Dark Eyes (play) - From Conception To Broadway

From Conception To Broadway

The idea for the play came to Miramova in 1939, when she and Leontovich awkwardly and conspicuously visited the home of a well-to-do American family; she imagined that their gloomy weekend might form the basis of a delightful comedy. Dark Eyes spoofed the peculiarities of the Russian character, and it also included many references to the personalities and careers of its three main actresses. (For example, one comedic moment in the play comes when Natasha bitterly complains about the bleak future for typecast Russian-American actresses and sarcastically points out that perhaps the women will be invited in ten years to play "aging Russian ballerinas - if we're not crippled with rheumatism by then." Contemporary audiences may have understood the joke, if they remembered that both Leontovich and Miramova had played the Russian ballerina Grusinskaya in the popular 1931 play Grand Hotel.)

Though she had no playwriting experience, a less-than-perfect command of the English language, and had already been told by the playwright Moss Hart that her idea was charming but unworkable, Miramova began work on Dark Eyes shortly thereafter, spending three months at her typewriter from seven in the morning until midnight. She later called on Leontovich for help; their collaboration came in the form of long walks, during which they discussed the play's second draft. She sent the completed manuscript to producer Ben Hecht for an opinion, and Hecht invited the three actresses for dinner at the Hecht home, along with Broadway director Jed Harris. Harris, absent from the theatre scene for five years prior, had already struck a deal with Twentieth Century Fox for the company to finance an unspecified number of his plays. Dark Eyes was the first play accepted for performance under this agreement.

The play had a brief preview on Christmas Eve in Baltimore. It then officially opened at 8:40 p.m., 14 January 1943 at the Belasco Theatre in New York. It closed on 31 July 1943 after a successful run of 230 performances.