Evening star., 1933-04-02
Placing the Cause for
Lowly State of Theater
One Writer Blames the Disappearance of Peanut
Galleries" -Visionins the Annual Selection
of the Pulitzer Prize Play Committee.
RALPH beLlAMY
NoEsr1NkTlON uNkNoWNH
R/AZ1o
By Percy Hammond.

Mr.. Menken's American Mercury is
astonished to discover that the Ameri-
can Theater Has Gone Broke. This sur
prising news Is brought to 1t by one of
its most wakeful scouts, Arthur Mann,
who as q retired N. Y. critic of the
drama IS especially equipped for alert
economic exploration. Mr.. Mann re-
ports that there are $500 players out Of
work. but that the smokestacks Of 5000
theaters are cold, that the Shubert Cor
poration has collapsed, that member
ship in the Actors Equity has dimin-
ished, and that the entire industry from
Hollywood to Broadway is in a state Of
acute indigence. Having been q drama
critic, and therefore of q constructively
helpful disposition, Mr.. Mann advises
the theater that its decline and fall are
due to its Snobbish neglect of what used
to be known as the peanut gallery.
When the managers scrapped that in
cubator of chickling playgoerS it took,
according to Mr.. Mann, its first step on
the road to ruin. He laments the gone
days when youth could see, as he him
self did, such masterpieces as "The
Wanderer," "Chu Chin Chow" and Rob-
ert B. Mantell's Macbeth" for 60
cents-four bits for ticket and slim
dime for carfare.
This Is good article by Mr.. Mann,
cold, statistical and full Of alarming
facts. As he announces his fearful and
comfortless tidings about the stage he
is not like most Of the prophylactic OBJ
servers, who, superintended by MIR. Men
ken's jovial pessimism, seem to get their
pleasure from another's pain. I wonder
II I, an elder though not better critic,
paraphrasing Cassius' remark to Bru-
tus, might suggest that Mr.. Mann pur-
sue his sad investigations into other
realms Of art, industry and finance. I
feel sure that Mr.. Menken- and the
Mercury will be surprised and glad
to be told that agriculture is also in a
bad way; that the railroads are desper-
ately In need OF travellers: that the steel
mills are operating at only 13 per cent
OF their capacity, and that during sew
eral days not long ago more theaters
were open than there were banks. In
that crisis show-business was able to
give Walter Winchell $1,000 per week
for his vaudeville performances, a wage
considerably in excess of that paid to
the average presidents of big business
corporations-f some lavish bonuses are
excepted. One gathers from Mr. Mann's
essay that the present predicament of
civilization is due to the fact that there
orc Ao peanut galleries IN the Times
Square theaters. You can take it or
leave it either as bit of -thumbing
ora. or lapse lap from ths authors customary
IN its disposal Of this years diadem
the Pulitzer committee will be en-
barrassed by the large number of bald
foreheads waiting to be covered. Only
two dramas so far as can Judge, and
no revue whatever, deserve the crown
ers' grave consideration as successor to
"Of Thee I Sing" "Cavalcade." of
course, Is disqualified because it is an
Immigrant, and also because, in the
committees probable opinion, it Is not
. play. Farewell to Arms" and state
Fair" are likewise ineligible to wear the
royal chaplet, being of ignoble or Holly
wood birth. Red Planet" a serious ex-
cursion to Mars, was gathered to its
fathers ere the praetors had a chance
to see 1t, and I'VE, the People," also de-
ceased. seems to have been a tub
thumper rather than a work of art.
Allen Corn" is more Miss Katherine
Cornell than it is drama, and the
Theater Guilds American Dream" was
a little too poisonous to be anointed
with the holy oils. This unofficial pro-
cess of elimination discards Twentieth