THE “LIVING PAPER”

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2516, 20 December 1927, Page 3

THE “LIVING PAPER”

HOW RUSSIA SPREADS THE NEWS. Soviet Russia’s “Living Newspaper,” whose latest message it 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 WestEnd theatre at midnight performances (owing to no stage being vacant) it 'deceived! frajnctic applause (says a correspondent of the Observer.) In Russia every appearance of the “paper” implies a troupe of twenty actors and actresses, who must be at the same time first r class acrobats, singers, dancers and parodists. There are six thousand of such troupes, incorporating . one hundred thousand players. If the small selected company that chose Germany as its jump-ing-off place for th e rest of the Western world is known as “Blue Roses,” this is only by chance reminiscent of the “Blue Bird” cabaret. There are Red 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 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 vividly coloured cardboard picture frames 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 thmselves of this unique method of watching the singing and dancing and demonstrating' of news. The programme changes fortnightly, and is provided by a central bureau in Moscow. Each group of twenty performers is attended by a composer, a stage manager, and a scene painter. At headquarters there are twenty dra-matists—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 cf the technical university who, in despair at the shortage of paper in the year 1920, 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 progi amine of monologues, songs, sketches and song-scenas was complete.

It was not till 1923 that the organisation was taken in hand by the State Institute of Journalists and became the feature of public life it is to-day. These various “Blouses,” whose performances are free, are not subven-tion-cd by the. State. The trades unions which run the workingmen’s club receive two per cent of their wages for the entertainments they provide, and for the evening’s performance they pay sixty-seven roubles, or about £6 10s. The players’ salaries are five roubles, or, roughly, ten shillings a day. All of them to-day are actors and actresses by profession, though some only discovered their talents when the local “Bine Blouse” was being formed. All the news items of the programme being lost on a member of the. audience with no knowledge of Russian, there remained from three Berlin performances only the impression that when the apple-cheeked, flaxen-tailed maiden of the Russian .cabaret proper is singing!, slie 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. The old peasant tunes are fitted to parodies. According to these tli© Russian peasant is not dreaming and drinking, but up and doing and thinking about the latent agricultural machines. 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 humour. Every performance begins with a military parade, a march past of the performers explaining their programme, and what constructive and instructive purposes they expec-t from it. The outstanding merit of the performance is its break-neck speed, swift changes of costume 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.