World Film and Television Progress (1938)

an Stage Sensation 7®!?^!?!®" ®^oa<ft tion and authentication of the crucial episodes of the massacre and its international repercussions. Only incidents admitted to by all parties were used; claims and counterclaims of importance were given as such in the mouths of the officials who had presented them at the time. No claim was stated without opposition reply. Opening scenes in Italy and Abyssinia were followed by League of Nations' conferences, the outlining of the Hoare-Laval plan, Hoare's defence in Parliament and a cross-section of scenes representing the currents of British public opinion which forced Hoare's resignation and Baldwin's admission of error. Statesmen, soldiers, politicians were all represented realistically on the stage by actors. Ethiopia was shown to the Press on January 24th, 1936. It was well praised. Just before its public opening, the WPA officials stepped in and stopped production. "Almost certainly," a Government-sponsored play about such a subject would be construed by Italy as "an unfriendly act." Press and theatre protested against the ban. Elmer Rice, stating that he had been given complete authority to produce, resigned. "Government censorship of The Living Newspaper," he said, "would mean the end of its usefulness." Undaunted, The Living Newspaper writers at once set out to dramatise a home subject — the problem of over-production in agriculture, the efforts of the New Deal to solve the question by legislation and the results of the Supreme Court's invalidation of the AAA. Triple-A Plowed Under, directed by Joe Losey, received wide Press acclaim. The story of the agricultural problem in its developing phases was narrated through quickly shifting scenes in which type characters expressed the viewpoints of the classes which they typified. Drama critics were surprised at the liveliness of these figures, which were never characterised fully because of lack of space. Use was made of expressionist scenery and contrapuntal dialogue. In addition, this second edition of The Living Newspaper gave a brief background of the postwar years of boom and depression in relation to agriculture, rather like the prologue to the documentary film To-day We Live — a part of the play which raised protests from Tory newspapers. The next edition, also directed by Losey, was a survey of the events of the year 1935 in social terms. It was described as weak and diffused even by sympathetic critics; but it is worth noting that each successive edition of The Living Newspaper proceeded further from immediate news events towards a generalised interpretation of their root causes. Losey again directed the fourth edition, Injunction Granted! which was exhaustively criticised by a Press now accustomed to seeing news on the stage. Here in thirty scenes was the story of American Labour. The play drew these conclusions: thai throughout their history the American workers have always been exploited by their employers with the aid of the courts, that the latter issued injunctions freely, interpreted the Constitution in favour of the employer and utilised the legal frameup to send working-class leaders to jail and death. Criticism was made that the second half of the play introduced the internal Labour issue of Lewis's C.I.O. struggle against Green's A.F. of L. and thus confused the main issue of the argument. Connected with the writing side of The Living Newspaper from outset, Arthur Arent was responsible for the script of Power, which dealt with electricity and the T.V.A. plan, and, with a statfof thirty research workers, for the production now playing in New York . . . One-Third of a Nation . . . The title is taken from Roosevelt's second inauguration speech that he found ". . . one-third of a nation illhoused, ill-clad and ill-nourished." It tells swiftly and vividly the story of Manhattan's slums, of the greed of its landlords, of public apathy towards the injustices and legal violations that have permitted this ghastly state of living to occur. Against Howard Bay's magnificent set of a crosssectioned tenement, four stories tall, with rotting balustrades, inadequate fire-escapes and filthy dark rooms, there is told a chronicle of real estate in Manhattan, embracing the system of land ownership that permitted the Astor and Rhinelander families to exploit their property, a dramatic fire-outbreak, a cholera plague, an episode of juvenile delinquency, a rent strike, documentary evidence by means of a film of the housing conditions in New York City to-day, and a lanternslide tour round New York as it was in the fifties. The style is bitingly satirical and openly Left Wing and has no respect for persons either dead or living. No small part is played by "The Voice" of The Living Newspaper itself, questioning and explaining through a loud-speaker in the auditorium. On a much bigger scale and without the personal interviews, . . . One-Third of a Nation ... is the theatrical counterpart of Elton and Anstey's Housing Problems. It is real documentary theatre. Not all the current New York plays that dramatise labour problems and news events are by the Federal Theatre Project. The Mercury Theatre, a group that broke away from the Project, is playing Marc Blitzstein's brilliant opera The Cradle Will Rock, the story of unionism in Steel Town, U.S.A. It was first produced as a Federal Theatre Project last year, banned before the first night, with the result that Blitzstein and some of the actors found another theatre at the eleventh hour and put on the play without scenery or properties, Blitzstein himself having to take several parts. This winter the Mercury Theatre put it on with Orson Welles producing but still without scenery. It is playing to packed houses and has started a vogue for plays without scenery, a vogue that is causing anxiety to the Scene-Shifters' Union who may find themselves picketing plays which present their own cause. Unionism is again the chief theme running through the brightest and most satirical revue Broadway has seen for years -Pins and Needles — produced, financed, written and acted by members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Its high-spot numbers are "Sing Us a Song with Social Significance", "One Big Union for Two" and "Four Little Angels of Peace Are We", the latter being sung by Hitler, Mussolini, Anthony Eden and a Japanese General. Its actors are from New York's department stores. What began by being a modest little revue by garment workers (New York's biggest industry) is now so much of a Broadway success that you can't buy a seat for weeks ahead. Two companies are taking it out on the road and a movie is being discussed. While Labour in London digs into the sacred graves of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Labour over there is dramatising the vital issues of the moment and at the same time bringing a new creative spirit into the theatre. But then they don't stand nonsense about a Lord Chamberlain nor do they have restrictions about the representation o\' living personages on the stage. LONDON'S 'LIVING NEWSPAPER • • Borrowing the idea from America, the Unity Theatre Players, London, have just produced the first English Living Newspaper — "Busmen". John Allan, the director, bravely attempts to dramatise the main events preceding, during, and after the Bus Strike, 1937. Being unable to portray well-known living people on the English stage or to use their voices robs the play of much of its vitality, although the writers have invented clever deuces to overcome this handicap. There are faults: relation between The Voice of the Living Newspaper (via loudspeaker) and the staged action is ill-established: the continuity is lazy: the script could stand cutting: acting values are below those oi~ the American productions. But this is a first effort, obviously with little finance and little time for rehearsal. It sets a good example for future productions with brisker technique and greater use of documentary evidence. But its producers should remember that their audience must be the man-in-the-street. not the "converted intellectual." P.R. 65