SPREADING THE NEWS

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLV, Issue 3175, 9 December 1927, Page 7

SPREADING THE NEWS

RUSSIA'S • 'LIVING PAPEB.'»

TOUR OP '' BLUE BLOUSES.''

Soviet Russia's "Living Newspaper," whose latest message is to inform the dwellers in the outlying provinces of a change in the system of weights and measures, appeared for the first time recently in Berlin. It was a small edition only, consisting of eight men and four women, grouped under the title of "Blue Blouses." In a West End theatre at midnight performances—owing to no stage being vacant —it received frantic applause.

In Kussia every appearance of the "paper" implies a troupe of 20 actors and actresses, who must be at the same time first class acrobats, singers, dancers and parodists. There are 6,000 of such troupes, incorporating 100,000 players. If the small selected company that chose Germany as its jumping-off place for the rest of the Western world is known as "Blue Blouses," this is only by chance reminiscent of the "Blue Bird" cabaret.

There are Bed Blouses and Green Blouses, and Blouses of all colours, the uniform being the plain working man's garment, fitting as closely as a mannequin's working robe. Marvellously contrived costumes are slipped over it. These can be utilised both back and front, and apparently upside down as well. Much use is made of the crudely painted, vividly coloured cardboard picture frame for heads to be stuck through, as in the elder Russian cabaret shows. Otherwise it can be plainly seen that expenses are kept down to a minimum. In every Russian factory there is a hall which can be utilised for such performances, and there are few working men, women and children who do not avail themselves of its unique method of watching the singing and dancing and demonstrating of news. CHANGES OF PROGRAMME. The programme changes fortnightly, and is provided by a central bureau in Moscow. Each group of 20 performers is attended by a composer, a stage manager, and a scene painter. At headquarters there are 20 dramatists — scenario writers might be a better | term —constantly occupied in arranging the world's news in a vivid and assimilable form, suitable for the simplest ! reader. . | These ideal journalists are the successors of a group of young students of the technical university who, in despair at the shortage of paper in the year 1922, started the practice of reading one newspaper out to a group of hearers from a platform or stage. One or two inventive minds added an improvised cabaret show parodying these current events. When some young artists joined the band the first programme of monologues, songs, sketches, and song seenas was complete.

It was not till 1923 that the organi- I sation was taken in hand by the State i Institute of Journalists and became the feature of public life it is to-day. These various "Blouses," whose performances are free, are not subventioned by the State. The trade unions which run the working men's clubs receive two per cent, of their wages for the entertainments they provide, and for the evening's performance they pay 67 roubles, or about £6 10s. The players' salaries are five roubles, or, roughly, 10/- a day. All of them today are actors and. actresses by profession, SONG AND INSTRUCTION.

All the news items of the programme being lost on a member of the audience with no knowledge of Russian, there remained from these Berlin performances only the impression that when the apple-cheeked, flaxen-haired maiden of the Russian cabaret is singing she is telling, not of love, but of the new regulations in girls' institutes. When she toys with a sunflower it is of the excellent utilitarian properties of sunflower seeds that she wishes to inform those in front. The acrobatic

imitation of an automobile is accompanied by bitter remarks on Mr Ford and capitalism.

There are apparently no home pages nor heart-to-heart talks provided in the austere central news bureau, which relies more on the antics of its comedians than upon the lightness of the subjects. It is the old regime which is the theme for honour. Every performance begins with a military parade^ a march-

past of the performers explaining their programme. The outstanding merit of the performance is its break-neck speed, swift changes of costumes and scene, and the certainty that whatever the Russian peasant and working man thinks of the news, he will never be bored with his newspaper.