The Peace Academy holds its first event

LIBERTY, NY —The Peace Academy at Liberty held its opening event, a showing of the Marx Brothers film “Duck Soup,” on March 18 at the Liberty Free Theatre, which was filled almost to capacity. Many in the audience came not only to watch the fun stuff of Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, but also out of curiosity about the newly formed Peace Academy.

Mort Malkin, the gadfly of the academy, explained that this new grassroots group was formed to organize and conduct seminars and other events to encourage open discussion on how to bring beneficial social-political change on a regional, national and global level. The academy will follow the precepts of the ancient Greek Olympiad, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and numerous others who have worked for non-violent change.

Jack Hirschfeld of Sullivan Peace and Justice, who acted as moderator for the event, noted that the United States has military academies for the Army, Navy and Air Force, plus a Defense Department (once called the War Department), but no comparable peace agency.

The action in “Duck Soup” rapidly moves (sometimes leaps) forward 70 minutes of zany antics and wordplay. The brothers Marx proceed to take apart logic and reality, piece by piece. Groucho and Chico take every opportunity to confuse the temporal and spatial meanings of words and phrases. Language is stood on its head at every turn.

Chico (Chicolini) and Harpo, who are spying for the ambassador of Sylvania, have been hired to follow Groucho (Rufus T. Firefly). Chico reports, “Tuesday we go to the ball game but he fool us. He no show up. Wednesday he go to the ball game but we fool him. We no show up. Friday it rain all day—no ball game, so we stay home and listen to it on the radio.”

In the mirror scene, confusion between the world we know and the universe of the Marx brothers is artfully brought out in mime by Groucho and Harpo. Though not original with the Marx Brothers, the act has become a classic.

The post-film discussion in the theater was wide-ranging. Many comments compared the war depicted in the film with the war in our present reality. Questions about the name of the film, “Duck Soup,” and the name of the appointed leader of Freedonia, “Firefly,” were brought up. When the film was released in 1933, the idiom “duck soup” meant easy as pie or, now, a slam-dunk, and referred to how easy it would be to win the vainglorious war against Sylvania. The name “Firefly” was interpreted as a person who thought he was bringing light to the world but actually was a tiny creature with very limited candlepower.

Another member of the audience pointed out the pomposity of all the government officials, their ornate uniforms, the trumpet fanfares, the ceremonial introductions and how Groucho punctured this transparent skin of faux propriety with his irreverent antics. Others found parallels between the incompetence of the spies, played by Chico and Harpo, and the Bush Administration in the 21st century. The influences of money and sex in choosing political leaders then and now was also discussed.

Three of Groucho’s best lines (to this reviewer) are:

• “The Sylvanian ambassador offers to do anything he can to prevent war.” Groucho replies, “Too late; I’ve already paid a month’s rent on the battlefield.”

• In another scene he tells Mrs. Teasdale, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”

• When a minister tells him the workers are demanding a shorter work week, Groucho orders, “OK, give them a 30-minute lunch hour.”

An arrow from the Internet hits the bull’s eye: “This mind-bending comedy looks more and more like a documentary.”