The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-24
A Labor Play
"The Belt" at the Playwrights Theatre Is a
Wallop at the Industrial Speed-up System

The first attempt to portray the
American speed-up system of produc-
ton on the stage, is now shaking the
foundations of Greenwich Village and
shocking Times Square thru the
medium of "The Belt" three act
play by Paul Sifton appearing at The
Playwright's Theatre, 40 Commerce
Street.
The author gives a fairly convinc-
ing picture of modern industry which
reduces the slaves of the machine to
mere human caricutures thru grind
ing monotony of their work and the
uncertainty that hangs over their
economic lives. This is accomplished
by the aid of machinery that whirls
and groans as an endless stream of
cars moves swiftly on "The Belt"
while the slave with the regular
movements of a robot makes his in
dividual contribution to the finished
product.
"The Bert" attempts to show the
havoc created by the speed-up system
on the family, the tired husband I'M
able to crafty frivolous wife's
craving for light pleasure, with the
result that infidelity raises it's ugly
head and disaster threatens to engulf
the home of once happy proletarian
family.
The evils of class collaboration, the
folly of devoting ones life to the in
terest of a benevolent" master is
pictured when "The Old Man" in
tended to represent Henry Ford visits
a loyal worker who served ten years
on "The Belt" without the loss of a
day, pins a medal on his chest in
recognition of faithful service, and
outdances him.
This contribution to the dramatiza-
ton of our modern factory slave-sys-
tenn is made by Mr.. Siftom in the
first act. From then on he founders,
and like drowning man grasps at
every straw that promises salvation,
dragging in an unklux-like K. K. K.
mob, an artificial love scene which
would pass for a fairly realistic pet
ting party, a strike leader who acts
like City College student practising
for an initiation in a fraternal order,
and strike scene with wailing saxa-
phones, nanny string music and
blackbottoming flappers, pullin g
workmen off The Belt" despite "The
Old Mans" urgent pleas to stick to
their jobs and not to go back on him.
The "revolt" ends with pieces of
machinery bouncing off the stage, the
appearance of half a dozen cossacks
with shotguns, the arrest of the
strike leader and the curtain falls on
a speech, in which the strike leader
admits that he can do nothing for the
workers, they can do nothing, nobody
can do anything, perhaps, perhaps,
perhaps. Twenty years from
now, they may get somewhere, but
anyhow they had the satisfaction of
telling the boss to go to hell, to stand
on their hind legs and hit "The Belt'
below
'The Belt" goes artistically off
the shaft when the author greases it
with moral froth that forms on the
lips of the phobic proletarian husband
when he finds his daughter and her
lover asleep on the couch at 2 a. M
in the morning. Instead of going
nutty over the sight, the average pro-
letarian would tip-toe noiselessly
back to bed, awaken his wife and
whisper in her ear that the prob
ability of their daughter being
married to her beau is now practically
cinched. And if this prediction turned
out to be dud, the parents would
console themselves with the thot that
their daughters refrigerated lover
didn't amount to much anyhow. Why
are couches in proletarian sitting
rooms? This useful piece of furn.
iture was invented before the movies
and is now seeing the flivver's dust
as hot bed of love-making, but there
was time when a couch was a
couch and no ambitious father with
a marriagable daughter would con-
slider his house completely furnished
without it.
Mr.. Sifton's proletarian family is
too tired. Had Mr.. Thompson gone
down to his cellar and imbibed a few
beakers of the beer he was afraid
Ford's snifflers would locate, instead
of talking about it, we might have a
better first act. If the workingclass
worried as much about the trifles as
the author of ''The Belt" would have
US believe industrialized countries
would be one gigantic madhouse.
Bill Vance, the strike leader, rattles
his words out like brick going down
a chute. His slang is too perfect.
And it is hardly likely that young
revel worker would refer to a radical
speaker whose program he accepts,
as a "bull artist" Mr.. Sifton's strike
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