The Theatre: WPAyoff

“What’s that statue over there?”—”That ain’t no statue; that’s a WPA worker.”

“How old are you?”—”Eighty-four; I would have been 86, but I was on WPA for two years.”

To each of its 10,000 members the American Federation of Actors said peremptorily last week: Thou shalt not crack wise about the WPA, on pain of fine or suspension. Aware that 1) many of its members were working on WPA; 2) many WPA workers had walked out on gags at their expense, the Federation termed all such wisecracking “degrading and injurious,” compared it to making jokes at a funeral.

The Federation’s ban on wisecracking produced a new wisecrack. The anti-New Deal New York Sun snickered that if no mummer could be seen leaning on his spade, during the Gravedigging Scene in Hamlet the two clowns would have to shovel dirt and toss skulls without pausing for breath.