Omaha daily bee., 1919-06-10
Reviling and Defending
the Stage ).
Literary Digest.

i ne stage seems ike the lrrepfeSSiDle pad
boy who finds it hard to be good very long at a
time. So it has to be chided by the constituted
guardians of morals, and as often as not it hits
back. Such passage of arms occurred not long
before the war, when the theater went SUM
ming among themes OF low lite. Again it has
drawn the attention of at least two clergymen
"a Jewish rabbi and Presbyterian divine
who chiefly object to what is dubbed bedroom
plays" or lingerie drama" The latter is Rabbi
Wise's term for the thing which he denounces
as "annexes to the brothel," and, when offered
presses him as in "pitiful. glaring, dehling con-
trast' to what they fought for in France. In a
recent sermon before the Free Synagogue in Car
negie hall, he said, according to the New York
Tribunes report:
cts blasphemy to take cean-limbed, up
nauseating plays now running in New York. 1t
is an intolerable insult to expose them to that,
in return for their work in France.
Il carry in mind one show in particular that
l saw only last week in one of the leading thea
tiers of the city Nose of the audience were SOL
shows equally bad in the city.
IF many shows in New York are like this
one, then American drama is being written by
the hosiery buyers of department stores. The
average petticoat buyer of Sioux City or Tulsa
would write the sort Of show saw the other
1T was nothing less than the work of moral
scavengers and filth producers. It. was the
product of moral leprosy. The stage was filled
with half-dressed women-though no more SO
than the boxes of the theater itself or the lob
bies OF the average hotel. 1t was the vulgar
incarnation of impurity, spun about display
of hosiery and underwear
DR.. Wise distributed his blame among the
actors managers, newspaper critics and the
public who patronize plays, seemingly implying
a large conspiracy. THE profession" is not ten
Derby dealt with:
1.-THE theater of today is cuttered with un-
educated male and female loafers. l do not say
that all plays are bad or that all actors un-
educated, but many are, and they exhibit stand
ards that cultivated men and women can not
accept. So long as actors are hired and fired
like clerks, so long will there be poor class OF
stage people.
They are at the mercy of the cruel hard
hearted creatures who dominate and control the
theater. No such great organization in life to-
day is in such unworthy hands as the theaer.
Producers apparently consider drama not an
art, but an opportunity for the exposure Of half
dressed women AS business the business of
the theater is the dirtiest business in America
today"
In spite of the many critics who have be-
walled the monotony and stupidity, if not the
evlo bedroom plays, they are held accountable
here:
why can't critics say, "Ths is disgusting,
foul, salacious play" Why should people per-
NIT newspapers to lie to them about amuse-
ments? Are the newspapers of New York going
to let two or three or four men dictate what is
said about the greatest of arts-rnen without the
remotest idea of responsibility? l wish we
could put some of these 'chaln-theater' men in
chains"
But "F P. A." who boasts the same racial
strains as the reverend rabbi shakes his fist
from the coming tower" and denies the allie
cations:
Rabbi Wise's utterances about the theater
parently, that managers and actors have only
one ainl-to corrupt the public taste. AS a
business he says, the business of the theater
is the dirtiest business in America. By the H.
900 virgins of Cologne, it is nothing of the kind.
As businessAthough our knowledge of the
business may +, even less than DR.. Wise's-
the business of the theater is probably as clean
as the automobile business, the law, medicine,
the newspaper business, the theological profess
sion, the brokerage business or the book pub
fishing business. There are good ,many poor
plays produced but not one of them is produced
because the producer tries to bunk the public.
their best; when play is bad, the best is bad.
So it is with books The average book, we be-
lieve, is no better than the average play. But
even the average book and the average play
have something on the average sermon.
"'I some times think DR.. Wise said, that
there more Jews in the theaters than in syna-
gogues.' And multiplying both sides of the
equation by X, there may be more people in the
theaters than in churches. And if both OF these
things are so, it may be the fault of the syna-
gogues and the churches"