# 'Harlem' Comes to Broadway

## PLAY OF NEGRO LIFE OPENS AT THE APOLLO THEATRE

By JOHN ANDERSON

FOLLOWING the lead of Mr. Belasco's Lulu Belle-wether, and all the other Black Belt plays, came "Harlem" home to Broadway, at the Apollo Theatre last night in the first production by William A. Blatt. It is loud, crude and rank; it is funny, rough and low, and most of it kept a checker audience in rousing good humor. Its authors are William Jourdan Rapp, and Wallace Thurman, the latter author of a new novel, "The Blacker the Berry," and it is acted by a cast composed largely of negroes.

John Anderson.

In it the authors indicate the ruddy behavior of Cordelia Williams, a minor sex practitioner, whose God-fearing parents, just arrived from the South, threaten to cramp her wheelbase. Since the old folks from home have no money, Pa Williams gives a rent party, a sort of social huddle in which the racier set sway one thing and another while a lone piano, possibly for the looks of things, plays away in the corner.

During one of the more anatomical moments of the party Cordelia's fiance objects to her behavior with a slick gangster named Red Crowe, and in the next act we find the two in Roy's apartment drinking coffee exactly as if nothing had happened. When along comes Kid Vamp, the boss gangster, who kills Roy in a quarrel while Delia is out buying cigarettes, and then tries to pin the murder on her fiance, one Basil Venerable.

Then the show goes back to the rent party again (since they must have had a long lease) and presently spills over with detectives, shooting, and a general how-de-do, all of which makes a lively and colorful picture of New York's eclipse district.

Most of it is untamed and broad-gauged stuff, full of rowdy jokes and gestures which do somehow catch an authentic jungle note in the brownstone wastelands of One Hundred and Thirty-fifth street. It is as direct and primitive as the fierce emotions to be found in white crime plays, such as "Crime" and "Tenth Avenue," and will not, I hope, offend the Society for the Advancement of Colored People, simply because it all occurs above what is called, I think, the Mason and Hamlin line.

The two dance scenes are dusky orgies, a couple of shades darker and lower than the "Prancing Niggers" of Ronald Firbank and Carl Van Vechten. It was all lustily forthright in its doings, so frank and abandoned, indeed, that you forgot at times it was a show and wondered why some one didn't write a play about it all. Something, perhaps, not so revolting as "Harlem" is in spots.

For as a play it does stand down several notches below its material; it does fall back, now and then, upon a wiggle instead of an idea. But it is all thrown together with such zestful humor and such shameless vulgarity, that you finally take it upon its own gaudy terms and laugh at it because it would be funny even if it weren't a play at all.

### Natural Instinct

Since most of the principal actors are negroes, it is stimulated at once by the natural born instinct of that festive race for cutting up monkeyshines.

They play it all over the lot, until it becomes sultry and even a little oppressive, but always vigorous and exuberantly alive. They shout out round snacking lines with the ingenuous effrontery of players who don't know how good they are, and make it in consequence a bright, swamped-romp between the box office and Fourteenth Amendment, if that is the one.

### THE CAST

Arabella Williams. Edna Wise Barr
George Williams. Clarence Taylor
Mazie Williams. Elise Thomas
Ma. Williams. Inez Clough
Pa Williams. Lew Payton
Cordelia Williams. Isabell Washington
Basil Venerable. Richard Landers
Jasper Williams. Emory S. Richardson
Effie. Lillian Fairley
Jimmie. Hemsley Winfield
Thaddeus Jenkins. Collington Hayes
Iddy Jones. Hillis Walters
Mary Lou. Carmen Marshall
Roy Crowe. Billy Andrews
Briggs. Frank Badham
Hot-Stuff Man. Bud Allen
Kid Vamp. Ernest R. Whitman
Dr. Voodo. F. Barclay Trigg
Detective Sergeant Palmer. Arthur Hughes
Officer Sam. Nat Cash
Janitress. Ardelie Dabney
Janitress' Daughter. Malvina Dabney

The five-alarm Cordelia was played by Isabell Washington with loud gusto and thwacking effect. The most lurid of the sin and sex portrayers, she ignited "Harlem" from end to end, and what is more, seemed to have a swell time doing it. Others in a huge cast who contributed good portraits in charcoal, were Richard Landers, Billy Andrews, Ernest R. Whitman and Nat Cash. Arthur Hughes played a detective to excellent effect, and I can recommend it to those who might be going to Harlem for a frolic, and would thereby save taxi fare.

### Alive and Colorful

March 6, 1929

9

# The Theatre

By FRANCIS R. BELLAMY

ONE of the most interesting things about "Harlem," the new negro play at the Apollo, is its audience. For it is a prize-fight audience, a spectacle audience, and is fairly representative, we should say, of the element of American society among which the negro in real life has to make his way. It is an audience, probably, that wants to be thrilled; that looks for "raw meat" in its artistic menu; and represents an opposite extreme from those nightly crowds which stream into the Theatre Guild productions and go to see the Ethel Barrymores and the Walter Hampdens. In other words, it is fairly representative of one of the groups of society which the negro must please in order to make himself first felt as an artist.

Viewed from this standpoint, and taking into consideration the fact that as a group, these colored people are not led or inspired by any of the James Weldon Johnsons of the race, "Harlem," both from the standpoint of art and ideas is distinctly worth seeing. The white audience may seem more sinister to you than the colored play. The beat of primitive existence may sound a trifle too loud. You can quarrel with many of the scenes—some for being too realistic, others for not being genuine enough. But on the stage there are about sixty negroes—only one white man appears in the play—and they manage to produce an undeniably real and compelling drama, filled with humor, suspense, murder, delicate artistic distinctions of light and shade and all the carefully created scale of emotion which must be so well considered in putting over any dramatic production to an audience.

In almost every case, the actors are better than the play, for the story is a rather weak and cheaply bolstered melodrama of life in New York City's black belt, and amounts to not much more than a highly exciting one-act play, with a crowded, confused prologue and epilogue. A bootlegging gangster sees the girl he wants at a Saturday night "rent party," and takes her to his room where the leader of his gang murders him and "frames" the girl's fiancé as the supposed murderer, when this fiancé follows to save the girl from the hands of the first gunman. The story thus starts and ends in a tene-

ment flat during a "rent party," while the second act describes what goes on in the gangster's room.

Moving through these scenes are crude negroes, mulattoes, West Indians, Barbados niggers, homesick North Carolina blacks and all the mixture

that Harlem unquestionably is—its social distinctions, its gradations of color, from black to yellow, its home life and religion, and its appallingly extemporaneous existence. All the melodramatic aspects of Harlem are well presented, particularly the mass scenes in the jazz dancing party, at which Pa Williams hopes to sell enough liquor to pay his rent.

It is only where the sober realities of life among the negroes are touched upon that the play becomes forced and absurd and totally lacking in sympathetic insight. Very little of the essential childlike humor and pathos of the colored race is allowed play, and over the whole subject is thrown a kind of vaudeville haze which prevents the play from achieving anything noteworthy, whatever.

AND YET, taking it for what it is, these negroes make it absorbing. Perhaps many of them are themselves; perhaps very little acting is required for many of the parts. Very clearly some of the actors are simply being themselves on the stage of the Apollo instead of on upper Fifth Avenue. But beyond this, there are the principal rôles of the show which are susceptible of no easy explanation. In particular, the part of Kid Vamp as played by Ernest Whitman.

Here is a big black actor who can act; who in every way, so far as his part permits, is the equal of the one white man in the cast, (Arthur Hughes, as the detective) and who casts over all the scenes in which he plays a genuine sense of illusion.

It is true that not so much can be said for the other colored leads of the company. They vary; and yet, even from a Broadway standpoint, they range from competent to fairly good. Simply as an example of what the col-

ored race may attain in the theatre, they are distinctly interesting, as is the whole play itself.

Unquestionably many people will go to see it merely for the "kick," the ashamed presentation of primitive humanity it affords. And they will not be disappointed if they remember to bear in mind the circumstances surrounding the whole production. Beyond this, however, is the fact that it is ninety per cent a colored achievement.

The Literary Digest for March 16, 1929

8a

23

ENGLAND DELUGED BY AMERICAN SLANG

AMERICAN SLANG PREDOMINATES in England. This awful conclusion is reached by judges of a slang contest set by the Manchester Guardian. Competitors were asked to produce the "six most expressive slang-phrases" in current usage, and with the awarding of the prize goes a conviction that England is losing or forgetting some of its folk-speech. "The vigorous slang of our ancestors, whose inventive genius necessitated the production of dictionary after dictionary, is being forgotten," so The Guardian observes, "and our language having been purified of its own seven devils, has had the unfortunate resultant emptiness filled by seven even more terrible devils from overseas." Even in admitting this, a bit of envy seems to creep in, especially over the doubtful paternity of some phrases. Perhaps if the origin of each and every one could be traced, the balance of debit and credit would be even:

"From the lists submitted by our readers, at any rate, it is clear that American slang predominates. Incredible as it may seem, no one quoted any of the good old slang phrases, perhaps because they are no longer known. Not merely that, but it would seem that people have even forgotten that once there was a war. The phrases so familiar from 1914 to 1919, 'Getting the wind up,' 'a Blighty,' and even that strange phrase which goes back perhaps to the mists of antiquity 'Going west,' were never mentioned. 'Windy' indeed got a mention, as did the time-honored 'Kick the bucket' and 'Off the deep end,' and one competitor remembered 'fed up,' which perhaps has passed out of the stage of slang and become ordinary speech.

"On the other hand, there were a variety of Americanisms culled for the most part, one suspects, from a close study of film captions. Many of these are familiar, and some even doubtfully of American origin, like 'tightwad,' 'lounge lizard,' 'bone-head,' 'tea hound,' and 'hitting the hay' (undoubtedly expressive). 'Snow again, baby. I get your drift,' was submitted by a number of competitors, while a majority regretably favored 'slobbered a bibble, but only one mentioned 'wangle,' 'serouge,' and 'blotto.'

"On the other hand, some of the phrases approach the incomprehensible. If 'spit-and-rub' might suggest a celluloid collar, and if one might hazard a guess that 'joining the 'cellos' is a refinement on 'crossing the river.' It is a little difficult to guess in a moment that 'get your diaphragm buzzing' means 'fall to and eat,' that 'throw a gage to the sobbies' means 'be sentimental,' that 'move your dogs' means 'move your legs,' that 'he shakes a mean hoof' is a compliment to a male partner's dancing, and that 'soup and fish' means a 'dinner jacket' rather than a lounge suit."

In the opinion of the judges "very few competitors gave six phrases which could fairly be called expressive," but the prize went to the following collection:

A pain in the neck.

To get away with it.

To let in on the ground floor.

Bats in the belfry.

To bump off.

To spill the beans.

Some American journal might offer a prize for a determination of what was American and what English in the list. That America speaks another sort of English from certain North Country sections of the motherland may be seen from the two following lists that entered the contest. Explain them who can:

It's all owing to they beatings up. Tha knows no weeler.

Put that dur in t'ole, my lad (meaning close the door).

Tha're a coddythumpian (meaning in the Huddersfield district one who takes all and gives nothing).

Tha weights may be all right. But we will have them sheep weighed again.

Tha great sammy ouen, tha'r fit for nowt only a good hiding.

Yer allus slobbering abart summat.

He was slopped up to the wide.

Don't sluthier about. wench.

Why don't yer purra jerk in it, surrey?

Does the old girl still chew the cud at yer?

If I can wangle the iron I'll do it on him.

Some further comments are interesting:

"A schoolboy's list showed that some English slang still fights a

WHERE "NUMBERS" FAIL TO BRING LUCK IN "HARLEM"

The prostrate figure, a collector for the king of the gambling game called "Numbers" has failed to report his collections. The white detective and the black cop are seeking evidence of the crime.

last-ditch battle in places from which slang might be supposed to be carefully barred.

Off your rocker.

A screw loose.

An upper story to let.

Bats in your belfry.

A bee in your bonnet.

Up the pole.

"Most of our competitors obliged by giving translations of their pet phrases, otherwise one would have never suspected that 'a covered wagon' meant 'an elderly rotund female who apes the youthful flapper,' or that 'a wooden kimono' meant a coffin, or that 'corduroy patch' means a match (tho the sender did not specify what sort of match).

"But no explanation was given of 'lamp that bozo,' at which, of course, one might make a guess, or 'all to the cream-puff,' or 'quit stalling on the low-corners,' or 'he sure knows his onions,' or 'the mosquito's pants,' which, for all one knows, may be equivalent to 'the snake's hips.'"

THE COVER—Miss Lillian Genth has long been known as a painter of nudes, but now she has taken to the other extreme of veiled and draped figures of Spain and the Orient. Our cover is reproduced from one of a collection recently exhibited, where out-of-the-way bits from Spanish and Arabian lands were shown in the brilliant colors our cover suggests. Miss Genth even penetrated to Mohammedan mosques, where to make a picture entailed the death penalty. In "Quenca" one sees the roofs of the climbing hill town such as form the picturesque views of Spain and Italy; the gardens whose flowers vie with the bright colors of the lady's shawl. Miss Genth was born in Philadelphia, and received her early education in that city. She became a student in the School of Design, and won a European Fellowship. Shortly afterward, Miss Genth left for Paris where she studied under Whistler. After finishing her course, she spent two years studying in the galleries of Europe.

Upon her return to America, Miss Genth established herself in Philadelphia.

24

THE END OF THE RENT PARTY

The murderer standing back to the door at bay before officers of the law, is a moment later riddled by bullets as he tries to escape. Thus the family in "Harlem" see disaster fall upon the household; but the party goes on across the hall.

## NOT TO DEBUNK WASHINGTON

Fears FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON'S status at the hands of the debunkers are entertained by Hon. Charles E. Hughes. He warns the literary cynics to "hold their peace" and "consider what Washington's contemporaries and others said of him." Men like Lafayette, John Marshall, Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and the French historian Guizot, Mr. Hughes thinks, ought to furnish enough material to help us to visualize the real Washington. Will another Hughes revise his life of Washington after hearing his namesake speak? But debunking began long ago, and Washington's reputation hasn't noticeably suffered. When Thackeray came to this country, people talked to him about the heroic Washington. Yes, he answered, but when Washington was an old man did he take snuff and drop it on his waistcoat? Mr. Hughes, in speaking in behalf of the memorial building projected by the George Washington Memorial Association, is reported in the New York Times as making no definite reference to current biographers, but as warning off those who like to undress their heroes:

"In the search for fresh thrills, we are resorting to biography as a stimulant. Old claims are being reworked with sensational finds. Idolaters and debunkers spur each other to new efforts. Our interest in the past, in those who have dominated the scene in earlier days, gains rather than loses from the pressure of our activities, as we seek relaxation and escape. Our great anniversaries find us the more eager, the more alive with curiosity, keener to know and to appraise.

"Of all our anniversaries, Washington's Birthday is the most precious, for it commemorates the advent of the foremost man in our history. As the great French historian Guizot put it, 'Washington did the two greatest things which in politics it is permitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace the independence of his country which he had conquered in war. He founded a free government in the name of the principles of order and by re-establishing their sway.'"

After quoting John Marshall, who at the time of Washington's death called him "the hero, the sage, and the patriot of America," and Thomas Jefferson, who said, "He was, indeed, in every sense of the word a wise, a good, and great man," Mr. Hughes added:

"When John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson thus agree, let our debunkers hold their peace."

Mr. Hughes cited Washington's keen desire for the development of the national spirit. He asserted:

"One of the most important methods of developing national interest in matters of general concern—one of the most useful means of diffusing knowledge—is through the meetings of our great societies and organizations which give to the nation, and to the world at large, the varied results of progress. What finer

memorial could we erect to the character and ideals of Washington than a great building nobly planned in the nation's capital to serve as a meeting-place for the great educational interests of the country?"

## BOOK COLLECTING FOR PROFIT

Much moralizing both in England and America appears over the sensational sale of the Jerome Kern library, which brought at auction over $1,700,000. Here appeared an investment better than the giltest-edged bonds. Many are turning to rare book collecting with the hope of securing a competence, and upon this "The Bibliographer" of the Boston Transcript comments:

"That book collecting is being recast in new lines is apparent to any one who has watched the book market closely for the present season. Undoubtedly the tremendous prices realized at the Kern sale are responsible in part for this, but primarily the change is due to the increasing number of collectors and the diminishing number of the rarest of rare books. Kilmarnock Burnses and Gray's Elegies are no longer for the collector of moderate means, and the number of books of this class that are obtainable, at any price, is continually becoming smaller.

"The Kern sale unfortunately stimulated an interest among many would-be collectors to do their buying along commercial lines, which is a bad thing for the collector individually, and for the trade in general. It is not so long ago that one remembers when 'de luxe' books made to sell were passed off on a gullible public at large sums with the assurance that these publications 'will continually increase in price,' with the result that when the facts were realized some expert salesmen went to jail for obtaining money by false pretenses. The speculative collector, unable to buy first editions of Dickens or Thackeray or Goldsmith, goes in for modern authors whose works are issued in limited editions, and thereby ventures on exceedingly thin ice. It's all right if one selects the author who will be more famous twenty years from now than he is to-day.

"Nevertheless, the genuine book collectors are forced, by the fact that money plays such an important part in the book collecting of to-day, to turn to authors of less established fame than the great ones of literature. The older collectors to a large extent bought with little thought of future values, but the wise foresight of those who secured the original issues of 'Pickwick' in the parts as they were issued and kept them carefully preserved is responsible for the few copies of 'perfect Pickwicks in parts' which remain to-day, to become the proud possession of only the wealthiest collectors. There was a time in the history of book collecting when fine and early editions of the classics were the great desideratum of the collector. Most of these fine copies have passed into public libraries, and a first edition of Cicero or Lactantius is still a treasure, to be bought only with real money, but collecting has broadened out into many other lines, and a library which contains only modern first editions in the finer class of typography may be a very fine one, secured at a fraction of the cost of first editions of the masterpieces of literature."

5

ONE of the strangest shows that has appeared in these parts recently is that melodramatic transcript of negro life in New York, Mr. Rapp and Mr. Thurman's "Harlem." In substance it is at best good, ringing crook-and-murder stuff, and at worst crude, sentimental, slip-shod, but the way it is performed and above all the fact that all but one of the performers are negroes make it something hard

to put out of one's mind.

The acting of that extraordinary human being, Isabell Washington, haunts one's memory. She is amazingly direct and alive, and what she does sizzles and hisses with the raw juice of vitality. It is not an attractive part, that of Cordelia Williams, who obeys nobody, follows nothing but her own keen nose for men and adventure, but Miss Washington fills it with her stormy energy and her gorgeous yawp of a voice.

You will go a long way before you see anything as strange as the "rent-party" in "Harlem's" second act. Stage parties are usually perfunctory, artificially hilarious, but this crowd of colored dancers, enlaced in their weird and—one must admit—fascinatingly unpleasant dances, casts a spell over you, because they are under a spell themselves. It is a real party, composed of people who are not so much acting as enjoying themselves, and you expect them to rebel and go right on dancing when the script calls for a halt in the party, when the action requires that they all go reluctantly home.

A communication from the authors informs us that the direction of "Harlem" has been taken to task for playing up the rent-party in order to "commercialize its sensationalism." On the contrary, Mr. Rapp and Mr. Thurman insist, "the party is a tame affair compared to the average Harlem rent-party." And the director apparently has to warn the players not to be too realistic, though they object and ask him, quite properly, "Is dis a rent-party or ain't it?"

THE idea of staging a party and charging your friends for admission, food and drink in order to keep the wolf from biting through the door is new, and I believe not made use of anywhere but in Harlem.

## The Birth of a Bright and Brand New Idea

The rest of us furtively overdraw or sneak out to pawn a stickpin or send an over-lachrymose wire to Uncle Peter in Scranton or just sit down and howl. Far more self-respecting, it seems to me,

though perhaps dangerously habit-forming, is the frank and breezy method of paying the debt, not by borrowing from your friends but by asking them to pay a small fee for a grand evening's racket at your own house.

I take rent to be the most pressing obligation in Harlem, and I have not heard of the colored people staging equally wild parties in order to raise money for any other purpose.

We might take a leaf from that book. There are lots of occasions upon which the lack of a little ready cash could be met by rolling up the carpets, phoning the bootlegger, mending the radio and ballyhooing a few two-dollar friends in for a noisy party.

IN THE next booklet entitled "Helpful Hints to Householders, or Beat-
ing the Budget," I expect to find a chapter devoted to the science of
raising eleventh-hour money by rent-parties, sedan-payment-parties,

## The Credit and Debit of a "Maintenance Party"

life-insurance-premium-parties, club-dues-parties, alimony-parties, visa-parties, and at-last-Baby-is-ours-parties. An important feature of the booklet would be

friends sniff at paying admission, model forms for advertisements in the newspapers: "Mr. and Mrs. John Jones request the pleasure of your presence and bill-fold at a soiree in honor of their new roadster. As the finance company won't wait, admission will be $5, cocktails $1 apiece, but salad and dancing free. P. S. O. R. (please save our roadster)." Or, in the want-ads: "100 per cent. Co-op. Maintenance Party. Bingo's Band. Ladies $3.50, couples $4.50, gents $2, gin $.75. $3 per hour extra after 2 A. M. Our last party a wow. References. Refreshments."

A careful hostess, if socially irreproachable, could undoubtedly clean up, with good arithmetic and shrewd management. Expenses of a first-class "maintenance-party" would be: Window-cleaning, extra service, bouncer, food, breakage, music—$165.87. Gross revenue: One hundred and thirteen paying guests @ $5, 595 drinks of bath-tub liquor, 43 drinks of "off-the-boat" Scotch, kissing privileges, check-room, sale of forgotten mufflers and goloshes, small change found under sofa pillows—$1,984.03.

There's over six months' co-operative apartment maintenance al-
ready. And in addition it would probably be a whale of a party.

HARLEM, at the Lyric Theatre, by William J. Rapp and his negro collaborator, Walter Thurman, cuts out a piece of Harlem life and puts it before us on the stage vividly and appealingly. The American as a rule adopts a policy of ignoring the

Negro problem. To most of us it hardly existed until it was discovered for us by novelists and playwrights. The Rapp-Thurman play with its grotesque rent parties, its animal love making, its vivacious dancers, develops considerable dramatic tensity. The audience never ceases to be interested even for a moment. Some things in it appeal to the cruder passions, others entice the sophisticated.

It has none of the faults but all the sincerity of a first play and it deserves its extraordinary success. You might say of this dark play that it is one of the bright spots of the season. What delights me most is the fact that the actors seem to enjoy themselves as much as the audience.

April 1929

DAILY NEWS, FRIDAY, MARCH 1

Realism and the Negro Drama 1929

'Harlem' Authors Are
Pleased to Report
It Could Be Worse

By BURNS MANTLE.

It is the excuse of the "Harlem"
authors that if they offend any by
the realism they have snitched from
the negro community for use in
their play that they could, had they
wanted to, have done much worse.

There are, it appears from a let-
ter sent forth by the Messrs. Rapp
and Thurman, as many racketeers
among the blacks of the black belt
as there are gangsters on the east
side.

Less is heard of them, say the
Messrs. Rapp and Thurman, be-
cause the negro is considered of
less importance in the community
than his lowly counterparts in other
slum centers.

"Harlem isn't as well covered by
the newspapers," runs the letter,
"and many gang killings take place
and many a rebellious young girl
like Cordelia Williams gets mixed
up in them without downtowners
knowing the slightest thing about
it. The police, too, don't bother
much because a 'dead nigger' isn't
very important."

This Isn't Bad!

As for the dancing orgy known
as a "rent party," the authors are
again pleased to defend themselves
on the ground that, although the
animalistic exhibitions of their ac-
tors may offend some, they are
nothing to what might have hap-
pened.

"All we can say here," they say
here, "is that the party on the
stage of the Apollo is a tame
affair compared to the average
Harlem rent party. In fact Mr.
Erskine, the stage director, had to
warn the players continually not
to become too realistic, and their
habitual protest was and is, 'Is dis
a rent party or ain't it?'"

Mr. Erskine is obliged to answer
that it is, in fact, a rent party, but
that unfortunately there are likely
to be those in the audiences who
are a bit sensitive about learning
the facts of life in mixed company.

So far there have been no
rumbling patrol wagons to disturb
the activities of the "Harlem"

realists. Police warnings were
issued, according to rumor, that
the dancing should be modified,
and young Mr. Blatt is said to
have passed the word along to the
rent party enthusiasts. With what
result this reporter is not yet in-
formed.

Shocks and Shocks.

Shocks in the theatre are curi-
ous. I for instance, found "My
Girl Friday" no more than a stupid
farce straining to be suggestive
and being merely dull.

Even when one young woman
forcibly borrowed the silk bloomers
of another with the intention of
planting them as evidence in the
pocket of a male victim's dressing
gown I thought it no more than a
rather obvious farce device to build

up a laugh that should come later
with the befuddled victim's dis-
covery.

There is, to me, more downright
nastiness in certain of those "hot"
songs the high and the low come-
dians sing than there was in the
whole silly three acts of "My Girl
Friday."

And the reproduction of a rent
party that wiggles indecently
through the animalistic dances of
the lower dives is frankly embar-
rassing. I am ashamed for both
producer and actor and unhappy in
the thought of the base uses to
which an otherwise decent melo-
drama has been put.

But my friend Commissioner

Hoyt backs the wagons up for "My
Girl Friday" and never peeps about
the others.

For which I suspect there is some
good reason. Can it be my moral
standards are all wrong?

AND now here we are, just where
we said we'd be. We can go
back and say that "Harlem" is cer-
tainly worth an evening if you are
interested in plays of the Black Belt,
or even if you are interested in gen-
ine, absolutely native melodrama. The
innate histrionic ability of Negroes
becomes more and more evident as
Negroes try more and more things in
the theatre. There is an ease and a
sense of timing which even the worst
actors among them have that many
a white star should pay money to ac-
quire. They are not technically fin-
ished actors in "Harlem" but they can
act. And, although it is not in our
line, we may say that for the first time
Negroes have made the talking pic-
tures possible to listen to in "Hearts
in Dixie." Their voices, their man-
ner and their feeling for rhythm in
dialogue make one almost feel that
the thing can be done after all.

# "HARLEM"--38 and 2
## An Approach to Perfection

by Whitney Bolton

HIGH up near the top of the Three Star Specials in dramatic wares is "Harjem," the most untouched and, therefore, the most accurate of the photographs mare at Seventh avenue and 132d street. The dark man of Manhattan Island and his girl of tantalizing tan receive here the consideration and study that no play which touched them has had before this work of William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman was written. Life beyond the vision and comprehension of the white man is set down as it comes, sometimes roughly, sometimes affectionately, sometimes inexpertly, but always honestly and arrestingly. "Harlem" is not adroit, but it is dramatic; it is not pretty, but it is enormously interesting.

There are but two major errors in "Harlem," and curiously they are both matters of perfect reporting. One is the manner of the dancing in the first and third acts and the other is the switching of Isabell Washington, who plays Cordelia Williams, a high-yaller baby wit ha roving eye and rippling skin. It was whispered that two of John Law's zealous dramatic referees sat in at the premiere of "Harlem" and that they did not care for the dancing: it was too Lenox avenue for their ac Statistic tastes.

Actually, the dancing was not an error, but an over-enthusiasm. Such dancing is on view in any negro cabaret and if the police interfere with this, they ought, in fairness, to interfere uptown. Mr. Blatt, whose first production this is, might tone down the hoofing and urge Miss Washington to curb her dislocations in the interest of peace and prosperity. Held within normal bounds, such bounds as the law's cultivated experts might consider seemly, "Harlem" 'is a rich property and before its run is over ought to gorge the Blatt safe with gold.

There are seventy-five persons in the cast. all but one of whom is colored. The lone white is Arthur Hughes, a snave, soft-speaking man who represents Law. He plays Sergeant Palmer, one of the most unflurried of the city's ferrets.

## Man-Wreeker

CORDELIA is the sinuous and impertinent poison which curdles the days of Basil Venerable, a studious and upright young West Indian. Her provocative hips and bright red lips tease and lure him, and he proposes honorable marriage. Cordelia can't be bothered with such trivial rites and goes man-hunting, her first capture being an ennuied young gambler, Roy Crowe.

Cordelia's father gives a great party, during which Roy and Cordelia take the air, ending up at Roy's apartment. His employer, Kid Vamp, the Numbers King of Harlem, comes in to collect the week's takings. Cordelia and the Kid are just so much hot pepper to each other ad poor Roy goes out the lead-slug way.

Basil trails her to Roy's place, comes in for the murder of Foy, and is blamed for it by Cordelia. Kid Vamp gives his hand away, and in attempting to escape from Sergeant Palmer, is crumpled by a hail of lead from the pistols of Palmer and Patrolman Sam.

Cordelia departs for a life on the stage, leaving behind her an outraged

## "Harlem"

A DRAMA by William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman, presented by Edward A. Blatt at the Apollo Theater with the following cast:
Arabella Williams... Edna Wise Barr
George Williams... Clarence Taylor
Mazie Williams... Elise Thomas
Ma Williams... Inez Clough
Pa Williams... Lew Payton
Cordelia Williams... Isabe! Washington
Basil Venerable... Richard Landers
Jasper Williams... Emory S. Richardson
Ippy Jones... Hillis Walters
Mary Lou... Carmen Marshall
Roy Crowe... Billy Andrews
Briggs... Frank Bednam
Tom... Robert Bramlett
Jim... Jimmy Young
St. Stuff Man... Bud Allen
Kid Vamp... Ernest R. Whitman
Dr. Voodo... F. Barclay Trigg
Detective Sergeant Palmer
Officer Sam... Arthur Hughes
Janitress... Mat Cash
Janitress' Daughter... Ardelle Dabney
Janitress' Daughter... Malvina Dabney

father, a broken-hearted mother and a disfluent Basil Venerable.

Through this major story there move sixty-odd characters—types, if that word would suit you better. Expertly chosen, grandly drilled by Chester Erskine, the cast made up almost entirely of practical amateurs, gave a performance of great craft and intelligence. It was the amateur status of many of his players that bothered Mr. Blatt when the piece was in rehearsal. He feared for their playing on the opening night and had hideous visions of everything and every one 's 'ig wrong. This morning he most be relieved. It was a smashing performance, with half a dozen or more of the principals giving portraits that carried a hefty smack of authenticity and poise.

## As in a Mirror

MR. ERSKINE'S staging of the piece was superb and he made of a difficult business a silken result. His crows spoke and moved as though in their own Harlem homes, away from the prying eyes of the whites. I'm not at all sure that many of the players didn't forget they were on a stage and believed themselves actually participants in a rent party.

The best performances in this negro street scene, this almost totally black picture from Harlem, were by Miss Washington, a hinty belle; Inez Clough, the religious, tragedy-bitten mother; Richard Landers, the West Indian student lover; Frank Badham, Billy Andrews and Ernest R. Whitman, who as Kid Vamp made the second act probable and possible. His slow-paced, threatening, moody tempo, slashed across by occasional fire, was superior, and down-to-the-brieks, if that phrase is used correctly.

The skill of Mr. Rapp, plus the knowledge of Mr. Thurman, the negro

writer whose "The Blackbird the Berry" is the most talked about of the colored novels, have conspired to make "Harlem" great dramatic entertainment. It is not flawless, but you will like it and take it home with you to think over.

If a thing is perfect they of Harlem say it is "forty"; if it is very nice, very good, but just misses perfection, they slyly call it "38 and 2." "Harlem," the play is easily 38 and 2.

Earnestly, as earnestly as I know, I urge you to go to the Apollo and see "Harlem." Your next trip through Seventh avenue will mean more to you.

Feb 21. 1924 -ny morning Telegrams

## "Harlem"

Play in three acts by William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman staged by Chester Erskine; produced by Edward A. Blatt at the Apollo Theatre; February 20th, with the following cast:

Arabella Williams, Edna Wise Barr; George Williams, Clarence Taylor; Mazie Williams, Elise Thomas; Ma Williams, Inez Clough; Pa Williams, Lew Payton; Cordelia Williams, Isabel Washington; Basil Venerable, Richard Landers; Jasper Williams, Emory S. Richardson; Effie, Lillian Fairley; Jimmie, Hemsley Winfield; Thaddeus Jenkins, Collington Hayes; Ippy Jones, Hillis Walters; Mary Lou, Carmen Marshall; Roy Crowe, Billy Andrews; Briggs, Frank Badham; Will, A. B. Walker; Hot-Stuff Man, Bud Allen; Kid Vamp, Ernest R. Whitman; Dr. Voodo, F. Barclay Trigg; Detective Sergeant Palmer, Arthur Hughes; Officer Sam, Nat Cash; Janitress, Ardelle Dabney; Janitress' Daughter, Malvina Dabney.

THE "Broadway" of the Black Belt, "Harlem," was sounded at the Apollo Theatre before an audience of fast-beating pulses and palpitating hearts. We say "sounded" advisedly, because without any particular plot provocations, shots were fired liberally, and first one and then another negro was carried off dead.

The authors, William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman, the latter a negro poet, give a vivid, slightly too vivid picture of un morality existing in the section of New York which has come into prominence since the printing of "Nigger Heaven." However, we feel that it would scarcely be fair to our dark neighbors to believe that this is a daily occurrence or that all the facts are mirrors of episodes of life in Harlem. According to the authors, when a negro family from Virginia moves to Harlem, it is forced to delve into muck, no matter how respectable its history has been. The father has to arrange "rent parties"—lascivious, loose larks at which the young folks drink, dance the "belly hug," drag their partners into the bed chambers and then dump themselves back into the heap of swaying, sensual carnality. The daughter, immediately on her arrival in New York City, becomes a "chippy" and rejects her fiance to live with a gambler-gangster. But the mother bemoans her sad fate, closing one eye and raising one hand to God. One of the hijackers kills the gambler-lover. Momentary suspicion is thrust upon "Basil," the fiancé, who had followed the chippy, "Cordelia," to the apartment, in an effort to win her back and extricate her from the vile associations. The only white man in the cast of fifty negroes, the detective, kills the hijacker in a bullet battle. "Cordelia" runs off with a song plugger to take on where Josephine Baker left off. "Ma Williams" suffers the anguish of a religious woman, and we infer that "Basil" marries "Cordelia's" sister, a home girl.

The best performances were given by Isabell Washington, whose characterization of "Cor-

delia" seemed too perfect; that of "Pa Williams" by Lew Payton and "Ma Williams" by Inez Clough. The gangsters' roles were also well played.
And as we left the theatre we couldn't help saying: "What's all the shooting for?"

7

or the

moy 1929

THEATRE ARTS MONTHLY

she is angry. There is nothing else like her on Broadway. The rest of the acting ranged from the impressive competence of that huge figure, Ernest Whitman (playing the arch villain) down to several unskillful and wooden performances. There were some bits of able direction, and Arthur Hughes—the only white member of the cast—was good as a detective. If there were more plays like *Harlem*, with its Negro theme and its Negro cast, this effort would perhaps not seem at once so much more exciting and disquieting than the usual run of melodramas.

Lewis Beach's *Merry Andrew*, which starts as a kindly, good-humored character sketch, sinks into improbability and loses itself in the twists of plot and sub-plot. An excellent idea, if not altogether new: a small town druggist, tired of never enjoying life or having any time to himself, sells his shop, retires, immediately becomes an empty-handed, tyrannical nuisance to his entire family, and buys the store back again in order to regain his physical and moral health. Walter Connolly, an able and versatile character actor, did much to bring the part to life, particularly in the second act, but his struggle against Mr. Beach's tiresome insistence and unplausibility was bound to be unsuccessful. Mr. Beach has always had a good eye and ear for small town people, but he worries his theme like a terrier and always hits every nail fifteen times to be sure that it sinks in.

Fulton Oursler also started off well with an excellent idea in *All the King's Men*, but he too spoiled it with more drama and involution than either we or the reality of the story could endure. The first act, with a good deal of humor and natural feeling, shows the effect of a dead wife's shadow on the widower's contemplated second marriage. Acts II and III, instead of developing a human story, try to chin themselves on elaborate twists of plot, and by the end, when the atmosphere is supposedly tense and charged, we no longer believe any of it. Grant Mitchell, an excellent comedian, struggled with the probabilities, just as Mr. Connolly struggled with *Merry Andrew*, and with less success. Both Mr. Beach and Mr. Oursler have ability. It is a pity to see them bow before the superstition that a play is no good if it does not have a complicated plot. They should learn that

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10

LAND OF SECOND BEST

out, and served rather more as necessary autobiography than as illu-
mination of the secret places of the heart. I wonder how Dynamo's
mixture of crudity, shrewd story-telling, unconscious caricature and
obscure bunk would have been greeted had it not worn the O'Neill
label.

If Dynamo was a disappointment, no real consolation was brought
to us this month by any other American playwright. Harlem, by
William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman, is good straight
melodrama, shot through with realism. Wallace Thurman is a Negro
who knows his Harlem, I should say from the depths of my own
ignorance, extremely well. The play combines a good crook and
murder story with glimpses of Negro life done with fearless crudity.
Compared with the much more romantic and probably idealized
Porgy, Harlem is unabashed and rather ugly slumming, which leaves
one with an impression of having seen the real thing faithfully trans-
lated. In the first act we see a cheap flat inhabited by a large Negro
family lately removed from the South, preparing for a "rent-party."
A "rent-party" is a favorite means of raising last-minute cash for the
Harlem landlord. On Saturday night the tenants hire a pianist, send
out for booze, supply plenty of food, and charge admission to all who
care to come and drink and eat and dance until the rent, or more than
the rent, has been paid in. Harlem shows us such a rent-party in full
swing. It is a grisly but also a fascinating sight. Most parties on the
stage are drearily concocted and artificial affairs, but this stage full
of abandoned, squirming, erotic dancers, the noise of whose fun was
only reluctantly stilled to make way for the progress of the plot, was
a curiously electric moment.

Another characteristic feature of Harlem life provides the starting
point for the melodrama—the gambling game of “numbers”, the bet-
ting on certain digits of the New York clearing house figures. In a
quarrel between two of the higher-ups of this racket, one of them is
shot. A girl is involved, the wild, man-loving daughter of the family,
a recklessly cynical and pleasure-seeking type, played by Isabell
Washington with astonishing naturalism and abandon. She has a
great hoarse yawp of a voice which blows you out of your seat when

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132

OPPORTUNITY

APRIL, 1929

# IF THIS BE PURITANISM

By THEOPHILUS LEWIS

“Harlem” a Melodrama by William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman.

THE basis of every play is the struggle of some determined man or woman to remove the barriers that stand between him or her and happiness. This is the fundamental principle of drama and it presumes strength and aggressiveness of character. Weak and passive people do not struggle to overcome circumstances; they submit to them. If follows that character is the vital element of drama and in the appraisal of any specific play the logical starting point is a study of the spiritual types involved in its action.

"Harlem," a spirited melodrama by William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman, introduces an innovation in the treatment of Negro character on the American stage, and if it turns out to be a box office success its influence on the trend of Negro drama will be of far greater significance than its intrinsic merit as a play. Before the production of "Harlem," all the so-called Negro plays, except "The Emperor Jones" and "Lulu Belle," show that their authors went to exceptional pains to discover unusual and quaint types for dramatic representation. Their quest has not been for authentic Negro character but for "colorful" types. It is true that only selected types are suitable for dramatic treatment; but they should be selected for their virility, not for their oddity. Because the white playwrights who have produced what there is of Negro drama have persistently reversed the principle of dramatic selection, choosing characters for quaintness instead of for strength, they have created a body of drama which consists almost wholly of the rogueries and imbecilities of a horde of Bardolpha, Calibans, Shallows and grave diggers.

Unless this willful selection of picaresque types for dramatic portrayal is checked it will result in a two-fold evil. Dramatic types are far more vivid than human types. The world knows Hamlet, as George Brandes pointed out better than it knows any actual Dane that ever lived. If the picturesque vagabond is continually presented on the stage the world will quickly gain the impression, and later the conviction, that he represents normal Negro character which, being capricious and irresponsible, should be tolerated or even pampered but never invested with a position of importance or authority.

The dramatized rogue exerts an even more pernicious influence on Negro playwrights. Young artists, except those possessing actual genius, inevitably choose established artists as their models. Already Paul Green, an obvious third rater, is the patron saint of a cult of young Negro writers whose plays of frustration, submission and sorrow teem with happy-go-lucky banjo players and conjure women. The danger is that these eccentric forms of character may become established as traditions and when the original Negro artist appears he will have to spend in breaking down these traditions the energy he ought to use in creative work.

"Harlem," because it emphasizes "I will" character instead of the gypsy type of Negro, is a wholesome swing toward dramatic normalcy. Its characters are not abnormal people presented in an appealing light but everyday people exaggerated and pointed up for the purposes of melodrama. This is a sound orthodox theatrical practice, and if "Harlem" proves to be as profitable as it is entertaining other playwrights will be encouraged to adopt its methods with the result that Negro drama will be changed from an aberrant to a normal form.

That the character portrayed in "Harlem" is superior to the types pictured in any preceding Negro play becomes obvious the moment we compare Roy Crowe with Abraham McCranie or Kid Vamp with Black Boy. What is of more importance to the Negro sociologist as well as the dramatist is the higher type of women presented in "Harlem." For example compare Cordelia with Bess, the most vividly portrayed female character in "Porgy." In Bess we have the woman who wants to be good but who is unable to follow her better impulses because, like a filly when her blood runs warm, she cannot resist the advances of any virile male who wants to possess her. In Cordelia we have a purposeful woman who is determined to have her way regardless of the havoc that follows in her wake. She is not a victim of men; men are her victims. She is an immoral woman while Bess, strictly speaking, is unmoral. Bess, to state the matter in concrete terms, is first cousin to a boar's bride while Cordelia, Lady Macbeth and Hedda Gabbler are sisters under the skin.

As a specimen of theatrical craftsmanship, aside from its portrayal of character, "Harlem" is a well made play which shows very few flaws of construction. The authors had to strain a bit to make the second act long enough but they met the problem in a way that does not result in any conspicuous sagging of suspense. The background and atmosphere are genuine and are so logically interwoven with the plot that only one character is a superfluous loose end. That character is the goofer dust man whose sole function is to pad out the second act.

Taking the relative inexperience of the cast into account, the acting is surprisingly good. Inez Clough and Arthur Hughes, the one white member of the cast, top the others with a facility which is doubtless the result of experience. They are followed in effectiveness by Lew Peyton and Ernest Whitman while Edna Barr, Billy Andrews and Malvina Dabney earn honorable mention. Isabel Washington, as Cordelia, is quite convincing and all the minor parts are in capable hands.

By JOHN ANDERSON

John Anderson.

Then the show goes back to the rent party again (since they must have had a long lease) and presently spills over with detectives, shooting, and a general how-do-do, all of which makes a lively and colorful picture of New York's eclipse district.

The two dance scenes are dusky orgies, a couple of shades darker and lower than the "Prancing Niggers" of Ronald Firkbank and Carl Van Vechten. It was all lustily forthright in its doings, so frank and abandoned, indeed, that you forgot at times it was a show and wondered why some one didn't write a play about it all. Something, perhaps, not so revolting as "Harlem" is in spots.

For as a play it does stand down several notches below its material; does fall back, now and then, upon a wiggle instead of an idea. But it is all thrown together with such zestful humor and such shameless vulgarity, that you finally take it upon its own gaudy terms and laugh at

They play it all over the lot, until it becomes sultry and even a little oppressive, but always vigorous and exuberantly alive. They shout out round smacking lines with the ingenuous effrontery of players who don't know how good they are, and make it in consequence a bright, swamped-romp between the box office and Fourteenth Amendment, if that is the one.

Alive and
Colorful

Natural
Instinct

Edward A. Blatt

takes this means of sincerely thanking the press and public for the generous tributes and appreciation accorded his first production.

# 'HARLEM'

A THRILLING PLAY OF
NEW YORK'S BLACK BELT

by Wm. J. Rapp and Wallace Thurman

"'Harlem' will hold its own on the liveliness and novelty of its color and as melodrama."

—Arthur Ruhl, Herald Tribune.

"There is more genuinely good acting in it than I have run across in any one play this season."

—Bide Dudley, Eze. World.

"The finest play since 'Porgy'... 'Harlem' packs a series of wallops and abundance of compelling moments and so much first rate play acting that it belongs high on the current stage menu."

—Walter Winchell, Eze. Graphic.

"'Harlem' a knockout. A glamorous, fast and colorful entertainment."

—Robt. Coleman. Mirror.

"'Harlem' was to me continuously fascinating as a spectacle and as a play."

—Richard Lockridge, The Sun.

"Not for some time have the natural processes become so firmly entangled in the warp and woof of the dramatic art."

—J. Brooks Atkinson, N. Y. Times.

"Something worth going to see and worth thinking about afterward."

—Robt. Littell, Eze. Post.

"I enjoyed 'Harlem.' I enjoyed it very much indeed."

—Robt. Garland, Eze. Telegram

# APOLLO THEATRE
HOLIDAY MAT. TODAY at 2:40

42d ST. W.
OF B'WAY.

REGULAR MATS, TOMORROW AND WEDNESDAY

## "Harlem"

By Bide Dudley

SOME of the best drama available in the Broadway District just now in "Harlem," the play of Negro life in New York's Black Belt, which Edward A. Blatt presented last night at the Apollo Theatre.

At the same time there is more genuinely good acting in it than have run across in one play this season. Naturalness is the foundation of all real acting nowadays and the players in "Harlem," all colored but one, have it. They act what they know—by not acting it, simply living it. And since William Jourdan Rapp and Wallace Thurman, the authors, know their Harlem it is no wonder their play is downright entertainment.

Now and then last night several of the cast showed undue enthusiasm. Among these was Isabell Washington, as Cordelia Williams, the bad girl. Miss Washington is a happy selection for the role, but she should pipe down a bit. Also, I'd like to whisper to Mr. Blatt that he doesn't need the exaggerated dancing displayed at the apartment party. It is anything but lovely and it offers the one chance for failure the play has, if you know what I mean. I have an idea its elimination will be suggested by others before long.

The story of "Harlem" revolves around Cordelia, a "high yaller hot mamma" who has lover after lover. There is one man who earnestly cares for her. He is a West Indian Negro whom the others call a monkey chaser.

There is a gin party given, as Cordelia's father as a means of collecting rent money; there is the elopement of Cordelia with Roy, a runner for the lottery that thrives uptown, and there is a murder with a solution worked out in an interesting manner. There is no use telling any more. I'd suggest my readers go and see the show.

While, as I said, all the acting is good, that of Ernest R. Whitman, as

Kid Vamp, the boss gambler, stands out most prominently. Inez Clough, Lew Payton, Richard Landers and Elizabeth Thomas are other colored members of the cast who do more than well. The one white actor is Arthur Hughes, who plays a detective in much the same excellent style in which Tommy Jackson acted the sleuth in "Broadway." "Harlem" is Mr. Blatt's first production. Whether you know anything about the Black Belt or not, this play will hold your interest. And, if you like the quintessential humor of the Negro you'll find it doubly a treat.

HOW RECEIVED

With enthusiasm.