Evening star., 1937-10-26
New Deal Is Lampooned
I'D Rather Be Right" an Amiable Slap
At Policies of Roosevelt.
BY JAY CARMODY.

tlngulSneQ Tor It's 1mpuQence Inan loI
its wit. George Kaufman and Moss
Hart, who provided the book. started
off with great idea, but whether they
were awed by their own impertinence
or afraid of Associate Justice Black,
they came home with a lampoon con-
siderably less sharp than those turned
out yearly by the Gridiorn Club.
Whatever it was, the sensational
production which opened here at
Ford's Theater last night would
hardly strike Washington Re-
publican as nearly so funny as the
New Deal itself. Nor was the show
manship of the caricature as good as
that of the original. That, of course,
is no reflection upon George M. Cohan
and his talented assistants, but a
tribute rather to the public figures
they so vigorously impersonate.
1t may be that the richness of the
subject and the reputation of the
Kaufman-H team leads one to ex-
pect more than is to be found in I'D
Rather Be Right" 1t is undeniably
amusing in many spots and its irrev-
erence is refreshing, but its authors
have been content to skim the surface
instead of probing bit deeper for the
material of which lustier satire might
be made. incidentally. no seats are
available)
1t must be granted that last nights
audience, which included a consid-
cradle sprinkling of sub-New Dealers
and none of the major ones, laughed
extremely hard and often during the
first act of the play. In the second.
it settled down to discovering that
"Id Rather Be Right" had become
practically dull, we'll below the stand
ard of "Of Thee Sing" and Let En-
Eat Cake" the two previous forays of
the authors into the field of public
servants.
MR.. COHAN. who plays character
called President Roosevelt and thus
gives the play its big appeal, is on the
stage virtually all of the time; fact
which may or may not give the signifi-
canoe of parallel. One suspects it has,
but Cohan's President is wistful
figure, a kind of higher-up Alexander
Throttlebottom, the old Vice President
who used to show tourists through the
White House in "Of Thee Sing" His
outstanding characteristics are pro-
found bewilderment and a complete
lack of aggressiveness. 1t is an in
teresting character and Mr. Cohan is
blessed with many comic lines. which
he reads with his own inimitable ac-
cent. but he might as well be called
President Nicholas Murray Butler of
Columbia University so far as essential
resemblance to the creator of the
New Deal is concerned There is a
physical likeness in great many of
Mr.. Cohans gestures and some of his
grimaces. however.
1t can be said with conviction that
there is nothing offensive in I'D
Rather Be Right" 1t examines vir-
tually all the trappings of the New
Deal-cabinet meetings, taxes. work
relief projects, labor policies, Federal
Theater project, the conflict with the
Supreme Court. national defense. press
conferences, stock market control and
above all the problem of balancing the
budget. That is getting over quite a
bit of territory, but despite the length
of the journey the authors always seem
quite amiable about everything.
Co-extensive with the area of the
plot is the number Of personalities it
surveys. The entire cabinet is there,
mentioned by name, and so is the
Supreme Court, of which only the
Chief Justice is mentioned aloud. OF
the cabinet members those participat-
ing to the greatest degree in the merry
making are James A. Farley, Cordell
Hull, Miss Perkins, Henry Morgenthau
and Homer S. Cummings 1t is toward
the latter that Mr. Cohan's President
addresses the funniest line of the
script, the by-now-famous Cum
mings, take law" Strangely enough
the two spearheads of the New Deals
non-acceptance of the old order of
things, Secretaries Wallace and Ickes,
are as thoroughly ignored as if their
names never had been in the papers
read by kaufman and Hart. That's
their business, of course, but it is
noticeable.
TT is an amusing interlude which
the authors have fabricated to get
the budget balancing problem before
the cabinet. The only possible way to
balance the budget at that meeting is
to increase taxes, but the best minds
of the administration cannot think of
anything that isn't already taxed
Shaves are suggested as nice taxable
item, but it is rejected on the ground
that men would stop shaving. The
Farley character proposes that all
letters be sent at airmau rates, but not
by airplane. That, too, is spurned in