The Overseas Dramatic Season

Old Favorites to Be Revised and Teutonized for the Occasion

ROBERT C. BENCHLEY

THE announcement of plans for an all-star company of players from this country (under the leadership of E. H. Sothern) to visit the war-zone and give performances for the American soldiers, has started a wild-fire of discussion throughout the entire country. At least, the Editor of Vanity Fair and I have discussed it, and have come to the conclusion that it calls for immediate action on someone's part.

It is, of course, a gigantic idea. In fact, it has the makings of a revolution in it, for the American Expeditionary Force will be the first free-born Americans to see a Broadway production from the first ten rows without having to pay a ransom of fifty cents per seat to a theatre ticket agency. This fact alone will place the movement (along with the introduction of Government railway-operation) as one of the biggest moves toward Socialism resulting from the war.

But this is what the New Republic would call, in its rowdy way, one of the "larger aspects" of the case. There is a danger of dwelling on these to the exclusion of one or two of the details.

For instance, what plays should be given?

HERE is a question which will probably XX take up all of my time for the rest of the afternoon, and even then have enough stray ends left for someone else to write an article on. It is a big subject, but it has simply got to be done, for it would never do to have this all-star company going overseas and presenting the wrong plays.

The main thing is, of course, to entertain. But our patriotic societies will be missing a big bet if they allow this opportunity to slip by without getting across some hate propaganda to the soldiers and canteen-workers in France. It is not enough that we prohibit the printing of German instructions on patent-medicine wrappers and refuse to send our children to kindergartens. These things, while undoubtedly of great comfort to General Pershing, are negative. We must have something positive,—something that will cause every right-minded person to go into a paroxysm of rage at the very sight of an umlaut. And what better vehicle could there be than the theatrical performances which are to be given for the benefit of our troops? Why can not some of our standard plays be remodeled for overseas presentation, making the villains so distinctly Teutonic that the audience would leave the theatre with moist palms and hissing inhalations, vowing that a man who would behave in that manner toward a poor country girl and her bankrupt inventor-father doesn't deserve to have even a look-in on a Mitteleuropa ?

"Uncle Tom's Cabin," for instance, would have endless possibilities for arousing hard feeling, if Simon Legree could only be made a Prussian planter named, let us say, Otto Kalbfleisch. We have several German dialect artists who could do impressive work in the role: Joseph Cawthorn, Sam Bernard, Lew Fields, or any one of the dozen masters of the palpitating palate who have been forced to suspend their old acts because of the popular disapproval of anything German that is not edible.

Let us say that Mr. Winthrop Ames has succeeded in working over the 'script to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" until it is in tune with the spirit of the times. Uncle Tom, who, because of his years of sendee, has become Fourth Deputy Assistant to the Ober-meister in Charge of Boll Weevil Extermination in the cotton fields of Otto Kalbfleisch (played by Joseph Cawthorn), has been ordered by his cruel master to flagellate an underling who has neglected to punch the official time-clock.

UNCLE TOM: Ah begs Mas'r Kalbfleisch's pardon, but ah suttinly hopes he won't set Ole Tom ter do that. Ole Tom couldn't bring himself ter flagellate a subordinate nohow.

KALBFLEISCH (gargling his "r' s"): Ho-ho! Und zo dot iss it, iss it? You r-r-r-r-r-r-rr-r-r-refuse it to do? You vant to make it a r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-relovution, iss it? We shall see who iss der r-r-r-r-r-r-r-regular brobrietor-feller hier, py Jchiminy! Hans! . . . Fritz! . . . R-r-r-r-run der stairs up und tell August der seltzer-bottle schnell ouid zu bringen. . . . (To Tom) Insubordinootion, vud you? Don'd make me so mooch amoosment.

Hans and Fritz appear with the seltzer-bot- tle which the villain takes and points at Uncle Tom.

KALIIFLEISCH: Und now, A1 Jolson, vot iss it? Make it as I say or (squirting him in the right eye) der r-r-r-resevoir comes ouid.

UNCLE TOM (on his knees): No, no, Mars' Otto! You owns ma body, but you ain't bought ma soul! Ma soul don't belong to you no more than the Czecho-Slovak race belongs in a German hierachy.

( Editor's Note: Any timely bit of political propaganda may IK* inserted in place of the Czecho-Slovak reference. It is sure to get a hand.)

KALIIFLEISCH (squirting Tom again and again in a vicious manner): Oh, iss it? (squirt). Take dot . . . (squirt) und dot . . . und dot (squirt) . . . und so weiter until it iss a zufficiencv.

(Slow and painful curtain)

A FEW scenes like this, and the audience ±\- would be on pins and needles until it had eliminated the last possessor of a revolving tonsil in Europe.

If "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is too brutish, something a little more refined in the way of Teuton cruelty could be injected into "W ay Down East." Here we would have to un-naturalize at least two of the characters and make them guttural. Lennox Sanderson, the City Chap, is the regular villain, because he carries the riding-crop, but Squire Bartlett, the enraged father who turns the unfortunate girl out into a property snow-storm, is so gosh-darn mean that he would just naturally have to have some German blood in him. If we have anything to do with picking the cast, Sam Bernard will play the squire (now Squire Noodleschatz) because of the eloquence of his gestures denoting impotent rage, and Lew Fields will appear as Ludwig Spiclzeugle, the City ('hap, in a checkered suit and yellow spats.

Having Teutonized the hellish members of the cast, let us proceed with the dialogue:

The scene, you will remember, is laid in the kitchen of the farm-house belonging to Squire Noodleschatz, and that impressionable old church-goer has just discovered that Anna, the family maid, has had the conventional Past. He has arisen in throaty rage and denounced the unfortunate gel, at which she has taken offense and is about to go out into the stormy night.

DAVID(the son): Stop, Anna! You can't go out to-night in this storm! . . . Father, you've always been a stern man, but you have never been a cru-el one till now, and you arc cru-el when you drive this friendless gel out of the house.

SQUIRE (taking three steps forward and shooting his cuffs): O-ho! Und vot goes it on? A conspir-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-racy, eh? Excooo-ses, ho? You are making me explanations in her flavor, iss it?

DAVID: Yes, father, for I think that you are unjust, and that you will repent what you are doing this night. What has the gel done? She has served you faithfully and well, and she don't deserve this disgrace.

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(Continued from page 43)

SQUIRE (bubbling and grabbing handfuls of his hair): Kalte-Aufschnit! Dis iss too exasper-r-r-r-r-r-r-ration! If der goil vants hinaus zu go, ged ouid off her vay und let her go!

ANNA (sobbing) : Yes, yes, let me go! Let me go! (She starts to go, but David stops her.)

DAVID (passionately) : Father, if Anna is driven out that door, your son goes also!

SQUIRE (takes three more steps forward, gets red in the face and dashes his hat to the floor): Neffer! I haf some secret inflammation in der case! Der goil iss a sociable evil!

DAVID: Take care, Father! I am

your son, and I don't want to forget that,—but I am a man, and you are insulting the woman I want to make my wife!

SQUIRE (stretching his fists toward Heaven and jumping up and down) : Your wife, iss it? I kent make it seem pozzible. Esk her aboot der child in New Britain, Connecticut. Go ahead and esk her. ... I am anticipation. . . . Ha, ha!

(They all stand in tableau formation, aghast. Lew Fields, in the checkered suit, is standing at one side, throwirig out side-long villain glances at intervals and adjusting his tie nervously. Anna goes up to C door, opens it wide and stands on the threshold, while the wind-machine in the wings speeds up and a handful of paper snow drifts in.)

ANNA (returning a few steps into the room) : Yes, you have hunted down the defenseless gel who only asked to earn her bread in your home. But there is the man, an honored guest at your table,—why don't you find out what his life has been? For he (pointing at Ludwig Spielzeuglc) is the father-in-law of my child !

(Spielzeuglc adjusts his tie, chokes, and fixes his eyes on the second balcony as they all turn and look at him.)

ANNA (continuing) : And what is more, I arrest you and this man (turning to the Squire) for conspiracy under the Postal Savings Act. All this time, when you thought that I was but a poor helper in your house, I have been in the employ of the Creel Bureau of Public Information. I have heard of your and Spielzeugle's plot to destroy the Scenic Railways at Luna Park. I know of your association with that notorious German . spy organization, the Society for the Advancement of French Pastry in the German Army. There are ten Intelligence officers outside in the snow, so come, get your things on, my fine fellows. You're coming with me, both of you.

(Curtain)

A few old favorites like this, given the proper twist by some patriotic society, would serve not only to entertain the boys, but to put the whole German nation in a decidedly unfavorable light.