Scorpions for Whips

A Rallying Cry for Some Heavy-Handed Critics to Weed Out the Incompetents in Art

HEYWOOD BROUN

ONCE there was in Israel a forthright king called Rehoboam. And when committees called to influence his policies he said to his people manfully, "My father has chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." And a good answer too! It lost him adherents. They said that this was not constructive criticism but only destructive. The cities of Judah remained to Rehoboam hut Israel seceded and was later lost. Jeroboam led the hosts which had to have their language sugar-coated and it cannot be denied that his name endures but only as the designation of a champagne bottle of monstrous size. Rehoboam was right and, if things were altogether fitting, he would be father to all the critics.

But this is not an ideal world and most of our reviewers are of more dubious ancestry. At least, few have the heart to wield the lash and make it crackle. As for scorpions, critical language has grown so soft in tone that the ultimate in damnation is expressed by saying, when some performance falls to new levels of ineptitude, "Mr. Jinks was adequate".

There is a crying and a blistering need for ruthless, heavy-handed men to deal with all the arts. Nobody can paint, or sing or write so badly that even the most severe notice will fail to carry some little grain of solace. And it is these crumbs of comfort, carelessly thrown, which have gone to make up vast and half-baked desserts. The ridiculous twaddle which insists that critics should not tear down and only build up has actually taken hold of first class minds. This is an age so kindly that not a sparrow falls to earth without conspiracy arising to make pretense it was an eagle.

IN the end this mistaken mercy leaves its victims much more wet and wringing than would the dew of bitter truth from heaven. Probably the world of music contains more poignant tragedies than all the other arts. It begins with the singing teacher out in Kansas who nods his head and says the voice is promising. Maestros in Italy declare that all her instruction up to date is faulty but that for a consideration the tones can be regilded. Eventually there is Carnegie, or maybe the Town Hall, and critics who content themselves with the safe assertion that some of her notes are better than others. The result is that no American singer ever precisely fails. He, or she, is merely unable to gain recognition. Go to City Hall Park on any frosty night and wake some sleeper on a bench with a request to see his notices. You will find that some of them are excellent and none at all vitriolic. What a pity! All of these unfortunates could have been saved by poultices compounded out of honest harshness. It is a critic's function to serve as counter-irritant but instead he generally insists upon taking out his papers for citizenship in Gilead. This makes for good funerals but bad criticism.

It has been said, and mendaciously, that the most important part of a reviewer's

function is to foster budding genius. Critics fear to tread upon even the meanest and most repulsive object for fear that even if it isn't Lon Chaney it may turn out to be William Shakespeare. There is a notion that great men often begin with the wrong foot so even the most left-footed effort is regarded with tolerance lest harsh words be said about someone later destined for lights on Broadway. Obviously this theory of procedure is muddleheaded. Nobody can stop genius, or even high talent, by stepping on it. In so far as the critic's function extends to the performer himself rather than to the audience he need not bother his head concerning the geniuses. They are all self-made. You cannot puff them and gales won't knock them down.

A GOOD critic should be a sort of handy-man about the house. It is his duty to weed the garden, burn the underbrush and chop down the smaller trees so that the world may get a better look at the big ones. Construction is never possible until the tin cans and the rubbish have been swept aside. These obvious responsibilities of the reviewer are ever so often evaded. Right on Broadway, walking openly in the light of day, one may see a score of playwrights who have written not just one terrible play but dozens of them. As one who disbelieves in capital punishment I would have no dramatist beheaded for his first failure. There should be a period of probation and the man who has sinned ought to have an opportunity to expiate his crime. Even a second monstrosity need not put him beyond the pale. But if he follows with a fourth and a fifth ineptitude it is too much and critics are to blame if they fail to tell him plainly that he is out and that he must never darken the stage of any playhouse again. Within a week I, with my own eyes, saw the author of eleven dreadful plays standing at a Times Square corner and actually laughing. Worse than that he was leaning against a lamp post. If critics were the men they ought to be he would have avoided such a spot as he would avoid the gallows. The familiar adage about the rope is incomplete. Give a man too much and he'll not hang himself but rather make a ladder and toss it up to the blue sky like an Indian fakir. And the miscreant even bungles that simple trick by forgetting to disappear.

The novels published in the United States each year would reach from the Battery to Westport if anybody could be found with the inclination to lay them end to end. This should not be. And where does the fault lie? As usual with the critics. If a novel is thoroughly bad it is not the custom to say much about it. Instead the review is somewhat briefer than usual. The name of the author will be noted and that of the publisher and maybe there will be a paragraph about the plot. Failing to get a critical opinion, the unfortunate author will merely surmise that nothing is wrong but the fact that he is insufficiently known. In order to correct this he will write another novel and another and another. It is no use to

rely on the publisher. Contrary to the popular notion, publishers' readers are not recruited solely from the rank of those who were dropped upon their heads in childhood. The requirement is much more searching. Only those are taken who, when dropped upon the sidewalk, proceeded to bounce.

Accordingly, any sort of trash can and will be published unless there is a proper display of violent indignation upon the part of all the book critics. And few of them possess adequate spitefulness. Perhaps it isn't a man's work at all. The only current reviewer who has a really satisfying vein of venom happens to be a slip of a girl. It might be a good idea to have a convention of critics with the agreement, of course, that each speaker should be limited to three hours. Out of such an assemblage rules and regulations might be fashioned. For instance there should be a clarification of the phrase "a good first novel". Invariably this really means, "This book is not much good but since the poor goop has never done it before I ought to be lenient and suggest that he may do better next time. That ought to be easy."

POSSIBLY something could be done about "prankish," "whimsical," or "elfin." These adjectives are increasingly called into usage. Many times during the year a reviewer runs across something which deals with the life of two dolphins who have taken a Summer cottage at Forest Hills and agree to live entirely on raw vegetables. After the first thirty pages with the fantastic author the reviewer says to himself in some trepidation, "One of us is demented." Critics are a humble lot and the reader has some difficulty in making up his mind upon just which shoulders the straitjacket should fall. All he knows is that the book before him makes no sense whatsoever. But the net result of the perplexity is one of those compromises. Being none too sure of himself the reviewer decides to take no chances. The sanity of the whole proceeding is overlooked. "Impish" or "Puckish" will do and does.

The convention of critics would draft a resolution requiring all delegates to substitute for the adjectives now in use the word "silly" or plain "crazy". There might also be general agreement to do away with the practice of lying about books for children. It is a very general custom never to read them under any circumstances but to jot down the name of the story and follow it with three or four sentences containing the adjectives "charming" or "delightful." Reform would consist of a stern resolution actually to go down into the treacle well and sound it, or, what would be even better, an ultimatum to the publishers sternly demanding that no more children's books be published.

During the convention of book reviewers there might be subsidiary meetings of the critics engaged in evaluating the lesser arts. The play puffers could very well afford to assess a fine upon any member of the lodge who writes a brisk sentence which gets into electric lights. And, of course, something should be done immediately about the book in all the musical comedies. The present practice consists of the mild remonstrance that none of the jokes are at all funny and that the comedians are also dreary. But at this point the reviewer flies into a panic for fear he has said too much and adds hastily that it doesn't really matter because the costumes are magnificent and the chorus is beautiful and well-trained. In the new dispensation there will be no mention of chorus or costumes. The emancipated critic will let the producer take all his cloth of gold and stick it in the store house. The entire column will be devoted to the show's feebleness of wit with samples.

Continued on page 126

Continued from page 50

The art critics, meeting in the next room, will be expected to quit saying, "nice colour" to indicate that a man is deficient in his draftsmanship. And if the spirit of the meeting place is sufficiently heroic it is even conceivable that the music critics may be induced to tell the truth about the Metropolitan Opera House.

All this, I realize, is the counsel of perfection. I used to be a critic once myself. Please don't ask me if I followed all the rules laid down in this article and insisted upon being ruthless. Naturally I did not. The thing i„ so much harder than it sounds. All of us now alive, both critics and the criticised, are bound to the old superstition that kind words are more than coronets. Of course they are not. The head lies uneasy under each. No man ever profited profoundly by praise unless he earned it. But mostly the critic stays his hand, not for the sake of others, but for himself. It has been said that a reviewer should studiously avoid making personal contacts with playwrights and players and all people having any function on the stage, in the flies above, or the pit beneath. But how is a critic to do that? Is he never to get any tea, enter a speak-easy or spend a week-end in Great Neck? The reviewer is human. Even though he wear stilts he cannot move through the pleasant places of New York without stepping on a few leading men and ingenues.

Once he has met actors and actresses he is lost for, by some unfortunate provision of nature, the more inefficient a performer by just so much does his radius of charm increase. It is quite easy to take a rap at practically all stars and talented players but their ability stands in the way. And you can't say much against the ones who are simply terrible because they are so nice. Possibly the best thing for the proposed convention to do would be to limit the platform to a single resolution. It could read as follows—"Resolved—That from this day on there shall be no such thing as criticism."