Although it is easy to chart Kaufman’s successes, his influence on American playwriting is harder to define. If Eugene O’Neill represents the tragic mask of American drama, Kaufman can lay claim to its comedic counterpart. Kaufman added a distinctly American touch to his comedy, bringing the brashness of the postwar era to the Broadway stage.

Kaufman’s insight into the American character was nearly as biting and witty as Mark Twain‘s. The two dueling families of You Can’t Take It with You represent the conflict between the moral absolute of American capitalism and the idiosyncratic individualism of American democracy, and Kaufman sympathized with the latter.

Although little of his Jewish ancestry was evident in his plays, Kaufman drew heavily on the myths of assimilation in America. His heroes are invariably without lineage, money, or breeding, but they had industry, intelligence, and wit in large supply; usually they won out over exclusion, avarice, and stupidity.

No American playwright has been more respected for the kind of solid craftsmanship and economy that Kaufman brought to his works. His plays have served as models of comic construction for the stage, films, and television. In addition, his expert use of the wisecrack–the sly, sharp line that bolstered the speaker’s ego or deflated his opponent’s–has earned him a reputation as an American wit and it has become a staple of popular comedy in every medium.

His comedies have three particular characteristics: outstanding parts for talented actors, tremendous physical and verbal energy, and a keen satirical outlook on timeless American preoccupations and institutions.

In a paradoxical contrast to Kaufman’s remark about satire, there has not been a Saturday night since 1925 when a George S. Kaufman comedy hasn’t been playing somewhere in America.