The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-02-07
Stage and Screen
FACE THE MUSIC"
"a Review


In Face the Music" the musical
comedy revue by Irving Berlin, as in
1--WE the People" by Elmer Rice, the
general crisis OF capitalism at last
forces its attention on Broadway.
Not that Broadway, of course, knows
the difference between a general
crisis and an earache, or is interested
in learning, but it is discovering that
1t can no longer ignore the disinte-
grafton Of the system which it sup
ports and is supported by.
Both plays deal with questions
brought into sharp relief by the
crisis. I'VE the People" depicts the
social and economic consequences of
unemployment in the family Of a
skilled worker. Mr.. Rice'S solution
for the failure of capitalism is for
all good people to get together, re-
CARELESS of class, and in accordance
with the principle so four heaven
inspired constitution, do something
about patching up the holes in the
fabric of capitalism" Mr.. Rice, if
we are to accept I'VE, the People, y
as his articles of political faith,
would do everything about the evils
Of capitalism except destroy them by
destroying the system of which they
are an integral part.
Graft Is So Funny
1t is more difficult to trace the plot
in Mr.. Berlins musical revue, for his
ideas are like so many soap bubbles
waited about by half drunk Albertina
Rasch dancers, but if one is patient
and listens more attentively than one
can be expected to, it is gathered that
Mr.. Berlin is satirizing the discoveries
OF the Seabury investigating COM
nittee. Millionaire policemen, dis
appearing judges and tin boxes filled
with money stolen from the working
people of New York by Tammany
politicians are subjected to ridicule.
Mr.. Berlin, capitalist himself who
has made fortune by writing q few
popular songs and by stealing a great
many more, and who has consolidated
his fortune by marrying into one of
the wealthiest families in the coun-
try, covers his ridicule of Tammany
Hall with a thick coating of molasses
and then serves it in a cellophane-
wrapped package Of tolerant cynicism.
The oyertone of 'Face the Music
can be verbaliSed into something like
the following. This man Seabury, a
priestly, over-serious and hmnorlesS
blue-nose, has found that Tammany
Is corrupt as he'll and is getting all
fused up about 1t. Isn't he a boy
scout not TO have known it all along?
Well, let's not be as foolish as to get
all excited about 1t ourselves for (and
here an underpaid and UNDERGRAD
chorus troops on the stage and sings)
What does it matter, the best things
in life are free"
Two Kinds OF RidicuIe
Ridicule, too, has a class character.
The revolutionary working class has
also ridiculed the findings of the
Seabury committee, but this ridicule
is not good -humored. 1t Is the burn
ing, slashing ridicule Of people who
are being crushed, starved, jailed and
murdered by system which expresses
itself politically in the form of poll
tical machines like Tammany Hall.
Workers know that the best things
in life are free" in capitalist coun-
tries only for the handful of capital
lists who rule the entire land, while
the only freedom left to the working
class is the freedom to starve, suffer
and die. Mr.. Berlin, who was sing
ing waiter before he became a mil
lionaire, should know this.
Although the difference between
Mr.. Rice and Mr.. Berlin is the diff
ference on the one hand between
sensitive II muddled man trying to
find his way out Of the darkness Of