Theatre: Old Play in Manhattan: Dec. 26, 1938

Androcles and the Lion (by George Bernard Shaw; produced by the Federal Theatre). The old fable of Androcles, who removed a painful thorn from a lion’s paw, which caused the lion, when they met again in the Roman arena, to fall upon his neck instead of his limbs, has come a long way. A generation ago Shaw put the fable into play form as a droll picture of the early Christian martyrs and a juggling act on religion. Last week the Federal Theatre, seeing in Shaw’s play “a pertinent dramatic discourse upon the problem of world minorities,” produced it in Harlem, as a Negro problem play, with an all-Negro cast.

The blackfaced Caesar tries his best, now & then, to seem degenerate and willful. The strong man, Ferrovius, loudly debates whether to fight back at his oppressors or practice Christian nonresistance. The lion remembers to growl. The martyrs try to look downtrodden. But to no avail. Androcles fails to transmit a serious social message, for the good reason that it is not a serious play. Shaw’s Androcles is awhimsical fellow. His Caesar is a playboy. His frisking lion is fed more gags than Christians. His martyrs are as exhilarated as though they were going to see a show rather than provide it.

Not for high Shavian wit is Androcles entertaining, but for low Shavian tom-foolery—particularly near the end when the play bursts its buttons, when Ferrovius licks all the gladiators in sight, whenAndrocles waltzes with the lion, when Caesar is chased by it, claims the credit for taming it, orders everybody to turn Christian. Such high jinks do not make one wonder what Shaw “means” by it all; they make one wonder whether he may not have had a hand in Hellzapoppin.