the secret life of walter mitty short story

Her immediate problem, however, is a health fanatic boyfriend, Irving Kornfeld (Charles Rydell), who wants to build her up, marry her, and transplant her to his Oregon farm. At Harry’s Bar, his only refuge from the burdens of the world, Mitty falls into conversation with Willa de Wisp (Cathryn Damon), a tippling nightclub singer who also dreams – of stardom and fame. As all leave for town in the family car, Mitty is assailed by Agnes’s and her mother’s barrage of driving instructions, shopping lists and general duties (“Don’t Forget”).

Why have their lives become so drab? “Once I made you dream now I make you scream,” he muses (“Aggie”). Mitty saving his boss’s life with a miracle of surgical skill – only to be recalled to the all-too-real world by Agnes’s jealous suspicions of his mumblings and daydreaming. In “Drip, Drop, Tapoketa,” he suddenly imagines himself as the famous Dr. His dream of glory dissolves as Agnes complains that he never does anything to get ahead in his job. If only he could flee all the bickering and go “Walking With Peninnah,” or escape in a rocket where Mitty the Great Space Scientist, with a brilliant improvisation, repairs a clogged fuel line. His only compensation is his adoring daughter, Peninnah (Christopher Norris). Recalled to a real, more formidable “squad,” comprising his angry mother-in-law (Susan Lehman) and nagging wife, Agnes (Lorraine Serabian), he meets a firing line of accusations: a missing sock, a spotted tie, too much smoking, causing his mother-in-law’s dentures to freeze solid in a glass of water he absentmindedly left overnight on the window sill. As he shaves, he imagines himself before a firing squad, elegantly scorning the traditional blindfold and last cigarette (“The Walter Mitty March”). Act I To the rapid-fire shouted orders of his wife to hurry, Walter Mitty (Marc London), just turning forty, prepares to face another day.

Mitty, escaping in daydreams from the straitjacket of reality, finds that life’s only triumphs come in “The Secret Life” (Prologue). Although Thurber’s story takes place in Connecticut, Mitty is a universal character in whom we all recognize something of ourselves. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a new musical based on one of James Thurber’s most enchanting stories, is about just such a wistful little man. Today, we are told that most men lead lives of quiet desperation, that the hero of our time is a man bedeviled and frustrated by petty annoyances and demands, a man who can only dream of heroic deeds. Oops, looks like your browser doesn't support HTML 5 audio.

The secret life of walter mitty short story