Judge, 1915-10-09 · page 18 of 28
Judge — October 9, 1915 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece by Cyril Andrew mocks theater-goers' predictable complaints and contradictory opinions. The illustration shows a figure suspended above a horizontal line—suggesting the precarious position of plays caught between audience expectations. The article presents stock characters—a tired businessman, a critic, a debutante, and a suburbanite—each dismissing a play ("The Duke of Killicrankie") for different reasons: old-fashioned construction, lack of thrills, inconvenient length, and misleading marketing. The satire's point: these audiences judge plays through narrow, self-interested lenses rather than artistic merit. The author's punchline—that he enjoyed the "misnamed, old-fashioned" comedy while everyone else complained—undercuts their authority. By invoking George Michael Cohan (a major contemporary playwright/composer) as beyond critical analysis, Andrew further satirizes how audiences defer to celebrity rather than forming independent judgments. The piece critiques shallow theatergoing culture and the impossibility of pleasing arbitrary audiences.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
BET WEEN C U KR T ATIN § By CYRIL ANDREW TH CURTAIN had just fallen on the first act of “The Duke of Killicrankie,” and the tired-business-man was grumbling. He is always candid. “T thought this was going to be a musical show,” he complained. “It ought to be; it’s got a musical comedy title.” “Tt might as well be a musical comedy,” said the critic authori- tatively. “It's almost as bad as one.” “Why?” I ventured timidly. “It’s out of date,” said the critic. “Old-fashioned construction, mid-Victorian dialogue, and medieval humor. Bah! compare it with one of our modern come- dies.” That was just what I had been doing—but I was afraid to say so. The critic wouldn’t have liked it. And here the débutante rippled into the con- versation. “T wouldn’t mind its being old-fashioned,” she said, “if it weren’t so slow. Why, I haven't had a thrill yet!” I turned to the suburbanite for succor, but didn’t find it. Unfortunately the suburbanite had just discovered from the program that this play was to be followed by another—one “‘Rosa- lind”—and he was neck-deep in the slough of despondency. It was unfair, he insisted, in bit- ter undertones, for a manager to try to foist two plays upon a man the same evening. Great Scott! wasn’t it hard enough to get a seat on the r1:15, after an ordinary performance, without being forced to sit through a double bill and miss the fool thing entirely? The drama certainly was degencrating. Thus I found myself unanimously opposed: the suburbanite objecting to the unpardonable length, the tired-business-man to the misleading title; the critic lamenting the play’s old-fashionedness, the débutante its lack of thrills. I was forced to admit the justice of all four indictments, and yet—after a steady diet of wronged- working-girl dramas and lost-baby farces, I found this misnamed, old-fashioned, non-thrilling comedy positively delightful. But then, I never was much of a judge of such things. The tired-business-man, elated at finding his opinion of the play upheld so unanimously, proceeded to carry further critical coals to Pittsburgh (which is the most literary figure I can apply to the tired-business-man’s methods of procedure). “Compare this play with ‘ Hit-the-Trail Holliday,’ he said, “and you'll see how different two comedies can be.” To this statement I was quite ready to agree; but the tired- business-man continued his analytical observations. “That play will succeed,” he proclaimed, “because there isn't anything artificially high-brow about it.” “T think,” remarked the débutante, “that it will succeed be- cause each act ends with a perfectly sweet thrill.” “The play will succeed,” said the suburbanite, as authoritatively as he ever said anything, “because it snaps right along until train time—and then stops.” Personally I felt that the play would succeed because it was written by one George Michael Cohan. Further I would not go, I have never found it advisable to criticize the blemishes of a Cohan play or to praise its vir- tues. No one ever agrees with you on either point. The critic must have agreed with me, for he hadn’t a word to say—though I knew that his critical soul was yearning to make an epigram about the use of Billy Sunday as the subject for a drama. But the débutante, as usual, diverted the conversation into other streams. This time she wanted to know what was our opinion of the new motion picture drama, “The Battle Cry of Peace.” Her inquiry was innocent enough, but it created quite a torrent of scholarly and unscholarly comment. All four of us answered the débutante’s question simultancously—which wouldn’t have been so bad, if she hadn’t in- sisted on answering it herself. When quict had been restored— by a mutual desire to discover what effect our own arguments were having on one another—it developed that opinion on “The Battle Cry of Peace’ was highly diversified. The tired-business-man hadn’t seen the picture in question, but maintained that the motion picture could never attain the heights of the musical comedy, because it couldn’t have any music, or any chorus to sing it even if it had. The débutante contended that the motion picture theatre offered an almost unlimited field for thrills, and that you couldn’t find any- thing on the regular stage half so exciting as the military love scenes in “The Battle Cry of Peace.” The critic declared that the motion picture appealed solely to the mob, and, ipso facto, was a vice which should be immediately and effectively suppressed. While the suburbanite maintained that moving pictures were a blessing, since they permitted a noiseless and almost invisible escape in time to catch any conceivable train. I summoned all my courage and was just about to venture an opinion of my own when, without warning, the lights flickered out and the curtain rose on the second act of “The Duke of Killicrankie.”