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Broadway Revival Proposal: The Lost Weekend (with Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith)
A dark spiral. A fifth of rye. A fifth-act twist.
Tagline:
Alcoholism was never supposed to be adorable.
Overview:
Billy Wilder’s harrowing 1945 classic The Lost Weekend gets an audacious Broadway reimagining: part psychological drama, part tragicomedy, part capuchin chaos. While the core of Don Birnam’s descent into a weekend-long alcoholic bender remains intact—his struggle, his demons, his typewriter gathering dust—this revival is layered with a sly, theatrical device: a mischievous capuchin monkey named Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith who shadows Don throughout, at once tormentor, trickster, companion, and...maybe something more?
This is The Lost Weekend as seen through a cracked mirror—and possibly the eyes of a monkey with a pocket flask.
Setting & Style:
New York City, 1950s noir-chic—fire escapes, rotary phones, the glimmer of neon reflected in rain puddles. Sets slide between Don’s apartment, seedy bars, pawn shops, and the psychiatric ward with seamless minimalism. The tone toggles between shadow and slapstick, sorrow and satire. Think Long Day’s Journey into Night if it were gatecrashed by Harpo Marx in fur.
Plot (with monkey upgrades):
Don Birnam is a failed writer, a charming drunk, and a man with a weekend pass to self-destruction. His brother Wick and loyal girlfriend Helen try to intervene, but Don is slippery, poetic, and determined to vanish into bourbon.
Enter Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith, a capuchin of mysterious origin. He may be:
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An escaped showbiz monkey from a vaudeville act
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A hallucination born of DTs and desperation
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The physical embodiment of Don’s Id
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Or possibly just Don’s pet, whom no one else bothers to mention
Whatever his origin, the monkey is always there—swigging from Don’s flask, stealing typewriter ribbons, mocking him with jazz hands during his most desperate moments, and occasionally offering surprisingly lucid advice via interpretive dance or a well-timed banana peel.
As Don descends, so does Mr. T-S—becoming more chaotic, more theatrical, more unsettling. At times he mirrors Don's movements. At others, he plays piano in a speakeasy (yes, he’s trained). In the hospital, he dons a tiny white coat and hands Don a diagnosis: “Fear of living, masked as thirst.”
Themes:
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The unreliable narrator: Is Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith real, or a simian Tyler Durden?
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Addiction as performance: the monkey externalizes the drama of inner chaos
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Love, codependency, and why you should never pawn a monkey’s tiny vest
Key Musical Numbers (yes, this revival includes music):
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“Another Round, Another Lie” – Don’s jazz-inflected anthem of denial
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“The Monkey Did It” – A vaudeville-style number sung by the ensemble, blaming the capuchin for every misdeed
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“Typewriter Tango” – A duet between Don and Mr. T-S, dancing around the unused typewriter
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“Sunday Morning Comes Too Soon” – Helen’s haunting ballad as she waits for Don to return
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Finale: “The Lost & the Found” – Don, sober-ish, watches Mr. T-S walk offstage in a trench coat and fedora, fading into a fog of ambiguity
Tone:
Heartbreaking. Hilarious. Honest. And occasionally bananas. The show refuses to let the audience fully settle—is this a tragedy? A redemption story? A Beckettian prank? Maybe all three.
Why It Works for Broadway Now:
Audiences crave reinvention. We’ve seen Oklahoma! with PTSD, Company with gender flips—why not The Lost Weekend with a capuchin monkey that might be God?
Plus, let’s be honest: people love monkeys in waistcoats.
Closing Visual:
Don sits at his typewriter, finally writing. Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith sits on the windowsill, silhouetted against the skyline. He raises a tiny glass, then disappears. A single note from the saxophone underscores the silence.
Lights fade.
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Provide a detailed treatment as a three act drama, and well, of course we’re keeping the capuchin monkey, we’ve decided to drop the musical numbers.
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THE LOST WEEKEND
A Three-Act Drama
With Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith
Tone:
Psychological realism with surrealist undertones. Grim and emotionally intimate, yet flecked with moments of absurdity, thanks to the monkey. Think Death of a Salesman meets Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with a simian wildcard.
ACT ONE: Friday – The Disguise of Normalcy
Setting: A modest Manhattan apartment, late 1950s. Books, dust, typewriter, bourbon stashed in lampshades.
Summary:
We meet Don Birnam, a once-promising writer turned chronic alcoholic, who insists he’s been “on the verge” of a comeback for years. His brother Wick is taking him away for a sober weekend upstate—but Don has other plans.
From the shadows emerges Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith, a capuchin monkey in a child’s red velvet vest. Don doesn’t acknowledge him at first. The monkey is wordless but expressive—taunting, mimicking, distracting. Is he real? Imagined? A physical stand-in for Don’s inner saboteur? We don't know. We never will.
Wick, packing for the trip, remains oblivious to the monkey—despite Mr. T-S slinking about with stolen socks or dropping bottle caps into the fish tank. When Don sabotages the trip by sending Helen to intercept Wick, he is left alone with his bottle—and with Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith, who now perches on the typewriter, pawing at keys.
Key Moment:
Don insists to Helen that he’s “just fine.” As soon as she leaves, Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith flings open a hidden cabinet with a flourish, revealing a half-empty bottle of rye and tossing Don his glass with eerie precision.
Curtain.
ACT TWO: Saturday – The Spiral
Setting: A dive bar, a pawn shop, a hospital, a street. Fragmented, dreamlike transitions.
Summary:
Don's descent is brutal. He pawns his typewriter—again—for booze. The monkey follows him everywhere, sometimes comic, sometimes grotesque: wiping his face in bar peanuts, lifting Don’s hand to drink, mimicking his slurred monologues, biting the bartender’s sleeve when Don is cut off.
But there are slivers of lucidity. Don admits to a stranger that he’s terrified of sobriety—of the silence in his mind. Mr. T-S watches this confession with what seems like pity.
The infamous alcoholic ward scene becomes a fever dream: Don, strapped to a bed, hallucinating bats and dripping walls. The monkey now wears a white doctor’s coat and stethoscope. He begins to scribble mock psychiatric notes on a clipboard. In a horrifying moment, Don screams, accusing Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith of conspiring with the doctors to “lock him up forever.” The monkey offers him a matchbook with the address of a bar instead.
Key Moment:
Helen arrives, trying to rescue Don, who recoils. The monkey hides behind her, peeking out. Don begs her to “get it away.” She sees nothing. We understand: this is his hallucination—or his secret. Or his truth.
Curtain.
ACT THREE: Sunday – The Reckoning
Setting: Back in Don’s apartment. Bare. Cold. Morning light.
Summary:
Don returns, empty, hungover, defeated. The apartment has been stripped of bottles. Helen arrives and finds him crumpled on the floor. She’s heartbroken, but patient.
She places a glass of water and a pencil on the desk. Quietly, she leaves.
The monkey is back—but changed. Still silent, but now subdued. He no longer mocks. Instead, he lifts the typewriter ribbon, unspools it, and carefully drapes it around Don’s shoulders like a priest’s stole.
Don sits at the typewriter. For the first time, he doesn’t reach for a bottle. He begins to type. The clacking keys echo in the silence.
Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith climbs onto the windowsill, silhouetted by dawn. He glances back. He seems older now. Or maybe Don is.
He tips an invisible hat and disappears.
Key Moment:
Don reads what he has typed aloud: not a novel, not a speech—just a few honest lines. Honest enough, for now.
The stage fades to black, leaving the clatter of a typewriter echoing faintly.
Endnote:
Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith is never explained. He is the monkey on Don’s back. He is addiction, memory, defiance, fear—and maybe redemption. He’s also, yes, a literal capuchin monkey in a waistcoat.
Broadway audiences will talk about him for months.
Would you like a program insert or director’s note to match?
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PROGRAM INSERT
FROM THE PRODUCERS OF THE LOST WEEKEND
(with Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith)
Welcome to our reimagining of The Lost Weekend, a story as timeless as its subject: the harrowing allure of escape, the needle-thread walk between despair and hope, and the long shadow cast by a single, well-hidden bottle.
In this revival, we have dared to tilt the lens. Our production includes one character not found in the original film, novel, or any known medical literature: Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith, a capuchin monkey whose origins remain—as the scholars say—contested. He is not here for comic relief (though he may elicit a laugh). He is not here for exposition (though he may expose). He is a cipher, a mirror, a force, a friend—or perhaps simply a figment.
Some say he is the physical embodiment of Don Birnam’s shame.
Others claim he is his muse.
A few have suggested he is a metaphor for addiction.
One reviewer called him “an uninvited guest with impeccable timing.”
We invite you to decide for yourself.
And should you leave the theater tonight troubled, moved, or mysteriously compelled to hide your minibar key—well, then we’ve done our job.
– The Producers
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
“A man, a typewriter, and a monkey walk into a tragedy…”
— Director’s Note from M. Lavinia Carthage
When first asked to direct The Lost Weekend, I hesitated. It’s a delicate piece: intimate, wrenching, claustrophobic. A man in a room with his ghosts. But then I heard those four fateful words: “We’re adding a monkey.”
At first, I laughed. Then I listened. Then I stopped laughing.
Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith is more than a novelty. He is the id unbuttoned, the memory that won’t go quietly, the voice in the corner whispering “just one more.” He is what Don Birnam cannot say and cannot live without. He is also, quite literally, a monkey. And like all great stage characters—he never speaks, but somehow says everything.
In our world, realism and hallucination coexist in the same cramped apartment. The monkey does not break the fourth wall—he lives inside it. His presence raises questions: about addiction, about denial, about the moments when the surreal feels more honest than the real.
This is not a play about monkeys. It is a play about human beings. But I believe the monkey helps us see them more clearly.
As you watch, I ask only this: don’t look away. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially then.
And if you leave the theater wondering whether your Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith is lurking somewhere behind your coat rack—good. That means he’s done his job.
With respect and mischief,
M. Lavinia Carthage
Let me know if you want playbill bios for the cast or an opening night cocktail napkin quote from Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith himself.
You said:
ChatGPT said:
Oh yes. There’s only one thing more coveted than a standing ovation—and that’s a Sunday column in The New York Times with a photo of a capuchin monkey in a waistcoat peering meaningfully out a rain-streaked window. Without further ado:
"The Lost Weekend"
—Now with 100% more Capuchin
In a season brimming with safe bets and revival roulette, the most audacious move on Broadway comes from an unlikely place: a dim apartment in 1950s Manhattan, a struggling alcoholic writer, and one small, deeply judgmental monkey.
"The Lost Weekend," the 1945 Billy Wilder adaptation of Charles Jackson’s novel, was once a searing portrait of addiction, repression, and male fragility. In this gorgeously unsettling, darkly playful revival at the Nederlander, it becomes something else entirely: a psychological chess match between a man and his own private primate.
Let me say this plainly: Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith is the best thing on Broadway right now, and he does not utter a single word. He does, however, wear a crushed velvet waistcoat, steal a flask mid-soliloquy, and type a page of dialogue with more emotional resonance than most human actors could muster with a monologue.
Tom Hollander, as Don Birnam, brings a frayed-wire intensity to the role. His Don is not a man on a bender so much as a man already several drinks deep into a lifelong performance of sobriety. There’s a scene midway through Act II—after Don has hallucinated bats, berated his girlfriend, and tried to pawn his typewriter for the third time—where Hollander simply sits on the floor, rocking slightly, while Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith mimics his every gesture. It is devastating. It is also hilarious. The audience doesn’t know whether to weep or applaud. They do both.
Director M. Lavinia Carthage walks a tightrope of tone with eerie precision. The monkey is never played for laughs—though the laughs come, unbidden and sharp. Instead, he is folded into the production’s visual grammar: a twitch of a tail during a blackout, a flash of teeth during an argument, a tiny paw outstretched during Don’s near-suicide. Is he real? Is he hallucinated? Carthage wisely refuses to answer. The effect is theatrical gold—Beckett by way of Broadway.
The design team deserves a standing ovation of their own. Esme Nakamura’s set shifts like memory itself, from dive bar to hospital ward to tenement window. Lighting by Jorge Felman casts long, unforgiving shadows that seem to follow the monkey more than the man.
Some purists will clutch their pearls. The original film never featured a simian sidekick, after all. But this isn’t a gimmick—it’s a revelation. In adding one capuchin monkey, this production deepens the metaphor, intensifies the isolation, and dares to ask: What if your worst instincts had hands? And what if they clapped when you fell?
At intermission, I heard one woman whisper to her companion, “It’s like Long Day’s Journey Into Night...but with better posture and a monkey.” She wasn’t wrong.
Verdict: Haunting. Harrowing. Hairy. A triumph.
Critic’s Pick.
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The play’s final moment demands precision, restraint, and just the right mix of fragility and resolve. What Don types shouldn’t be grand or polished; it must feel real—as if it's the first honest thing he's written in years.
Here are the lines Don types in the final scene:
[Don sits at his typewriter. After a long pause, he begins to type slowly, deliberately.]
“This is not the novel I promised. This is not the book they wanted. This is just the truth, scratched out in the ruins of a weekend I survived. I am a man who drinks to run away, and I have run out of places to go. The monkey is watching. He always has been. And now—I think I’ll let him see me try.”
These words aren’t just typed—they’re heard aloud, half-whispered by Don, with the rhythmic clatter of the typewriter underscoring each line. Mr. Throttlebottom-Smith, perched on the windowsill, listens with something like reverence—or maybe just curiosity.
