Talk:The Merchant of Yonkers
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Note
[edit]"In 1955, Wilder considerably rewrote the play, greatly expanding a previously minor character into the lead role of Dolly Gallagher Levi, and rechristened the piece The Matchmaker . . . ."
Since the linked-to IBDB.com page shows that the role of Mrs. Levi was played by Jane Cowl, who by 1938 was too big a Broadway star to play anything other than a leading role, it is not necessary to have read The Merchant to find it unlikely that Mrs. Levi was a "minor character" in that version. Whatever Wilder's revisions were (and at the moment I cannot say what they were), Mrs. Levi, a character I recall Wilder's having said he found no model for in the Nestroy play, must have already been the leading female role in 1938.