Federal Flier

Second in pretentiousness only to its wholesale production of It Can't Happen Here (TIME, Nov. 9) was a 27-scene musical show which the Federal Theatre Project presented in Chicago last week. Titled 0 Say Can You Sing?, FTP's "musical comedy revue" had been more than four months in the making. To stage, costume, write, score, act and direct it, the Government had hired at $23.50 per person per week some 250 untried, unemployed or unfit stage folk from the Chicago area. Result was a three-hour performance which did not differ in quality from most previous amateur or Federal drama. When it was good it was very good, when it was bad it was awful.

Central figure in the show is the U. S. "Secretary of Entertainment" in an unnamed President's Cabinet. Impersonated by old Joe Whitehead, one of Madison Street's great grey-derby-&-checked-veit comics 30 years ago, this character is a veteran ham determined to spend lots of government money on actors in spite of the "Secretary of the Budget," Al Smith, the Liberty League and an unrealistically tight-fisted committee of U. S. Senators. Very much on the awful, side of O Say Can You Sing? are some of the unbelievably corn-fed wisecracks which Librettists Sid Kuller and Ray Golden expect Comedian Whitehead to put across. Inviting a "fine feathered frenzy" to "cut himself a piece of throat and make himself at home," Whitehead observes that "only God can make a trio."

Once the audience has overcome its inclination to wince whenever Comedian Whitehead opens his mouth, O Say Can You Sing? has some genuinely entertaining moments. Most professional episode is a ballet called "Renaissance," ably danced by talented and personable Grace & Kurt Graff. A little chocolate drop named Baby Marie Brown steals the first act finale, Grandma's Goin' to Town, by singing and dancing disguised as a midget mammy. The ingenue role is performed by Grace Herbert, a good-looking local night club entertainer, who delivers some of Composer Phil Charig's imperative tunes, among the best of which is the production's theme song:

0 say, can yon sing--dance--or act? If you can, it's a well established fact That Uncle Sam will take you in-- Break you in-- Make you in--to Anything you could desire. Uncle Sammy wants to hire-- Actors with dramatic fire-- Singers who to fame aspire-- Dancers who can kick--but higher. Uncle Sam will take a flier-- Which is why we all inquire-- "Say Can You Sing--Dance--or Act?"

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