With his frequent collaborator George S. Kaufman, Hart began to develop an historical pageant that traced the evolution of the American theater from the 1700s to the present, potentially starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.
Kaufman and Hart soon scotched the project due to structural issues; upon further research, they also discovered "that the early days of the American theatre were not permeated with much apparent romance and that the plays then produced were appallingly and incredibly dull.
[2] The passage of time in The Fabulous Invalid is illustrated by a Living Newspaper-style cavalcade of scenes from 26 plays and musicals, including Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (1901) by Clyde Fitch, Little Johnny Jones (1904) by George M. Cohan, The Lion and the Mouse (1905) by Charles Klein, Within the Law (1912) by Bayard Veiller, Anna Christie (1921) by Eugene O'Neill, and What Price Glory?
[6] The Washington Post deemed the play "too obvious to be affecting," and while The New York Times' Brooks Atkinson praised Kaufman and Hart's ambition and the sumptuousness of the physical production, he ultimately dismissed it as "a ponderous show that reaffirms the commonplace.
[4] In 2003, a revised version of The Fabulous Invalid was produced at Emerson College; the playwright Jeffrey Hatcher reworked the text to encompass the 100-year history of Boston's Cutler Majestic Theatre, and the production featured Alice Ripley and Steve Hendrickson as two of the theater's "ghosts.