_ CHAPTER XXIII. POTASH AND PERLMUTTER DISCUSS WHY IS A PLAY-GOER?
"Did you see on the front page of all the newspapers this morning where Klaw & Erlanger has had another split with the Shuberts, Mawruss?" Abe Potash asked, one morning in February.
"Say," Morris Perlmutter replied, "I didn't even know they had ever made up since the time they split before, and, furthermore, Abe, I think that even if the most important news a feller in the newspaper business could get ahold of to print on his front page was an I.O.M.A. convention, instead of the greatest war in history, y'understand, he would be giving his readers a great big jolt compared with the thrill they get when they read about the troubles people has got in the show business."
"Maybe
you think so, Mawruss," Abe said, "but Klaw & Erlanger and the Shuberts don't think so, and when you consider that them two concerns control all the theayters in the United States and spends millions of dollars for advertising, Mawruss, a feller in the newspaper business don't show such poor judgment to give them boys a little space on the front page whenever they have their semi-annual split."
"Probably you're right, Abe," Morris said; "but if it was you and me that had a big fight on with our nearest competitors, Abe, advertising it in the newspapers would be the last thing we would be looking for."
"The garment business ain't the theayter business, Mawruss," Abe said. "For instance, being a defendant in a divorce suit don't get any one nowheres in the garment trade, because if a garment-manufacturer would have such a person working for him practically the only effect it would have on his business would be that he would be obliged to neglect it two or three times a day answering telephone inquiries from his wife as to just how he was putting in his time, y'understand, and so far as bringing customers into your place who want to see the lady you got working for you which all the scandal was printed about in the papers, Mawruss, it wouldn't make any difference
what the evidence was, you couldn't get your trade interested to the extent even of their coming in to snoop with no intentions to buy, y'understand. But you take it in the theayter business and big fortunes has been made out of rotten plays simply because the theayter-going public wanted to see if the leading lady looked like the pictures which was printed of her in the papers at the time the court denied her the custody of the child, understand me."
"Then you think that there's going to be a big rush on the theayters controlled by Klaw & Erlanger and the Shuberts on account people has been reading in the papers about their scrapping again, Abe?" Morris inquired.
Abe shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think nothing of the kind, Mawruss," Abe said; "but there's a whole lot of fellers in the theayter business which have stories printed about themselves in the Sunday papers where it tells how they used to was in business and finally worked their way into the theayter business and what is their favorite luncheon dish, y'understand, till you would think that the reason people went to see plays was because the manager formerly run a clothing-store in Milwaukee, Wis., and is crazy about liver and bacon, Southern style."
"That would be, anyhow, as good a reason as because the leading lady's home life didn't come up to her husband's expectations," Morris commented.
"Well, no matter for what reason people do it, Mawruss," Abe concluded, "buying tickets for a show is as big a gamble as a home-cooked Welsh rabbit, in especially if you try to go by the advertisements. For instance, in to-day's paper there is three shows advertised as the biggest hit in town, four of them says they got more laughs in them than any other show in town, and there are a lot of assorted 'Biggest Hits in Years,' 'Biggest Hits Since the "Music Master,"' and 'Biggest Hits in New York,' so what chance does an outsider stand of knowing which advertisements is O.K. and which is just pushing the stickers?"
"The plan that I got is never to go on a theayter till the show has been running for at least three months, Abe," Morris advised.
"But if everybody else followed the same plan, Mawruss," Abe commented, "what show is going to run three months?"
"Say!" Morris exclaimed. "There would always be plenty of nosy people in New York City which 'ain't got no more to do with their money than to find out if what the crickets has got to say in the newspapers about the new plays is the truth or just kindness of heart, y'understand."
"From what I know of newspaper crickets, Mawruss," Abe said, "when they praise a show they may be mistaken, but they're never kind-hearted."
"If a play runs three months, Abe, it don't make no difference to me whether the newspaper crickets praised it because they had kind hearts or knocked it because they had stomach trouble," Morris said, "I am willing to risk my two dollars,
anyhow."
"Maybe it would be better all around, Mawruss, if the newspaper crickets printed what they think about a play the day after it closes instead of the day after it opens," Abe observed, "and then they might have something to go by. As it is, a whole lot of newspaper crickets is like doctors which says there is absolutely nothing the matter with the patient only ten days before the automobile cortège leaves his late residence."
"But there is more of them like doctors which says that the patient may live two days and he may live two weeks, y'understand, and four weeks later he is put in Class One and leaves for Camp Upton with the next contingent," Morris said. "Take even 'Hamlet,' Abe, which I can remember since 'way before the Spanish war already, and I bet yer when that show was put on there was some crickets which said that John Drew or whoever it was which first took 'Hamlet' did the best he could with a rotten part and headed the article, 'John Drew scores in dull play at Fifty-first Street Theater.'"
"Even so, Mawruss," Abe said, "that wouldn't feaze J.H. Woods or whoever the manager was which first put on 'Hamlet,' because we would say, for example, that the cricket of the New York
Star-Gazette said, 'Hamlet' would be an A-number-one play if it had been written by a pants-presser in his off moments, but as the serious work of a professional play-designer it ain't worth a moment's consideration; also the cricket of the New York
Record says, From the liberal applause at the end of the third act 'Hamlet' might have been the most brilliant drama since 'The Easiest Way' instead of a play full of clack-trap scenes and which will positively meet the
capora it deserves, y'understand. Furthermore, Mawruss, we would say that every other paper says the same thing and also roasts the play, y'understand, so what does this here Woods do? Does he lay right down and notify the operators that under the by-laws of the Actors' Union they should please consider that they have received the usual two weeks' notice that the show will close the next night?
Oser a Stück! The next day he puts in every paper for two hundred and twenty-five dollars an advertisement:
FIFTY-FIRST STREET THEATER
J.H. WOODS ..... LESSEE
J.H. WOODS
PRESENTS
'HAMLET'
THE SEASON'S SENSATION!
An A-number-one play.--New York Star-Gazette.
Most brilliant drama since 'The Easiest Way.'--New York Record.
John Drew scores heavily.--New York Evening Moon."
"Well, I'll tell you," Morris said; "while I admit that the theayter crickets is smart fellers and knows all about the rules and regulations for writing plays, y'understand, so that they can tell at a glance during the first performance if the audience is laughing in violation of what is considered good play construction or crying because the show is sad in a spot where a play shouldn't ought to be sad if the man who wrote it had known his business, y'understand, still at the same time theayter crickets is to me in the same class with these here diet experts. Take a dinner which one of them diet experts approves of, Abe, and the food is O.K., the kitchen is clean, the cooking is just right as to time and temperature of the oven, there's the proper proportions of water and solids, and in fact it's a first-class A-number-one meal from the standpoint of every person which has got anything to do with it, excepting the feller which eats it, and the only objection
he's got to it is that it tastes rotten."
"And that would be quite enough to put a restaurant out of business if it served only good meals according to the opinion of diet experts, Mawruss, because diet experts don't buy meals, Mawruss, they only inspect them," Abe commented.
"And even if theayter crickets did pay for their tickets, Abe," Morris continued, "there ain't enough of them to support one of these here little theayters which has got such a small seating-capacity that neither the exits nor the kind of plays they put on has to comply with the fire laws, y'understand. But that ain't here or there, Abe. A theayter cricket is a cricket and not an appraiser, y'understand. He goes to a play to judge the play and not the prospective box-office receipts, Abe, and if on account of his knocking a play which would otherwise make money for the manager and do a lot of harm to the people which goes to the theayter, such a show is put out of business, Abe, then the theayter cricket has done a good job."
"Sure, I know, Mawruss," Abe said. "But it's just as likely to be the other way about, which you take these here shows the crickets gets all worked up over because they are written by foreigners from Sweden, Mawruss, where a married woman gets to feeling that her husband, her home, and her children ain't exciting enough, y'understand, so she either elopes or commits suicide, understand me, and many a business man has come to breakfast without shaving himself on the day after taking his wife to see such a show and caught her looking at him in an awful peculiar way, y'understand. Then there is other shows which crickets thinks a whole lot of, where a young feller which couldn't get down to business and earn a decent living puts it all over the man who has been financially successful, y'understand, and plenty of young fellers which gets home all hours of the night and couldn't hold a job long enough to remember the telephone number of the firm they work for, comes away from the show feeling that they ain't getting a square deal from their father who has never done a thing to help them in all this life except to feed, clothe, and educate them for twenty-odd years."
"Well, such plays anyhow make you think, Abe," Morris said. "Whereas, when you come away from one of them musical pieces, what do you have to show for it, Abe?"
"A good night's rest, Mawruss," Abe said, "which no one never laid awake all night wondering if his wife or his son has got peculiar notions about not being appreciated from seeing this here Frank Tinney talking to the feller that runs the orchestra in the Winter Garden, Mawruss."
"Then what is your idee of a good show, anyway?" Morris inquired.
"Well, I'll tell you, Mawruss, a good show is a show which you got to pay so much money to a speculator for a decent seat, y'understand, that you couldn't enjoy it after you get there," Abe concluded. "And that is a good show." _