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| How do you write for the Marx Brothers? Well, first off, you keep Chico's lines simple, because he'll probably forget them anyway. Harpo you let alone, since he doesn't talk and it's hard to write honking noises. Groucho's dialogue is generally riffing, so you write him stuff he can ad-lib to whenever he feels like it without screwing up the thrust of the scene. Zeppo... well, who cares about Zeppo?
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The Cocoanuts
Book by George S. Kaufman
Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
NOTE: The following scene is from the show as it appeared on its opening night at Broadway's Lyric Theatre on December 8, 1925. Because of the onstage ad-libbing of the Marx Brothers, many of the lines differ from the movie version, filmed a few years later. The scene is basically a Groucho riff on the Irving Berlin song, "A LITTLE BUNGALOW," performed in the previous scene. That's why some of the dialogue seems a little obscure.
(Another note: The word "business" is used to indicate stage action, either rehearsed or spontaneous, by the actors. This was a common practice in scripts from the twenties and thirties, and beats trying to write, "Harpo makes a gookie with his face and puts his leg in her hand and takes her arm and tries to break it and makes another face and then sees a girl and runs after her, honking his horn, etc.")
ACT ONE
Scene 2
SCENE:-- Before the Palms.
The refrain from "A LITTLE BUNGALOW" plays softly through the entire scene. CHICO ("Willy the Wop" in the script) and PENELOPE (the villain, played by Janet Velie) enter first, strolling slowly across stage.
PENELOPE: (Flirting vigorously) Do you know you look like the Prince of Wales.
CHICO: Better.
PENELOPE: In fact you have a very distinguishé appearance.
CHICO: Him I no got.
PENELOPE: Tell me. What are you doing tonight?
CHICO: You got idea?
PENELOPE: Don't you dare come to room three hundred and twenty at eleven o'clock.
CHICO: All right. I'll be there at ten-thirty.
(Both exit. PENELOPE and HARPO enter)
PENELOPE: Did anyone ever tell you that you look like the Prince of Wales? (Business) Tell me, do you know who I am? (Business) Do you know where my room is? (Business) Well, I'll be there about eleven o'clock, but of course that would not interest you.
(Business. They exit. GROUCHO and MRS. POTTER enter)
GROUCHO: Did anyone ever tell you that you look like the Prince of Wales? Of course, I don't mean this Prince of Wales. One of the old Wales. And believe me when I say Wales, I mean Wales. I know a whale when I see one. That reminds me, did you say your room was three hundred and eighteen? No, you didn't. You know, I'm the proprietor of this hotel, and I have a pass key for every room in it.
MRS. POTTER: Pass key?
GROUCHO: That's Russian for pass. (he motions to bench) Won't you lie down. (They sit) Ah, if we could find a little bungalow. Of course, I know we could find one, but the people might not move out. But if there was a bungalow, and you and me, and maybe a couple of other fellows, what do you say? Does that strike you as being A.K.?
MRS. POTTER: How's that?
GROUCHO: I said if there was some B's and apples and maybe a little room--
MRS. POTTER: Little room?
GROUCHO: Not too little. Say, the Hippodrome, and you would be in the middle of it, and I'd be outside trying to get in, or maybe I'd be inside trying to get out; or maybe I'd be inside out. I don't know, maybe I wouldn't be there at all. I'll tell you what I'll do, if I don't come home I'll call you up.
MRS. POTTER: I don't think I understand.
GROUCHO: What I mean was your eyes. They shine like the pants of a blue serge suit. And then we'd have some birds and sparrows and -- are you sure your husband's dead?
MRS. POTTER: Quite sure.
GROUCHO: I feel better. I guess he does too. What I was going to say was, here I am and you're going to be here all Winter, and I'm stuck with the hotel anyhow. Why don't you grab me until you could do better?
MRS. POTTER: My dear Mr. Schlemmer, I would never get married before my daughter.
GROUCHO: You did once. Don't forget, I love you. I love. I'm mad around you. (Business) Oh, I'm not myself tonight. I don't know who I am. God pity the poor sailors at sea on a night like this. But don't be mad. I love you anyhow, in spite of yourself.
MRS. POTTER: I don't think you'd love me if I were poor.
GROUCHO: I might, but I'd keep my mouth shut.
MRS. POTTER: Really, I must be going. (Starts to exit)
GROUCHO: Don't go away and leave me here alone. You stay here and I'll go away.
MRS. POTTER: I don't know what to say.
GROUCHO: Well say that you'll be truly mine, or truly yours, or yours truly, and that tonight when the moon is sneaking around the clouds, I'll be sneaking around you. I'll meet you tonight by the bungalow, under the moon. You and the moon. I hope I can tell you apart. You wear a red necktie so I'll know you. I'll meet you tonight by the bungalow under the moon.
MRS. POTTER: But suppose the moon is not out.
GROUCHO: Then I'll meet you under the bungalow.
(Into reprise of "BUNGALOW" number. He sings. They exit)
End of Scene
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During his forty years in the theater, George S. Kaufman was responsible for forty-five plays, twenty six hits,
sixteen collaborators, two Pulitzer Prizes, two wives, one daughter, an unknown number
of mistresses, twenty orgasms for Mary Astor (according to her diary), and three Marx
Brothers movies. James Thurber called him "the man who was comedy." Groucho Marx called him his
God. One of Kaufman's third act lines in A Night at the Opera was so funny that it had to be
removed so preview audiences could hear the rest of the movie.
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