"Medicine show." Alice in Doctorland

This is an excerpt from the script of a 1939 play provided to the Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health by the Library of Congress Federal Theater Project Collection at George Mason University Library, Fairfax, Virginia, pages 2-1-8 thru 2-1-14. The Federal Theatre Project (FTP) was part of the New Deal program for the arts 1935-1939. Funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) its goal was to employ theater professionals from the relief rolls. A number of FTP plays deal with aspects of medicine and public health. Pageants, puppet shows and documentary plays celebrated progress in medical science while examining social controversies in medical services and the public health movement. "Medicine Show" sharply contrasts technological wonders with social backwardness. The play was rehearsed by the FTP but never opened because funding ended. A revised version ran on Broadway in 1940. The preceding comments are adapted from an excellent, well-illustrated review of five of these plays by Barabara Melosh: "The New Deal's Federal Theatre Project," Medical Heritage, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 1986), pp. 36-47.