Несколько слов об авторе пьесы-источника (компиляция из "Британники" и "Энкарты"); мне кажется, нам следует отдать ему дань уважения.

Molnar, Ferenc (b. Jan. 12, 1878, Budapest--d. April 1, 1952, New York City), Hungarian playwright and novelist who is known for his
plays about the contemporary salon life of Budapest and for his moving short stories.

A number of Molnar's plays, including _Liliom_ (1909), _The Swan_ (1920), and _The Red Mill_ (1923), were successfully played abroad, particularly in Austria, Germany, and the United States. In 1928 English translations of his _Twenty-five Plays_ were published. A musical comedy, _Carousel_, presented in New York City in 1945, was based on Molnar's _Liliom_. His plays are characterized by graceful romantic situations and amusing dialogue. Some of them were made into films, but these translations and adaptations often emphasized the verbal beauty and romantic plots of his works at the expense of their finely detailed characterizations and their often bitter cynicism and biting irony.

Кто читал пьесу полностью? Как транспонировал ее Вудхауз? Чего больше - романтики, иронии, красот языка?

Предположительно переделка должна была быть немаленькой. Скажем, сравнивает George Mikes (вот как сказать, венгерский или английский он тут писатель, Микеш или Майкс) континентальную и английскую сценку "про любовь". "The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead. If a continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal, week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental countries. In England the boy pets his adored one on the back and says softly, "I don't object to you, you know." If he is quite mad with passion, he may add, "I rather fancy you, in fact."

Чистый Берти! Так как, можно сказать, что "The Play's the Thing" типична для Вудхауза? В экспозиции элегантный, блестящий, какой хотите язык - но где неподражаемый строй PGW? Или же все дело в том, что вудхаузовская фраза предназначена для читателя, а пьеса - для слушателя, и потому приходится волей-неволей упрощать? С другой стороны, конечно, вызывает просто восхищение разнообразие стилей, которыми PGW мог писать.