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Student Activism in the 1930s
50th and 25 National Reunion--ASU and SDS--1986 Frank Tarloff
It began when Leo Rifkin was asked to prepare some entertainment for the ASU Convention at Vassar. The year was 1937. He recruited David Shaw and me. David was an art student, Leo a sign painter and I a Grade I (the lowest) Civil Servant in New York City. Naivete, sometimes known as stupidity, can be a great asset; you don't know what you're getting into so you get into it. We decided to do a musical comedy. Because we were all occupied at our respective professions during the day, we met to work at night, usually at David's house. One evening, another very close friend of ours, Jay Gould, dropped by. "What are you guys doing?" "Writing a musical." "Oh." And so we became a four-way collaboration (Actually five; we were already working with Jenny Fogel, our pianist-composer). Then Buddy Tyne stopped by. The same dialogue and we were six. Then seven when Leo Hurwitz decided it was more fun being a writer than cutting velvet. For fairly obvious reasons, we named ourselves 'The Mob Theatre'(Also 'The Group Theatre' was already taken). A line, a joke, a lyric got in by majority vote which resulted in a certain amount of wheeling and dealing, yelling and strained friendships (It's amazing how quickly someone in the rag trade can become a critic). Somehow, we got it written. Academic Epidemic. Whoever had a girlfriend (I didn't), she was in it. Mass-directed and performed. A smash! Enough so that after our four-star triumph at Vassar, we were asked to do three performances at the New School For Social Research. Three more smashes, enough so that a Broadway agent stopped in at our third performance to have a look. We were, he proclaimed, the next Kaufmans and Harts! Naive we may have been but it didn't take much sophistication to realize that there was no professional future in a seven-person collaboration (Just remembering seven names was more than the average producer could be expected to handle). In justification for what followed—the purge, as it became known—it was also very clear that the three original fellows had been by far the greater contributors. And so the Mob Theatre, after an excruciatingly painful session (It's no laughing matter to crucify three of your best friends) became Rifkin/Shaw/Tarloff. And so the sign painter, the art student and the Civil Servant suddenly found themselves—hadn't a PROFESSIONAL said so?—WRITERS! And the amazing thing was that the professional turned out to be right. All three of us went on, after the usual ups and downs, to writing careers. Collectively and individually. The Broadway stage. TV. Motion pictures. This article. I'm delighted to be able to report that Buddy Tyne, despite our cruel and unusual punishment, ended up with a successful career as a TV director. Dr. Jay Gould is an eminent economist. Jenny Fogel retired from a successful teaching career. As for Leo Hurwitz, wherever and whatever you are, we'll always be grateful for the one joke you contributed ('What this country needs is a good place to go back to'). So, while it didn't save the world, some good did result from the student movement, even if, perhaps, only for three of the people involved in it. There was, however, a price to pay for that involvement for at least a couple of the original seven—some fifteen years of blacklisting. Home | Historical Essay | Documents | Credits |
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