The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-11-15
BY HAROLD EDGAR

BENEATH the thick layer Of indis-
u cTiminate adjectives heaped by
Nathaniel Buchwald on the Daily
Worker column about the Artef there
lies, we must assume, a desire for
clarity on certain fundamental prob
lens relating to the revolutionary
theatre movement. We shall take
these up one by one without INDUCING
in the literary tactics with which
Buchwald attempts to fortify, his
muddy reasoning.
Buchwald wastes at least half his
space by refusing a stand that was
never taken in the Daily Worker
column. The point in this column
was not to question the advisability
Of Jewish workers theatre produc-
ing play in which non-Jewish
workers are portrayed and certainly
not to deny the use Of the theater
as a means Of broadening the rev.
olutlonary outlook Of their audiences.
The point was nothing so primi-
lively theoretical as this, but resolved
itself to the question of how the Artef
and similar groups could accomplish
its ends in the most theatrically salts
flying way. We will grant that the
Artef could do admirable productions
Of plays laid in China, Hindustan
Hawaii, Yorkshire or Kalamazoo, but
specifically it is reasonable to sup
pose that the Artef's performance of
a play depicting workers problems in
terms Of Jewish life would be more
organic, more convincing and conse-
quently more effective as a weapon
in the class struggle. This SUPPOSE
ton, moreover, happens to be con-
fiWled by some Of the Artef's former
productions, which, despite Buch-
wald's righteous objections, we're more
successful in every sense than the
present one.
But beyond this the argument over
type casting" Here again Buckwald
falls into the buttomless pit of his
primary-school theorizing. The Daily
Worker reviewer does not believe that
only Jews can play Jews, only bour-
geots actors can represent bourgeois
people, or eevn that only workers can
play workers. The Moscow Kamerney
Theatre, for example, has done fas-
cinating productions of several of
O'Neill's plays, but then they were
the Kamerney Theatre-a group with
over ten years of the finest profess
sional training behind them. More
over, these productions were non
realistic, and finally they we're done
for Russian audiences, not for Amer
lean.
The Artef actors have remarkable
natural qualities and have progressed
by virtue of training, but they are
not yet so advanced that they can
appear altogether real in docu-
mentary realistic play before an au-
oience in America which immedi-
ately recognizes the obvious differ
ence between the real thing and the
theatrical counterpart. Aside from
any theory, artistic or revolutionary.
THE Third Parade" is an instance
where a correct type is almost as
important as good acting. The Artef
actors do not convince us that they
are like Bonus Marchers, and whole
battery Of protests will not make us
believe they are.
Buchwald's most per1lcious error
is the one he appears most cocksure
about. He alludes to leaders of the
workers theatre the world over who
hold that actors OF a proletarian the
atte should become proficient in the
art Of acting and study the technique
OF the best professional theatre. When
a Russian critic says this he refers
to the acting of the Stanislaysky.
Vacht2ngov, Meyerhold theatres;
when a German critic says it, he re-
fers to the acting Of Reinhardt's or
Jessher's players, but when Buch-
valid repeats the formula, he has only
Broadway to turn to. And Broadway
acting, as we have repeatedly pointed
out, is based on a thin imitation of
actually which is the theatrical
| equivalent Of capitalistic surface
showiness: display without human
substance, form without concrete ex-
Lperience.
There is no real technique of
Broadway acting and Broadway act
ors, aside from the native talent they