AMUSEMENTS
AMUSEMENTS The Week On Stage By Joseph T. Shipley go to hades: AT the liberty Theatre, the musical comedy version of John Kendrirk Bangs, "The Houseboat on the Styx," further carries out the...
...AMUSEMENTS The Week On Stage By Joseph T. Shipley go to hades: AT the liberty Theatre, the musical comedy version of John Kendrirk Bangs, "The Houseboat on the Styx," further carries out the Shavian conception of bell as the place where one does an one desires...
...O'NeiU has never yet written a play that could offend parasites, as parasites, tt begins to look as if he never will...
...Raoul Walsh and Irving Wummings, and stars Edmund Lowe...
...All the philanthropy m the world can do nothing but alleviate slightly the sum of hitman misery which msxudhd has piled "up for itself...
...Bhutan Jailbirds" stirs its active way along, at where high rents do not tsSSM—' _ ticket-prices, and one can enjoy S * show for a proper sum...
...It tailed, I think, because there were not enough people in this town with the gullibility, time and money to believe In its heroine...
...A vastly inferior play, "Machinal," by Sophie Tread well, was touted early this season as "startling, radical...
...Machinal" was no revolt against the theatre for parasites...
...Warner Baxter and Dorothy Burgess, —»——— > Bertha Crelghton Is author and actor ef "Utile Nugget" which ti making a hit at the Palace Theatre in Flint, Won...
...If tt to hard to hold back and think of this at the theatre, how much more so in Ufa, where our interests are often involved, our conventions and prejudices more active...
...Noah, Lucretia Borgia, The Queen of Sheba—and a host of heavenly girls from Hades" trained in effective dances by Chester Hale...
...It was nothing of the sort...
...In the meantime, I suggest t^t, when a good play does appear, you support whomever produces It with your money, your tongue and every other means at your command...
...O'Nein does not go, perhaps because of the conviction of his own soul...
...Sooner or later, either the New Playwrights Theatre or some other organization is going to put on anti-parasite, pro social plays in small theatres, at reasonable prices and make them go...
...But an this applies to rebels generally and not-particularly to those In the theatre...
...In "The Hairy...
...to complete their eclipse within __row etox^_Apy...
...the later bytes* of Us earlier Identity as ThS ¦__ Wreck...
...Meanwhile...
...And O'Neill, certainly...
...create in the public a demand tor the new (within certain iron-bound limits...
...With elaborate and attractive costumes, with reminiscent but lively tunes, and many naughty lines in the virgin mouth of Elizabeth (Blanche Ring) and her polygamous daddy (William Danforth), "The Houseboat on the Styx" wakes heU Indeed...
...In recent years there have been several plays rebelling against the parasitic tradition of the theatre and of the public...
...when Marys sister Cecily falls In love with an architect whose older wife sets her harpy hands, on him and refuses him a divorce, our sympathy is with the dear innocent girl, so frustrated, and so weU portrayed by Helen Chandler, as she goes to Join the husband...
...Tke total investment in land and buildings will be in the neighborhood of Three and a Half Million Dollars...
...It excites you...
...What keeps us from so condescending an attitude in this case is that tt stin memories of Dickens, as though we were taking down the old volume, blowing off the dust, and turning the leaves—to discover that there Is still something worth while in the Victorian sentimentalist...
...Only deep feding is denied inhabitant...
...DREISER ON THE MOVIES Among his recent remarks on the state of the motion picture Industry, Theodore Dreiser said: "Any movement, the aim of which is to 'penetrate the indifference of luxuryerased Americans and produce in them gamine emotions is handicapped from the start...
...The results have Justified the'cautious manner to which we proceeded...
...We are preparing to turn to other sections of the city to do the same thing there that wa have already done here...
...The Amalgamated Cooperative Apartments...
...But, beyond this...
...January mVm 8:15 at the Washington Irving ¦ School...
...here Is a special case of "a man who was born without a skin," who is too sensitive to make the conventional adjustments to life...
...You have helped make It impossible tor tt to be said truthfully—"It cant be done.'' "We Serve Others' The failure of this cooperative project would have meant much more than bringing hardships to those engaged in it...
...The underlying, unexpressed yet pervasive idea of the play us, that money does.not bring in its train a sense of its proper use, that leisure is not inevitably accompanied by its Wise employment...
...But these excuses win never get us very tar...
...The total number of rooms will be over 1900, the present apartments consisting of 1185 rooms...
...Lady Dedtock...
...makes you want to sing and curse and fight...
...Unquestionably, he has been the most powerful dramatist of the past fifteen years...
...has never written ««¦ mnslnsl o___ be»" f...
...The austanjfjSfJ of the __craUttn* of Aaron &•**§_£, tenderness and naive— of the PtoSJ self, the awe and tuyenutjem toPy" of the negro, have all been —¦Ssjaj creating this new form of dance—a_l to no music but that heard througp lines of the poem and Its Vtsmmt echoes, Owen Davis Bas been lndnetaH Mr...
...Parasites run little risk in supporting such plays as these, or a play like "Wings Over Europe," which Is also bearish on the human race...
...has learned by cal* ¦ his new ballet, "America...
...The theatre has been handicapped no* only by a lack of well-written plays, hot by JDs^attonocw lack ot money aad the consequent lack of competent acton and the other parts of a theatre staff...
...Bus,»*¦ mommW Bsopto, be Is a disappointment, a disapjxjtotment that grows with every new play he writes...
...In those five minutes Mencken lie's cynicism got the better of Brooks and Lister, the authors, and they, like O'NeiU hi The Hairy Ape," socked the hero on the Jaw...
...It was a sobsister's distortion of the life story of Ruth Snyder...
...Prom my point of view, the best play in recent yean was Jed Harris's production of "Spread Eagle," up to the test five minutes...
...Men and women organize in a union to better their industrial conditions because separately they cannot accomplish this betterment...
...Singing Jailbirds," although dull in spots because of Sinclair's poverty of real American speech and his occasional Interruptions to deliver a lecture on the evils ot white bread, is a tremendously moving play...
...The play ended oc a defeatist note with what was Intended to be mocking irony, but which sounded like the tipsy laughter of a sophomore is the throes of discovering that there it neither God, Santo Casus nor Justice In this world...
...By Sidney Hillman t~\KM Sons not help forward hmnan progress by working for people bat by working with people...
...But the story, the idea, was essentially Sophie TreadweU's...
...The woman was shown as an essentially passive person, impossibly passive, who drifted from one crisis to another—a moron In a trance...
...In "Front Page," the same evils are exposed, but purely Incidentally and with even more crushing cynicism...
...Tke mew apartments will be six stories high equipped with self-service elevators...
...The New Play mights bare torosd a statement to which they charge that the poor theatrical season is due In targe part to the greed, of the real estpto speculator, demanding o*er_gh Toe theatres uptown...
...Tke plans call for 78 apartments of three rooms, 84 of four rooms and 30 of five rooms each...
...it Is their hell that they desire such things...
...The producer's explanation was that he had to make SIQ.000 a week to break even and the public wouldn't pay that much...
...Sigmund Romberg, i i.muinsar Bt*9 New Moon...
...As one person said on the first night, "Machinal" might have been written by the Authors League of America...
...Anderson helped Harold Hlr.keraqn write "Gods of the Lightning," a beautiful, exciting and powerful play which pounded heart blows on the parasites and died...
...And speed the day by staying away from the tripe that is being offered by the commercial managers who are trying desperately to cater to the parasites in competition with the movies who do it superlatively horribly-well...
...She is especially deft with her feet, as one lifts slowly, slowly, toward a sudden pointing thrust or as both tap or stamp thunderously on the reverberant floor...
...Working together, however, cooperating tat the common good, the great mass of people could banish hitman misery from their world, could create a rich life for every *"""»" being who walks the planet...
...Two one-time girls, grown together Into long motherhood, stin neighbors, vie with one another in and through their sons...
...Physically this to tree but there is another and very vitally important fact to be remembered...
...It wss aWSJ with unceasing applause, the dsaSSMaJ Ing forced to return to the *_P9 sixteen bows...
...How to get the best possible living conditions for themselves and their dependents from the wages received far their labor is a vital problem confronting every worker...
...The average American films give everything money Can buy—hlgh-ealaried puppets, costly sets, elaborate oostnmes and yet almost, not entirely,—they have failed to arrive, at anything worth white...
...You have becoms the path-finders for other group* of workers...
...A Union's Responsibility Tke Amalgamated Break* Ground for a New Group of Garden Apartments—More Sites are Being Considered The following it from an address by tke President of tke Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, at tke breaking of ground for tke new Amalgamated Cooperative Apartments, Mosholu Parkway and Van Cortlandt Park, Sunday, January 13th, 1929...
...assisted by Paul Hester, the adapter, and Margaret Anglln, who plays both the lady and her maid...
...These new apartments will be an add*Hon to those completed a year ago and will bring tke total housing capacity of these apartments to about two thousand People...
...The result Is that the other groups have been Inspired to attempts to achieve the same housing betterment through cooperation...
...They don't mind putting on a rather radical play, provided it's by -Shaw or Galsworthy, or Toller, and hasn't a character In it who bears a distressing resemblance to the husband of the principal angel of the theatre...
...Not only their health but their happiness in a thousand ways is tied up with the manner in which they are housed...
...When we think of the millions of workers to this great country outside of these cooperative apartments what we have done may seem very, very small to comparison with what must be done...
...Almost every Little Theatre would rather like it to be like the Theatre Guild, if that were possible, but you know how it is in a smaller community, etc...
...Especially "The Emperor Jones," "The Hairy Ape," "The Great Sod Brown," "Marco Millions" and, well, yes, "Strange Interlude...
...The play deals with life to a Yukon mining camp...
...The fact that tt achieves its "happy ending," by reuniting the particular couple we watch, does not change the value of the lesson, though the moral is aimed slantwise because the wife holds her unfaithful husband, refusing him the usual divorce...
...HeU, according to Bernard Shaw, is Just such a state as these folks desire: when everyone may have just what he wishes...
...These d»nO» S*SM expression and an acknowledgisun mm genius of the tele Bird Larson, whSS*_ •plraUon crea'ed a new and most Mm eating dance form...
...George Plajhutaag sent* a program consisting of Vtoto**** Strom's latest film achievement of the Devil...
...In my opinion, the producer made a tragic error to putting this play in a high-priced Broadway house, with an expensive east and a terrific overhead lor rent and labor...
...We sympathize with Mary, when her husband has an affair with Christine...
...Some Plays for Parasites By Paul Sifton n AT present the Little Theatres throughout the country are in the hands of liberal and...
...Miss Marette .0»B sent the ballet next In Vienna, f 1 Chester Erskln has been engagedl Edward A. Blatt to direct the patf tatlvely called "Black Belt," wbtokfl latter will make his debut as «SJ pendent producer early next M ' Black Belt' is the work of Willi—* SB dan Rapp and Wallace Thcrmaa...
...His plays are so different, so deep, phychological, poetic, so thrilling...
...It was a shameless patchwork of methods appropriated from Elmer Rice's "Adding Machine," Francis Paragon's "Pinwheel," John Howard Lawson's "International," and other plays...
...There is some Justification for this...
...Homer Bemis Is more immediately successful...
...Again, in "Strange Interlude," he presents a psychopathic case, a woman who requires three strange men to complete ier life...
...Brown was accepted by those who accepted the play at all, as a fairly general type of intelligent sensitive person...
...They felt the assuring of its success to be a sacred trust...
...It laid bare the festering court system of thit country, the deadly aimleesness of Ufe which makes murder attractive to stupid Utile rebels enslaved by their emotions But it was an aati—without stating dearly what it was against aad neglecting even to hint at what It was for...
...AVOID...
...It has thrown off the impedimenta of the 1^[m^sTu%»S^J^sst^u^ ricrtbmed perfeetton the rssuli of kmg yean' stady...
...InSptotAltf' poem in Jamas Weldcm JoijcaerarW "God's Trombones...
...These two women most any town can match...
...It would have meant that many thousands who have been watching it with the idea of following in your path would have been so discouraged that the cooperative housing movement would have suffered a severe set-back...
...Mot by the altruistic spirit of s few In each generation can this be done but by the mass of the people, by the organised power of their numbers to do together what each cannot do alone...
...Their necessity forces them in self-defense to cooperate...
...Universal is the first company — M a sound and talking picture*m *AS M and Asia "The Melody of Lore"*M at the Elphlnstone Theatre la QMM on December 30th...
...but,.since it is his tamiiv we watch more Closely, our svmnathy Is with Vic Ewing—although his mother Is quite ss sharp of tongue, and as wen provided with weapons and defences for her family pride, as any other...
...He has put real people an the stage...
...That was the reason why those who were intrusted with the management of this project went so slowly and so cautiously...
...We felt that while only In the doing of a thing can the way to do tt be learned...
...Zlegfdd's corps of hbretijj^M Davis, represented on "Broadsaf rentty with tXnnigbt at 12" son and "Whoopee...
...When the American radical movement becomes more positive and aggressive...
...Thurman is a colored writer sad"** a member of the "Porgyf cast «_ j his present duties, which sre 9tm editor of a magazine called "Hsetato^a On Friday evening...
...The playing of The Marriage Bed" is more than competent, Allan Dtnebart as the husband, Ernest Wood as another much-married man, and Ann Davis, being especially prominent, in contribution to .the effective entertainment, v . _____ HOPE ETERNAL •_hsaryrtJekee- at the Lyceum, is the tale of the subway gum-chewer It is, in' fact, a stbry of a man whose particular task has been the' distribution of gum on the elevated...
...Wa serve others when we efficiently serve ourselves...
...Chicago" was a good play...
...The picture required two directors...
...This rather weighty and not at all novel theme is hidden behind a pleasant comedy, if we except the too obvious gumpeddler-novel ty-inven tor and his struggling wife...
...More and more he is turning in upon himself...
...What Is needed Is a definite affirmative attitude...
...are Joined to continue the same round of piracy and love (plus bootlegging of brimstone, for American residents...
...His "plays are defeatist plays...
...In fact, as I see it now...
...Incidentally, this play is unsurpassed as-ego food for'women and old persons of both sexes...
...As the author to a subscriber to The New Leader, we hops that her treatment is not the usual saccharine handling—and that Broadway baa a chance to see "Little Nugget...
...Save that the constant drip-drip of rain, and the -snow in the final act- are omitted, this might be one of the good old melodramas which are today produced for oof smiling...
...Only those who have been compelled to submit to the general housing conditions which prevail In our great cities can jjosplbly know what a great part these conditions play to the life of the wage worker sad bis family...
...Perhaps, if the drama were set in the architect's household, we should look upon Oeefiy (as we may Christine) as the unscrupulous intruder upon settied domestic bites...
...Not, as plays used to preach, that love in a cottage is preferable to lust in a pateoe...
...We find it easy to attack, to expose, to riddle, but we grow self-conscious and afraid when the i time comes to assert, to state our positive, militant attitude, the Ideals for which we are fighting...
...And today wa stand in the midst of such a successful demonstration...
...And so on...
...Intelligent parasites...
...O'Neill has freed the theatre from old traditions of artificiality...
...Tke -<ost to tke owner-tenants will be from $9.50 per room to $12.00, the average not being more than $11.00...
...Ernest Pascal's "The Marriage Bed," a most well-acted play at the Booth, gathers together" the arguments against the wedded state, lumps them, and hurls them at the head of the playgoer...
...Government of, by and tor the professionals," is the speech which- ends the play...
...4 6at Sun and Monday JaoS—tfja 20 and 31...
...dialogue, action and spectacle which wiU resound around the world...
...Carole Goya is at tke sse> cod ggyyg *y_g__*__*_ , the mood.,' i % ¦ Assisting Cterota Obya were Ramon Gonzalez at the piano, and Beatrice Welter, harpist...
...Both MacArthur and Hecht are rebels who have turned sour on the human race and on most individuals...
...Cut out the cancer and mankind wfll cure itself...
...The story of the saccess of the Amalgamated Cooperative Apartment* has been broadcast throughout the land Just as their failure would have been...
...O'Neill bas been under -rated and overrated...
...was P_fl Russian premiere In Moscow by Itol rrtte and her dancers...
...I would like to know bow much of the credit foe preventing an American war with Mexico two years ago aad American occupation in China* is due the men who wrote, produced aad acted this lusty, brawling, cut sing picture of war as it is—with its system that has to pet down the earth with the blood of boys every thirty years...
...All the notorius troublemakers of history, from Helen of Troy to Captain Kidd...
...has recognized that if it were possible tor thousands of ¦attars to cooperate to improving their industrial conditions, the same cooperation would result in achieving an Improvement, of their general living conditions...
...Every activity of the Amalgamated must therefore continue to-be conducted with tins'tapbr¦ tent truth always to our f^nds...
...Following tke policy which prevailed when the present apartments were built a litte oiler a year ago, only fifty Percent of tke laud is to be used for building, thus assuring the same amount of light and air which prevail in tke present apartments...
...Not only have yon cooperated in order to serve your physical wants more efllciettUy, hut also your cultural aha spiritual ones...
...One of the most Interesting ¦_f*J Is the "Go Down Death...
...out of Dickens' "Bleak House,"'comes to the stage of the Ambasfcadcr...
...IN BRIEF Willlim Fox's much-heralded "In Old Arizona...
...But even if they are very successful in increasing their wages and Improving their conditions this is by no means a total solution of their living' problems...
...The Racket" was a better, more complete and coherent picture of the political cesspool which American rulers have made of the police, the courts and the press...
...But it should be noticed that neither Stailings nor Hopkins has followed up the attack...
...It has thrown off the impedimenta of the star system, aad cut-and-dried story ss opposed to the Imaginative, and has added the artistic use of light, shadow aad movement as well ss the development ef story material which to haatoally cinematic and not merely photographed literature ..,.'* SPANISH DANCING Last Sunday Carols Goya displayed considerable variety of attractive costumes and graceful steps, at the Forrest Theatre, in a program of Spanish dances...
...a more Important thought to carry off, is the reflection that we Judge too many matters' from One point of view...
...But, here, too, the ending was defeatist—"What of it...
...It Is one of the sent of play to which we adopt a kindly tolerance, for auld lang syne, as it were—save that it is English...
...I mentioned earlier "Gods of the Lightning," the Sacco-vanaetU play which was closed so quickly...
...but that as Individuals (and society) grow toward a more extended leisure, unless that something we can (as ether in space) for want of a better name the soul, is given scope for expanding, and avenues of onward movement, it will be hands, that are idle —and wealth will then be devil indeed...
...j Rapp is at present one of the spp***» editors of the Macfadden P—¦*•*»¦ Mr...
...That, and Margaret Anglln, whose work is stin worthy' of the Oreek dramas she so effectively gives us, and better in truth, than the present piece deserves...
...We are here to break ground for the erection of other units which will give shelter and comfort to more families who now are wimpened to dwell in surroundings so different from those which the owner-tenants of these great apartments enjoy...
...Love Makes D_P| with Lil Dagover, Conrad Ve_t* Emu Jennings . m A recital of New WortTPsuS-jflB given at the Oallo Theatre on Mm evening...
...More and more with each new play, O'Neill's corroding belief that the individual always gets itkon the chin has become apparent...
...Only one of them baa been a smashing sajpssa "What Pries Glory...
...the artistic destiny of the screen to either now or soon, maybe, to the bands of the little cinema 'movement, of which the Film Arts Guild to a pioneer organisation, indeed, it strikes me as one of the most Important of these opposing groups in America, which works with the same tools the larger group does, yet have' turned then* material to artistic effect...
...It needs them desperately...
...Ever since the New Playwrights Thee tee was founded more than two years ago, it has needed good plays with a social attitude, an anti-parasite attack and a atiUtant substitute ideal, it has produced plays that have bad this Ideal, Lawson's "Loudspeaker,** my play, "The Belt," Em Jo Basshe's "The Centuries," Lawson's -aterifettoosL" and Michael Gold's "Boboken Blues...
...The demand for better housing conditions has been so insistent since the opening of these cooperative apartments in November, 1927, that the Amalgamated is preparing to go into other sections of the city and do the same thing it ha* already accomplished in the Mosholn Parkway and Van Cortlgndt Park South section...
...The old must be torn down and cleared away before the new cab be built...
...Unfortunately, it has not yet acquired much more than an attitude...
...What we have done here, therefore, to not only of Importance to the workers In the Amalgamated but to those of the entire country...
...and, this season...
...There is only one theatrical organization in New York with a definite social j attitude...
...George Washington and Bin Shakespeare are travestied, to give the atmosphere its needed tone of respectability...
...but Pa Ewing rises a bit beyond the usual, through the effective lines so deftly delivered by J. C. Nugent, who gives the comedy most of its sparkle, and leaves a pleasant fragrance for the mind to drift along—toward the' deeper colors of the drama...
...prtiatte AieUty real _n»ity which accidentally finds ito wag into the TTi-ljeiwd'inaihi Aba to lost in the sham aad credere— of the whole...
...And Bertram Peacock, as Charon, sings most effectively in opening strain...
...Then, quite trbitrarily, he socked the Individual an the chin and threw the idea out the window...
...For almost two acts be played with the fascinating conflict between the Individual and social forces...
...At the same time, there were bated breaths about me when the family solicitor began his villainous work...
...Yet this fass been used for __»-g more than.to...
...who Wlfi be with her In a new program next Sunday...
...occasionally...
...but interest centers upon the great lovers, Henry vm and bis six wives, the virgin Elizabeth and her whispered lovers, Sappho, Salome, Mrs...
...This once done successfully, every activity in this direction could be widened...
...Us plays wfll go further than they do now...
...heUi you know, is much more conventional than heaven—so many more conventional persona go there...
...They have uttered poetry...
...Some of them have been good...
...The experience of experts must be sought and no channel was left unexplored in an attempt to reduce every risk involved In oar first attempt at cooperative housing...
...Btallings, in fact, bas figured out to his own satisfaction that war is inevitable and has done his share since to restore its glory...
...In the mora than a year's time that you have occupied your own apartment yon have learned to cooperate among yourselves to many other ways which are visible on all sides of us as we walk through these buildings...
...he seemed for a time to have recognised Society as a force, a character in the Ufe of the Hairy Ape...
...famous HuagnrSmJ/ man violinist, win make her appMM at the Third Artists' recital aaaajM the People's Symphony Concerts...
...Lacking the ideal situation of a population misled by charming fictions such as President-elect Hoover, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Charles Schwab, Henry Ford and Bruce Barton peddle in public from time to time, the next best mental attitude for the millions who support the parasites is one of paralyzing cynicism, a conviction that this is, in truth, a dog-eat-dog society and that human co-operation is going a long way if It extends beyond your own door-sill Even the rebels who, like myself, are sure that this Is not the best of all possible worlds, are poisoned in their thinking by this defeatism...
...It i stfll needs good plays...
...Each of the arts In America has been reduced rapidly to a moneymaking level, and there to no better example of the enormity of this degradation than the cinema...
...ISth street and Irving ptoee.* na Rublnstetn...
...Human beings must always make mistakes and the keeping of mistakes to a mmtrmim is the only way to which success can be assured...
...On the other band, the influence of the movies on the American public has been greater than any other force...
...WHAT THE DICKENS...
...There they learn by experience what cooperation in this field can accomplish...
...but its chief concern is with the reader of the tabloids, who dreams of being some day able to do—what those he reads about can afford to do...
...Since then, all his plays have dealt with individuals, not with parts of a society...
...What seems to me...
...A TJntons Etspomlbuily The Amalgamated almost from the beginning of its career has recognized that the responsibility of the organisation to its members does not stop at conditions and wages to the shops...
...However, this is asking a great deal of one play...
...But it la not enough to believe these things, the troth of them must be demonstrated...
...It is futile for O'Nein to say, In "The Great God Brown...
...with John Ot-BTt, ¦ von Berne and Theodore Roberta " locale is post-war Vienna ThsJP" tea'are will be the Brooklyn P-wagvj a UFA comedy...
...Other cooperative movements with the same great urge for accomplishment have failed because of lack of efficient management...
...R was one more effort, probably unconscious, to prove that the only guilty person in the Snyder-Gray case was the victim, Albert Snyder...
...The new owner-tenants will secure tke advantage of the existing, various cooperative activities for serving the physical and cultural needs of this large group of workers...
...win be featured at the Boxy beginning today, Saturday, January 19th...
...Upton Sinclair's "Singing Jaflblrds.'* None of these plays has been a perfect play...
...Again, far those who accept the play, his special case is accepted as being "almost any person...
Vol. 8 • January 1929 • No. 1
