special humanitarian deeds of such workers in social service, but also
informs the pleased audience how the money spent by the public in such
channels helps the unhappy without betraying confidences and without
boastful stories in the newspapers.
—Floyd B. Scott in _The Magazine of Vaudeville_,
April 21, 1929.
A THEATRICAL VENTURE
For some years American theatrical managers have defended their choice of
programs by pleading that they must give the public what it wants. Their
critics have replied that the managers have signally failed to understand
the public taste. They have backed up this assertion by pointing to the
astonishing growth in recent years of the Little Theatre movement.
The amateur theatre is to-day not only holding its own against the
professional stage—it has actually begun to invade it. For evidence of
this one has only to cite the one-act play, “The Undercurrent,” by Fay
Ehlert, which heads the bill this week at the Orpheum Theatre.
“The Undercurrent,” it may be recalled, was this year’s prize-winning
play of the Chicago Little Theatre tournament....
Arrangements were made under which the original cast should tour with
“The Undercurrent” during the summer recess. No attempt was to be made
to professionalize the production. All its fine amateur quality with its
refreshing freedom from conventionalized forms was to be retained....
What the venture may mean to the cause of good drama can be easily
foreseen. It will enlarge the scope and value of the Little Theatre
movement everywhere, and encourage the writing and presenting of more
and better dramatic sketches. It will cultivate and improve the public
taste and re-create public interest in the drama. And it will bring some
fine new blood into the acting profession.
—Editorial in _The Winnipeg Tribune_,
Friday, August 24, 1928.
R-K-O WATCHING LITTLE THEATRE MOVEMENT
President Brown of Radio-Keith-Orpheum Sends Scouts to Review and Secure
Best Playlet
Hiram S. Brown, president of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit,
in order to encourage and acquire good short plays, dramatic sketches
and worthy one-act playlets, has advised local representatives to review
the tournaments and independent reproductions of the Little Theatre
movements, throughout the country. The immediate and continued success
of “The Undercurrent,” the prize-winner of the Chicago Little Theatre
tournament—now touring the R-K-O Circuit, has been so marked that Mr.
Brown and George A. Godfrey, chief of the booking department, have
determined to continue a plan of “prospecting” and developing other
products of the Little Theatre.
“The Undercurrent,” after months of brilliant success, starting in
the R-K-O houses of Chicago, came East to further emphasize the fact
that vaudeville patrons are eager for this sort of innovation in their
favorite form of amusement. It played Keith’s Palace a short while ago,
and at the B. F. Keith Memorial Theatre, Boston, last week, this short
play became an immediate success with the Boston vaudeville public.
A leading editorial (not a dramatic review) in the Boston Post says of it:
“It is neither sensational nor flamboyant, but a burning human drama,
twenty minutes of thrilling suspense with a touching climax. There is
real hope for the legitimate drama when a vaudeville house makes a play
like this one a feature on the bill.”
The original cast of “The Undercurrent” was made up of talented amateurs,
but its merits were obvious and proved to be exactly to the tastes and
preferences of every Vaudeville audience which has witnessed it.
Radio-Keith-Orpheum now is “hot on the trail” of more dramatic one-acters
of like quality.
—_The Magazine of Vaudeville_, Palace Theatre,
New York City, March 31, 1929.
IN A VAUDEVILLE PROGRAM
One doesn’t expect to find a sermon in a vaudeville program. Yet one of
the most powerful sermons ever presented in Cheyenne was a feature of
the program of the Lincoln theater Thursday evening. It was Fay Ehlert’s
playlette, “The Undercurrent.” Too bad that every parent in Cheyenne
could not have seen that tabloid drama. To have done so would have been
wholesome for some, perhaps for many. The observation may be validly
applied in virtually every community of more than a few families.
“The Undercurrent” is repulsive. It is brutal. It rasps the
sensibilities. It emphasizes excrutiatingly the significance of the
phrase “the truth hurts.” The hurting, however, the repulsiveness, the
brutality, are wholesome in effect.
The little drama, the whole course of which is run in less time than is
required for presentation of one act of an ordinary play, deals with
a self-centered parent’s inability to understand that conceptions of
parental responsibility and authority which were forced on him in his
youth are incongruous and impossible in another environment and another
period. The effects of his blind wrath, which he regards as righteous,
make the observer shudder.
The little play’s worth lies in that there is in many, many homes, some
taint of the immorally “moral” atmosphere which blighted the home which
the drama depicts. Generally, happily, this taint is slight, but it is,
nevertheless, a thing that may have dreadful consequences. To have the
fact called to attention is good for the soul.
Mrs. Ehlert’s little masterpiece undoubtedly has sweetened the atmosphere
of many a home.
—Editorial in _Wyoming State Tribune_,
October 26, 1928.
HOPE FOR THE THEATRE
The work which the “Little Theatres” of the country are doing can best
be judged by the prize-winning play of the Chicago Little Theatre
Tournament, which is on the bill at Keith’s Memorial Theatre this
week. This play, “The Undercurrent,” written by Fay Ehlert, has had a
remarkable success.
It is neither sensational nor flamboyant, but a burning human drama, 20
minutes of thrilling suspense with a touching climax. There is a real
hope for the legitimate drama when a vaudeville house makes a play like
this one a feature of the bill.
—Editorial in _The Boston Post_,
Monday, March 25, 1929.
WHAT ONE WOMAN DID
When Mrs. Fay Ehlert brought “The Undercurrent” to Broadway a few weeks
ago, she proved that she had the courage of her convictions. So also did
the bookers—for playlets had not been in such good standing in major
vaudeville. In fact, there had been evinced a general disinclination to
book playlets of any kind, with special reference, of course, to those of
a serious nature. However, the critics upon reviewing “The Undercurrent”
during its run at the New York Palace were so enthusiastic that there
no longer was any doubt as to the way in which this particular play in
little was regarded by the critical fraternity and by those who do not
always agree with it—that is, our theatregoers. The bookers also showed
what they thought of the whole proceeding by freely routing the playlet
into the larger houses of the East.
What particularly interested dramatic authors, however, was the fact
that “The Undercurrent” brought back, in some degree at least, the vogue
of the playlet, although, of course in the final analysis, the quality
of the dramalets presented by other writers must be the deciding element
in the decision as to the future of the playlet in vaudeville. At any
rate, the clever Mrs. Ehlert must be given credit for having written a
serious, one might almost say, sombre playlet so filled with the various
essentials of living and with characterizations so skillfully and
effectively drawn that she has turned the eyes of the critical in the
direction of a form of entertainment which had so long been unhonored and
unsung, and which seems at last to be coming into its own again. In other
words, it does not really seem to be a question of whether the public
wants serious playlets but of whether other scripts can be found that
contain the elements of humanity and the struggle against the fates as
shown so effectively and sympathetically in “The Undercurrent.”
Fay Ehlert may be regarded somewhat as a female Christopher Columbus, who
has charted new seas and sailed into port with colors flying.
—Editorial in _The Vaudeville News and New York Star_,
March 16, 1929.
“THE UNDERCURRENT”
Thousands who saw and heard “The Undercurrent” at the Orpheum last week
were given an unforgettable lesson. Thousands more might hear it to
better advantage as time goes along and the country and society generally
would be better for it. In brief, a tyrannical father brow-beating wife
and children with rules of conduct even down to terrorism over the most
trivial incidents, substituted fear for love in the hearts in the home
circle. “Bring up a child in the way he should go” was his axiom which he
enforced with the big stick. The result was what might be expected where
the sublime note of the Nazarene, “Love one another,” was forgotten. A
social worker checking up a wayward child uncovered the misery of wife
and children and rescued the girl.
We don’t know how far such rigidity in loveless homes extends. It does
not seem possible that father or mother could exert such tyranny. But
there is no question that the attitude which this sketch so powerfully
portrays is a serious factor in the making of society as it is to-day.
Suppression by force creates the situation that leads to an explosion
with disastrous results. This was the case not many years ago with the
Romanoff dynasty of Russia; it is the inevitable result in the nation,
the state and in the home. We do not doubt that dregs in the social scale
too often result from blind, unintelligent, inhuman tyranny in the home.
The Teacher of Nazareth certainly reminded the world of that when he said
of the commandments, “The greatest of these is love.”
—Editorial in _Evening World Herald_,
Omaha, Neb., November 12, 1928.
THE AMATEUR ARRIVES
At what stage in its development the tribe began to seek means of
collectively expressing itself must be left to the author of the “Golden
Bough” to determine. Rudyard Kipling, however, having made some slight
study of the organization of the Solutreans, arrived at the conclusion
that the modes adopted about the time the glacial ice began to retreat
from France and Great Britain were numerous and altogether sound. “There
are nine-and-sixty ways of composing tribal lays, and every single one of
them is right,” he observes.
To-day the tribe still has its lays, but it calls them one-act plays by
amateurs. They are just as authentic as the lays of the Solutreans, but
the professional producer labors under the obsession that, whether there
are sixty-nine ways, or more, or less, of writing them, every single
one of them is wrong from the standpoint of the regular theatre. The
professional producer has a formula the substance of which is that a
play, to succeed, must be written to what is understood to be the order
of the audience. Certain things that will “get across” must be put into
it; certain others must be carefully excluded. So audiences listen year
after year to standardized productions, interspersed at rare intervals by
the works of the few men of genius who are strong enough to make their
own rules....
The amateur, therefore, is driven to the Little Theatre and this at
once effectually damns him in the eyes of professional producer and
professional critic alike. As a famous Chicago critic wrote, nothing that
is any good can come out of the Little Theatre, and it rather increases
its handicap if a playlet wins a prize in a Little Theatre contest.
The impossible, however, has happened. A Little Theatre play has not only
won acceptance on the Orpheum Circuit but has become the head-liner. The
play is “The Undercurrent,” and it is astonishingly outside the limits
of the formula mentioned above. The author, Mrs. Fay Ehlert, owes her
first chance to enter the field in competition with the “regulars” to the
chairman of the circuit....
He was willing to try anything once, so he had it put on at a Sunday
matinée in Chicago, before the hardest possible audience. It was not
even set down on the bill for that first try-out. It was not only at the
disadvantage of being the curtain-raiser, but it was acted by amateurs,
students and professors of the Northwestern University, who, unaccustomed
to the auditorium, spoke in tones too low. Furthermore, it was a “sad”
play. In short, every element was present that seemed from the beginning
to preclude success....
But it succeeded as only one play in years succeeds. The hard-faced men
who attend Sunday afternoon performances in Chicago sat silent for a
moment when the curtain fell and then broke into tremendous applause,
giving the first of the series of repeated curtain-calls that was to mark
the subsequent progress of “The Undercurrent” on the Orpheum Circuit.
Localized as the action is in a city of the United States, and limited in
time almost to the moment, the playlet, nevertheless, contains elements
of universality that have made it as acceptable in Canada as across the
border. It was presented for the first time in Vancouver on Monday at
the Orpheum and is on the bill for the rest of the week.
Criticism of the play as a play appears in another column of The Morning
Star. Suffice it to say here, that whatever its strictly dramatic value,
it demonstrates that the tribal lay is rightly written when it is so
written as to tell the tribal story, and without any design of effecting
specific reactions among its auditors.
In other words, if the play, whether a one-act playlet or a drama
in three acts, truly interprets the tragedy and comedy of life, the
reactions will take care of themselves, the climaxes will come in their
natural places, and instead of a machine-made production, trim and neat,
a living thing will appear which its very excresences and awkwardnesses
will only make more vital.
“The Undercurrent” will not be the last Little Theatre play to be billed
along with “sister acts” and song-and-dance features. The tribe is likely
to hear its own lays hereafter in the middle of the clearing.
—Editorial in _The Morning Star_,
Vancouver, B. C., September 4, 1928.
IGNORANT MAKE VIRTUE A CRIME
It is seldom that a vaudeville audience, or for that matter any other
audience, has an opportunity of seeing so perfect a piece of stagecraft
as “The Undercurrent,” which was shown last week at Nixon’s Grand Opera
House on the R-K-O circuit.
The one-act play presented a vivid picture of life, the characters being
a brutal janitor and his brow-beaten wife, their son and daughter, a
mischievous neighbor and a social worker.
The playlet showed many things. It showed how, in the hands of the
ignorant, virtue is transformed into a cruel crime. Pa Fishyer has a code
of good conduct which he instills into his family with blows and paternal
tyranny. The family is spiritually sick, and they fear and hate him. The
playlet is another evidence of growing self-consciousness and a return
visit would be more than welcome.
—Editorial in _Philadelphia Daily News_,
March 18, 1929.
MRS. FAY EHLERT
To-day, at 1 P.M., in Beury Auditorium, the author of “The Undercurrent,”
a one-act play, will address Temple University students under the
auspices of the Templayers.
It is interesting to note that “The Undercurrent,” which Mrs. Fay Ehlert
submitted to the Little Theatre tournament in Chicago, won the Edith
Rockefeller McCormick cup, the first prize. What is even more interesting
and should arouse the investigation by students is that this playlet is
regarded by many critics as the greatest one-act production ever written.
Temple students should avail themselves of this rare opportunity to
meet or listen to Mrs. Ehlert. There is no doubt that she will have a
message to give to her audience, especially that group interested in
contemporaneous dramatics. Occasions like this help to round up the
education of college students for they bring to the college speakers who
are in actual contact with authorities in the work-a-day practical world.
—Editorial in _Temple University News_,
Philadelphia, Pa., March 8, 1929.
The thanks of a public extending far beyond the comparatively narrow
limits of vaudeville most assuredly will be heaped on President Hiram
S. Brown of R-K-O for his recent declaration in favor of stretching the
major circuit’s policy in regard to the one-act play....
Often, in fact much too often, the former administrations of the big time
have promised solemnly that they will boost the one-act play.... It has
almost reached the point, however, where the cry of “Wolf” has been given
too often. Yet, with the undisputed success of Fay Ehlert’s classic of a
one-acter, _The Undercurrent_, ringing in our ears, we can conceive of
the big time being really in earnest now to boost sketch material as it
has never been boosted before. After all, _The Undercurrent_ is making
money for R-K-O, and it is creating good will. Every movement needs its
leader. The dramatic sketch in vaudeville has one in Mrs. Ehlert and her
knockout of a sketch.
Bringing the one-acter back to its old place in the vaudeville realm
will mean more to vaudeville (as vaudeville and not as an impersonal link
in a monopolistic chain) than any single factor we can think of at this
writing. The sketch fills a place that cannot be usurped by flash and
acrobatic acts and “whoopee” units. One can’t get away from the fact that
there has been something vitally lacking in vaudeville these last several
seasons while the sketch has been wearing the weeds as a grass widow,
divorced from its rightful mate, vaudeville.
We like and heartily applaud Hi Brown’s publicized determination to boost
the one-acter. He can stop our little show any day in the week by proving
to us and all the others interested that he means what he says.
—Editorial in _The Billboard_,
April 13, 1929.
THE THEATRE’S POWER
One of the splendid examples of the excellent work by the “Little
Theatres” of this country is to be staged in Albany next week in Fay
Ehlert’s “The Undercurrent,” booked for the Grand.
In these days of “whoopee” shows, canned music and celuloid thrillers
it is refreshing to find, of all places, in a vaudeville bill a burning
human drama that drives home a moral lesson, vividly and concisely and
makes one feel that the theatre is actually a force in the development
of American character.
There is a real hope for the legitimate drama when a vaudeville house
makes a play like this one a feature of its bill.
—Editorial in _The Albany Citizen_,
April 5, 1929.
THE UNDERCURRENT
Ugyancsak nyitott szemmel kell a világban járni annak, aki a minden
szépitgetés nélküli reális életet akarja a szinpadra vinni a maga
kegyetlen, hideg és kiméletlen valóságában. A körülöttük mozgó zavaros
athmoszféra minden furcsaságát és szertelenségét legkevésbé azok
érzékelik, kik szenvedő alanyai az élet kisebb-nagyobb tragikumának.
Más légkörben élő és tisztultabb erkölcsi érzékkel rendelkező egyének
képesek csak megérteni azokat a szenvedéseket és belőlük levonható
tanulságokat, mik az emberi erények és gyengeségek összeütközéséből
keletkeznek.
A mindennapi élet soha meg nem szűnő apró tragikumait szinpadra csak
lehet vinni, ha azok a megszólalásig hüvisszatükröződései az életnek.
Máskülönben unalmas, szintelen és erőtlen a darab, mert apró drámák — kis
szenzációk.
A nyomort, sőtétséget és emberi szenvedést megkapóbban Maxim Gorkijnál
senki sem tudta szinpadra vinni. Azonban Gorkij egy férfi volt, kinek
irányát követni csak férfiak merészelték, mert alacsonyabb lelki életet
élők világának tanulmányozására a gyengébb nem idegrendszere nem volt
berendezve.
Azonban a modern nő lépést tart a férfiakkal és nem riad vissza olyan
problémák fejtegetésétől, mikre a tegnap nője még borzalommal gondolt
volna. Egy ilyen uttörő, modern nő Fay Ehlert, ki “Undercurrent” cimü
egy felvonásos drámájában merész kézzel, de érző szivvel tár elénk egy
mindennapi életképet, melynek milliőjét Gorkij sem választhatta volna
meg reálisabban. Ez az izigvérig modern nő megtalálja még a legsötétebb
környezetben is a jót és nemeset, az egyszerü külső alatt is finoman
érzékeny szivet, s a határtalan anyai szeretetnek és aggodalomnak
egyszerü keresetlen szavakban annyi melegseggel képes kifejezést adni,
hogy a közönség átérzi, sőt átéli a szeme előtt lejátszódó kis tragédia
minden fájdalmát.
—Editorial in _Philadelphia I Függetlenség—Independence_,
March 15, 1929.
“THE UNDERCURRENT”
Fay Ehlerts packende Skizze aus dem Leben. Zugstück in Keith’s Palace
Theater.
Wer in ein Vaudeville-Theater geht, weiß meistens schon im voraus,
was er zu sehen bekommt. Manchmal wird man aber überrascht, angenehm
überrascht, wie diese Woche im Keith’s Palace Theater. Tanz und
Gesang rauschen an uns vorüber, auf einmal, plötzlich und unerwartet,
steht man mitten im Leben, draußen auf der Straße der Großstadt, oder
in der “Basement”-Küche eines Hausverwalters, des “Janitors” eines
amerikanischen Wohnhauses. Die Vorgänge in der Familie versetzen uns
in die rauhe Wirklichkeit. Der Vater glaubt seinen Erziehungspflichten
zu genügen, wenn er seine zwei Kinder, Annie und Emil, recht streng
behandelt, zu sklavischen Gehorsam erzieht, so wie man es “vordem” mit
ihm gemacht hat. Er erreicht aber gerade das Gegenteil. Die Mutter
erzittert in Furcht vor ihm, und die Kinder schlagen den falschen Weg
ein. Wir lesen so viel über Kindererziehung und modernes Familienleben,
hier ist ein-aktiges Drama, “The Undercurrent” von Fay Ehlert, das jeder
Vater und jede Mutter sich ansehen sollte.
Dem wahren Leber entnommen, packt das Stück mit unwiderstehlicher
Gewalt und gibt jedem, den Vätern, Müttern, getreuen Nachbarn und
desgleichen, eine gute Lehre mit auf den Weg. Kein Wunder, daß das Haus
nach der Vorstellung in Beifallsstürme ausbrach und der Vorhang sich
achtmal hob und senkte, die Zuschauer im Theater sitzen blieben, um
das Stück ein zweites Mal zu sehen, während inzwischen draußen auf der
Straße die Schaulustigen in langen Reihen standen und ungeduldig auf
Einlaß warteten. Eine wunderbare Skizze, von Fay Ehlert den Tiefen des
Menschenherzens abgelauscht!
Die Verfasserin hat das Stück selbst in Szene gesetzt und sich auch
hierbei als Künstlerin erwiesen. Gespielt wurde von den Vertretern der
verschiedenen Rollen mit staunenswerter Echtheit. Da muß zuerst Harriet
Allyn erwähnt werden, die in der Rolle der Mutter eigentlich einen
Charakter schuf, der im Theaterleben bis jetzt nur sehr selten zu
finden war, eine von Angst und Fürsorge für die Kinder und unterwürfigem
Gehorsam gegen den Mann zermürbte Frau.
Die Unterströmung, die das ganze Stück durchzieht, ist das Wesen des
Vaters. Er hat die gute Absicht, seine Kinder ordentlich zu erziehen.
Manchmal fühlt man Mitleid mit dem Mann, der in seiner Unkenntnis der
menschlichen Psyche den Bogen allzustraff spannt. Wir könnten uns
keinen besseren Vertreter für die Rolle denken als Curt Benisch. Seine
verhaltene Wut, seine zurückgedämmte Kraft, das Bewußtsein, daß er
unbedingt recht handelt nach seinen Begriffen, das alles wußte Curt
Benisch in großem Künstlertum zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Die Zuschauer
saßen in nervöser Spannung, daß sein Temperament unerwartet auch über sie
hereinbrechen möchte.
Fast ohne ein Wort zu sprechen, zeichnete Charles White den Sohn; in
Kostüm und Ausdruck durchaus lebenswahr wird die Tochter Annïe von Gladys
Pfeffer gespielt; die schwatzhafte, klatschsüchtige Nachbarin und das
versöhnende Element, die Wohlfahrtsdame, finden in Florence Thompson und
Ethel Swift geeignete Vertreter. Alles in allem: ein glänzendes Stück,
brillant inszeniert und ganz hervorragend gespielt. Hut ab!
—_Wächter und Anzeiger_,
Cleveland, Ohio, December 12, 1928.
PRZEDSTAWIENIE SŁAWNEJ AUTORKI