Life, 1922-04-20 · page 6 of 34
Life — April 20, 1922 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine satirizes theatrical life through four poems about Broadway performers and their experiences. The main illustration shows a theatrical mask with an open mouth, surrounded by corn and vegetables—a visual pun on "Broadway Bitters," playing on the patent medicine "Angostura Bitters" (a common advertising reference of the era). The poems mock various aspects of theater: - "Prayerful Prologue" satirizes an unemployed actress desperately seeking work - "Grease Paints" laments the harsh realities behind theatrical glamour - "Recompense" celebrates the brief escape theater provides performers - "Agency" humorously depicts the chaos of theatrical casting calls The satire targets the gap between theater's glamorous public image and performers' actual struggling lives—unemployment, poverty, and the desperate scramble for roles. The small theatrical masks serve as section dividers throughout.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
BROADWAY BITTERS Prayerful Prologue (Which Explains) ’M an actress out of a job, A good actress out of a job— (Perhaps that’s the reason)—but nevertheless I'm a good, poor, young actress out of a job! I'm too short for playing this part, T'm too tall for looking at that, T'm too dark, I'm too fair, I'm too young, I'm too old, Tm not English nor Russian Nor flapper nor fowl Nor moron of low grade Nor half-breed with growl,— Oh Lord, I'm an actress and out of a job, American, healthy, with adequate brain— You know for you made me, I needn't explain! But, oh Lord, I am tired of footing it ‘round, So help me to show ‘em! -Help me to get “found”! And these little “Bitters” I’ll gladly lay by As bits of the dust of a star in the sky. But, oh Lord, for the present I'm out of a job— I'm an actress out of a job! @ The Actor Soul CRYSTAL bead That catches lights and colors unaware, Holds them, possesses them, And throws them back onto the air, More rich, more mellow, and more fair. Grease Paints (A Lament) | ipa lovely colors in a row, Resigned and still against the lacquered black, Carmine, blue, canary, weeping green— Give me your tears; ah, freely let them flow. Pungent scent of triumphs over-past, Delicate, suggestive, lingering, Where are the laughter and the tears we know, Our nights of vision who are now out-cast? &B Recompense O™ hour below the great proscenium, Wrapped in the seething silence of the house, Playing and played on by the mingled minds, To weep, laugh, dream in ecstasy of sound And sense and motion, freeing little minds To soar in vibrant, sensate, high delight— Lost to the earth-bound portion of their kind,— On Saturday that hour has payed me well! 2 Agency NE, two, three, four, See how they all pour through the door, Men first and ladies after, Hiding care with careless laughter. All the men have chamois gloves, Canes and spats and buried loves, All the ladies, stout or thinner, Must face the night without a dinner. Genéve comicbooks.com