Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, January 1922 · page 13 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #29 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical commentary on 1920s Broadway theater, not a cartoon. The piece mocks the desperate sensationalism of New York stage productions during a financially sluggish season. The author sarcastically compares Broadway's alleged decadence to Paris theater's notorious reputation, claiming New York now rivals or exceeds it. The satire targets producers' strategies to attract audiences through increasingly explicit content—describing scenes of actors in beds together and women playing strip poker—presented as "Art." The author notes the economic desperation: with ticket sales down, producers resort to shock value to entice jaded theatergoers. The tone is derisively witty, using exaggeration ("everything done in the name of Art") to expose the gap between artistic pretense and commercial exploitation. Somerset Maugham's "The Circle" is cited as a counterexample—a play with actual quality that addresses unconventional relationships with "lively cleverness" rather than relying on nudity or explicit scenes. The satire critiques both theater producers' cynical pandering and audiences' appetite for sensationalism over substance.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 11 Blistering Broadway IN THE OLD days we used to hear start-ling tales of the decadence of the Paris theatre. It is no longer necessary to cross the pond to have one's aesthetic (?) senses stirred. The New York stage will do it for you this season. Right behind the Broadway foot-lights you can see everything done in the name of Art from witnessing a young lady actually climb in a bed already occupied by a male to observing a squad of girls play strip poker until— But let us go back to the beginning. They say that it is a dull season in New York and that no one is spending money—at least for theatre tickets. Hence the frantic effort to whet the jaded appetites of the elusive theatre-goers. Let us list some of the more sprightly at-tractions. Bear in mind that some of them have excellent qualities. There is, for instance, Somerset Maugham's “The Circle,” telling of an old couple who have broken all the conven-tions and of a younger couple about to follow in their footsteps. It is told with lively clever-ness. No, indeed, the young people do not find