Sidney Kingsley, Who Wrote “men in White” is Idealist

“Men in White” celebrated its two-hundredth performance last night.

Contrary to common belief, no bearded seer wrote this detailed drama of a doctor’s world. Its author is a young man of twenty-seven whose name is Sidney King-sley.

It takes about ninety-five percent perspiration and five per cent inspiration to make a good play, he says, paraphrasing Edison, At least that has been Kingsley’s experience.

Seated comfortably before his fireside, the youthful playwright recalled the hardships he encoutered in creating his successful drama.

“I first conceived the idea for ‘Men in White,’ about three and one-half years ago,” he said. At that time, many of my friends were internes. I became a sort of father confessor to them. They came to me with their troubles and their problems, and I could not help but be impressed by the apparent idealism that motivated them. Any other field of endeavor would have been easier than the one which they had voluntarily chosen. I thought it would be a well idea to capture their idealism in a play. And so I set about trying to do.

PLAY MUST TELL TRUTH

“The most important point to keep in mind, was that the play must be an authentic document. To achieve this, I haunted all the hospitals, where my friends were interning. I went to medical schools, to lectures at Bellevue, to the morgue. I witnessed a few autopsies. I practically lived at five or six different hospitals, wore a white jacket, ate and slept there and kept voluminous notes all the time. One month passed in this way before I wrote a single word of the play.

“Then during the actual process of composing the drama, which took about three months, I checked up each scene in the hospitals.

“that was just the beginning. After that, I rewrote the manuscript several times, during a period of three and one-half years.”

The play was finally sold to Harmon and Ullman who, in combination with the Group Theater, produced it. The rest is history.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the motion picture rights. The English, Hungarian, Czechoslavaklan, Danish, Swedish and Finnish rights have already been sold. Pending are the Austrian, French, Polish and Italian rights.

JILTS GERMANS

Asked about a German production of the play, he confessed that an agent had already approached him upon the subject. The latter assured him that the government would approve of his play.

“But I don’t approve of the government,” he answered. “You know I’m a Jew.”

It was a u surprise to the agent “They don’t have to know it,” he encountered.

Sidney Kingsley’s answer was not couched in words. The agent made a rapid exit.