text: algonquin round table the algonquin round table was a celebrated group of new york city writers , critics , actors and wits . gathering initially as part of a practical joke , members of " the vicious circle " , as they dubbed themselves , met for lunch each day at the algonquin hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929 . at these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks , wordplay and witticisms that , through the newspaper columns of round table members , were disseminated across the country . daily association with each other , both at the luncheons and outside of them , inspired members of the circle to collaborate creatively . the entire group worked together successfully only once , however , to create a revue called no sirree ! which helped launch a hollywood career for round tabler robert benchley . in its ten years of association , the round table and a number of its members acquired national reputations , both for their contributions to literature and for their sparkling wit . although some of their contemporaries , and later in life even some of its members , disparaged the group , its reputation has endured long after its dissolution . origin the group that would become the round table began meeting in june 1919 as the result of a practical joke carried out by theatrical press agent john peter toohey . toohey , annoyed at new york times drama critic alexander woollcott for refusing to plug one of toohey 's clients ( eugene o 'neill ) in his column , organized a luncheon supposedly to welcome woollcott back from world war i , where he had been a correspondent for stars and stripes . instead toohey used the occasion to poke fun at woollcott on a number of fronts . woollcott 's enjoyment of the joke and the success of the event prompted toohey to suggest that the group in attendance meet at the algonquin each day for lunch . the group first gathered in the algonquin 's pergola room ( later called the oak room ) at a long rectangular table . as they increased in number , algonquin manager frank case moved them to the rose room and a round table . initially the group called itself " the board " and the luncheons " board meetings " . after being assigned a waiter named luigi , the group re - christened itself " luigi board " . finally they became " the vicious circle " although " the round table " gained wide currency after cartoonist edmund duffy of the brooklyn eagle caricatured the group sitting at a round table and wearing armor . membership charter members of the round table included : franklin pierce adams , columnist robert benchley , humorist and actor heywood broun , columnist and sportswriter ( married to ruth hale ) marc connelly , playwright ruth hale , freelance writer who worked for women 's rights george s. kaufman , playwright and director dorothy parker , critic , poet , short - story writer , and screenwriter brock pemberton , broadway producer harold ross , the new yorker editor robert e. sherwood , author and playwright john peter toohey , broadway publicist alexander woollcott , critic and journalist membership was not official or fixed for so many others who moved in and out of the circle . some of these included : tallulah bankhead , actress noël coward , playwright blyth daly , actress edna ferber , author and playwright eva le gallienne , actress gillmore , actress jane grant , journalist and feminist ( married to ross ) beatrice kaufman , editor and playwright ( married to george s. kaufman ) margaret leech , writer and historian neysa mcmein , magazine illustrator harpo marx , comedian and film star alice duer miller , writer donald ogden stewart , playwright and screenwriter frank sullivan , journalist and humorist deems taylor , composer estelle winwood , actress and comedian peggy wood , actress activities in addition to the daily luncheons , members of the round table worked and associated with each other almost constantly . the group was devoted to games , including and poker . the group had its own poker club , the literary and inside straight club , which met at the hotel on saturday nights . regulars at the game included kaufman , adams , broun , ross and woollcott , with non - round tablers herbert bayard swope , silk merchant paul hyde bonner , baking heir raoul fleischmann , actor harpo marx , and writer ring lardner sometimes sitting in . the group also played charades ( which they called simply " the game " ) and the " i can give you a sentence " game , which spawned dorothy parker 's memorable sentence using the word horticulture : " you can lead a horticulture but you can 't make her think . " members often visited island , a private island co - owned by several " " — but governed by aleck woollcott as a " benevolent tyrant " , as his biographer samuel hopkins adams charitably put it — located on several acres in the middle of lake in vermont . there they would engage in their usual array of games including wink murder , which they called simply " murder " , plus croquet . a number of round tablers were inveterate practical jokers , constantly pulling pranks on one another . as time went on the jokes became ever more elaborate . harold ross and jane grant once spent weeks playing a particularly memorable joke on woollcott involving a prized portrait of himself . they had several copies made , each slightly more askew than the last , and would periodically secretly swap them out and then later comment to woollcott " what on earth is wrong with your portrait ? " until woollcott was beside himself . eventually they returned the original portrait . no sirree ! given the literary and theatrical activities of the round table members , it was perhaps inevitable that they would write and stage their own revue . no sirree ! , staged for one night only in april 1922 , was a take - off of a then - popular european touring revue called la - souris , directed by nikita . no sirree ! had its genesis at the studio of neysa mcmein , which served as something of a salon for round tablers away from the algonquin . acts included : " opening chorus " featuring woollcott , toohey , kaufman , connelly , adams and benchley with violinist jascha heifetz providing offstage , off - key accompaniment ; " he who gets " , a musical number featuring the song " the ' blues " written by dorothy parker and performed by robert sherwood accompanied by " chorus girls " including tallulah bankhead , helen hayes , ruth gillmore , lenore ulric and mary brandon ; " zowie , or the curse of an akins heart " ; " the greasy hag , an o 'neill play in one act " with kaufman , connelly and woollcott ; and " mr. whim passes by — an a. a. milne play " . the only item of note to emerge from no sirree ! was robert benchley 's contribution , the treasurer 's report . benchley 's disjointed parody so delighted those in attendance that irving berlin hired benchley in 1923 to deliver the report as part of berlin 's music box revue for $ 500 a week . in 1928 , report was later made into a short sound film in the fox movietone sound - on - film system by fox film corporation . the film kicked off a second career for benchley in hollywood . with the success of no sirree ! the round tablers hoped to duplicate it with an " official " vicious circle production open to the public with material performed by professional actors . kaufman and connelly funded the revue , named the forty - niners . the revue opened in november 1922 and was a failure , running for just 15 performances . decline of the round table as members of the round table moved into ventures outside new york city , inevitably the group drifted apart . by the early 1930s the vicious circle was broken . edna ferber said she realized it when she arrived at the rose room for lunch one day in 1932 and found the group 's table occupied by a family from kansas . frank case was asked what happened to the group . he shrugged and replied , " what became of the reservoir at fifth avenue and forty - second street ? these things do not last forever . " some members of the group remained friends after its dissolution . parker and benchley in particular remained close up until his death in 1945 , although her political leanings did strain their relationship . others , as the group itself would come to understand when it gathered following woollcott 's death in 1943 , simply realized that they had nothing to say to one another . public response and legacy because a number of the members of the round table had regular newspaper columns , the activities and quips of various round table members were reported in the national press . this brought round tablers widely into the public consciousness as renowned wits . not all of their contemporaries were fans of the group . their critics accused them of , or exchanging favorable plugs of one another 's works , and of rehearsing their witticisms in advance . james thurber was a detractor of the group , accusing them of being too consumed by their elaborate practical jokes . h. l. mencken , who was much admired by many in the circle , was also a critic , commenting to fellow writer anita loos that " their ideals were those of a vaudeville actor , one who is extremely ' in the know ' and inordinately trashy " . the group showed up in the 1923 best - seller black oxen by gertrude atherton . she sarcastically described a group she called " the " : groucho marx , brother of round table associate harpo , was never comfortable amidst the viciousness of the vicious circle . " the price of admission is a serpent 's tongue and a half - concealed stiletto . " even some members of the round table disparaged it later in life . dorothy parker in particular criticized the group . despite parker 's bleak assessment and while it is true that some members of the round table are perhaps now " famous for being famous " instead of for their literary output , round table members and associates contributed to the literary landscape , including pulitzer prize - winning work by circle members kaufman , connelly and sherwood ( who won four ) and by associate ferber and the legacy of ross 's new yorker . others made lasting contributions to the realms of stage and screen — tallulah bankhead and eva le gallienne became broadway greats and the films of harpo and benchley remain popular ; and parker has remained renowned for her short stories and literary reviews . the algonquin round table , as well as the number of other literary and theatrical greats who lodged there , helped earn the algonquin hotel its status as a new york city historic landmark . the hotel was so designated in 1987 . in 1996 the hotel was designated a national literary landmark by the friends of libraries usa based on the contributions of " the round table wits " . the organization 's bronze plaque is attached to the front of the hotel . although the rose room was removed from the algonquin in a 1998 remodel , the hotel paid tribute to the group by commissioning and hanging the painting a vicious circle by natalie , depicting the round table and also created a replica of the original table . the hotel occasionally stages an original musical production , the talk of the town , in the oak room . its latest production started september 11 , 2007 and ran through the end of the year . a film about the members , the ten - year lunch ( 1987 ) , won the academy award for best documentary feature . the dramatic film mrs. parker and the vicious circle ( 1994 ) recounted the round table from the perspective of dorothy parker . portions of the 1981 film rich and famous were set in the algonquin and one of the film 's characters , liz hamilton ( played by jacqueline bisset ) refers to the round table during the film . in 1993 , the algonquin round table was featured in the young indiana jones and the scandal of 1920 where the titular character meet the group and attend at least two lunches . wonderful nonsense - the algonquin round table is a documentary produced for the dvd release of that film in 2008 . in 2009 , robert benchley 's grandson , nat benchley , and co - editor kevin c. fitzpatrick published the lost algonquin round table , a collection of the early writings of the group . in the 2015 hollywood movie " the martian " , the nasa jpl engineer tim grimes refers to the algonquin round table when describing the crude communication jpl had established with stranded astronaut mark : " thirty - two minute round trip communications time , all he can do is ask yes / no questions , and all we can do is point the camera . this won 't exactly be an algonquin round table of snappy repartee . 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