Word: phonograph
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...last American drama seems to have hit upon a pattern and a rhythm all its own. Breaking away from German Expressionism, our native playwrights are developing a special national technique--a sort of radio-ragtime-phonograph-jazz. Two plays in particular illustrate this latest experimental phase. One is John Howard Lawson's "Processional" which has been the storm center of discussion in New York. The other is a still more extraordinary play by his friend, the novelist John Roderigo Dos Passos, a play that has not yet been acted or published, called "The Moon is a Gong". This...
...extras. As in "All God's Chillun," the plaintive sound of the grind-organ and the hurdy-gurdy suggest the flavor of the times through popular airs. As in "The Adding Machine", the singing of "My country 'tis of thee" marks the culmination of an outburst of intolerance. The phonograph which played a poignant role in "Rain" and in "The Square Peg" and was doubled to two phonographs in Jean Cocteau's fantastic "Les Maries de la Tour Eiffel", is here multiplied into no less than four phonographs all playing different tunes full blast...
...score is at 'times inconsequential, particularly in the case of such a rehash as the "Spanish Juanita", but it contains two lyrics that are very delightful indeed, Lovable You" and "Baby Blue" have not been glorifying the American phonograph so long that they have become as wearisome as the tunes of a year old Follies. These two songs are refreshing enough to justify the existence of the show, but they are not forced to stand alone. Miss Irene Dunne, who has yet to acquire a New York reputation and a forced manner, is young and exquisitely attractive...
...jazz melodies. Ever since he wrote his Rhapsody in Blue and collected great commendation from serious critics, his every movement is listened to with interest. In this latest, there are two new ones, Tell Me More and My Fair Lady, which will exercise the springs of many a phonograph. There is also a plot about a girl who pretended she was a shop clerk to see whether her hero's love were real. Emma Haig, Andrew Tombes and Lou Holtz are, next to Mr. Gershwin, the chief contributors...
...They needed a songbird in Heaven, so God took Caruso away" -so runs the catch line of a onetime popular song-a ditty which was scratched from every phonograph, mewed through the sinus cavities of every cabaret tenor who could boast a nose, caroled by housewives at their tubs and business men at their shaving. Before the echoes of the blatant dirge had been quite relegated to that mortuary of all songs - the monkey-organ - certain tenors were beginning to thud their chests in the press. To compare many with Caruso is, of course, absurd. But there are, in Manhattan...