Congressman v. Critics

Small dapper Congressman William I. Sirovich of New York is one of the best showmen in the House of Representatives. An M. D., he has been known to line up a row of grisly exhibits across the Speaker's rostrum to impress upon his colleagues the evils of narcotics. He is the author of Ten Commandments to End the Depression. He is also the author of three plays. To the assistance of other playwrights and other showmen Congressman Sirovich rode full tilt last week.

Before the House Patents Committee, of which he is chairman, he urged that a bill be drafted which "should do some-thing to protect producers and authors against malicious dramatic critics." Just what should be done, Dr. Sirovich was not yet prepared to say except to suggest that theatre reviewers take examinations like doctors and lawyers. He deplored the fact that "only ten of the 90 theatres in New York City are open now."

"Why, Alexander Woollcott wrote a play," he continued. "He had been a dramatic critic for years, and when his play was shown the other critics got together and blew it up--they made it."

He then invited the critics of New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to appear before his committee this week "to give us the benefit of your advice and suggestions regarding this subject, so that the critics might not be accused of being the undertakers and pallbearers of the spoken drama, which they have almost destroyed."

To a man the critics spurned the doctor-playwright-legislator's invitation, heaped upon him their most venomous wit and satire. Thereupon Congressman Sirovich began to talk about subpenaing them.

Unhappily, Dr. Sirovich, in his remarks before the Patents Committee, had made several errors of fact. Of the 75 Manhattan playhouses available for the production of legitimate drama, 29, not ten, were operating last week. The Woollcott play to which he referred, The Channel Road, written in collaboration with George S. Kaufman, was presented in 1929 and promptly retired under the almost unanimous damnation of fellow critics.

Dr. Sirovich's first dramatic effort, Schemers, was produced in September, 1924. It was a drama in three acts, a prologue and epilogue, designed to ridicule the antics of four theatre critics--"Alexander Gale." "Alan Olcott," "Perry Ammond," "A. Wood Brown''--who, asked to sit through a play's preview, ending by thoroughly damning it. There was something prophetic about Schemers. It retired after 16 performances.

Of all the quips and cracks with which Manhattan wiseacres greeted the Sirovich attack, among the most amusing was one by Franklin Pierce ("F. P. A.") Adams who thus parodied a tune currently sung by Rudy Vallee in the Scandals:

Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't take it Sirovich . . .

It's too mysterovich.

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