More Depression Era Entertainment

"I'm gonna give you the mark of a squealer!"

That was my favorite line in the production of "Dead End" I saw this afternoon at the Ahmanson Theater at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles.

"Dead End" is the first show under the direction of the Center Theatre Group's new Artistic Director, Michael Ritchie. Ritchie said he wanted his first show to "make a splash" -- and this one certainly does, literally.

"Dead End" premiered on Broadway on October 28, 1935 and was described by The New Yorker as "a play you simply must see."

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt saw the production three times, and it was the first play to be presented in a command performance for the White House.

In 1937 "Dead End" was turned into an Academy Award nominated movie starring Humphrey Bogart as gangster Baby Face Martin. Also featured in the film were six of the young actors from the original stage production -- the "Dead End Kids" -- who went on to star in nearly 90 spin-off movies.

The show is an examination of classes in America, specifically in New York City. It's set along the East River where a building for the wealthy is erected next to tenement slum buildings.

In real life, New York's River House, 435 East 52nd Street, is one of the most luxurious apartment buildings ever built. Built in 1931, it once bordered 19th century tenement housing. It's thirty stories high with 73 apartments. It's curving drive leads to an austerely beautiful black marble-floored lobby. A typical apartment has 12 rooms, six baths, two fireplaces and a view of Long Island. Residents have included Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Henry Kissinger and John Kenneth Galbraith.

But the "splash" comes from what Ritchie did with the orchestra pit in the theater. He lined it and filled it with water and turned it into the "East River." The show starts with one of the "Dead End Kids" jumping into the river -- much to the chagrin of the people seated in the front two rows.

(The theater nicely provided them with little blankets to cover themselves but they always seemed one second too late to protect themselves from the frequent splashing. The kids jump in the river a lot! They even threw a tire in the river for one more surprise splash. I went down there after the show was over and it was really wet. You had to be carefully walking despite the special flooring put down.)

"Dead End" has a huge cast of 42 actors! In order to make such a large cast economically feasible special permission was granted by the Actors Equity Association to allow students from the University of Southern California School of Theatre to be part of the show. 14 of the 42 actors are Trojan students. And they got class credit for being in the show.

The impressive set received a round of applause when the curtain first went up. A dead end street on the East River was recreated with very real looking four story sets on both sides of the stage.

This afternoon's matinee was the last show in the run. At the end of the curtain call the "Dead End Kids" jumped in the river one last time in full costume. This show made quite a splash, indeed.