Apathy

A Sorry Season--High Rents-- Tawdriness The blare of trumpets with which the new theatrical season opened six weeks ago still echoes about the country, but the echoes along Broadway are ominously hollow. The season so far is a failure.

The two productions that have been pronounced permanent by the standards of public avidity for admission are both musical, Poppy and Artists and Models. The former is popular because it is highly diverting; the latter because it contains the most lavish display of feminine anatomy the American stage has ever known.

Virtually the entire list of dramatic ventures is watered stock. Thin, rapid-fire comedies are numerous. Maundering melodramas rear their ghastly heads in several houses that were built for better things. The theatrical self-respect of the metropolis is mainly maintained by the substantial successes that were lodged in town last Winter.

Two exceptions are In Love with Love and Children of the Moon. The former is a perfectly played trifle; the latter, a study in tragic intensity. Neither is receiving the patronage it merits.

Not only are the plays on exhibition valueless material, but they are comparatively scarce. The production rate this Autumn reaches its lowest point for several years. The managers seem unwilling to play their hands to the full value. Most of the things they show are cheaply thrown together.

Cheapness of effort among the impresarios has been met with charcteristic indifference by the American audience. People prefer to sit at home rather than troop to tepid entertainment.

The reasons for tawdriness are twofold. The rental of theatres is villainously high. The majority of the houses are controlled by a small group of managers who lease "unreasonably." (A certain independent production, which is about to fail, pays $4,000 weekly for the use of its theatre.)

The second reason is the fear of strike. The actors threaten to close virtually every house in town next June if the managers do not concede certain demands of the Actors' Equity Association. The managers are hesitant to poke their heads into a tightening noose; a highly expensive production will begin to make real money by the time the actors remove their grease paint and start fighting. Both sides protest the fight must leave one of them dead upon Times Square.

Meanwhile the public suffers at the cinema. W. R.