THE “LIVING PAPER.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20292, 28 December 1927, Page 13

THE “LIVING PAPER.”

HOW RUSSIA SPREADS THE NEWS. Soviet Russia’s Living Newspapei, whose latest message is to inform the dwellers in the outlying provinces of a change in the system of weights ana 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 (says a correspondent of the Observer). In Russia every appearance of the ‘‘ paper ” implies a troupe of 20 actors and actresses, who must be at the game time first-class acrobats, singers, dancers, and parodists. There are 6000 of mch 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 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 work ing 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 older 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 this unique r athod of watching the singing and dancing and demonstrating of news. The programme changes fortnightly, and is provided oy 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 md assimilable form, suitable for the simplest reader.

These ideal journalists are the successors of a group of voung students of fhe technical university who, in despair at the shortage of paper in the year 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-scenas was complete. It was not until 1923 that the organise tion was taken in hand by the fftate In stitute of Journalists, and became 'ns 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 2 ner cent, of their wages for the entertainments they provide, and for the evening’s perform ance they pay 67 roubles, or about £6 10s. The players’ salaries are five roubles, or, roughly, 10s a day. All of them to-day are actors and actresses by profession, though some only discovered their talents when the local “ Blue 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 these Berlin performances only th e impression that when the applecheeked, flaxen-tailed maiden of the Russian cabaret proper 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 these m front. The acrobatic imitation of an automobile is accompanied by bitter .-e----marks on Mr Ford and capitalism. The old peasant tunes are fitted to parodies. According to these the Russian peasant is rot dreaming and drinking, but up ami doing and thinking about the latest agri cultural machines.

There are apparently no home pages nor heart-to-heart talks provided in the austere central news bureau, which relics more on the antics of the 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 thev expect from it.

The outstanding merit of the performance is its break-neck speed, swift changes of costumes and scene, and the certaintv that whatever the Russian Peasant and woi- 1 -'—. nun thinks of the news he will lifV'-i ' bored with his newspaper.