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Title: The undercurrent
A one act play
Author: Fay Ehlert
Contributor: John Pollock
Release date: June 12, 2026 [eBook #78852]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Samuel French, 1928
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78852
Credits: Mairi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNDERCURRENT ***
THE UNDERCURRENT
[Illustration: FAY EHLERT]
THE UNDERCURRENT
_A One Act Play_
BY
FAY EHLERT
PREFACE BY
JOHN POLLOCK
[Illustration]
SAMUEL FRENCH
Thos. R. Edwards Managing Director
NEW YORK LOS ANGELES
SAMUEL FRENCH LTD. LONDON
1929
_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_
Copyright 1928 by The Drama Magazine
First Revision copyright 1929 by Fay Ehlert
International copyright 1929 by Fay Ehlert
_CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that “THE
UNDERCURRENT,” being fully protected under the copyright laws of the
United States of America, the British Empire, including the Dominion of
Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union, is subject to a
royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion pictures,
recitation, public reading, radio broadcasting, and the rights of
translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. In its present
form this play is dedicated to the reading public only. All inquiries,
regarding this play should be addressed to Samuel French, 25 West 45th
Street, New York, N. Y. Available for amateurs in restricted territory
only. Royalty will be quoted for those cities or towns where it may be
presented by amateurs upon application to Samuel French._
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS,
INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y.
_Dedicated in appreciation_
TO
MORT SINGER
BEN J. PIAZZA
THROUGH WHOM “THE UNDERCURRENT”
FOUND ITS WAY TO THE PROFESSIONAL
STAGE
FOREWORD
“The Undercurrent” is a page from life’s drama. From the very
beginning—in the days when I haunted the Morals Court, the Domestic
Relation Court and the Psychopathic Laboratory, I have always been drawn
to our countless Annies, beaten, swept along, vague about everything in
life—even their destination. And never have I found it in my heart to
blame them for their plight. Sometimes people have said to me: “But Mrs.
Ehlert, you can’t tell me that this girl doesn’t realize she is doing
_wrong_! She knows better than to—” And I have always pleaded: “Please
don’t say a word against her, please don’t! Perhaps, if we were in her
shoes, we might be ten times worse than she! You never can tell by
looking at a person, what undercurrent may be sweeping her along!”
And that is how I came to write this playlet. I took a typical Annie, one
that you can find on any street, and thought: “Now, why is she a little
street walker? What has been the cause? What may be the undercurrent in
_her_ life? What has brought her into the court?”
I didn’t want to preach or teach a lesson. I simply wished to bring _real
life_ before audiences; something vital to make them think; to make them
more sympathetic in their judgments of others, whether they were “Annies”
or “Pa Fishyers.” And the results of my experiment have touched me deeply.
Since our first performance, never have we failed to grip our audiences,
to tug at their heartstrings. And these audiences have come from all
walks of life, from the highest to the lowest; from women’s clubs, social
agencies, churches, charitable organizations, Little Theatres, courts,
banks, stores and factories. Not a week passes but we are conscious of
the effect our playlet is having upon the lives of others. From the
scraggly bouquet of flowers sent over the footlights in Los Angeles with
those laboriously scrawled lines: “From one whats got a husband like
that” to the ring which a well-groomed Brooklyn woman insisted upon
giving me with tears in her eyes, a little silver ring which she had worn
on a black velvet ribbon ever since her granddaughter’s death.
And our audiences have not been the only ones to receive us with
outstretched hands! Coming into a new world, strange and foreign to us,
I don’t know what we should have done had not hundreds of hands reached
out to help us along. And these friendly gestures came from the members
of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Circuit, from the theatre managers and their
staffs, and from the professional players on the bills with us. I wish
to thank them again and again for the personal interest they took in our
playlet and their unselfish efforts in our behalf.
It would be impossible for me to mention every individual and institution
who graciously helped me launch my playlet on its career, but I would
feel very ungrateful were I not to name: Frank Harris, Theodore B.
Hinckley, John Vandervoort Sloan, C. J. Bulliet, James Gray, Frank
Moneyhun, Fritz Blocki, Katherine Graham, Dr. George Scherger, Mary
A. Blood, Edith S. Lueders, Mrs. John B. Boddie, Alice C. D. Riley,
Ethel Rogers Swift, Bertha E. Burrill, Helen Sanford, C. Russell Small,
May Kronan, Jennie Swanson, Caroline Cooper, the Columbia College of
Expression, the University of Chicago, The Town and Gown Playshop of
Northwestern University, the Evanston Woman’s Club and the Drama League
of Chicago.
As for my untiring cast, their devotion and loyalty to “The Undercurrent”
has become almost a by-word in the theatrical world. What would I have
done without their assistance? My “six starlets”—God bless them!
And finally, I wish to thank those who in a great measure are responsible
for the success of “The Undercurrent,” the press in America and Canada,
and the theatrical publications, The Billboard, Inside Facts, The
National Vaudeville News, Variety, Zit’s, and last but not least Samuel
French, who is publishing “The Undercurrent.”
PREFACE
The one-act play became a theatrical outcast. The waif roamed from
door to door but no one bid the poor thing enter. Since the very
beginning when Voltaire wrote and played short pieces for the Princes of
France—pieces of that nature have encountered innumerable difficulties.
They were always appendages of some sort or other. The going was
particularly hard in America, until vaudeville and the Little Theatre
provided a home for the tabloid play. Then the short dramatic works of
eminent authors came into their own. Such writers as Barrie and Synge
and Dunsany and Zangwell gave as much to the one-act play as they did to
their longer efforts or novels. But the supply did not equal the demand.
Everybody began to write one-act plays and soon they had deteriorated to
the extent that there was no public for them.
The Little Theatre, having outgrown its babyhood, considered short plays
beneath their dignity. Vaudeville discarded them almost entirely. The
waif of the theatre became a wanderer, but just as the wanderer was
about to curl up in some dark corner and expire, “The Undercurrent” put
in an appearance.
For the first time in years, an author had taken the one-act play
seriously, attempted to write a piece of dramatic literature that as
far as technique was concerned and drama was concerned, was as complete
and as much an entirety as the play intended for a full evening’s
entertainment.
“The Undercurrent” was not the work of an established author. Writers of
that ilk had been weaned away from the short play and would have nothing
to do with it. Schools and colleges of course were paying considerable
attention to the one-act play, but as the kindergarten of playwriting.
The very first step in the course and to be abandoned just as the
alphabet and spelling book make way for more advanced studies.
When Mrs. Fay Ehlert announced that the one-act play to her mind deserved
serious consideration, she was laughed at, but Mrs. Ehlert is not the
kind of a woman who may be laughed at with impunity. She not only stuck
to her guns, but determined to prove the accuracy of her marksmanship.
“The Undercurrent” was the result. Writing a short play that treated a
serious thought seriously; one that transposed a slice of actual life to
paper and the stage in an interesting, virile and vital manner, was the
least of her difficulties. Having written such an opus her real troubles
began.
“The Undercurrent” found no ready and waiting “welcome on any mat.” It
went from one door to another, only to find no latch string hanging out.
Mrs. Ehlert was schooled in diplomacy. She is the wife of a Chilean
Consul. Patience therefore was one of her many assets. She waited but
worked as she waited; and finally succeeded in having “The Undercurrent”
entered in the Chicago Little Theatre Tournament of 1928. The rest is a
matter of history. “The Undercurrent” won first award. Seldom, if ever
before, has a one-act play been in such great demand. And this is as
it should be, for certainly not since the short play bowed out of the
dramatic picture, no one has written a better, more interesting, or more
entertaining playlet than this one.
Vaudeville, always quick to take advantage of opportunity, swept down
on “The Undercurrent” like an eagle with the result that the longest
consecutive tour ever arranged for any act went to this one of the
“untouchables.”
Little Theatres and the innumerable societies who produced plays for
social and educational purposes, insisted that they be allowed to present
“The Undercurrent.”
Mrs. Ehlert, both because of her ability as a writer and her belief in
the fact that drama is drama, regardless of its length, has done a big
thing not only for herself but for the theatres in general. She has
rekindled an interest in the short play. She has reestablished a public
for the short play. She has demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt
that even a miscellaneous audience appreciates something really worth
while. She has reopened a road that will undoubtedly be traveled by many
followers.
The one-act play has again come into its own. Because of Mrs. Ehlert
and “The Undercurrent” the serious one-act play will again command the
attention of established writers. There will again be a place for its
presentation, and what is of even greater importance, is the fact that
probably no longer will the one-act play be considered a proving ground
for better things. “The Undercurrent” has turned the tide.
JOHN POLLOCK
“The Undercurrent,” winner of The Drama League Cup at the Chicago Little
Theatre Tournament, May 1928, was presented by the Town and Gown Play
Shop of Northwestern University.
The following is the cast of “The Undercurrent” upon its first
professional appearance at the Palace Theatre, Chicago, June 24th, 1928.
PA FISHYER _C. Russell Small_
MA FISHYER _Harriet Allyn_
ANNIE, their daughter _Gladys Pfeffer_
EMIL, their son _Charles White_
MRS. FLOYD, a neighbor _Helen Sanford_
MISS PAGE, a social worker _Ethel Rogers Swift_
Time: The Present Place: New York City
DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS
_PA FISHYER, the janitor of the building, is a man of about fifty. He
speaks in curt, terse sentences, and is continually grumbling under his
breath. He is easily angered and will tolerate no opinion but his own. An
honest man, but one who dominates his family through fear._
_MA FISHYER is a ground-down, care-worn woman of perhaps forty-five years
of age. She moves quickly and bustles around constantly, as though to
hide her nervous fears. She is ever alert to protect her children from
her husband’s harsh and relentless methods._
_EMIL is her childish son. Tall, gawky, docile and unobtrusive, he moves
with a certain machine-like submission. Twenty-five may be his age._
_ANNIE, about seventeen, is her mother’s greatest “worry,” a bit of human
“driftwood.”_
_MRS. FLOYD is a sharp-tongued, meddlesome neighbor_.
_MISS PAGE, capable, sympathetic, and firmly believing that “to
understand all, means to forgive all,” is an investigator for the Morals
Court._
THE UNDERCURRENT
THE UNDERCURRENT
SCENE: _In the basement kitchen which also does duty as living and
dining room in an old-fashioned New York apartment building. An air
of orderliness pervades the room, which is furnished with the meager
belongings of the Fishyer family. Shabby, faded curtains hang limply on
each side of the small iron-barred window to the left of the room. The
galvanized sink is in the back, flanked on the right by the kitchen range
and on the left by an old cupboard. A coat rack has been nailed to the
side of this cupboard. Over the sink is a shelf, holding the alarm clock,
comb and brush and shaving mug. The kitchen table covered with a red
table cloth occupies almost the exact center of the room. Upon the table
are four plates, knives, forks, cups and saucers, half a loaf of rye
bread, a glass jar filled with teaspoons, and a partly filled bottle of
milk. There are four chairs around the table._
_To the left of this table and near the front of the room stands a
dilapidated horse-hair sofa. Directly vis-a-vis from this sofa at the
Lower Right is a Morris chair which through long usage has sagged and
remolded itself to PA FISHYER’S two-hundred odd pounds. The door at the
Right leads into a short corridor through which the FISHYER’S must pass
in order to reach the bedrooms, boiler room, store-room, back stairs,
etc. A small table, ladened with pipes, tobacco jar and the Bible is to
Right of this door, and the wall phone to the Left. A clothesline with
its motley array of rags has been fastened to the hook above the phone
and then stretched diagonally across the stove to the shelf above the
sink. As this room is below the street level, it is necessary to mount
the short flight of stairs Upper Left in order to reach the areaway door
Upper Left._
_It is evening, about 5 minutes of six, and a light snow is falling.
The feet of the passers-by can be seen through the dimly frosted window
panes._
_MA FISHYER is peering through the window. Her whole attitude is one of
terrible anxiety and she turns with a half sob of relief as she hears the
areaway door open stealthily._
MA FISHYER
[_Under her breath._] A-annie?
MRS. FLOYD
[_Stalking down the stairs._] Hello, there!
MA FISHYER
[_Swallowing her disappointment._] Ach, it’s yuh, Mis’ Floyd! I—I thought
yuh vas ... [_She turns back to the window again_] ... s-somebody else!
MRS. FLOYD
[_Maliciously._] Didya now! [_Eyes ANNIE’S place at table._] Who fer
instance?
MA FISHYER
Ach, eferybody alvays comes to de jeniter for something ... maybe Mis’
Richards about de g-garbage pails....
MRS. FLOYD
... or mebbe even Annie, huh?
MA FISHYER
[_Unaware of the other’s curt smile._] Shure, it’s Thursday to-day ...
and she alvays comes....
MRS. FLOYD
Is that so? Well, ya never kin tell! [_Shakes fist at door Right._] Huh,
I got some news to spill in yer ear! [_Seats herself in PA FISHYER’S
chair, Right of table._]
MA FISHYER
Ach, not—not now! [_Still peering out of window._] Pa’ll be here right
avay and by six he vants to eat. Not a minute efter six vill he vait....
[_She looks at the clock._]
MRS. FLOYD
[_Leaning over._] It’s about someone ya know!
MA FISHYER
... and ef Annie ain’t here on time.... [_She turns startled as MRS.
FLOYD’S last words reach her._] ... A-about somevun vat I know ... vat I
k-know?
MRS. FLOYD
[_Venting her spite._] I’ll tell de world ya do!
MA FISHYER
It ain’t nothin’ bad?
MRS. FLOYD
Bad? Well! [_She glares at the door Right._] I imagine some people what
thinks _my_ son ain’t good company fer their daughter—certainly are going
to have a fit to-night! [_With compressed lips._] I’ll say _he_ is! Yes,
siree!
MA FISHYER
[_Coming slowly towards her._] It ain’t ’bout Annie?
MRS. FLOYD
Nuthin’ else but!
MA FISHYER
[_Moans._] Ach! [_Goes fearfully towards door Right and, half opening it,
listens intently._]
MRS. FLOYD
My son may be a little wild, but he ain’t never been _arrested_ yet.
MA FISHYER
Arrest.... [_She darts forward and puts her hand over MRS. FLOYD’S
mouth._] Shhhh!
MRS. FLOYD
[_Sputtering._] Say....
MA FISHYER
[_She glances terror-stricken to door._] Pleese to go now—he-he’s comin’,
h-he’s c-comin’!
MRS. FLOYD
What of it? I ain’t skeered of him.
MA FISHYER
P-pleese, not now! [_Desperately._] Not now—come efter vile ... pleese
... [_Tugs at her dress._]
MRS. FLOYD
[_Rising._] All right! I’ll go! [_Shakes her off._] But stop pushing!
I’m going! [_Hobbles up the stairs and slams door. Before MA FISHYER can
breathe her relief, she opens the door again._] But I’ll be back later!
MA FISHYER
Yess, yess, l-later....
[_Scarcely has the door closed after MRS. FLOYD when PA FISHYER
enters wearily from door Right._]
FISHYER
[_Throwing his denim jacket over Morris chair._] Huh! [_He strides over
to the sink and begins washing himself._] Huh! Supper ready?
MA FISHYER
[_At the table._] A-almost....
FISHYER
[_He growls._] Almost? Don’tcha know yess or no? [_He pushes up his
spectacles and glares at the clock._] Vere’s Annie? It’s nearly six
already!
MA FISHYER
De c-clock iss a l-little f-fest.... [_Walks nervously to window._]
FISHYER
Fest? Dat clock iss _alvays_ right, yuh hear me? Alvays right!
MA FISHYER
Yess, P-pa!
FISHYER
[_His wrath increasing._] Vell, vere iss she?
MA FISHYER
[_Busies herself at stove._] Na, Pa, she’ll be h-here eny minute soon!
Yuh know, h-how de l-lady k-keeps her! [_She glances at the door through
which MRS. FLOYD has left._] And m-maybe—in dis b-bed veather, she kent
come at all!
FISHYER
Vat! [_Drying his hands._]
MA FISHYER
I—I mean—efen in _good_ veather, only vunce a veek does she haff a day
off.
FISHYER
Dat’ll do! [_Throws towel on sink._] Ve vait ’til six ... [_Takes
Bible from table and seats himself in Morris chair._] ... and den ve
eat! [_Groans as he rubs his rheumatic left arm. EMIL enters from door
Right._] Na, Dummy, vat did she vant? [_Points upward._]
EMIL
[_Timidly._] She fergot her key and....
FISHYER
... and yuh hed to open de door for her! [_He growls._] Vy don’t yuh say
dat right avay? [_He begins reading the Bible, following each word with
his finger._]
MA FISHYER
Come, Emil ... [_She nods warningly in Fishyer’s direction._] ... and
vash yerself.
FISHYER
[_He reads laboriously._] “Train op a child in de vay he should go
... [_Glares at EMIL and then repeats._] ... de vay he _should_ go!
[_Reads._] ... and ven he iss old ... [_Repeats to himself._] ... old ...
he vill not depart from it....”
[_There is a knock at the outer door Left and MA FISHYER stands
transfixed, her face ashen. EMIL, his hands half-washed, looks
inquiringly at his father._]
FISHYER
Na, open de door!
EMIL
[_Hurriedly wiping his hands on his trousers, he mounts the steps and
opens the door._] Whatcha want?
MISS PAGE
Good evening! Does Annie Fishyer live here?
EMIL
Yeh ... [_He shuffles back to the sink._] ... come on in!
MISS PAGE
[_Descending the stairs._] Thank you. I wasn’t quite sure. [_Kindly to MA
FISHYER._] You must be Annie’s mother and....
FISHYER
I em Karl Fishyer!
MISS PAGE
Ah, yes, Annie’s father. [_She smiles her quick warm smile._] I don’t
think you know me. I am Miss Page, a special investigator from the Morals
Court!
MA FISHYER
[_Tremulously to FISHYER._] De lady, Pa, de l-lady vat Annie v-vorks
f-for....
FISHYER
So?
MISS PAGE
[_Surprised._] Works for me?
MA FISHYER
[_Hurriedly._] Pleese to come and sit down, Mis’, here on de sofa! [_She
deftly dusts the sofa with a swish of her apron and then steps back and
looks at MISS PAGE apprehensively._]
MISS PAGE
I think you are mistaking me.... [_She stops as she sees MA FISHYER’S
drawn face._]
MA FISHYER
[_Indicating the sofa._] P-pleese, Mis’....
[_PA FISHYER meanwhile replaces the Bible on the table. MISS
PAGE sits down without another word._]
MA FISHYER
[_Quickly._] Annie a-ain’t home yet, b-but....
MISS PAGE
[_Puzzled._] Isn’t home yet? Are you expecting her?
FISHYER
Huh? [_He turns towards them._] Shure—I expect her to come!
MA FISHYER
Y-yess, she always c-c-comes here on her day off—Pa means!
MISS PAGE
[_Probing gently._] Her day off?
MA FISHYER
Maybe she n-nefer tells yuh, b-but she alvays c-c-comes here Thursdays.
[_She wets her lips._] D-don’t she, Pa?
FISHYER
[_Grudgingly_] Huh! [_To MISS PAGE._] Since she’s vid yuh, Mis’, yess!
MA FISHYER
[_She talks to MISS PAGE, but her eyes are anxiously on FISHYER._] And
efery cent vat she earns by yuh, she brings to her Pa!
MISS PAGE
She—does what? [_Drawing off her gloves._]
MA FISHYER
E-efery cent she brings to her Pa! She iss a fine girl....
FISHYER
[_Cutting her short._] Vat’s dot to brag ofer?
MISS PAGE
[_Soothingly._] _Well_, I’m sure Annie is....
MA FISHYER
[_Eagerly._] Yuh hear, Pa? Efen Mis’ Page sez vat a fine Annie ve got.
FISHYER
Huh, she’s purty goot _now_! But before she vent mit yuh, Mis’ ... [_He
clenches his fist in wrath._] ... I—her fadder—didn’t know vhere she vas
for three months efen.... [_MISS PAGE suppresses a start._]
MA FISHYER
[_Imploringly._] But Pa, yuh know _now_ vere she vas! [_To MISS PAGE._]
H-he m-means de time ven she v-vas by yuh in ... [_She swallows hard._]
... de _country_.
[_MISS PAGE conceals her astonishment._]
FISHYER
Efen ef she vas....
MA FISHYER
... and how vell she looked ven....
FISHYER
... she come home agen! [_He paces angrily back and forth._] I hear dot a
million times already, too!
MA FISHYER
But P-pa....
FISHYER
All I say iss—dot’s no vay to treat yur fadder! And efter de strict
bringing op I giff de children, dey must remember—alvays—dat I em dere
fadder! _I em de boss here!_ [_To EMIL crouching against the wall._] Yuh
hear me?
MA FISHYER
[_Imploringly._] Pa, pleese, Pa.
FISHYER
[_Glaring at the clock._] It’s six; ve eat now! [_He seats himself at
table Right and begins slicing bread, motions EMIL to his seat, EMIL sits
facing the audience._]
MISS PAGE
[_She has been watching them attentively._] Yes, don’t let me interrupt
you!
FISHYER
I alvays eat at six! [_Turns towards stove._] Vere iss dot girl? [_MA
comes to table with platter of stew which she places quickly before
him._] Vat time yuh let her come to-day, Mis’...?
[_Before she can answer, steps are heard and ANNIE enters
hurriedly from the areaway door._]
FISHYER
Dere she iss! [_Points at her with knife._]
ANNIE
[_Breathlessly._] Oh, Pa, I couldn’t ... I couldn’t help it, I wuz....
[_She sees EMIL’S finger surreptitiously signaling MISS PAGE’S presence.
She gives MISS PAGE a terror-stricken look, then shrinks back against the
wall for support._]
ANNIE
[_Gasps_] Oh!
MA FISHYER
[_She goes towards her quickly and holding her tight against her breast,
speaks so as to give her time to recover._] Ach, no vunder she iss
surprised to see her lady here!
ANNIE
[_Clinging to her._] Ma!
MISS PAGE
[_Slowly, with great significance._] I had an errand to do in this
neighborhood, Annie, and as I passed this house, I stopped in ... [_Sees
MA FISHYER’S pleading look._] ... to ... to get acquainted with your
parents!
FISHYER
And ve are gled to know yuh also. [_He motions to the table._] Yuh eat
mit us?
[_EMIL pushes out ANNIE’S chair for her._]
MISS PAGE
No, thank you. If you don’t mind, I’ll just sit here.
FISHYER
Shure! Make yurself to home.
[_He bangs on the table with his knife._] Ma, ve eat now!
[_ANNIE hangs her coat and hat on coat rack._]
FISHYER
[_Motioning to ANNIE._] Sit down! [_ANNIE slips into her chair, facing
her father. MA FISHYER brings coffee pot to table._]
MISS PAGE
[_Observing EMIL with interest._] I didn’t know Annie had a brother.
MA FISHYER
[_Hurriedly, before FISHYER can answer._] Ach, yess, and sotch a good
boy! He helps his Pa take care off de house.
FISHYER
[_Grudgingly._] Huh!
MA FISHYER
[_Dishing out the food to EMIL and ANNIE._] And some day, he’ll be a
jeniter, too! And like our coffee man sez: “Jeniter vork iss nuthin’ to
sneeze at!” So vat vid Pa’s rheumatism, ve are gled to haff Emil help so
nice!
FISHYER
Emil—bahhh! [_EMIL crouches behind his mother’s arm._]
MA FISHYER
And yuh haff no idea, Mis’, how mutch vork dere iss here to do! [_Pours
coffee._] So vid our Emil....
[_FISHYER laughs derisively._]
MISS PAGE
[_Soothingly._] Yes, you must be kept very busy, Mr. Fishyer!
FISHYER
Bizzy? Yuh don’t know it, Mis’, how crazy ... [_He points upward with his
knife._] ... dose vomens get me! First, vun comes and sez de vater iss
too hot—dat efery time she turns it on—she a Turkish bath gets! Den....
[_The phone rings._] Yuh see, not efen peace on a meal I got.... [_Pushes
back his chair._]
MA FISHYER
Vait, Pa, I go! [_She hurries to phone._] Hollo! Yess, Mis’ Richards,
yess, he _iss_ by de boiler ... [_PA FISHYER motions for EMIL to go
out._] ... puttin’ more coal on! Yess, mam! [_She turns from phone just
in time to see EMIL’S scowling gesture at his father’s back._] Emil!
[_Grabs his cap in frantic haste._] Yur cap ... [_Pushes him towards door
Right._] ... quick!
[_PA FISHYER, unaware of what is passing in back of his chair,
pounds the table emphatically, with his fist._
_With a terrified look, EMIL rushes out, letting MA FISHYER
close the door behind him._]
FISHYER
[_He raises his head stubbornly._] I tell yuh, dat voman could by de
devil sit and yet be cold!
MA FISHYER
Yess, yess, Pa! But ve are gled to haff dis job! And vat ... mit our Emil
and Annie helpin’ so nice....
FISHYER
Helpin’! Bahhhh!
MA FISHYER
Ach, Mis’ Page, efery night I thank de good Gott for my Annie....
ANNIE
[_She turns quickly and gives her MOTHER a beseeching glance._] Ma ...
oh, M-ma.... [_Her coffee cup falls from her nerveless hand, spilling its
contents on her dress._]
FISHYER
Huh!
ANNIE
Pa ... P-pa ... it slipped! I—I’ll change my dress! [_She rushes out door
Right._]
FISHYER
[_Looks after her._] Huh!
[_Accuses MA FISHYER while he dips his bread in his coffee._] Fine
manners, she got!
[_Phone rings again._]
MA FISHYER
[_Running to phone._] Yess, yess, Mis’ Richards! [_Into receiver._]
Hollo.... Yess, Mis’ Richards, he _iss_....
FISHYER
[_Exasperated._] Oh, vat a dummy of a son, I got! [_To MA FISHYER._]
Maybe he fell in de coal bin again! [_Exits door Right rubbing his
rheumatic left arm._]
[_MA FISHYER turns from the phone, listens a moment at the door
through which PA FISHYER has gone, then quickly crosses the
room to MISS PAGE. Her whole manner has changed; she seems to
have shrunk suddenly._]
MA FISHYER
I em gled to know yuh, Mis’! [_She clasps and unclasps her hands._] And
my Annie—my Annie....
MISS PAGE
[_Gently._] Sit down, Mrs. Fishyer!
MA FISHYER
[_She sinks down in Annie’s chair at the left of the table._] She—she iss
mit y-yuh?
MISS PAGE
[_Compassionately._] In a way—yes.
MA FISHYER
In a vay?
MISS PAGE
Yes, I am interested in her welfare and am looking after her.
MA FISHYER
[_Scarcely audible._] S-she don’t live m-mit yuh?
MISS PAGE
Not exactly....
MA FISHYER
Ach, don’t tell dis to Pa! [_In despair._] Pleese, pleese, don’t tell him
enyding vat iss agenst her!
MISS PAGE
[_Leaning forward._] I don’t understand.
MA FISHYER
If—if he knows eferyding [_Swallowing with difficulty._] ... h-he kills
her!
MISS PAGE
[_Gently._] Do _you_ know everything about her?
MA FISHYER
[_Terrified._] No, no, don’t tell me! Pleese not to tell me! I don’t vant
to know!
MISS PAGE
Not even when you may be able to help her?
MA FISHYER
[_Shaking her head._] All I kin do ... [_Motioning to the boiler room._]
... iss to keep him from findin’ out d-dings about her! [_She looks her
full in the face._] I don’t vant to know enyding agenst my Annie!
MISS PAGE
[_Puzzled._] But if you remain in ignorance—how can you be of assistance?
MA FISHYER
[_Tremulously._] I kin help her only by—knowin’ nodding.
MISS PAGE
What do you mean? You as her mother should be anxious to know.
MA FISHYER
Yess, yuh haff right! But yuh don’t know Pa! [_She whispers._] He alvays
suspicions eferybody! Me—Emil—Annie! He dinks I hide from him someding
about de children! [_She pauses._] And den—it best iss I don’t know
dings. [_Slowly._] Ven yuh don’t know dings, he kent be scoldin’ yuh all
de time!
MISS PAGE
[_Aghast._] But—why should he?
MA FISHYER
[_Bitterly._] Ach, vy! Vy should he? [_She passes her hand across her
eyes._] Vat kin yuh do mit a man vat hass in his head only _vun idea_!
MISS PAGE
One idea?
MA FISHYER
Vun idea! [_Brokenly._] Dot all children should be brought op
_strict_—mit mutch scoldin’ and vhippin’.
MISS PAGE
[_Indignantly._] But can’t you convince him that such harsh methods....
MA FISHYER
[_Sobs._] I k-kin do nodding mit him—no vun kin! [_She beats her clenched
fist against her forehead._] He hass dot vun idea in his head and ...
[_She stares frantically at the door through which MRS. FLOYD has gone._]
... h-he must n-nefer find out!
MISS PAGE
Find out what? [_As MA FISHYER rocks back and forth weeping._] Don’t be
afraid. Tell me.
MA FISHYER
[_Tearfully._] Pleese, Mis’ Page, don’t let him find out dings a-agenst
A-Annie! [_Weeps._] P-p-pleese, pleese see I go on m-my knees t-to yuh!
[_Sinks down at MISS PAGE’S knees._] Pleese ... p-p-pleese!
MISS PAGE
[_Her eyes filled with tears._] Don’t cry, don’t! [_She places her arm
around her shaking shoulders._] Why didn’t you come to see me?
MA FISHYER
[_Weeping as she grasps MISS PAGE’S hands in agony._] Ach, I vanted to
c-come so m-meny t-times and esk yuh ... take c-care off Annie! L-look
efter her ... b-but I vas afraid!
MISS PAGE
Afraid?
MA FISHYER
Yess, because ... m-maybe....
MISS PAGE
[_She looks with sudden understanding towards ANNIE’S chair._] ... there
_was_ no Miss Page?
MA FISHYER
Yess! But n-now I seen yuh! [_She grasps her arms convulsively._] Yuh
_vill_ l-look out for her, von’t yuh? [_She wails._] It iss all I haff in
de vorld—my two c-children—all I haff. [_Sinks weeping bitterly against
MISS PAGE._]
[_EMIL’S whimpering cry is heard from the boiler room._]
EMIL
M-ma! Oh, Ma!
MA FISHYER
[_She starts up._] It’s Emil! Yuh vill oxcuse me? [_Wearily._] I gotta
go—he forgot agen to open de valve maybe! [_She grabs her shawl from the
coat rack._] And Pa mit hiss rheumatism kent reach op....
[_MISS PAGE rises._]
FISHYER
[_Angrily from the boiler room._] Ma! Yuh hear me?
MA FISHYER
Yess, Pa! [_To MISS PAGE._] Yuh _vill_ take care off her?
FISHYER
Ma! Come here!
MA FISHYER
[_She chokes back the tears as she opens the door to the boiler room._]
Yess, Pa, I em c-comin’! [_She whispers back to MISS PAGE._] And pleese,
alvays to remember—Pa should know nodding agenst her. [_She backs out
murmuring._] No-nodding ... n-nodding.
[_MISS PAGE dries her own tears and looks about the room with
distaste. Then she goes resolutely to the door Right and opens
it._]
MISS PAGE
[_Calling softly._] Annie! Annie! [_Motions._] Come out here! [_MISS PAGE
walks to table._]
[_ANNIE enters and closes door softly. She listens attentively,
her face pressed against the door._]
MISS PAGE
[_Back of EMIL’S chair._] What have you been telling them?
ANNIE
[_On the defensive._] Nuthin’ much ... only that I worked for ya as a
hired girl!
MISS PAGE
Why did you do that?
ANNIE
[_Back of arm chair._] So’s to get away from here! If he thought I wuz
a dish washer in a restaurant I’d hafta live here! [_She shudders._]
Nuthin’ doin’! I had seventeen years of it!
MISS PAGE
Yes, but still this is your home.
ANNIE
Yeh! [_Tremulously._] And I know what it’s like!
MISS PAGE
Didn’t you tell anyone? [_ANNIE shakes her head._] Not even your mother?
ANNIE
[_Goes quickly towards MISS PAGE. Aghast._] And have him beat it outta
her? Whadda ya think I am?
MISS PAGE
[_Puzzled._] Why did you tell them you worked for me?
ANNIE
Well, I—I hadda give somebody’s name and yuh wuz de only one I could
think of! [_Glances quickly towards closed door Right, then pleads._]
B-before that happened last year, Miss Page, I n-nearly w-went crazy,
and when I fell over _that time_ and ya sent m-me to de home until
e-everything wuz over.... I—j-jest sorta never forgotcha!
MISS PAGE
[_Severely._] Yes, but what has that to do with all this?
ANNIE
W-well, I n-needed some sorta alibi fer stayin’ away from here ...
[_Moves slowly down stage Right._] ... s-so I—I told ’em I _worked_ for
ya and that ya wuz goin’ out to de _c-country_ and I hadda go ’long!
MISS PAGE
[_Insistent._] And what else?
ANNIE
W-well, when I got outta de _hospital_, I stuck to my story and only came
here Thursdays.
MISS PAGE
[_With a helpless gesture._] Oh, Annie, why can’t you behave yourself?
ANNIE
[_Vehemently._] I _do_, Miss Page, honest I do! [_Crosses to Lower Left
to escape MISS PAGE’S searching eyes._] B-but I can’t help it if there’s
a-always somebody s-snitchin’ on ya!
MISS PAGE
[_Reproachfully._] Snitching! But Annie....
ANNIE
[_Nervously, twisting and untwisting her belt._] I d-don’t care _what_
they say! I—I didn’t pick up with that feller on de s-street! He—h-he wuz
in de room when I g-got in last night!
MISS PAGE
[_Coming towards her, slowly._] And _how_ did he get there?
ANNIE
[_Feebly._] Oh—er—one of de girls musta let’m have de key!
MISS PAGE
[_Sadly._] Those girls! [_ANNIE shrinks further away._] Why do you live
with them? You promised me the last time, you wouldn’t have anything more
to do with Mame and Lottie!
ANNIE
[_Haltingly._] But they’se so good to me, Mis’ Page! I gotta live some
place ... it might as well be with dem....
MISS PAGE
... and get yourself constantly into trouble?
ANNIE
[_Protesting._] Oh, Mis’ Page! Ya don’t want me to live _here_, do ya?
[_Tremulously._] Gee, if it wuzn’t fer Ma I’d n-never come h-here! B-but
Ma ... [_Her whole heart is in her voice._] ... she’s m-my M-ma ...
[_Sobs._] ... s-she’s m-my M-m-ma!
MISS PAGE
[_Walks up and puts her arm around ANNIE’S shaking shoulders, holds her
tight._] What’s going to become of you, Annie?
ANNIE
[_With hopeless shrug._] I dunno—and I don’t care! [_Moves away._] Just
so long ... [_Nods to door Right._] ... as _he_ don’t ketch on!
MISS PAGE
[_Walks thoughtfully back a few steps towards door Right before
turning._] Do you know why I came here to-night?
ANNIE
N-no.
MISS PAGE
I came here to find out the kind of home you have, so when I see the
Judge ... [_ANNIE looks up startled._] ... to-morrow morning, I can tell
him a little more about you!
ANNIE
[_Whispers._] A-about me?
MISS PAGE
Yes! [_Earnestly._] I’ve always been on the square with you, haven’t I,
Annie? [_ANNIE nods._] And I want to help you all I can. _But_ you’ve
been picked up four times during the last five months for loitering on
the streets late at night! [_As ANNIE starts to appeal._] And _last_
night the _police_ raided the flat you were in!
ANNIE
[_Protesting._] But honest, Mis’ Page, I couldn’t help it! [_She looks
about her like an hunted animal._] Ya see, I wuz ... wuz ... shhh!
[_The areaway door has opened and MRS. FLOYD appears on top
stair._]
MRS. FLOYD
[_Her beady eyes glisten in anticipation as she surveys ANNIE._] Hello,
there! [_She stumps down the stairs._]
ANNIE
[_Instinctively on the defensive._] H-hello! [_Moves forward to head her
off._] Ma’s helping’ Pa!
[_MISS PAGE crosses to sofa._]
MRS. FLOYD
[_Shaking off ANNIE’S restraining hand._] Oh, is she now! [_Pulls out
EMIL’S chair._] Then I’ll wait fer her!
ANNIE
[_In desperate fear, jerks her around._] I toldja, she’s helpin’ Pa!
MRS. FLOYD
[_Flinging her against the cupboard._] Lissen, girlie, I gotcha de
_first_ time!
[_MA FISHYER enters hastily from door Right._]
ANNIE
[_Almost hysterical in her fright._] Then beat it!
MA FISHYER
Ach, Mis’ Floyd, I heard yuh close yur door! Ve—ve heff company now ...
maybe it be better ve go on to _yer_ flet....
MRS. FLOYD
Oh, this suits me, I ain’t pertic’ler! [_Seats herself in EMIL’S chair.
Watching ANNIE signalling to MISS PAGE._] Who’s her friend?
MA FISHYER
[_Nervously._] Oxcuse me, but dis iss Annie’s Mis’ Page....
MRS. FLOYD
[_In response to MISS PAGE’S nod._] Pleased to meetcha! [_ANNIE crosses
over to her MOTHER and whispers distractedly in her ear._]
MA FISHYER
Ve ain’t finished our supper yet! Maybe it’s better I come ofer and see
yuh efter vile.
MRS. FLOYD
[_Not to be budged._] After while nuthin’! What did she say?
[_PA FISHYER enters unnoticed, wiping his hands._]
MA FISHYER
[_Piteously._] Pleese, Mis’ Floyd, eny minute now ... Pa ... Pa comes....
MRS. FLOYD
[_She thumbs towards ANNIE._] Did she say she wuz arrested?
FISHYER
Arrested! [_All look up in surprise. ANNIE cowers against the sink._] Who
vas arrested?
MA FISHYER
[_At bay._] Ach, Mis’ Floyd hass just been talkin’—er—no vitch vay to me,
h’aintcha, Mis’ Floyd?
FISHYER
Na—all right! [_He thunders at his wife._] But who vas arrested?
MRS. FLOYD
Who? [_Spitefully._] Well, Mr. Fishyer, a’course, it ain’t none of _my_
business, _but_ seeing what good neighbors we been and how _pertic’ler_
ya wuz to let me know that my son is a good-fer-nuthin’ loafer—I take
great pleasure ta letcha know that one of _yer_ swell family is, wuz or
will be arrested!
FISHYER
Vat? My family vat I bring up so strict?
MRS. FLOYD
[_She cackles derisively._] Uhuh! Ain’t it the limit?
FISHYER
[_Purpling with rage._] Who iss it?
MA FISHYER
[_Clinging to his arm._] Pa, pleese, ... P-Pa....
FISHYER
[_He shakes her off._] Na, are yuh deef? Na—_who_ I say?
MRS. FLOYD
[_Vindictively._] Who else but yer Annie!
[_ANNIE becomes deathly pale and shrinks against the wall Lower
Right._]
FISHYER
[_Turns furiously._] _Vat?_
MA FISHYER
[_She thrusts herself between FISHYER and ANNIE. Frantically._] Mis’
Page, Mis’ Page....
ANNIE
[_Clasping her mother convulsively, whimpers._] M-ma!
MISS PAGE
[_Quickly._] There—there must be some mistake! Where did you hear this,
Mrs. Floyd?
MRS. FLOYD
Well ... a friend of mine went ta the Domestic Relation Court ta-day ta
see about that husband of her’n—a perfect brute....
FISHYER
[_Impatiently._] Yeh, nefer mind about de brute!
MRS. FLOYD
And so I went along, because I been readin’ a dandy story about the
Morals Court—yeh know ... [_She winks to MISS PAGE as she thumbs in
ANNIE’S direction._] ... where them girls are taken ... anda so I sez ta
myself ... sez I ...
FISHYER
[_Exasperated._] Vat?
MRS. FLOYD
That’s what I’m comin’ ta. So I sez ta myself, I’ll visit the Morals
Court and see if them fellas from the papers tells the truth! [_FISHYER
almost beside himself with frenzy._] But I stayed so long with my friend
that the Judge wuz jest closin’ fer the day. _But_ who should I see
there—but Annie!
FISHYER
[_Choking with wrath, turns wildly with up-lifted fist towards ANNIE._]
Annie, come here!
MA FISHYER
[_Holding him back._] Don’t, Pa, pleese, don’t....
FISHYER
[_Trying to loosen her hold._] Keep quiet!
MISS PAGE
[_Resolutely._] That isn’t anything at all, Mr. Fishyer!
FISHYER
[_Bellows._] Vat _more_ yuh vant, efter bringin’ up a girl so strict?
MA FISHYER
[_Screams in terror as she feels herself overpowered._] Pa, pleese,
P-pa....
FISHYER
Vill yuh keep qviet! [_Furiously to ANNIE, whimpering in terror._] First,
I giff yuh someding to remember me by ... and den out off de _house_ yuh
go!
MA FISHYER
[_Fighting to hold him back._] N-no, Pa, don’t....
FISHYER
[_Throwing her on the floor in front of table._] Get out off my vay, Ma!
[_He shouts enraged._] Annie, come here! Yuh hear me! [_He grasps her
left arm and jerks her towards him._]
ANNIE
[_Writhing in pain as he tightens his hold._] No—no! It’s—it’s a lie—a
lie....
MRS. FLOYD
[_Rising in surprise._] Huh!
ANNIE
Yes, it is! [_She glares about her with the desperation of a trapped
animal._] Yes, it is! I—I wuz ... there ... [_She points sobbingly to
MISS PAGE._] ... with her!
FISHYER
Mit her? Mis’ Page?
ANNIE
[_Trying to loosen his grip._] Yes, I wuz helpin’ her carry her books ...
[_She nods to MRS. FLOYD._] ... when she musta seen me!
[_MISS PAGE is startled at ANNIE’S lie._]
FISHYER
[_Tightening his cruel hold until she falls sobbing on her knees._] Vat
yuh mean?
ANNIE
[_The words fairly tumble from her twitching lips._] Mis’ Page works fer
de Judge—h-helps him.... And I often go to de court with h-her ... don’t
I, Mis’ Page?
[_An agonizing second. MISS PAGE gives one glance at MA
FISHYER’S prostrated form on the floor and then rises to the
occasion._]
MISS PAGE
Yes! She’s _always_ there with me!
ANNIE
[_Sobs._] And—I been there lots of times, ain’t I, Mis’ Page?
[_Quickly before MISS PAGE can reply, MA FISHYER thrusts
herself between PA FISHYER and ANNIE._]
MA FISHYER
[_Tries to separate his iron grip from ANNIE’S arm._] Yuh see, Pa? yuh
see?
FISHYER
[_To MISS PAGE, slightly mollified._] Ef she’s vid _yuh_, Mis’ ... dot’s
all right, den! [_Flings ANNIE and MA FISHYER from him. While MA FISHYER
tenderly kisses ANNIE’S arm he turns wrathfully towards MRS. FLOYD._]
_BUT!_ [_MRS. FLOYD, who seeing his intentions, scurries up the stairs._]
... Good-bye, Mis’ Floyd! [_Runs up the stairs and shouts after her._]
And next time yuh _look_ first before yuh jump! [_Crashes door after
her._]
[_MA FISHYER is holding ANNIE tightly in her arms. Both are
weeping._]
FISHYER
So! [_Comes down stairs._] Dis should be a lesson for yuh, Annie! Yuh see
now vat maybe heppens ef I don’t bring yuh up so strict! [_Shakes fist
after MRS. FLOYD._] Dat cat vat just left might be in de right!
[_EMIL re-enters and moves wonderingly towards sink._]
MA FISHYER
[_Her breath sobbing in her throat._] Y-yess, Pa, y-yess....
FISHYER
[_Sternly flinging her away from ANNIE so that she falls into EMIL’S
arms._] Let her alone, Ma! Vat kind off bringin’ up is dot? [_To MISS
PAGE._] I tell yuh, Mis’, my fadder alvays said: “Order rules de vorld,
but _man_ iss ruled vid de _vhip!_” And he vas right! [_Glares at
ANNIE._] He ruled us vid a hand off iron! [_To MISS PAGE._] And look on
me! I haf de greatest respect for my fadder! [_Gives them all a menacing
look._] And I do de same! Alvays am I strict and ven dey grow old, dey’ll
tank me for it!
[_He sits down at the table and motions EMIL to his seat again.
EMIL sidles into his chair guardedly. PA FISHYER begins his
meal, dipping his chunk of rye bread in the gravy. MISS PAGE
notices the looks of hatred darted at PA FISHYER by both ANNIE
and EMIL._]
MISS PAGE
[_Curiously._] And—did you love your father, Mr. Fishyer?
FISHYER
[_Taken aback._] Lofe? [_He stops with his coffee cup half-way._] Shure,
I lofe him ven I respect him! [_Grimly._] Huh! [_Cracking an imaginary
whip._] He’d made us dance to de muzik off de stick ef ve didn’t lofe
him! Shure.... [_He pauses._] ... Shure, de children alvays lofe ...
[_Fixes his eye on EMIL who immediately stops drinking his coffee._] ...
de fadder!
[_EMIL draws back in consternation._]
MISS PAGE
[_Seeing the futility of the situation, turns thoughtfully to the sofa
for her gloves and purse._] Well, it’s late and I must be going! [_She
pauses a second in thought, then comes to a decision._] By the way, Mr.
Fishyer, would you mind if I take Annie with me?
FISHYER
Right avay? I vanted to giff her a good talkin’ to, yet!
MISS PAGE
[_Pulling on her gloves._] I’m so sorry, but I’m leaving for the country
early in the morning....
MA FISHYER
[_Staring fixedly at MISS PAGE._] De c-country?
MISS PAGE
[_Smiling at her, very gently._] The _real_ country, Mrs. Fishyer!
FISHYER
[_He grunts, between mouthfuls._] Shure, mit yuh it’s all right! [_Over
his shoulder to ANNIE._] Put on yur tings, Annie!
[_For a moment, while his back is turned, MA FISHYER crushes
ANNIE sobbingly to her breast, kissing her again and again._]
ANNIE
[_Covering her MOTHER’S tear-stained cheeks with kisses, she whispers
brokenly._] Don’t Ma, don’t, I’ll be good! I’ll be good!
MA FISHYER
[_Sobs, clinging to her._] Annie ... [_MISS PAGE, separating the two,
holds MA FISHYER tight in her arms._] Little Annie!
MISS PAGE
[_While ANNIE gets her coat and hat from the coat rack._] Good-bye, Mrs.
Fishyer, you needn’t worry! [_Looks sternly at PA FISHYER, unconcernedly,
eating his meal._] I’ll take good care of your Annie!
[_MA FISHYER, unable to utter a word, leans over and kisses
MISS PAGE’S hand. MISS PAGE turns and mounts the stairs leading
to the areaway. As she opens the door, FISHYER looks up._]
FISHYER
Good-bye, Mis’, and ef she don’t behave herself ... [_ANNIE clings to
her. He balls his fist._] ... yuh just let me know!
MISS PAGE
[_Her arm protectingly around ANNIE, she eyes him, half sadly, half
ironically._] Yes, indeed! You’d be a _great_ help!
FISHYER
[_Nods his self-satisfaction and takes his second cupful of coffee._]
Shure!
[_The curtain descends as MA FISHYER leans heavily against
EMIL’S chair, her eyes following the two disappearing through
the doorway._]
CURTAIN
[Illustration: THE CAST OF “THE UNDERCURRENT” AT THE PALACE THEATRE, NEW
YORK CITY, JANUARY 20-26, 1929
Florence Thompson as Mrs. Floyd
Harriet Allyn as Ma Fishyer
Margaret Moore as Miss Page
Curt Benisch as Pa Fishyer
Charles J. White as Emil
Gladys Pfeffer as Annie]
[Illustration: SCENE DESIGN
‘THE UNDERCURRENT’]
[Illustration: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, OCTOBER 7-13, 1928]
[Illustration: _LOS ANGELES EXAMINER_ OCTOBER 19, 1928
THE TURNING POINT
GLADYS PFEFFER and CURT BENISCH in “The Undercurrent,” at the
Hillstreet.—(Drawing by Ellen Danar.)]
THE PRESS
THE PRESS
HOW YOUR MONEY HELPS
The varied phases of an organization like the Albany Community Chest are
services that are difficult to illustrate in any vivid way to the public
that supports the philanthropy, and much of its praise must needs go
unsung, if not unhonored.
Twenty-five per cent of the funds collected for the Chest are devoted
to extending and supporting social service that acts as a sort of human
adjuster in homes where things greatly need adjusting. The Chest can
claim a friend; one that is not directly propaganda for its work, in the
playlet, “The Undercurrent,” that is being acted at Proctor’s Grand. It
is the work of Miss Fay Ehlert of Chicago and reveals the value of a
woman social service worker in entering a squalid home where the father’s
domineering and brutalizing mind is driving his young daughter from the
home to possible disaster away from it. In fact, she is accused of theft,
and it is the understanding and sympathy of this social worker that
saves the girl. She tells a brave falsehood as to the girl’s previous
whereabouts and saves her thus from the wrath of the father. Then she
takes the girl with her to make the untruth come true in a finer and
more wholesome atmosphere for the girl.
Probably Miss Ehlert has seen some such incident in service work in
Chicago. One could find it in any city and it is this unofficial court
of domestic relations that the Albany Community Chest partially supports
in its work of helping to make better citizens or to save normally good
citizens from demoralizing trends.
“The Undercurrent” is a forceful and convincing illustration of the good
your money does when it is given to the Community Chest.
—Editorial in _The Knickerbocker Press_,
Albany, N. Y., April 9, 1929.
THE THEATRE AND SOCIAL SERVICE
In every city and town nowadays there is a social service organization,
or a group of unselfish citizens—usually women—devoted to the betterment
of home life among the poor, the ignorant and even lawless families.
It is work that requires infinite tact, patience and sympathy with the
sorrows and trials of unfortunate and unhappy families. In the great
cities the social service workers are often endowed organizations. In
small communities they depend upon the occasional and voluntary donations
of prosperous neighbors. The very confidential nature of the quiet
ministrations of the social service worker prevents the exploitation of
their achievements or the publication of their daily and nightly tasks in
detail.
Many generous givers to this priceless cause may not realize how their
money is applied, how it helps not only the poor but also misguided
families in which cruelty, domestic misunderstanding and deceit are
making for the disruption of what should be happy homes.
There is now touring the R-K-O vaudeville circuit, a one-act play called
“The Undercurrent,” which not only throws the searchlight of truth upon
the motives and deeds of the social service worker, but incidentally
illustrates how the theatre may exert a helpful influence towards the
extension and understanding of non-sectarian social service.
This little play, written by Mrs. Fay Ehlert, wife of the Chilean Consul
in Chicago, and herself a social service worker, has been one of the
popular successes of major vaudeville in every theatre where it has been
presented. It is neither propaganda nor preachment, standing bravely upon
its own feet as a tense, tender and convincing record of unhappy family
life into which a wise and womanly social service friend is able to bring
peace and a large measure of happiness. The phenomenal popular success
of this dramatic sketch should impress practical theatrical producers
that they can exercise a powerful (and profitable) hand in helping to
save normally good citizens from demoralizing trends by presenting
true and compelling plays or sketches which demonstrate with dramatic
fidelity such incidents of life and service as those depicted in “The
Undercurrent.”
Such a play, absorbing and timely in interest, not only designates the
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
W naszem mieście będziemy mieli sposobność zobaczyć po raz pierwszy
sztukę p. t. “The Undercurrent,” napisaną przez Panią Fay Ehlert, żonę
Konsula tego kraju do Chile. Sztuka ta jest napisaną na tle życia
ubogiego stróża, mieszkającego w suterynie wraz z rodziną.
Sztuka “The Undercurrent” spotkała się z wielu trudnościami i
przeszkodami, zanim dostała się na scenę. Wiadomem jest, jak nieraz
autor, bardzo utalentowany, pisze, pracuje z zaparciem siebie, wykończa
swoje dzieło w najlepszej myśli, w najlepszej wierze—i w końcu spotyka
się z zawodem, z trudnościami różnemi, zanim jego dzieło jest przyjęte
przez któregoś z dyrektorów teatralnych. Taki też los spotkał i Panią
Ehlert, która wszystkie siły swego talentu wytężała i pracowała nad
wykończeniem swej sztuki. Wiele by trzeba było poświęcić czesu, aby
opisać, jakie trudności miała Pani Ehlert, aby zwrócić uwagę któregoś z
impresarjów teatralnych na swą sztukę. Chodziła od jednego do drugiego
dyrektora i wszędzie spotykała się z odmową. Nie dała jednak za wygraną.
Wierząc mocno w gruntowną wartość swej pracy, swego dzieła—dopięła celu.
Na sztukę jej zwrócił uwagę jeden ze znawców, ocenił ją i wystawił na
scenie.
Gdy pierwszy raz sztuka była odegrana, wywołała ona wielki entuzjazm
wśród publiczności.—Wszyscy dyrektorzy, którzy przedtem odmówili,
zauważyli, że popełnili wielki błąd i z żalem przyznali, że istotnie “The
Undercurrent” jest dziełem artystycznem w swym rodzaju, którego oni nie
umieli wpierw ocenić.
Dobitnym dowodem zainteresowania się publiczności tą sztuką jest fakt,
że była ona grana od Kalifornji do New Yorku w pierwszorzędnych teatrach
około ośmset razy.
Z końcem tego tygodnia, to jest we czwartek, piątek i sobotę, sztuka ta
jest wystawiana w teatrze Gaiety.
—_Maria G. Gomolska_ in _Słowo Polskie_,
April 19, 1929.
HAIL THE PERFECT SKETCH!
Our humble genuflexions to its author, and a thousand thanks on behalf of
all interested in the furtherance of the sketch in vaudeville to R-K-O
for heaping upon it the distinction of booking it into the Palace and the
choicest of its stands thruout the country. There may be better one-act
plays, but we haven’t seen them in vaudeville yet. The time may come;
real soon, we hope, if the big-time executives can be made to see that
vaudeville sorely needs sketches with even an iota of the merit of Mrs.
Ehlert’s brain child. In trade terms she has brought forth a Christ. As
it winds its way thru the various sections of the country it will preach
its mission, and who knows but at the end of its trail word will come of
converts to the Great Cause. With “The Undercurrent” swinging along—and
there’s no reason why it should not keep up its energetic pace for a
long, long time—the case for the dramatic sketch will be kept alive. Let
the protagonists of this form of vaudeville entertainment heat their iron
while the fire is hot.
Mrs. Ehlert’s playlet is a paradox of homeliness and beauty, combining
these qualities in a homogeneous mass as it was permitted Abe Lincoln
to do. Its drabness is not cheap and sensational. It points no lucid
moral. Like those literary vignettes lately grown popular it presents to
us a moving, compelling slice of real-life action. It is left for the
spectator to draw his conclusions. Whatever they may be there are few of
normal intelligence who will not react emotionally and intellectually to
the problem presented by the plotless plot.
We are introduced to a janitor’s hovel in the basement of an apartment
building. We see the bull-headed, ignorant father going thru the routine
of an evening in what he calls home. There is the warped, beaten and
loving mother; her dull, bullied son and the wayward daughter. A
slatternly neighbor comes into the scene and thru her we are introduced
into various angles of the family’s existence. Then enters a social
worker. The human drama is on. It burns with its frankness and compels
with its character drawing. We are made to see that the father, beaten
into a senseless bully by his own progenitor, is in turn deluded into
thinking that he is successful in beating doubtless virtue into his
offspring. The girl is by nature a good girl, but her father’s bullying
has driven her into the streets, and thence into the morals court. The
janitor prides himself on the hair-trigger control he possesses over
his children, but to those less blinded by their own ego the boy hates
him worse than rat poison, and the girl is fast being pushed to ruin.
The social worker is evidently on the scene in the nick of time, this
being incidentally the only vestige of a plot in the playlet. The father
is about to learn of his daughter’s police record from the blabbering
tongue of the neighbor when the lady of the upper strata concocts an
alibi and saves the girl from a volley of welts and punches. Miss Social
Worker takes the girl away from the cesspool—for good. As they are
leaving the janitor asks that he be informed if the girl gives her future
guardian trouble. Miss Social Worker’s parting shot, “You’d be a great
help!” brings down the curtain.
We’ve said enough about the play. As for the cast, it is overwhelming
in its fitness. The bright and particular star, from our angle, is
Harriet Allyn. In her Ma Fishyer role she puts over a piece of character
portrayal that hasn’t been approached at the Palace since Lucille LaVerne
fried bacon in Sun Up. It won’t be long before the money boys nab her.
Curt Benisch, as Pa Fishyer, also gives a sensational performance. He’s
a tabloid of Gregory Ratoff—and to us that means as good as they come.
Gladys Pfeffer appeals mightily as the daughter, as does Charles White
as the son. In her brief bits Florence Thompson does a corking job of
the neighbor role. Margaret Moore was the least bit stiff in the social
worker’s part, but she’s excused on the ground that she’s a late addition
to the cast. Reception here went to six curtain calls and a show stop.
—_Elias E. Sugarman_ in _The Billboard_,
February 2, 1929.
SUPERBILL OF VAUDEVILLE ON AT THE PALACE
Despite handicaps well-nigh unsurmountable, “The Undercurrent,” a
one-act play by Fay Ehlert of Chicago, not only made good at the Palace
yesterday afternoon, but scored so decisively with the hard-boiled
initial matinee audience of experienced vaudeville-goers as to leap to a
headline position on an extraordinarily good bill—and that Palace Sunday
matinee audience is seldom stampeded by anybody. Beatrice Lillie, for
example, couldn’t get under its crust, nor Willie Collier, nor Florence
Reed, and if President Coolidge and King George should hook up as a
dancing team, they’d have to dance as well as Bill Robinson to get by.
The handicaps “The Undercurrent” faced are these:
(1) It originated in a “little theatre,” and good comes as seldom out of
the “little theatre” as out of Nazareth;
(2) it won first prize in a Chicago “little theatre” tournament, the
Edith Rockefeller McCormick cup, than which nothing would seem to spell
surer damnation;
(3) it is presented by the same group of Evanston “little theatre” actors
who played it originally, a handicap to be overcome only by a miracle.
The Orpheum circuit of experienced amusement purveyors felt all these
things so poignantly as to be constrained to offer an apology for giving
it a place on the hill—“encouragement of home talent,” “civic pride,” or
something like that.
But “The Undercurrent” came through the ordeal with flying colors—and
despite another handicap probably rectified by now, namely: the players,
used to small halls, pitched their voices so low they were nearly lost in
the vastness of the Palace auditorium.
“The Undercurrent” is a tense story of sordid tenement life—a sort of
an echo of “John Ferguson,” but not so much so as to rob Mrs. Ehlert
of the glory of an original plot. This plot has to do with a stern,
Bible-reading, iron-willed janitor who has brought up his children
in the way they should go, and whose daughter, escaping the stern
discipline of the home, becomes a street walker. The episode pictured
is the attempt of the daughter, her mother, and a social worker to keep
the God-fearing janitor from finding out what his daughter has done. The
plot is skillfully constructed, tense and explosive, and the acting is
astonishingly good.
There is no severer test for a dramatic sketch than the song and dance
atmosphere of a vaudeville show, and “The Undercurrent” demonstrated
yesterday that it is at least three times as good as it must have seemed
in the “little theatre” tournament at the Goodman Theatre.
—_C. J. Bulliet_ in _Chicago Evening Post_,
June 25, 1928.
Mrs. Ehlert’s play shows searchingly how a bigoted foreign father brings
ruin upon the happiness of his family by warping justice into injustice
through his fanatical method of administering it. It is a tense drama
packed with interest from start to finish.
The cast, the same that won the contest, is playing it at the Palace and
giving an exceptionally fine performance, particularly C. Russell Small
as the father, and Harriet Allyn as the mother. Excellent also are Gladys
Pfeffer, Charles White, Ethel R. Swift and Helen Sanford. Over half a
dozen curtain calls attested to that fact that an unusual offering such
as this is a good piece of commercial “theatre” also.
—_Fritz Blocki_ in _Chicago Evening American_,
Tuesday, June 26, 1928.
“It’s an excellent one-acter, sharp, sure, unexpectedly effective.”
—_Robert Garland_ in _The New York Telegram_,
January 22, 1929.
“This drama, which is sponsored by the Radio-Keith-Albee corporation, is
an exceptionally fine contribution to the Vaudeville stage and far above
the average sketch. A capable cast interpreted the roles.”
—_Julius Cohen_ in _Journal of Commerce_,
January, 22 1929.
“THE UNDERCURRENT” ACTED AT THE PALACE
Chicago Little Theatre Prize Winning Play is Realistic
“It is written sincerely and observantly, and tells its not overburdening
story with effective simplicity.”
—_John Byram_ in _The New York Times_,
January 21, 1929.
“The author has captured the brutal atmosphere of a family in which the
father, a janitor, believes that his children can be made to love him by
continued mental and physical floggings, and has arranged the whole in a
few deft situations.”
—_New York Herald-Tribune_,
January 22, 1929.
RADIO-KEITH-ORPHEUM PALACE TRACK
Winners at a glance.
1—“The Undercurrent”
2—Barry & Whitlege
3—Webb & Hay
“It has been a long time since a sketch has been as well received at this
track as was “The Undercurrent” last Monday night. The fans received it
like money from home. Which proves that when a sketch is what it should
be, it will be as well received as any other act.... This sketch would be
good for a route, for it will play equally well anywhere.”
—_Paul Sweinhart_ in _Zit’s_,
January 26, 1929.
MANHATTAN MADNESS
“To get good sketches for vaudeville is difficult, for to tell a story in
15 minutes, a complete story with a dramatic climax and coherent plot,
gripping from beginning to end, requires exceedingly great skill. But
this is what Mrs. Fay Ehlert has accomplished in “The Undercurrent,”
at the Palace Theatre, after seven months’ touring over R-K-O time....
Editorial comment has been showered on this terse little drama and it
never fails to grip each audience and cause tremendous applause.”
—_Robert Coleman_ in _Daily Mirror_,
New York, N. Y., Monday, January 21, 1929.
NOBLE
Our Noble Prize award for today: To Mrs. Fay Ehlert, authoress of “The
Undercurrent,” the Chicago Little Theater prize-winning skit, now a
feature of the Palace bill closing today, for its inherent entertaining
merits.
—_Ohio State Journal_,
Columbus, November 28, 1928.
PALACE
“The Undercurrent,” by Fay Ehlert, winner of the Edith Rockefeller
McCormick cup in the recent Little Theatre contest, was presented in the
four-spot. The play deals with a wayward daughter, Bible-reading father
from the old country, social worker from the morals court, gossip and a
brow-beaten mother and son. Whole family very much in awe of the stern
father of the “old school,” with the little skit packing a tremendous
wallop and holding the breaths of the house straight through from start
to finish.”
—_Variety_,
June 27, 1928.
“The Undercurrent,” prize-winning play of the Chicago Little Theatre
tournament, was in third position, and upon conclusion took nine
curtains, none of which were begged. Harriett Allyn as a janitor’s wife,
Curt Benisch as her husband, and Florence Thompson as a neighbor,
brought to this arty dramatic sketch a talent which made it outstanding
and an act to be remembered.”
—_Inside Facts of Stage and Screen_,
Los Angeles, Saturday, Oct. 13, 1928.
AT THE PALACE
“Occupying an important spot at the Palace this week is a sketch
straightly dramatic and singularly different from the general run of
sketches.... A hideous cruel picture that Mrs. Ehlert has drawn with
no small amount of skill.... An extraordinarily sincere and effective
one-act play.”
—_Jeffery Holmesdale_ in _The World_,
New York, January 22, 1929.
AT THE PALACE
“This observer, who has sat and squirmed through many a dull playlet
on the Orpheum boards, found himself (with the rest of the audience)
vigorously applauding a one-acter that has not a laugh in it.... It is
heavily tragic, but so truly written and ably performed that it gripped
the attention of an audience that had expected the worst. The cast took
six curtain calls, an amazing thing for unknown players in an unknown
playlet. The play comes to New York after a similar success over the
whole R-K-O route, and if Vaudeville’s new moguls have any lingering
doubts that Palace audiences will appreciate worthy sketches, the
reception to Mrs. Ehlert’s work should clear their minds.”
—_Carl Helm_ in _The New York Sun_,
January 22, 1929.
PLAYLET AIDS PALACE BILL
Clever Sketch Tops Offering
“If you can be thrilled by as perfectly written and presented a one-act
playlet as has ever been offered to a Vaudeville audience, the Palace
Theatre, where Fay Ehlert’s “The Undercurrent” is one of the chief
offerings on an excellent program, is the spot for that type of reaction
this week.... For its first New York showing the Palace Theatre was
selected. The Palace has many times shown a restlessness during dramatic
acts of this type. Sunday afternoon that same audience seemed to sit
spellbound. Mrs. Ehlert has not only shown herself a word-character
painter of ability, but she has also proved her adeptness in staging a
playlet which she has done herself.”
—_H. David Strauss_ in _The Morning Telegraph_,
January 21, 1929.
LETTERS
LETTERS
GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN’S CLUBS
1928-1930
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE
MRS. SAIDIE ORR-DUNBAR, CHAIRMAN
310 FITZPATRICK BLOCK, PORTLAND, OREG.
Division of Correction
MISS JULIA K. JAFFRAY, CHAIRMAN
730 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK, N. Y.
PRESIDENT
MRS. JOHN F. SIPPEL
307 ST. DUNSTAN’S ROAD, HOMELAND
BALTIMORE, MD.
GENERAL HEADQUARTERS
1734 N STREET, N. W.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
MRS. VALENTINE B. FISHER
707 TWELFTH STREET, BOULDER, COLO.
MRS. B. F. WESTMORE
716 OLD NATIONAL BANK BLDG., SPOKANE, WASH.
May 13, 1929.
MY DEAR MRS. EHLERT:
May I congratulate you most heartily upon “The Undercurrent” which I saw
last Saturday night. It shows a very keen insight into “things as they
are”—everyone meaning well, everyone blundering and all grieving that a
young girl is going wrong.
Not since Jean Webster in “Daddy Long Legs” interpreted the treatment
generally accorded to orphans have I seen as faithful and striking a
picture of the well-meaning forces which wreck young lives.
I understand that the play is now available for amateurs and will do all
in my power to induce women’s clubs to present it. The results will be
telling!
Can’t you take little Annie to a Woman’s Reformatory and in picturing her
life there show those of us dealing with reformatory problems where we
are falling short?
Every good wish for continued success.
Cordially yours,
JULIA K. JAFFRAY
Chairman
NEW YORK STATE FEDERATION OF WOMEN’S CLUBS
MRS. CHARLES, J. REEDER, President
956 State Street, Carthage, N. Y.
MEMBERSHIP 400,000
ORGANIZED 1894
Department of Fine Arts
Division of Drama
MRS. EDMUND GALE JEWETT
266 Washington Ave. Brooklyn, N. Y.
MY DEAR MRS. EHLERT,
I must congratulate you on your remarkable little play, “The
Undercurrent.”
I saw it one afternoon recently and was so impressed by its unusualness
that I wanted my husband to see it with me, so I saw it again last night
with him. He felt about it just as I did.
What a story it tells in that short time! The characters are so sharply
drawn. It is splendidly played. The effect on the audience was positively
electric last night.
Audiences and their reactions are always of great interest to me. It
seems a real feat for you to have gotten this play into Vaudeville—and
yet how wise of Vaudeville.
I believe amateurs could give “The Undercurrent” with satisfaction.
It is a great little playlet, my dear Mrs. Ehlert. May it continue long
on its brilliantly successful way.
Most sincerely,
(Mrs. Edmund Gale) EUGENIE JEWETT
Chairman Division Drama,
Department Fine Arts,
N.Y.S.F.W.C.
May the eleventh, 1929.
March 12, 1929.
Mrs. Fay Ehlert,
Authoress, “The Undercurrent,”
The Roosevelt,
New York City.
DEAR MRS. EHLERT:
An urge impells me to say something regarding your play, “The
Undercurrent.” It is no inclination for flattery. It is not an ambition
to produce a sales-talk. This would be quite unnecessary since the
public is “sold” on your play. Nor are my remarks designed as an
advertising testimonial, stereotyped for renumeration. Most certainly,
you have received a multitude of voluntary comments which are highly
complimentary. Since I represent another field I will leave the critics
concern themselves with the dramaturgical art of the play. Had I the
time I would enjoy making a sociological study and analysis. By way of
substitution I am enclosing “Some Sociological Reflections” which are for
your encouragement. You may use them as you see fit.
Yours in appreciation,
HARRY F. WEBER,
Professor, Sociology of Histrionics.
SOME SOCIOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS UPON FAY EHLERT’S “THE UNDERCURRENT”
By Dr. H. F. Weber, Prof. Sociology of Histrionics, Albright College,
Myerstown, Pa.
Having an obsession for the sociological side of the drama-stage, I
recently went to the theatre to estimate this alert (Ehlert) play called
by the treacherous title, “The Undercurrent.” This current dragged me
into a janitor’s basement room where I eddied helplessly in a whirl of
life. Like the scoffer I staid to pray. Once I resisted the tow in an
effort to ascertain the effect upon the audience but their dazzling,
steady gaze stageward overcame me. This tabloid drama had blossomed into
the universality of life. Back in the basement I remained until a kind
curtain disenchanted me. My notebook was blank. It is easy to realize
why I speak of reflections rather than judgments, since my thoughts
came after rather than with the presentation. Yet I did not forfeit my
sensibilities even though my mind was in the play rather than upon it.
“In the basement” I experienced several splendid and pleasant surprises:
1. The difference between my reading of the script and seeing
the play.
2. That a play could be so “really real” and yet contain so
much idealism.
3. That such a situation did not turn out to be a burlesque
upon squalid life.
4. That the pornographic suggestion did not become obscene.
5. That so much of life could be concentrated into so small a
space and time.
6. That a play not written with a problematic motive could
touch upon so many social problems.
7. That the broken English dialogue could be made
understandable throughout.
8. That so serious a play would be taken so seriously by the
Vaudeville audience and so appropriate a part of the program.
The title was correct. Society does have its undercurrent which drags
down helpless victims against their own efforts. The “plotless plot”
reveals still other paradoxes:
1. Severe Sincerity.
2. Homely Beauty.
3. White Lie Truthfulness.
4. Cesspool Home.
5. Bitter Righteousness.
6. Forced Love.
7. Harsh Charity.
8. Homeward Waywardness.
9. Hereditary Environment.
10. Superior Inferiority.
11. American Immigrant.
The lesson-seekers as reformers, ministers, judges, educators,
social workers, parents, sexologists, humanitarianists, eugenicists,
euthenicists, and mere conversationalists can find innumerable “morals”
hovering about each one of the characters of the play:
1. The thick-headed, self-centered, sincere, father;
Domination of father, Harsh idealism from ancestors,
Puritanism, Relation of parent to offspring, The immigrant in
America, Old World views in the New World.
2. The long-suffering, helpless, warped, beaten, loving mother;
Mother love, Dominated Womanhood, Equality of the sexes.
3. The dull, bullied, shut-in, son;
Stifled personality, crushed individuality, Child guidance,
Repression, The right to be well born, Child labor.
4. The good, wayward daughter;
The Revolt of Youth, Social vice, Fallen women, Double standard
of morals, Conditions of working girls, Drawing power of
mother love, Influence of associates.
5. The nosey, spiteful, slatternly neighbor;
Intruding, meddling neighbors, jealousy, gossip, Keeping up
(down) with the Joneses, “Flat ethics and etiquette.”
6. The court investigating, social worker;
Usefulness and necessity of the social worker, Solving cases
of maladjustment, The milk of human kindness, Probation for
innocent offenders, Not letter but spirit of the law, Not rules
but common sense, Uncharitable charity.
7. The family in general;
How the other half lives, Appreciation for blessings,
Over-strict home life, Depressing slum environment, Ignorance,
Poverty, Unemployment, Living wage, Standard of living, Equal
opportunity, Ossification of society, The melting pot,—
But I must cease this vivisection or the play will be played out. It
must not be torn into such small bits. Let it suffice to say that there
is something in it for everyone and he who listens can hear between
the lines. The play’s value cannot be measured by the response from
the chairs. “The Undercurrent” grips. The audience when scattered will
remember it long after the best vaudeville joke is forgotten. The
longer the memory the “gripper” the Undercurrent. The blighted home
depicted will help to soften the atmosphere of the audient’s own home,
which heretofore however slight may have been tainted unwittingly by an
undercurrent.
Perhaps then, the little masterpiece, in vaudeville called a sketch,
does have a purpose. A discovery of it will have more sociological
significance than for play-building technique. In the restricted sense of
the latter there is no author’s “moral.” It does not present propaganda.
Yet the vaudeville audience is bound to carry away a meaning.
Harlow in his “Growth of United States” writes, “Perfectly simple ideas,
boldly stated and constantly reiterated, if given wide circulation, no
matter whether they are truth or falsehood, have a powerful fascination
for the majority of mankind.” Just as the vaudeville stage is the feeder
for all branches of amusement the vaudeville audience represents the
most varied cross-section of society, and permeates itself through it.
The vaudevillean by his “catch-phrases and wise-cracks” determines
many social attitudes for his clients across the foot-lights. They, in
turn picking up these “cleverisms,” pass them on to their fellowmen as
illuminating truths (modern proverbs).
It certainly must mean the elevation of social standards when “The
Undercurrent” gets a hearing. It has a personality—when this human drama
is on it corrals the emotions by its characterization, frankness, and
reality. Like the best personalities it is contagious, makes others
wish to hover near it, imitate it, admire it. In spite of proffering
no solution to the many problems which it suggests, the audience goes
away with the resolution that things must go better in the future. Out
of the despair of this effective simple story arises hope. Although
little ratiocination there will be contemplation. Perhaps few will be
transformed into saints but many will become more human.
All personality being elusive, it is difficult to determine from where
the personality of this deft sketch comes,—the cast? the setting? the
lines? the action? perhaps the author! One can be a little more certain
where it goes. This will locate a purpose, hopefully the purpose. “The
Undercurrent” audience senses the motive, “Life; not as a strange
interlude of many excruciating acts, not as a morbid mundanity of an
isolated act, but as mortal activity flavored with sympathy.” The spirit
of pity is propagated. Not that it is unfortunate to be compelled to live
but that no one should be compelled to live unfortunately. Briefer stated
this suggests “the more abundant life for all.”
The playlet with its clamorous reception as the sketch supreme appears to
be prophetic of:
1. Better interhuman relationships.
2. Social values in a mechanistic standardized age.
3. Changes in the Drama-Stage; New things in vaudeville,
Western inroads upon “Broadway,” Conquest by the amateur.
SOME UNSURPASSED STUDENT IMPRESSIONS
In order to broaden the range of reaction, “The Undercurrent” was brought
before the unsuspecting class in the Sociology of Histrionics. This
course has as its objective the sociological study of the drama-stage.
None of the class had heard of the play or its author. No effort was
made to arouse enthusiasm or to laud its merits, in fact quite the
reverse. Eliminating the preliminary description and the directions for
characterization, the script was read once in a monotone. Without further
information or class discussion each student was asked to write upon
scratch paper his or her opinion, especially including adverse criticism.
They were given to understand that their papers would not be read in
class or have any bearing upon their grades. No indication disclosed
what use might be made of these impressions. The results under these
handicaps are quite startling. The following extracts were made without
the students’ knowledge or permission.
The extremist of the class objected to the play as having no plot, a
boresome foreign accent, a repulsive situation, a danger of tempting
people to imitate that kind of life, better for children than adults, and
that anyone who could appreciate such a play would have no capacity for
good tragedy.
However the consensus of opinion of the class was quite different. One
of the ladies felt, “The lesson taught by the play seemed to be the
outstanding thing, the fact that the man was so wrong and yet could quote
scripture to prove his point.... We can all easily become friends of the
girl Annie, and pity her plight, especially when we know it is so true
to life as we have heard of it. I do not like to bring the hardness and
cruelty of life in its treatment of some people to everyone and as I have
no better method to suggest—of bringing it before someone who might be
able to help remedy the condition, I would not try to stop these plays.
The characters are very vividly portrayed, particularly the father’s.
When his lines were being read I suffered the reaction of wanting to stop
them, to change it; I didn’t want to hear it any further without doing
something to that man. For this type of play I think it very good.”
Quotations from other students follow:
“The play was suggestive of many things and many purposes.”
“The play emphasized the fact that real strict parents create in their
children hate and fear instead of love for them.”
“It gives us an idea of the life one leads in a flat. The father was so
cruel in his way of bringing up his children—they did not have a chance
to speak for themselves. The social workers of the day can help children
in such predicaments. It would also help children that have life easy and
to appreciate the advantages they have.”
“It was written for amusement and also to show the good many are doing on
the streets of large cities for the fallen people. The author had in mind
to make the parents, who saw or read the play, pay more attention and
spend more educating time with them.”
“Evidently the play is meant to bring out the fact that home environment
and discipline has a great influence upon youth, and a home in which the
young are so repressed, directed and curbed, the influence is liable
to be a negative one.... The most difficult cases the social worker
has to deal with are these.... The selfishness, strictness, blindness,
and one-track-minds of parents are responsible for much of youthful
delinquency and disgrace.”
“A problem play to teach the effect of home life and conditions on the
child’s life and behavior. Introduces somewhat secondarily the work and
place of the Morals Courts, which investigate the environment for the
possible causes of crimes. Portrays living conditions of the ignorant and
poverty-stricken class.... The play teaches its lesson.... An indirect
method frequently is more successful than one whose purpose is known by
all concerned.”
“Training a child in the way he should go may be a good proverb, but
it is not a wise plan to scare children into lying and leaving home,
associating with wrong companions and thus getting into trouble.... It’s
a good play and many instances just like it occur nowadays.... The mother
certainly realized what should be done.”
And lastly will be given the unedited report of one who seemed
indifferent during the single reading of the play:
“The play was interesting. It portrayed or was typical of the life it
portrayed; that is, the slums. I had a vivid picture of the house and
clear impression of the father in his burly way. The characters were well
written. It was a good “unwritten” character sketch. You could easily
judge or tell what type of characters they were. The plot was very simple
but I think incompleted. The play was well named. We should have more
of those type of plays because so many people do not realize how some
people do exist. Of course there are some who would refuse to believe it
but then it wouldn’t do any harm for them to be informed. The type of
play to have are those true to life. Too many plays do not acquaint us
with actual life and we are disillusioned. The ‘ma’ and ‘pa’ type are so
frequent in the foreign element of our country that it is astounding. I
like the dialect because if we are at all broad we will run across people
who speak as they spoke and we should be able to understand. Some people
are bored by those plays. I think they lack appreciation.”
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