Life, 1928-02-16 · page 27 of 38
Life — February 16, 1928 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is satirical commentary on Broadway's formulaic plots circa the 1920s. Life magazine mocks four standard theatrical genres: **Musical Comedy**: A poor Irish girl seeks fame in the Follies, is discovered kissing a wealthy man, loses her sweetheart, but is reunited through a catchy waltz. She performs a tap-dance finale with the male chorus. **Mystery Melodrama**: A body discovered in a book; the killer is either the head usher or it's all a dream. Comic detectives and butler/maid appear. **Farce**: Either French (obsessing over "seductions," using a French name mispronounced differently by each cast member) or American (featuring red underwear, babies, and a drunk character). **Society/Problem Play**: A woman bites her nails, her husband strays, she leaves for the Riviera with a Czechoslovak aviator—but treats it casually, implying she'll return. The cartoon caption jokes that women can't "have their cake and eat it too"—satirizing how these plays pretend serious moral situations are ultimately trivial.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Theatrical Guide for Non-Theatregoers EFERENCE to the following list will enable any one at any time to post him- or herself on the latest and most successful Broadway productions. Slight variations may occasionally occur, but as Alcibiades remarked to the harbor master at Pireus, “a fish is always a fish.” Musical Comedy. Maureen O'Con- nor, sixteen, pretty and invariably Irish, leaves her modest home in Happiness Alley — (Scroggsville, Grand Street) to seek fame and for- tune in the Follies. Her childhood sweetheart follows and discovers her being kissed by one of those rich and dissolute Wall Street men who make our night life what it is. Her child- hood sweetheart will not let her ex- plain. Sadly they go their separate ways until the constant repetition of the waltz hit drives them into each other's arms. Add one or two comedians, a sister act, a hoofer and a cabaret team which does a spe- cialty in the second half. Nine chances out of ten Maureen will do a little toe dancing herself, backed by the male chorus. Mystery Melodrama, _ Gregory Vincent is found dead between the leaves of an old copy of Prescott’s “Conquest of Peru.” Who did it? The audience is asked not to divulge the ending, but it was cither the head usher, a plot which the unknown young playwright stages in order to interest the great producer, or all a terrible dream of Mr. Vincent's. The detectives will be comic. The butler (maid) will be either comic or sinister. Farce. If from the French, the play will be about seductions and un- “Do you believe in dieting for beauty?” “Absolutely. faithfulness in the formula of A:B =B: C=C: D=D:A, with permu- tations, sorties, surprises and goings- on in the next room. It will be dis- tinguished by having any given name —say Frangois—pronounced differ- ently and incorrectly by cach mem- ber of the cast. If American, the play will not necessarily deal with unfaithfulness, but will mention red flannel underwear ‘and babies, and will contain at least one person in a state of intoxication. Society or Problem Play. Maud- rey Wilkinson bites her fingernails. Her husband is therefore attracted by another woman, and after the dis- closure of his perfidy, Maudrey goes to the Riviera with a Czecho-Slovak A woman cannot eat her cake and have IT, too.” aviator, leaving instructions about feeding the cat with her husband, thus implying that it is all a lark and she will return to him after her holiday. At (Please turn to page 32) comicbooks.com