Billboard advertising (Jan 1921)

The Billboard é SANUARY:22,:1921 NOW that the Equity Shop is on the tapis, with a lot of agitation being conducted against it m the best interests of the theater, of course, I want to submit a cast for the conelderation of the Producing Managers’ Association in case Lionel Barrymore’s contemplated revival of “Macdeta” gets hung up. Who cares about Lionel Barrymore anyway? We'll just get some of the boys together, put ‘the show on and show ‘em we don't have to depend on actors for. our theaters. Let's see who we can get! (Business with paper and. pencil.) There it is! Beat that cast if you can! THE PRODUCING MANAGERS’ ASSOCIATION Offers i Tate I READ with amazement the com‘munication of Harry Mountford in Tast week’s Billboard which contains 2 printed advertisement of a theater inviting its patrons to stay after the show and watch the actors eat and make monkeys of themselves. Some ‘of Mr. Mountford’s statements in the past have seemed incredible to me and were it not for the printed copy of the advertisement I would not have ‘believed his latest one. Do such incomprehensible things happen in the ‘world of the theater often, or is this an isolated instance? I must ask Alfred Jingle. Jr., about it. “He will know, because he knows everything that goes on. JUST to show you: “Why is So-and-So leaving Suchand-Such a play? I understand hi and his manager were bosom friends, T asked Jingle, Jr. “No good bosom friends—apt to Dite you—soldiers in trenches prove that—cooties were good friends— actor temperamental—good fellow, fho—manager regular guy—says so himself—agreed actor to get ten and ‘Hitteen per cent gross—used to get tenfifteen-twenty-five per cent—friend of regular guy—ten-fifteen all right— play opened—not so. much—regular guy asked actor to take hundred dollars performance till play a hit— when made money would stick to original agreement—ten and fitteen—also OFF THE RECORD. By Patterson James. make up difference while hundreddollar-a-performance scale on—actor agreed—business picked up—jumped up—bounded up—receipts over fifteen thousand a week—meant loss of seven hundred a week to actor—went to regular guy manager—wanted first agreement put in effect again—asked Promise be kept—regular :guy—nothing doing—much ‘talk—nothing doing —actor gave notice—nother actor hired—no longer bosom friends—too bad—manager still. regular guy—actor says something else—I say nothing.” CORSE PAYTON declares that he should be given the big part in “The Tavern” now that Arnold Daly has departed from the cast, “It's a nut comedian. I'm a ‘nut gomedian. Why not?” says Williams‘bure’s Belasco. . I say “Why not?” also, SO brother got a pot of black paint and painted the front door., ‘That night pa took him out into the woodshed and labored on him. Then he Bred him out ofthe house, saying ‘with tears In his voice: “Never darken my door again!!" ‘THAT one 1s fairly old, isn’t it? ‘There 1s no excuse in the world for Gragging it opto this page, is, there? Is that comment on the theater? I should say it is: No less than four times within the past fortnight have T heard “Never darken my door again” spoken by outraged parents... The latest occasion was while suffering thru “Pagans.” It ought to be stopped. I write the original version so that budding playwrights may be warned im time. From now on “Never darken my door again” is in the same class with “My unborn child” with me. ‘THE Methodists are out with a screech about the caricatures put on the stage and labeled clergymen. They declare that hereafter non-Conformist parsons must have. equal rights with Catholic. priests, Jewish rabbis and Christian Science healers in the drama. I haven't much sympathy for the Methodists in view of their attitude toward the playhouse, which got its. deadliest stab at the hands of Luther ® Co., Inc..during the Reformation. But I talked to the sentimentalcynic about it last Sunday night. “Their attitude is much the same as that of the Puritans who objected to bear baiting, not’ because it ‘gave the bear pain, but because it gave the spectators pleasure,” said he, taking off his coat and climbing into the pulpit....“However, the issue is between the Actors’ Equity and the ‘Methodist House of Bishops. Let them’ fight it out! -“IN all fairness, however,” he went on, “St is time someone said a word ‘about the gross burlesques which are staged in the garb of clergymen. Not all’clergymen are gentlemen any more than all saints were—or are. . Holy, Orders gives a man additional powers —t does not alter his breeding or his manners or change his physical makeup or make him clean his finger nails. Elevation to the ministry does .not necessarily make the recipient of the honor a shining lght of beauty, intellect, wit or wisdom. Neither by .the same token does it make him @ fool, a. victim of St. Vitus dance or make him talk as if he had a bad case of adenoids. He may be a plain, kindly, natural human being the sime broker or @ merchant or a 100 per cent American. . He should have the same chance for fair representation as any other tyne. “A spissitudinous imbecile is not THE type of clergyman despite me. I may have lost my faith, but not my reason. I told him when tho atmosphere of any religion is dragged i onto the stage by playwrights and producers, when the characters are \y ministera or priests or rabbis and is when the whole content of the play raises the question .of religion, ‘then the field is opened not by me, but by mental narrowness of stage abated him,-to attack on what they show. He Look at the:parson in ‘The Champion.’ raises the issue and furnishes the batIn a play which has not the semblance tle ground. I don’t care much what of-truth to life,'and in which all the’ they produce or write, because it characterg have ‘neither the accent of wouldn't do.any good. But as a man Christiand nor the galt of Christian, of intelligence I must protect that inpagan nor man,’ it is conspicuous for telligence against insults in the form itg sheer brutality of execution. It of: untrue, unlovely, inaccurate and isnot only an insult to Methridiculous characterizations which are odists, but to everyone else who benot art and certainly are not nature, lieves' in truth," scientific accuracy and are vicious besides.” and fair play. ‘The man who plays “Well, it is half past one Monday the part acts as he has been ordered morning now,” I said. “Your pulpit to do. I don’t blame him for the reshould have been closed at twelve sult. But the director should have Sunday night. Get down and make his ears boxed for: making the char-:the tea”. acter. an ecclesiastical moron .withHe did. Whatever you think about ptoms of chorea, a coward, ‘a lick-" his ideas the tea was good! ttle and a‘ sneaker of clandestine ‘rinks. “Granted that they do snot. THE recently published lite story of come into the Court of Public Opinion Willie and Eugene Howard discloses with clean hands, the Methodists have the fact that their father was a rabbi. @ legitimate and reasonable comS° was Al Jolson’s. Will someone Diaint™ kindly send.in the name of a Jewish * But’ neither Catholic priests nor Comedian whose father was not a ewish rabbis have always escaped,” rabbi? I would like to make his ache pounded on. “These writers who W#intance. have no religion themselves, but want ar to be free to deprive other people of fuse se ran ee (BS peewlinins theirs, make me tired. They are alat the Belasco Theater and smile over together too ready to hold up to ridithe bit of business he does with his sule representatives of religious life. wife's photograph when he is being ‘Marie Odile,” which Belasco produced, annoyed by lovely ladies at the Thea~ is an example. I do not know. anyter Funambuleswill know that the thing about Belasco’s religjous consame idea furnished long ago the victions, tho I believe he cohfesses in ground plan for one of Wilkie Bard’ his biography to a still-born call to the monastio cowl and cord in le: Watchman™? Sard has done the Doyhood. His interest in ‘Marie num! many years Odile” was purely commercial. MY. beconieone of tus aecek: popular objection to it is that it was'not benis-repertoire. He did not do it in cause it was a bad play, @ perversion Decar of an exquisitely beautiful legend, But story wes ifted te ae keene whe ‘because it was roften psychology. No saw Bard in England, stole the idea beige a anny segkced. Sicae‘and did it is vaudeville on this side ol w of retrogression before the creator of It arrived. There od a agra tinct! =e gue a was savage eciem of the vaudeville Sears a ect centres Sette we eee did that girl who had lived all her ‘had only the satisfaction of knowing life in an atmosphere of purity'and that one. of his best ‘efforts had been fortified by the constant flow of,sancslaughtered to make a laugh in a tifying grace. Mayhap the writer of blackface comedian’s act. There is ‘Marje Odile’ does not admit the-exno disposition to accuse Sacha Gultry ton end a Ssapiensdeysid bay hed weitof appropriating the bit, but the coinoken experiencés ons eiden triking to anyon has of people of all creeds declare otherseen “The Wiehe Watshauns “Den \ AG wise." “WHAT hag religion tordo with the theater anyway?” I managed to interJect. ‘Mote than you have any idea,. my. lad. But that, as Kipling says, is another story,” he answered. “Some “burau” merely shows the picture to his fair annoyers to frighten them off. Bard in his character of the midnight guardian of a street excavation does @ lot more with it, He is standing be ide his “ttle coal fire on « parky night when the girl who plays the leading boy in the pantomime across the rainy night when I have nothing else street happens along looking for a tax, to do I'll tell you. .Did you see. The watchman for all his years has “Youth’-when it was-produced at the an eye for a pretty girl. There are no ‘Greenwich Village Theater?” “Yes.” wes “So aia” “What did you think of it?” “I am nothing as a religionist. was raised as a child on an intensive diet of sermons, church services, re taxis because they have all been taken “by guests going to @ costume ball and who pass actoss stage to set the picture, a bit of shrewd stage management, by the way, which would do Mr. Belasco credit. Bard offers the comfort of his fire and the protection of vivals, texts, etc., etc, ad nauseam. I his wind shelter to the gir. They talk developed . chronic. indigestion .on. all” ‘@idhe ‘mentions his wife repeatedly, matters religious at the tender age of taking her picture from his pocket ten. I have never been cured. I am not a Catholic, nor have I ever been, nor expect to be, so I cannot be accused of partisanship. But if I was I certainly would have madé a roar about,the priests in Youth.” As. it was I'did. I met @ man‘who was interested in the play and the ‘conversa~ tion turned on it. I told him what I thought”: He chuckled happily..on the reminiscence. “Oh, you ought.to check that sort of feeling at the coat room when you go to the theater, was hig answer. “Besides you'té an agnostic.” Banat “Well, shouldn't you?” I asked. + ““Not necessarily,” countered:. the several times to show it-to his gucstHe tells her how looking at it has been @ tower of resistance to him in flirta~ tious moments. The talk grows more confidential, the amfability.of the girl more apparent, and the climax is. fo! jowed by a roar of laughter when the old man asks the girl for a kiss, sets an Inaudible answer,’ puts the screen between himself and the audience, tears his wife's picture to pieces and steps behind the screen. No one who has ever seén it-can forget the con‘summate skill with which the idea 1s developed and the artistry of the cojiedian. Nor will they fall to wonder ‘it Guitry ever. directs himself at the the writing of playmakers or tke cynic. “Besides the agnostic slap got London halls.