Whatever the opening night of "Too Late To Laugh" proved about the merits of the Dramatic Club's new production, it did spotlight the slow strangling of education in dramatics by unreasonable labor union restrictions. Prevented from procuring a Boston theatre, the Club was compelled to use Sanders, where, as critics almost universally pointed out, the effectiveness of the play was marred by inadequate facilities.

The responsibility for this must be squarely laid at the door of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, one of our most arbitrary and unsavory unions. Its leaders are a colorful crew, to say the least. Take Uncle Willie Bioff, for example, whose name has been connected with three labor murders, who has been charged with accepting a one hundred thousand dollar bribe, and convicted of pandering in Chicago. But the union is not only shady--it is dictatorial. Controlling all the Boston theatres except the Repertory, which now shows only movies, it forces producers to accept its inordinate demands, or get out. As an instance, sets being shifted from the Colonial to the Plymouth, separated by a fifteen foot alley, have to be brought to the door by one set of stagemen and put into trucks by special loaders; a second group of loaders then takes the scenery out of the trucks, and gives it to a second set of stagemen. Also, non-union orchestra men or conductors may be used only if an equal number of union men are paid to stay away. Needless to say, prohibitively high wages are paid to all.

As a result, creative drama is seriously threatened. Driven from Europe by the war, it can be preserved only by aiding, rather than sabotaging, such experimental theatrical organizations as the Dramatic Club represents--a fact which short-sighted union officials have failed to grasp. Even had the Club met the exorbitant costs, members, not allowed by union rules to handle scenery, lights, or music, would have been denied fundamental training in the technical side of dramatics.

Unions like this one do more than wreak havoc in their own particular industries; they besmirch the name of the entire labor movement. If allowed to go on as they are now, they will ultimately work their own destruction, but in the debacle they may ruin the drama as an art. Playwright and flyman alike have a heavy stake in cleaning up the mess.