Based on Edna Ferber's sprawling 1941 novel Saratoga Trunk, it focuses on Clio Dulaine, an "illegitimate" Creole woman who seeks revenge on the New Orleans family who exiled her mother when she became impregnated by their son. Posing as a countess raised in France, she joins forces with Montanacowboy Clint Maroon, whose family's property was appropriated by railroadtycoon Bart Van Steed. Clint persuades Clio to seduce Bart into proposing marriage, but the conspirators soon find themselves falling in love while scheming to settle old scores.
The success of the musical adaptation of Ferber's Show Boat convinced her lightning could strike twice. She first approached Rodgers and Hammerstein with her proposal, and when they opted to write Pipe Dream instead, she turned to Lerner and Loewe, who agreed to compose the score but lost interest after My Fair Lady opened. DaCosta wrote a first draft of the book, which Ferber disliked, and when her offer to adapt the book herself was declined, she backed out of the project.
Critics were impressed by the elaborate sets (which included a turntable and fifteen different locales) and the more than two hundred costumes created by Cecil Beaton, who won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design and was nominated for Best Scenic Design. The leads drew good notices, but most agreed that DaCosta's book and direction resulted in a slow-moving, uninvolving production. The main characters were unlikeable, their romance dull, and too many peripheral characters wandered in and out of the action. Show Boat, with its riverboat setting, had been a natural for musical adaptation, and whereas Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern had succeeded in compressing the epic into a lively stage production, the creative team behind Saratoga was unable to wring much excitement from a romantic relationship stemming primarily from a mutual desire for vengeance.
