The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-20
Reviewed by IRVING GORDON

Reviewed by IRVING GORDON
Increased in number Of pages and
improved both in formal and con-
tents, the current issue of New
Theatre marks q distinct advance
over previous releases of this maya
zine.
Although New Theatre is the Off
cial organ of the League of Work
ers Theatres and the Film and
Photo League, it is in no sense of
the word simply an orgsnizational
journal. It's contents include varied
articles on the drama, film and the
dance. Recent events in these fields
are reviewed and pertinent items
of news are reported. In addition to
discussions of the organizational,
theological and artistic problems of
workers theatres, the professional
theatre is considered in relation to
our rapidly changing society.
Outstanding among the contribu-
tors to the June issue is John How
ard Lawson, His article Toward q
Revolutionary Theatre" is interest
ing largely because it was written
by lawson. There is little that is
new or startling in what he writes,
but 1t is encouraging to see that
Lawson, after years Of indecision on
the question of his place in the class
struggle, has subtitled his article:
THE Artist Must Take Sides"
Whether it was Michael Colds ana
lytical criticisms in the New
Masses" or whether it was his re-
cent direct contact with the class
struggle in Alabama that has made
Lawson face reality, the fact is that
in this article he does take sides
he sides with the workers.
The most impressive feature of
the issue Is Michael Blankfort's
Sketches Toward an Aesthetic for
the Revolutionary Theatre" This is
apparently the beginning of much
longer essay that is to appear seri-
ally in the magazine, Under these
circumstances, without knowing
what is to follow, it is difficult to
criticize the article intelligently.
None the less, on reading it, one has
the feeling that it is all much ado
about nothing. This feeling arises
from the irritating consistency with
which Blankfort refuses to pursue
his ideas to their conclusions and to
clinch his points.
In his introduction, Blankfort
states that the revolutionary the
atre presents problems that are very
different from those of a bourgeois
theatre. He feels that these new
problems must be investigated, and
that the key to this investigation
lies in the audience.
He proceeds then to define audi
ence and to distinguish it from
Mob" After having proved to his
satisfaction that audience and mob
are different things, his next point
is that the audience can be under
stood only by understanding the in
dividual. John Jonesi is the indi-
vidusl he chooses for study. George
Jean Nathan is quoted to the effect
that John Jones goes to the theatre
to see himself other than he is.
Blankfort questions this idea OF
Nathan's. He does not refute it,
however, and proceeds with this
wish to see himself other than he
is as the basis for the third sec
zion of his article. The Wish.
The Wish would appear to be an
adaptation of the Freud Jung-Ad-
lerian libido, with the illustration
particularized as an economic frus-
tration. And from this, Blankfort
concludes, we get new approach
to the problem of revolutionary
theatre.
But, unfortunately, this intellec-
tualiMng about the wish doesn't
provide any particularly valuable
approach to problems of the revolu-
tionary theatre The revolutionary
theatre has very real and very
pressing problems. Chief among
these is the replacing of the indivi-
dual ideal of the bourgeois theatre
with the collective ideal. How shall
we write and how shall we produce
plays in which mass is hero? What
shall be our forms of expressions
What shall be our methods of
worS2 These are our problems, not
what means shall we devise to tickle
audiences. In his article, Blankfort
says that refusing to consider the
audience makes for Art for Arts
Sake theatre. But there is an on
posite extreme-pandering to audi
ences-that makes for Hollywood
theatre.
Paul Romaine's open letter to
Eva LaGallienne, and Leo T. Hur-
Wits review of mo Greater GLORY"
are both excellent contributions to
the only revolutionary theatre mag
azlne in America, which also in
cludes the following articles:
Take Theatre to the Workers"
by Al SAKE; Lawson Crosses the
Class Line" by Lester Cohen:
From a Directors Notebook by
Stephen Karnot; 1.-THE Stage Was
Not Set by Anne Howe; steve
dore Cast Votes No." by Herbert
Kline; Workers Theatre: A Criti-
cism." by Conrad Seller, and other
timely and incisive departmental
ga