to-do but uneducated Scottish family, are concerned about their daughter, Maggie, a plain young woman who they fear, will remain a spinster. One night the Wylies discover that a serious young university student, John Shand, has been breaking into their home so that he can read books from their large library. Shand is penniless and cannot afford to buy books for his law school education. Maggie Wylie and John Shand come to an understanding: that her family will fund his education if, at the end of five years, he agrees to marry her.

John honours his commitment to Maggie, marrying her although he does not love her. Recognising her husband's ambition to become a Member of Parliament, Maggie quietly uses her intelligence and her connections behind the scenes to get John elected. She continues to foster his career, never allowing him to see that she is the power behind his rise to fame.

Eventually John begins to believe that his wife is too plain for a man of his stature and position, and he takes up with Lady Sybil Lazenby, a beautiful, refined and high-born young Englishwoman. Maggie is prepared to let her husband go, if Sybil can help him more than she herself can. However, when Shand is preparing a speech that will make or break his career, he finds that Sybil is no help to him, and he realises that Maggie is his inspiration.

[Wellesnet]

While Orson Welles and Helen Hayes co-starred in the '39 radio adaptation of "What Every Woman Knows", the original 1908 Broadway production starred Richard Bennett and Maud Adams. Bennet and Adams clashed on the production, so when Adams later became one of the first Peter Pans onstage, Bennet reportedly wrote her a memo which said, "You've finally become your own leading man." Bennet would later play Major Amberson in Welles's "The Magnificent Ambersons. Another JM Barrie star was Faye Compton, who played Emelia in Welles's "Othello". She was Barrie's original "Mary Rose" on the London stage.

[Wellesnet]

Available, in good sound, at the new IU/Lilly website, along with the original script:
https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/s ... 724%2C3266