Judge, 1929-01-26 · page 11 of 34
Judge — January 26, 1929 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Explanation for Modern Readers This page satirizes a pretentious avant-garde play called "The Ladders" by a self-important Viennese playwright. The joke is that the plot is deliberately absurd and nonsensical—an orphan raised in a Turkish bath obsessively brings home ladders from a "ladder mine," eventually filling the bathhouse so completely that actual bathers can't bathe. The show's financial collapse is treated as tragic. The humor works on multiple levels: it mocks experimental theater's obscurity, the financial desperation of Broadway productions, and the pomposity of European playwrights. The dialogue between Edward and his backer (Mr. Goosens/"Angel") shows a struggling production where actors aren't being paid and the lead desperately pitches the show's problems as if they're dramatic necessities rather than failures. The top cartoon about "cave wife" making skins appears unrelated—likely a separate gag mocking primitive domestic life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE ~~ Cearfora = Cave Wire—Let it go, dear —the skin doesn’t match my sample, anyway. The Lowdown on “The Ladders” By Lotitan Preretman Noted Viennese Playwright pw that my play “The Lad ders” has been folded te and put in Mr. Cain's lor, floods of one letter b flooding the Juver office at the of one flood per year, de nding the inside dope on this unusual drama. Although there could be none Lothar than the author of this play to drag their selves into the limelight, why I will stifle my embarrassment with my portable stifler and speak up, even if it kills me, (Cries of “Can we depend on that?” and “Do not keep us on tender hooks !"") The plot of “The Ladders” was as follows: An abandoned waif named Edward John James Durante Windsor is found one night in mid-February in a bas- ket on the steps of a Turkish bath by the keeper of the bath and his wife. The only clue to the in- fant’s identity is a locket around his neck containing a lock of fair hair, such as college students often wear. The keeper and his wife give way to pity and adopt the frail babe. This concludes the first act and for the next ten minutes everybody stuffs their pockets with free Dunhill ciga rettes in the lou: In the seconc grown to act the waif has nhood, having spent all his past years of seclusion in the steam-room of the bath. He is clean in both mind and body and still wears the locket around his neck. His only vice is bring ing home ladders from a ladder mine, which he has discovered on Evans Street. But the bath has become so stuffed with lad- ders that there is now no room for the bathers, who have become irked. A crowd of would-like-to- bathers enters the bath and sings: “Call me a. frothy-mouthed idiot, will ya? Nigg er, you must fight me a drool!” “Why is there no room to bathe Nights ong and days are fadin’, Gone is all the water from the fountain, And our hopes and fears are slowly mountin’, So if you do not break out with some spong We will have to ¢ lunches, ete. home to our Realizing that something must be done or the mortgage on the bath will be foreclosed. Edward Windsor goes to the telephone and calls up the man who is backing the show. This dialogue then ensues: Angel Won't you—er—sit down? Edward—But I am calling you on the ‘phone. Angel (crustily) — Humph— my error. Edward—Three people just walked out in the balcony, Mr. Goosens. -Angel— . t out just in time. I wish I had. ard (hopelessly)—Are we to be paid in’ wampum this Saturday, Mr. Goos ens? My landlady won't take any more. “ngel—I don’t care for land- ladies anyway, or women very (Continued on page 29) hey i comicbooks.com Vani |