Monday, Jan. 29, 1940
Miracle in L A.
The U. S. cinemetropolis, Los Angeles, is one of the worst theatre towns in the country. Stars like Katharine Cornell play there to half-empty houses; a smash hit is almost as rare as one in Vatican City. But this month Los Angeles acquired one--a homemade intimate revue called Meet the People.
A sort of West Coast Pins and Needles, Meet the People was put together after dark by dog-tired volunteer screenwriters, songwriters, actors, gay young hopefuls. In order to open, it had to pass the hat, drew coins from Marc Connelly, Groucho Marx, others. Opening unheralded in a tiny Hollywood playhouse with a small cast and cheap sets, it proved an instantaneous wow.
Mildly left-wing in tone, Meet the People is unpretentious, topical, gay, with clever lyrics and catchy tunes. It kids Hollywood, dictators, John Nance Garner, tune thieves, the South :
It's the same old South;
It's a regular children's Heaven,
Where they don't start to work till
they're seven.
It's the same old South . . .
With their old-fashioned get-togethers.
Colonel, pass me the tar & feathers.
It praises Director Frank Capra, true love, the common man:
He's not the kind of guy the papers
extol,
But he's a, power in the Gallup Poll. . . .*
High point of the show comes at the end of a sentimental ditty, as the curtain is dreamily falling. Suddenly out of the wings bolts tall, dark Virginia O'Brien, rips the mawkish tune to pieces in a terrific burst of red-hot swing.
* Printed by permission of the copyright owners.
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