Judge — August 30, 1919 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a SHOWS \\ VU Drawn by Jeus Dasieus HOUGH the theme was ban- died about this page in a more or less jocund manner a fortnight ago, a strike of player-folk has since actually come to pass and twelve first-class pix ductions in as many well-known Broadway theatres went black and blooey for several nights. The attendant casualties were the loss of $300,000 by the managers, some cherished and now useless contracts in the inside pockets of the actors and the dethrone: .ent of much after-dinner complacency in the cerebral sector of the pay-as-you-enter public. The impossible having happened, one may venture to discuss further impossibilities in the way of theatre revolutions. If the paid mimes of the playhouse can achieve even a temporary triumph for their cause by the exercise of the “strike” why ..ay not a dis- gruntled audience, lured into the theatre on the false pretence of an evening's entertainment, likewise put into practice this extremely effective weapon of defense? If an au- dience, pulsating with the & righteous wrath of the duped and with the con- certed hardihood of a mob of defecting iron- workers, should “walk out” on an anemic play or an inane musi- cal show, they would do more to “elevate the stage’ than a whole battalion of critics behind their Big Berthas of invec- tive and irony. Complications would naturally follow in the wake of a striking audi- ence. There would be, of course, among those pres- ent, some stubborn souls who having parted with their ma- zuma would refuse to leave until the final curtain—“scabs.” There would be others, too easily satisfied, who would not agree with the major- ity upon the demerits of the perform- ance and there would be the usual Strike While the Wine is Not By Perriton Maxwet. Beatrice Dakin or Ziecreto’s “Frotic” Awovt To Star a Rose rox Berne Reo. 24 —— {HOR o) i scattering of deadheads— the “paper” hangers of every audience. But a large and muscular walk- ing. delegate selected, per- haps, by popular vote among chronic theatre- goers could make shcrt shrift of such objectors to the common good. It might follow that the managers would call out the militia and compel, at the point of the bayonet, any striking audience to remain seated until the “tag” speech or the songful finale. But such an outrage could easily be wiped out with the bad blood existing between the actors and the managers. Clearly, if modern life is to be sharply divided, as now seems inevitable, between labor unionists and non- unionists, all theatre audiences must organize on the side of the former inasmuch as the demands for real entertainment will be heeded only when made under threat of the strike—most rotent of all forms of immoral suasion, With the actors and managers in venomous deadlock, while the stage nose dives to the eternal ows, it may be nec- sary eventually for audi- ences to take over the theatre precisely as the Government took over the railroads, telegraph and telephone sys- tems, appointing sone distinguished — shoe- maker or eminent haberdasher, at a dollar a year, to guide the future des- tinies of American drama. But the suggestion offers little hope of permanent relief and one falls back on’ the only possible solution— the striking audience. Let several thousand lusty dollars rise up from the orches- tra seats and march out of a play- house when there is that mired feel- ing of being “stung,” and all Dilling- ham’s Hippodrome horses and all Ziegfeld’s chorusmen could never put the offending show back again.