The Theater: New Play in Manhattan, Nov. 26, 1945

State of the Union (by Howard Lindsay & Russel Grouse; produced by Leland Hay ward) is a very amusing comedy about fairly serious matters. Playwrights Lindsay & Grouse, authors of Life With Father, have vaulted from Father Day to Uncle Sam, from family crotchets to political criticism. With the war ended and self-interest back at the old stand, Lindsay & Grouse are pleading for national unity. But they are shrewd enough to woo their audiences with laughter rather than weary them with lecturing.

The story concerns Grant Matthews (Ralph Bellamy), a world-minded, straight-shooting airplane manufacturer who would like to be President in 1948. The Republican bosses think he might be a likely nominee, a candidate who speaks out—provided he never speaks out of turn. But while they are inoculating him with caution shots, his wife (Ruth Hussey) keeps jabbing him with courage. In the end, Grant walks out on the party bosses.

With lively, witty gags for ammunition, State of the Union shoots at a good many targets—narrow nationalism, diehards, politicos of both parties, Labor's internal squabbles, power politics and smoke-filled rooms, a lazy electorate. But it has its fun with its upstanding hero too. Grant Matthews has ego as well as earnestness; he wobbles as well as walks chalk. Involved with a lady newspaper publisher, he has to hurry back, as a prospective candidate, to the wife who still loves him. Cleverer and stronger-minded than he is, Mary Matthews, like Maggie Shand in Barrie's What Every Woman Knows, does for her husband what he fancies he is doing for himself. State of the Union is almost as much marital comedy as political comment.

It is also more show than play: brisk, broadly human, smartly carpentered, sometimes knowingly corny. And its banner cast brings out all its showmanship.

This week Howard Lindsay and Russel McKinley ("Buck") Grouse were gilt-edging the gag that once dubbed them "the most successful collaborators since the Smith Brothers." They had written the biggest smash, thus far, of the season.* They had, unprecedentedly in Broadway history, two current hits that had opened six years apart, † And with eleven years of co-authoring, co-adapting, co-producing behind them, they had seven successes to their credit against one lone flop (Strip for Action).

The enormously flourishing state of their union reflects teamwork as much as it does talent. Lindsay & Grouse shrewdly understand the artistic limits of collaboration. Two men, Lindsay once remarked, may write a great show—only one man can write a great play. They are never selfconscious. When need be, they are brutally frank with each other.

Double Take. Alike in talent, they are poles apart in temperament. Prankish, pun-loving Grouse is easygoing, Lindsay something of a hypochondriac. Warns Grouse: "Don't ever ask Howard how he feels, because he'll tell you." Lindsay likes a drink; Grouse swore off "in the middle of a beer" nearly 30 years ago. Lindsay loves the country; Grouse loathes it. Lindsay is as nattily dressed as a floorwalker, Grouse as rumpled as an insomniac's bed. Lindsay is too scared of first nights to go, Grouse too curious to stay away.