Audiobook: New York Idea

I find it very hard to classify “The New York Idea” under any of the established rubrics. It is rather too extravagant to rank as a comedy; it is much too serious in its purport, too searching in its character-delineation and too thoughtful in its wit, to be treated as a mere farce. Its title—not, perhaps, a very happy one—is explained in this saying of one of the characters: “Marry for whim and leave the rest to the divorce court—that’s the New York idea of marriage.”

Like all the plays, from Sardou’s “Divorçons” onward, which deal with a too facile system of divorce, this one shows a discontented woman, who has broken up her home for a caprice, suffering agonies of jealousy when her ex-husband proposes to make use of the freedom she has given him, and returning to him at last with the admission that their divorce was at least “premature.” In this central conception there is nothing particularly original. It is the wealth of humourous invention displayed in the details both of character and situation that renders the play remarkable. (Summary from Project Gutenberg)

Cast
Philip Phillimore: Mark F. Smith
Grace Phillimore: Diana Majlinger
Mrs. Phillimore: Margaret Espaillat
Miss Heneage: rashada
Matthew Phillimore: Roger Melin
William Sudley: om123
Mrs. Vida Phillimore: Elizabeth Klett
Sir Wilfrid Cates-Darby: Equilibrium33
John Karslake: mb
Mrs. Cynthia Karslake: Arielle Lipshaw
Brooks: Equilibrium33
Tim Fiddler: Equilibrium33
Nogam: moonpiles
Thomas: David Muncaster
Benson: Lucy Perry
Narrator: Margaret Espaillat

Audio edited by: Arielle Lipshaw