State of the Union, if you can bribe your way into it, is a screaming satire on the current political scene, the most obvious of whose impersonations is of the late Wendell Willkie, but in all of whose characters, some raffish, some pretentious, some farcical, are recognizable some of the best-known occupants of Washington's drawing rooms. The merits of the script lie in the circumstance that it spares nobody and that everyone, from Herbert Swope to Cissie Patterson, is somewhere caught in its ridiculous economy.
As its wealthy proprietors can well and deservedly afford, State of the Union is lavishly upholstered with such talent as Minor Watson, Ralph Bellamy, and Myron McCormick, and opulently staged at the Hudson. The whole setup is an admirable justification for the most capitalistic sort of theater as represented by its management and backers.
One other offering in recent weeks has been hailed as a nonesuch of the theater, at least by Damon Walker. It is a musical with an even more than usually meaningless title, Are You With It?, which is possessed of a not inconsiderable vitality and a great deal of brassy noise. Joan Roberts is its principal ornament and its plot concerns an insurance agent who leaves his job to join a carnival troupe. It will do until some better musical comes along.
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