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Censorship And The Victorian Drama
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This dissertation has been
microfilmed exactly as received
69-9034
MATTSON, Marylu Catherine, 1933-
CENSORSHIP AND THE VICTORIAN DRAMA.
University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1969
Language and Literature, modern
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
Copyright © by
MARYLU CATHERINE MATTSON
1969
CENSORSHIP AND THE VICTORIAN DRAMA
by
Marylu Catherine Mattson
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(English)
August 1968
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I acknowledge with thanks a grant for foreign study
awarded through the Graduate School of the University of
Southern California. I am deeply indebted to the staffs of
the British Museum, the London Record Office, and the House
of Lords' Record Office for their generous assistance. I
thank the Cabinet Office for permission to quote from the
Lord Chamberlain's daybooks, the Honourable Godfrey Samuel
for permission to cite the papers of the first Viscount
Samuel, the Society of Authors for permission to use the
correspondence of Robert Buchanan, the Shaw Estate for per
mission to quote the George Bernard Shaw material, and Major
Richard Gregory for permission to cite Augusta, Lady Greg
ory's letters. I am grateful, too, for permission to quote
letters of the Lord Chamberlain which are protected by
Crown-copyright.
I am indebted to Professors Richard O'Dea, James Durbin
and Ronald F. Brown for their guidance, and to Sister Mary
Patricia Sexton, C.S.J., for her sustaining interest in this
study.
UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
................. M a r y 1 u C ath_e r i n e _ M a11 s o n ....................
under the direction of hsx....Dissertation C om
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Date........... A u g u s t J. 9 6 8
DT&SERTATION COMMITTEE
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— 'A d k u A /-,: !))!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION- .................................. 1
II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CENSORSHIP....... 11
III. THE DECLINE OF THE DRAMA AND THE ADVENT
OF REALISM............................. 36
IV. VICTORIAN CENSORSHIP: THEORY AND
PRACTICE............................... 57
General Considerations
Political Censorship
Religious Censorship
Moral Censorship
The Censor and His Public
V. THE CHALLENGE TO AUTHORITY.............. 131
VI. THE ADVENT OF THE NEW DIDACTICISM....... 160
VII. THE NEW DIDACTICISM AND SOCIAL ORDER .... 178
VIII. THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE AND THE CENSOR . . . 196
IX. PROPHETS OF CHANGE: ARCHER AND SHAW .... 221
X. THE EARNEST ART: THE STAGE AS PULPIT
AND FORUM............................... 275
XI. THE MILITANTS.............................. 305
ii
Chapter Page
XII. FREEDOM AND RESTRAINT: THE CONFRONTATION . . . 337
XIII. SHAW'S LAST STAND, AND A F T E R ..................... 371
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................... 399
iii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
. . . the deeply harmful effect of the Censor's influ
ence is his power of hindering the development of intel
lectual drama. He terrorises would-be dramatists. Ser
ious dramatists, always in fear of the great public's
intolerance, embodied in the Censor's power of suppress
ing unpopular plays, are deterred from making a deep
analysis of actual life. The game of writing serious
drama is not worth the candle. You are suppressed by
fear of the Philistine before you begin, or you are
suppressed by the Censor after you have finished. . . .
So our ablest writers have for generations turned to
fiction, and expressed themselves in the novel. At the
present the morality of the novel is. on the whole, on
a higher plane, and shows far deeper insight into life.
than the morality or insight of the Stage plav. Why is
this? The former is free, and the latter is in the
leading strings of the half-educated general public and
the Censor.
The writer is Edward Garnett. The passage is taken
from the preface to the printed version of his play, The
Breaking P o i n t His words are addressed to London
~^The Breaking Point: A Censored Play (London, 1907),
pp. xviii-xix.
1
2
playgoers, to those members of the Establishment who will
listen, and most pointedly to the official who stands be
tween Garnett and the Lord Chamberlain. Garnett is irri
tated. The Breaking Point has just been banned by the Lord
Chamberlain's, and by extension the King's, Examiner of
Plays, Charles Redford. For the purposes of this study,
neither Garnett nor Redford is personally important. Each
matters, rather, for what he signifies. It is of no great
consequence that Garnett is an inferior playwright and Red
ford ill-trained for the post which he holds. But a prin
ciple is at stake. Each stands as representative of forces
which were bound eventually to collide: the free drama and
the official representative of public morality with whom the
English drama, by statute, has to deal.
The year is 1907, and the major encounter between the
two forces is not far in the future. Two years later, in
1909, the modern authors will officially confront the Exami
ner of Plays before a Parliamentary Select Committee ap
pointed to look into the practice of the censorship. A long
series of events and several skirmishes have brought the two
groups into their 1907 alignment. The result of the en
counter, for various reasons, will be temporarily inconclu
sive: the law will remain unchanged— but the combatants
will not. The realistic drama of the end of the century
will yield before more advanced theatrical forms; the cen
sorship will continue— an insult to the authors, a reassur
ance to the nervous in the audience— but it will gradually
become anomalous. Logic dictates that this type of sur
veillance will die by attrition in the late 1960s, but the
curious history of this institution counsels against any
such rash conjecture.
It seems clear that the practice of the censorship and
the movement of the drama have had a reciprocal effect on
one another, the one seeking to hold on to what can be
understood on the basis of past values, the other finding
new modes of expression which are frequently an affront to
precisely those values. The struggle, viewed over the past
125 years, finds its natural turning point at about 1909.
The greater part of this study will be devoted to an exami
nation of the events and circumstances which prepared for
that 1909 meeting, focusing especially on those which marked
the years between 1878 and 1909. Within that relatively
brief period all of the major arguments against the censor
ship were articulated, if not for the last, certainly for
the first time in any coherent form. During this period a
group of militants— authors whose works still survive—
4
worked vigorously and wrote copiously to remove what they
considered an unreasonable burden placed upon the playwright.
Until shortly before then, the censorship had managed rather
inconspicuously to contain the drama. But realistic drama
made its appearance to furnish the first substantial test of
that ability, and censorship lost then in theory if not in
practice. After 1909 the history of that office is the
record of an erosion of power occasioned by more self-
assured advances on the part of the drama and by rapidly
shifting public tastes and standards.
In an effort to describe the relationship of the censor
to the drama during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods,
a variety of sources has been consulted: copies of plays
which were submitted then and which were altered to satisfy
the requirements of the Examiner are plentiful among the
Lord Chamberlain's manuscripts at the British Museum. Al
most none of the wholly banned works are to be found in that
collection, but some of the forbidden pieces, which for one
reason or another were of relatively greater significance,
are still accessible because they were printed. From time
to time one of the militants against the censorship produced
a resume of the evils of the system. These biased but im
passioned documents have largely passed out of circulation
5
under the elementary force of time, but they have been used
in support of parts of this study. The Lord Chamberlain's
correspondence at the Public Records Office in London testi
fies to the activities of the Examiner and to reactions
elicited in his office by the drama. Censorship, as it was
exercised at the turn of the century, was a curious mixture
of statute, precedent and practicality. The influence of
the first two is clear, if involved. More difficult to
assess, however, is the impact of a number of factors out
side the immediate theatrical world on the men whose job it
was to sit in judgment. This study attempts to assess those
factors, too, in the belief that the censorship, if it is to
be understood clearly, must be seen from many points of
view.
There is a perceptible rhythm to the history of the
censorship. Long periods of quiescence, during which drama
tists and Examiners have existed in a state of truce, have
been interrupted by briefer periods of intense fighting.
The censorship's quiescent periods have coincided with dra
matic periods during which nothing significant was being
said which would seriously challenge the court-fostered
values of the office. The patterning is perhaps too neat,
but in retrospect it can be seen that there have been three
major upheavals in dramatic censorship, and they correspond
to three forbidden areas of discussion: the severest form
of censorship was imposed in 164-2, when the theatres were
closed. The battle then was religious. The censorship as
it is known today began in 1737, because of a theatre grown
dangerously political. The third great struggle took place
at the close of the nineteenth century, and that time the
center of the conflict was morality. Ironically, in each
case the drama has come off apparently second best, but over
the long run, it is the censorship which has lost ground:
the old story of winning the battle, but losing the war.
It will be necessary, in order to understand the way in
which the censorship evolved, to look back briefly over the
three and one-half centuries which preceded 1900. But the
relevance of that history to the later dispute is obvious
only if one first understands in outline the complaints ad
vanced by the modern authors. Each major objection, and the
minor ones which attached themselves to the movement for
redress, will be dealt with extensively later on, but,
roughly, the playwrights of 1909 were in agreement regarding
the following:
1 The whole concept of the censorship represented a
unique and unnatural burden to the dramatist. He alone
among artists was forced to submit his work for judgment
before it could be presented to the public.
2. That judgment was rendered by a minor court offi
cial, one who had no constitutional right to existence, and
who held his office for life, not subject to changes in gov
ernment, and consequently free of the major restraints which
serve as checks against governmental high-handedness. The
Examiner of Plays was appointed by the Lord Chamberlain, a
practice which had gone unchallenged for well over two cen
turies, in spite of its dubious legality. The Lord Chamber-
lain alone was judge of the Examiner's ability and selected
him without having to certify that training or other quali
fications fitted him for the post.
3. When the Examiner and Lord Chamberlain disallowed
a play, or demanded substantial revision, the author was
left without recourse since there was no provision in the
tradition of the authority which provided for appeal.
4. The definition of objectionable material was left
entirely to the whim of the Lord Chamberlain and the Exami
ner of Plays. Their decisions were dictated almost entirely
by tradition, which, the authors maintained, was capricious
ly invoked, and by whatever atmosphere of delicacy happened
to prevail within the office.
8
5. A number of subjects were, ipso facto, not con
sidered licensable. It was the discussion of precisely
these subjects which the authors considered essential to the
serious drama.
6. In order to have judgment rendered, an author or
the manager of a theatre was required to pay the Examiner of
Plays according to a fee schedule which varied with the
length of the work considered. Compared with the other
grievances, this was a minor complaint. But its harassment
value is attested to by the frequency with which it was
attacked.
Not all of those who argued against the censorship
agreed what significance should be attached to any one of
the above points or what steps should be taken to remedy the
presumed abuses, but these were, more or less, the major
points of difficulty by about 1900. A brief review of the
history of the censorship will illustrate how the forms of
control developed; but it will also demonstrate that the
censorship has shown a tendency toward self-perpetuation.
Once established, precedents assumed nearly uncontestable
authority, so that frequently old restrictions were invoked
simply because they had been applied in the past. The re
view will also demonstrate an evolution in the aims of the
censorship. What began essentially as a means of forestall
ing royal and court displeasure shifted abruptly to a way of
preventing attacks on parliamentary malpractice. This type
of control, in its turn, underwent gradual modification, so
that finally, during the nineteenth century, the office
assumed the role of protector of middle-class sensibilities.
The censorship, right or wrong, was in no really vul
nerable position until it had arrived at this final state.
So long as it primarily defended crown, court, or parliament
from abuse, its position was firm. But once its focus had
shifted onto social values, the situation altered. Since
social values by their nature shift, and since they shifted
radically as a result of the social displacements of the
nineteenth century, any institution which was intrinsically
conservative was bound to find itself unable to exist com
fortably alongside of the prophets of change. Playwrights
who saw themselves as reformers redefined the role of the
drama, and the inevitable happened. These writers voiced in
their plays a jeremiad which the defender of the old order
preferred not to hear. When he tried to silence them, the
writers turned on him in the spirit of denunciation with
which they had set out to raze other whited sepulchres.
But it would be a mistake to assume that the affected
10
playwrights at any time— either early in the history of the
censorship or late— expressed feelings against the censor
which were widely popular. The censor had more than merely
the weight of authority to support him. As the defender of
crown, faith, and morals, he was on the side of goodness so
far as the self-respecting general public was concerned.
CHAPTER II
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CENSORSHIP
None of the censorial practices objected to at the turn
of the century were innovations. Several works describe
various facets of the pre-Victorian censorship,^ but in
order to understand the situation which prevailed with re
gard to the control of the nineteenth-century drama, it is
enough simply to note a few of the characteristics of that
earlier control.
During the Tuvior period the task of providing court
entertainments was placed in the hands of a member of the
royal household, the Magister jocorum revellorum et mas-
corum. Eventually his task was enlarged to include the
-*-See especially Albert Feuillerat, Documents Relating
to the Office of the Revels in the Time of Queen Elizabeth
(Louvain, 1908); Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Government Regu
lation of the Elizabethan Drama (New York, 1908); Frank
Fowell and Frank Palmer, Censorship in England (London,
1913); E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (London, 1923),
I, chaps, iii, ix; and William Archer, About the Theatre:
Essays and Studies (London, 1886), pp. 101-171.
11
12
scrutinizing of plays to assure that they were neither sedi
tious, impious nor offensive to court values. From its out
set, control of the drama was allowed to pursue an evolu
tionary course. The vaguely defined precept that nothing
should be allowed which was not in the best interests of the
common weal furnished the only basis for judgment. During
the early years of the reign of James I, a law dealing spe-
2
cifically with the content of plays was passed. This first
legal measure dealt solely, however, with blasphemy on the
stage. But while it is apparent that early censorship,
lacking formal legal foundation, was at best capricious, it
is also clear that control was real.
The records kept by Sir Henry Herbert, who served as
Master of Revels between 1623 and 167 3, testify that the
major aim in the surveillance of plays, in addition to ex
purgation of profanity and ribaldry, was the control of
politically dangerous material and of references which were
^This law, slightly reworded, is cited without biblio
graphic reference in Archer, pp. 103f; but see An° Rea.
Jacobi. Regis Anal. Scotiae, Franc. & Hybern. viz. Anal.
Franc. & Hybern. 3°r Scotiae xxxvii (London, 1606), Cap.
xxi. By the seventeenth century, Wingate, compiling ab
stracts of all the laws of England in force from the time
of Magna Carta, included this as the only statute dealing
directly with plays.
13
abusive of persons in high position. Surviving records in
dicate that alterations of plays were demanded and even that
manuscripts which offended were destroyed. It is further
evident that, except in the rarest of instances, the play
wright had no choice but to comply with whatever orders he
received.^
The Master of Revels was not, however, the drama's only
judge. During the Tudor period the privy council or Star
Chamber or members of the hierarchy of the Church usually
dictated standards for the theatre and determined what would
be permitted'on the stage. It was not until the later years
of Elizabeth's reign that royal proclamations conferred
almost absolute authority on the Master of Revels.
During his period of greatest power, the Master of
Revels resembled his nineteenth-century descendants: he
held office for life. Manuscripts were submitted to him
prior to the production of plays. He received fees for
reading and judging works. For all practical purposes, his
word was law both to playwrights and magistrates. His
approval of a play furnished protection against local
O
See Joseph Quincy Adams, The Dramatic Records of Sir
Henry Herbert: Master of the Revels. 1623-167 3 (New Haven,
1917).
14
authorities to traveling companies in the provinces. With
out his license, performance was hazardous if not impos
sible. But his power was not to continue unchallenged.
Davenant before and Killegrew just after the Interreg
num were able to persuade the king that they should be given
sole rights to stage theatricals in London. It is perhaps
worth noting that the single motive stated in the wording of
the patents which allowed the formation of the theatre
monopoly related to the control of the content of the drama.
In the opening words of the 1660 Killegrew patent, Charles
II observed that the current London plays
doe containe much matter of prophanation, and scurrility,
soe that such kind of entertainments, which, if well
managed, might serve as moral instructions in humane
life, as the same are now used, doe for the most part
tende to the debauchinge of the manners of such as are
present at them, and are very scandalous and offensive
to all pious and well-disposed persons.^
By the terms of the patents, the king conferred what had
been the powers of the Master of Revels on the two patent
holders, enjoining them "that they doe not at any time here
after cause to be acted or represented any play, enterlude,
or opera, containing any matter of prophanation, scurrility
^Fowell and Palmer, p. 356.
15
or obscenity," and giving them the right to "peruse all
playes that have been formerly written, and to expunge all
prophanesse and scurrility from the same, before they be
represented or acted" (p. 357).
The restrictive effect of those patents on the develop
ment of the English drama is well known. There is a small
irony to be observed, however, in the fact that, while the
patents repressed the expansion of the theatre and were for
that reason regrettable, the kind of censorship they insti
tuted was more desirable to playwrights than control by a
member of the royal household. Had this particular concept
of managerial responsibility persisted, the nineteenth-
century fight would have been avoided. This was precisely
the type of censorship which the modern authors were pre
pared to accept and which they urged on the 1909 parlia
mentary committee.
Early censorship is memorable for its quainter aspects
and noteworthy for the precedents which it established and
alternatives it suggested, but the episode which enshrined
it as an enduring part of English dramatic history took
place during the period when George II was on the throne and
Robert Walpole held the reins of government. It is worth
noting in passing that the crisis concerning the freedom of
16
the press had already occurred. Milton had issued his
Areooaaitica in 1644, and the spirit which inspired it had
enough force to establish firmly the right of freedom of
publication of printed matter, subject only to the law of
the land which provided protection of the public from in
decency, blasphemy, and libel. But it is also worth recall
ing that the Puritan regime found a power to be feared in
the drama, and that during the same period when the rights
of the press were articulated, the theatres suffered the
ultimate form of censorship— closure. The issue of the
rights of the theatre was, by this expedient, entirely
avoided at a time when it might have been examined to ad
vantage .
The question was finally to arise, however, early in
the eighteenth century. As had been true earlier, political
references in the drama urged the government to increased
control. Satire finally wounded the Establishment deeply
enough to elicit a firm law of censorship. The way in which
the necessary bill was produced demonstrates Robert Wal
pole's deft statesmanship. The greater significance of the
episode, however, lies in the fact that it, to a far larger
extent than the cloudier cases of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and
Caroline control, provided the real basis for the present
17
5
law of censorship.
The patent houses had been reopened on the return of
the monarchy, and they had been joined by a number of un
authorized theatres which operated in outlying London dis
tricts. But despite the restoration of the stage, a general
mistrust of the theatre persisted. This mistrust operated
to the advantage of Walpole and his government when John
Gay, and later Henry Fielding, turned the stage into a po
litical forum. Gay's The Beggar1s Opera and its sequel,
Polly. were direct and thinly disguised attacks on Walpole.
The first was tolerated, but the second was suppressed by
order of the Lord Chamberlain. When Henry Fielding joined
in Gay's government-pillorying pursuits, Walpole was forced
to take action to counter the rise of damaging satire.
Fielding's The Historical Register of 1736 went too
far. It charged that the votes of the House of Commons had
been bought by the Prime Minister. Walpole had discovered
that simple suppression of plays did more harm than good.
Gay had simply issued a printed version of Polly, prefaced
^In The Struggle for a Free Stage in London (London,
1906), Watson Nicholson examines extensively the development
of the theatre monopoly and i s abolition in 1843. His
study forms the basis for the ensuing discussion of pre-
Victorian censorship.
18
by protestations of his good intentions, when that work was
banned. Rather than provide Fielding with a similar oppor
tunity, Walpole submitted to Parliament the case of The
Golden Rump, an anonymous play which was objectionable be
cause of its obscenity. Parliament, as eager as Walpole to
put an end to the devastating satire, rushed to agree with
him that legislation which provided for the control of
plays, and especially for their scrutiny before presenta
tion, was necessary in the public interest. In 17 37 Parlia
ment, supported by influential sectors of the public which
considered the theatre pernicious, drafted and passed the
law 10 Geo. II, c. 19.
Under its terms, the patent houses were protected and
wandering theatres were destroyed. The patent holders'
rights were re-enforced in the clause which specified that
plays could not be performed "except in the city of West
minster . and within the liberties thereof, and in such
places where his Majesty, his heirs or successors, shall in
their royal persons reside, and during such residence
6
only." The law further ruled that public houses were not
to engage in stage presentations. Clauses III and IV dealt
^Quoted in Fowell and Palmer, p. 370.
19
directly with the subject of censorship.
In Clause III it was set down that
no person shall for hire, gain, or reward, act, perform,
represent, or cause to be acted, performed, or repre
sented, any new interlude, tragedy, comedy, opera, play,
farce, or other entertainment of the stage, or any part
or parts therein, or any new prologue, or epilogue, un
less a true copy thereof be sent to the lord chamberlain
of the King's household for the time being fourteen days
at least before the acting, representing, or performing
thereof, together with an account of the playhouse or
other place where the same shall be, and the time when
the same is intended to be first acted . . . , signed by
the master or manager, or one of the masters or managers
of such playhouse, or place, or company of actors there
in. (pp. 369-370)
Clause IV specified that every offense would incur a fifty
pound fine, and, more importantly, that violation would void
a theatre's license. The teeth of the legislation were in
this last clause. Conceivably, a theatre manager might be
willing to risk closure of a single play under certain cir
cumstances. But each theatre building was provided with a
license, annually renewable, without which its doors had to
remain closed. Loss of this license effectively put a mana
ger out of business. In the next century, when the law was
reformed and the theatre monopoly was broken, the number of
theatres increased, but the censorship continued. The Lord
Chamberlain's theatre license then assumed enormous impor
tance as a persuasive force.
20
The final words of Clause III were to have far-reaching
effects, too. It should be noted that it was the manager or
»
master of a theatre who was charged with the responsibility
of delivering a manuscript to the Lord Chamberlain. The
author was excluded from the transaction. From 1737 onward,
then, the author ceased to exist so far as the censor was
concerned, and the precedent of manager and play examiner
negotiating about another man's work was established.
The wording of the law was entirely vague with regard
to the grounds upon which a play should be judged. It spe
cified only that the Lord Chamberlain should interfere with
a play "as he shall think fit" (p. 370). In 1737, the issue
was undeniably political "information" and its control, and
the law was established with that in mind. But restrictions
on the presentation of religious matters had long existed,
and the question of morality on the stage had, at least
since the Interregnum, floated very close to the surface of
any discussion of control. Under these circumstances, it
was natural that the three subjects should coalesce into a
single body of bannable material. At the same time, it
seems unlikely that the censorship would have been ceded
such autonomy had it not been that political considerations
provided the motive force behind the legislation.
21
If it is demonstrable that the antecedents for the
practice of the censorship at the close of the nineteenth
century have roots which are at any rate venerable because
of their age, it is similarly true that the arguments ad
vanced against that censorship can lay claim to a tradition
of their own. Lord Chesterfield rose before the Parliament'
of 1737 to question the law on various grounds. One real
izes, reading his speech, that there was abroad, too, in
addition to the spirit of disdain for the free stage, a
recognition of the dangers and illogic implicit in too
stringent control.
Throughout his speech Lord Chesterfield was the man of
reason who saw principles at stake and who opposed expedi
ency because of the threat it represented to the philosophi
cal position. He opened with the observation that
There is such a Connection between licentiousness and
Liberty, that it is not easy to correct the one, without
dangerously wounding the other: It is extremely hard to
distinguish the true limit between them: like a change
able silk, we can easily see there are two different
Colours, but we cannot easily discover where the one
ends, or where the other begins.^
^The E of C-----F---D ‘s Speech in the H----se of .
L-----dsj. Against the Bill for Licencing all Dramatic Per
formances. To which are prefixed, Some loose Thouahtsf That
were found in the Closet of a Gentleman lately deceased
(Dublin, 1749), p. 7.
22
He denied that a law which put playwrights in a special
category was just. The law of the land should apply equally
to all Englishmen, and no group should be excluded. On the
more practical level, he recognized the playwright's "wit"
as a commodity which warranted protection for its value to
its possessor (pp. 14-15).
But, more than the potential wronging of playwrights,
he feared the shift in power which this law would permit:
A Power lodged in the Hands of one single Man, to judge
and determine, without any Limitation, without any Con-
troul or Appeal, is a sort of Power unknown to our Laws,
inconsistent with our Constitution. It is a higher, a
more absolute Power than we trust even to the King him
self; and therefore I must think, we ought not to vest
any such Power in his Majesty's Lord Chamberlain. (p.
11)
Dramatists ever since 1737 have listened to Chesterfield's
complaint about this absolutism and have rushed to attack
the major flaw he pointed out.
It is obvious from the speech that he saw the control
of the drama as a dangerous first step toward the reasser-
8
tion of control of the press— a fear shared by others. But
if Chesterfield overestimated that corollary effect of the
law, he was correct in assuming that no man who was attached
^Nicholson, p. 64.
23
to the court could approach the plays without those preju
dices which the court embodied. It was scarcely to be be
lieved that an appointee would disagree with or permit
attacks on the values of those to whom he owed his position.
In reality, however, no one within the government can ever
have failed to realize that the censorship was instituted as
a protection of the powers then in force.
The two attitudes toward the use of the drama which lie
behind the whole censorship issue begin to reveal themselves
here for the first— but not the last— time. Chesterfield
was like the satirists in his assumption that the drama's
proper task is the exposure of vice and folly. He contended
that if evils exist in high places, satires on them will
exist in the public consciousness, whether permitted ex
pression or not, and that it is better to allow that ex
pression in order to know the climate of opinion so that
necessary remedies can be sought. His opponents clearly saw
it another way. Implicit in their passage of the law was
the assumption that the public's attitude, are formed, not
by the behavior of those in high position, but by agitation
by writers, and that those attitudes can be manipulated by
controlling the information which is made available to the
public. These two divergent views had not changed
24
significantly by the end of the nineteenth century. But by
then, through gradual modification, the censor had become
less the guardian of politicians than the defender of mid
dle-class morality. That shift, however, should not obscure
the fact that, from the outset, the conflict between censor
and playwright has involved the commitment on the part of
the former to defend the status quo, while the energy of the
latter has stemmed from his determination to follow John
Gay's intention "to lash in general the reigning and fash
ionable vices, and to recommend and set virtue in as amiable
9
a light" as possible.
Despite his convictions Lord Chesterfield argued to no
avail, and in 1738 the first official Licenser of Plays,
William Chetwynd, assumed his post under the Lord Chamber-
lain .
In any discussion of the law of 1737, however, the
emphasis should not be allowed to remain on the censorship
which it re-established. Another aspect of the statute was
to have more immediate effects. As Watson Nicholson ob
serves, by the Licensing Act, which was intended to place
^Pollv; An Opera. Being the Second Part of the Beg
gar 1s Opera (London, 1922), p. vi.
25
what had been an ancient Crown prerogative— the supervision
of theatricals— on an indisputable legal basis for the sake
of efficient control,
the Government committed itself to a practical recogni
tion of the exclusiveness of the grants of Charles II.
. . . In its immediate effects it was a violent reversal
of the policy maintained by the monarchs from Charles II
to George I [who had permitted in various ways the ex
istence of rival theatre groups], for it gave legal
recognition--the first thus far— to the patent theatres,
and destroyed all other competition. (pp. 424-425)
It is clear now that, whatever desire for control of quality
of the drama had motivated the introduction of the law, its
most important immediate effect was a restriction in quan
tity.
The theatre-going public was incensed at the 17 37 re
affirmation of the validity of the old patents, as were the
managers and actors who were thrown out of work. Certainly
the censorship issue was minor compared with the more ser
ious problem of the lack of stages on which performances of
any kind could be presented. It is inconceivable that drama
of the quality required to seriously challenge the censor
ship could have arisen under such circumstances. Conse
quently, the struggle for a free stage had logically to
precede the struggle for a free drama. That particular
dispute, which is the focal point of the Nicholson work
26
cited above, was remarkably protracted. It was not until
the middle of the nineteenth century, finally under the
leadership of Bulwer-Lytton, that it led to fruitful dis
cussions .
The will of the public to be entertained could not,
however, be contained by the simple passage of a law. Dur
ing the years between the passage of the Theatre Licensing
Act of 1737 and its revision in 1843, ways were found to
evade the control imposed by 10 Geo. II, c. 19. These eva
sions became patterns on which playwrights at the end of the
nineteenth century based their own attempts to frustrate the
censor. The "legitimate" theatres, Drury Lane and Covent
Garden— and some time later The Haymarket— operated with the
full protection and control of the Lord Chamberlain, but
almost immediately newly-formed illegal theatre groups came
into existence. Their manager feigned compliance with the
law by calling their presentations rehearsals or by admit
ting patrons— who had paid their admission by making some
purchase off the theatre premises— "free."
Another eighteenth-century development related to the
subterfuges used for evasion of the control of the stage was
to be of major significance for the drama of the last half
of the nineteenth century. In 1752, the Disorderly House
27
Act, 25 Geo. II, c. 36, was passed. It provided local
authorities, not the Lord Chamberlain, with the right to
issue licenses for music and dancing in public places. In
houses so licensed, unlike the legitimate theatres, excis
able liquor could be sold and smoking was permitted. Noth
ing resembling sustained dramatic performances was allowed
in these music halls. Brief sketches with a limited number
of characters were tolerated, but elaborate staging and
scenery were not. Music had to be continuous. But attempts
were continually made in these houses to draw as near as
possible within the law to more formal dramatic types. Con
sequently, the "burletta convention" evolved: pieces were
staged which were to all intents and purposes nothing but
disguised dramas. The theatre licensing law was dodged on
the technicality that music supported and periodically in
terrupted the pieces.
The law of 1737 solidified the regulation of the the
atre, but it had the equal but opposite effect of limiting
the Lord Chamberlain's control to the places which held
theatrical licenses. As a result the music hall, and the
entertainments provided within it, escaped his direct sur
veillance. As the music hall grew in popularity, and while
it approached to some extent the function of a theatre, it
28
exerted its own influence on the legitimate houses. In
order to compete for the growing music hall audience, the
licensed theatres began to offer entertainments which bore
increasing resemblance to the lighter type of theatrical.
A blurring of roles thus began to develop which eventually
made necessary the clarification of the law--and which was
contributory in its way to what was to become a generally
recognized and much bemoaned nineteenth-century phenomenon:
"the decline of the drama."
By the end of the 1700s, with the growth in number of
theatres which operated without benefit of license and of
music halls which tried to offer more sophisticated enter
tainments, it had become apparent that some realignment with
reality was required. The Lord Chamberlain at the beginning
of the nineteenth century allowed the licensing of a number
of "minor" theatres in London's West End, but they were
forced to conform to the burletta convention. New West End
theatres, on the other hand, were more successful in their
attempts to present all types of drama and, according to
J. R. Planche,
became at last so notorious that the holders of the royal
patents, who were most interested in suppressing the in
novators, finding nothing but odium was to be gained by
their opposition, after two or three ineffectual strug
gles, gave up in despair, and regular dramas were soon
29
acted as boldly and almost as well at the minors as at
the majors.^
But the law couId be invoked at any time. Some move was
necessary to bring the statutes in line with prevailing
conditions. To the reformers, however, the inferior quality
of the English drama was a more pressing problem.
The patent theatres could not claim that they alone
offered serious drama to the public, nor could they even
deny the charge that what they did offer was insignificant.
The Gentleman's Magazine of May 1833 noted that
In consequence of the declining state of Covent Gar
den, the manager has been compelled to close the the
atre ....
It appears that Drury Lane is in little better con
dition than its sister rival; for there appears neither
spirit in the management, nor novelty in the perform
ances .
By the 1830s, the state of all the theatres was such that
there was little objection, except on the part of the patent
holders, to some move to amend the Theatre Law of 1737.
In 1832, Bulwer-Lytton prevailed upon Parliament to
establish a Select Committee on Dramatic Literature to look
^The Recollections and Reflections of J. R. Planche
(London, 1872), II, 74.
1:LCIII, 461.
30
into the misuse by the patentees of their theatre rights,
and legislation was proposed in 1833. That particular bill
failed, but agitation by those who sought to rescue the
drama from its mediocrity soon resulted in the enactment of
6 & 7 Victoria, c. 68. Nicholson closes his work with the
observation that
After the noise of the final conflict had ceased, which
had raged for the decade (1832-1842) between the monop
oly on the one side, and authors, actors, the minors,
and the general public on the other, Parliament came in
(1843) and, with an echo of the reform movement, gave
legislative sanction to the verdict that the monopoly
had died a natural death. (p. 433)
With the passage of the Theatres Act of 1843, the
monopoly was broken and the licensing of theatres was at
least temporarily clarified. The new statute, which has
remained in force for 125 years, superseded all previous
laws regulating the stage. By its terms, all theatres
within the 1843 municipal boroughs of London and other
places of royal residence must be licensed by the Lord
Chamberlain. The power to license theatres in other areas
is exercised by local authorities. Places of royal resi
dence outside London revert to local control during those
times when members of the royal family are absent. Theatre
licenses are issued to the managers involved, who are held
31
responsible for obeying whatever regulations are current.
It is left to the discretion of the Lord Chamberlain to
close a theatre when riot or misbehavior occurs in a place
licensed by him or in a patent theatre. The duration of the
closure is discretionary, and for that period the house is
considered unlicensed. The justices exercise similar powers
in their areas, but they may be overruled by any one of the
monarch's principal secretaries of state. Oxford and Cam
bridge are subject to the joint jurisdiction of the local
justices and the chancellors of the universities. Actors,
producers, managers, and building owners who permit presen
tation of theatricals in unlicensed theatres for profit are
12
in violation of the law.
Absorbed as the men of the theatre were with the
struggle to defeat the theatre monopoly, it is no surprise
that the question of the censorship of plays was only a side
issue in the debate which brought the 1832 Select Committee
into existence and which finally forced the passage of the
new law. The censorship was, however, cursorily reviewed,
and the current Examiner, George Colman, was called to
■^The Statutes. 3rd rev. ed. (London, 1950), IV, 636-
639, passim.
32
testify. Colman instructed the members of Parliament re
garding his practice of his duty, which he saw as extending
to the expurgation of texts for profanity, indecency, and
13
political reference. Parliament decided that the censor
ship should continue essentially unchanged.
Six & 7 Victoria, c. 68 specifies that
One copy of every new stage play, and of every new act,
scene, or other part added to any old stage play, and
of every new prologue or epilogue, and of every new part
added to an old prologue or epilogue, intended to be pro
duced and acted for hire at any theatre in Great Brit-
14
am, XHr
must be sent— by the theatre manager— to the office of the
Lord Chamberlain at least seven days before performance.
During this time no one may act in or present any part of
the play. By the terms of the law the Lord Chamberlain is
enabled to reconsider a work which he has previously allowed
and to order it stopped. He is not committed to abide by
any decision he makes within the seven-day examination per
iod. But the most sweeping powers are conferred upon him in
^ Report from the Select Committee on Dramatic Litera
ture; With the Minutes of Evidence. Ordered, by The House
of Commons, to be Printed, 2 August 1832, Questions 840-
1061.
^The Statutes. IV, 639, para. 12.
33
the section which specifies that
It shall be lawful for the lord chamberlain for the time
being, whenever he shall be of opinion that it is fitting
for the preservation of good manners, decorum, or of the
public peace, so to do, to forbid the acting or present
ing any stage play, or any act, scene, or part thereof
. . . anywhere in Great Britain, or in such theatres as
he shall specify and either absolutely or for such time
as he shall think fit. (p. 639, par. 14)
The reliance of the law on the Lord Chamberlain's— or, more
precisely, his deputy's— definition of what is "fitting for
the preservation of good manners, decorum, or of the public
peace" made conflict between the authorities and the play
wrights inevitable.
The law provides for the fining of violators who are
involved in the presentation, for profit, of plays which
have not received approval. And, once again, the Lord
Chamberlain is given a means of enforcing his law; it spe
cifies that "every license (in case there be any such) by or
under which the theatre was opened, in which such offence
shall have been committed, shall become absolutely void"
(p. 640, par. 15). There is an attempt, too, to block the
loophole which, under the terms of the 1737 law, had allowed
"free" performances to be given;
In every case in which any money or other reward shall
be taken or charged, directly or indirectly, or in which
the purchase of any article is made a condition for the
34
admission of any person into any theatre to see any
stage play, and also in every case in which any stage
play shall be acted or presented in any house, room,
or place in which distilled or fermented exciseable
liquor shall be sold, every actor therein shall be
deemed to be acting for hire. (p. 640, par. 16)
The law provides the accused with means of appeal in cases
in which the local authorities have found against them, but
no like recourse is offered to those who are within the
municipal boroughs of London and who therefore deal directly
with the office of the Lord Chamberlain.
The law of 1843 came to terms with the problem which
had developed between the "legitimate" and "illegitimate"
theatres, but it did nothing to solve the difficulty of the
music halls. A recognition of the realities of the enter
tainment world had been gained, but from a practical stand
point, this recognition was severely limited. The music
hall issue remained to be solved and was to arise frequently
throughout the remaining years of the century.
It was a simplistic view which assumed that the removal
of the patent monopoly would soon result in the development
of significant drama. But by 1850, the failure of the new
law to produce a revolution was not yet apparent. More
than one writer of the period was sanguine in his hopes for
the emergent theatre, and, like the "Old Playgoer," found
35
the drama hovering on the verge of
a very singular period in the annals of the stage. In
its consequences it has materially tended to that re
markable revolution which we have lately witnessed in
the classification, arrangement, and management of our
various metropolitan theatres, and in the visible im
provement which we cannot fail to observe, in the taste
of the public. We allude to Victoria 6 and 7, cap. 67
rsic 1. which, by removing the unjust and impolitic re
strictions heretofore placed on the freedom of the drama,
and by abolishing the class monopoly which had been so
long enjoyed and rigidly enforced by the two great Patent
Theatres, may be said to have created a perfectly new era
in our dramatic history.- * - 5
^ Desultory Thoughts on the National Drama. Past and
Present (London, 1850), p. 10.
CHAPTER III
THE DECLINE OF THE DRAMA AND THE
ADVENT OF REALISM
Even in the last third of the twentieth century, the
Theatres Act of 1843 still controls the drama in England.
But it has not survived unchanged because of its efficiency
or popularity. Almost immediately after passage, it became
apparent that the theatre licensing act was not the hoped-
for panacea. It did not bring about the drama's recovery,
and furthermore, theatre licenses were still not available
on an equitable and realistic basis. It soon was evident
that the notion that the 1843 law had broken the stage
monopoly was pure myth. The monopoly had simply been ex
panded to include metropolitan theatres advancing claims
that they presented higher forms of the drama. But the old
restrictions were passed on intact to the now numerous music
halls. Their operators sought to raise the level of the
entertainments they offered, but watchdogs of the legitimate
36
37
theatre were quick to object whenever music hall amusements
made any motion toward a more serious art form. Managers of
the legitimate theatres guarded their prerogatives, insist
ing as the patent holders had earlier that the number of
characters in music hall sketches be limited, that a recog
nizable, sustained plot should not be allowed, even in bal
let, that music should be continuous. The music hall opera
tors protested that they were left, by virtue of the com
bined restrictions of two laws, with almost no material
which was permissible. Their right to present entertainment
which might have some serious artistic value was blocked by
the new law, and if they allowed their comedians and song
and dance men to drift too far in their improvisations, they
were liable to be charged under 25 Geo. II, c. 36 with oper
ating disorderly houses.
Three times in the nineteenth century, in the early
1850s, in 1866, and finally in 1892, parliamentary commit
tees sat to consider what should be done to reform the new
statute.’ * ' As had been true during the discussions which
^■Report from the Select Committee on Public Houses.
Hotels. Beer-Shops. Dancing Saloons. Coffee Houses. Thea
tres. Temperance Hotels, and Places of Public Entertainment.
Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 2 August
1853; Report from the Select Committee on Public Houses.
Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 13 July
38
preceded the passage of the 1843 law, the question of the
censorship of plays was brushed aside. Music hall operators
who testified sought the protection of the Lord Chamber
lain's theatre license and, of course, in seeking it, argued
tacitly on behalf of censorship. As long as the music hall
problem was debated— and it was debated for all of the last
half of the century— one of the disputants in the case was
urging extension of the Lord Chamberlain's powers, and the
other was only too glad to continue to accept the privileges
attending that control.
Prior to 1892, playwrights who testified before the
parliamentary committees rarely spoke against the censorship
itself. It seems not yet to have occurred to them, except
in a few instances, to distinguish between the restrictive
effects of the licensing procedure and its protective bene
fits. The emphasis in those years continued to fall upon
the advantages of protection; the necessity for control was
1854; Report from the Select Committee on Theatrical Licen
ses and Regulations. Ordered, by the House of Commons, to
be Printed, 28 June 1866; Report from the Select Committee
on Theatres and Places of Entertainment. Ordered, by the
House of Commons, to be Printed, 2 June 1892. These reports
will be alluded to frequently in the discussion to follow.
Reference for quotations will be indicated by year of report
and question number.
39
accepted almost without question.
From the point of view of those connected with the
music halls, all of these nineteenth-century hearings were
futile. Nothing was changed by them. But the hearings did
do one thing, however: they gave numerous persons connected
with the theatre the opportunity to express their conviction
that the drama was ailing. Many of those who testified be
fore the committees and others who wrote independently urged
repeal, or at least regretted the passage, of the 1843 law.
These men who hoped to revitalize the serious drama were
unable to sustain their belief in the rightness of the free
ing principle which they had rushed to embrace only a few
2
years earlier. Given the opportunity, in their disappoint
ment at the results produced by the new law they would have
turned back to the days of more rigid control. They sought
some kind of protective atmosphere which could actively
foster the growth of significant drama, and tended to blame
the 1843 law for the destruction of any positive incentive
in the theatrical world.
p
See, for example, the statements of Benjamin Webster
during the 1866 hearings, Qq. 2975-76; Tom Taylor, The The
atre in England: Some of Its Shortcomings and Possibili
ties (London, 1871), p. 8; Thomas Hay Sweet Escott, England:
Its People. Polity, and Pursuits (London, 1885), p. 545.
40
The decline in the quality of acting and the order of
writing was blamed by William Donne on the patent theatres
which, in advance of 1843, had voluntarily given up their
individuality and come down to compete with the illegitimate
forms of the art. It was his opinion that, if the theatres
would consent to divide the labors of entertainment among
themselves and be content each to specialize in a particular
dramatic form.
1 9
the inconveniences and unfairness of competition would
cease, and the Lord Chamberlain, by granting licenses
for distinct classes of entertainment to the various
establishments under his jurisdiction, would confirm
and sustain the improved organization of theatrical
entertainments.^
This 1858 statement by Donne is significant. He had
been, for a number of years, a drama critic, but by the time
this was written was already Examiner of Plays in the Lord
Chamberlain's office. And while he did not issue the state
ment in that capacity, it is indicative of the attitude
which prevailed within the office. His willingness to view
the drama as a commodity which deserved protection from open
competition, and his willingness to see individual theatres
protected from rivals— and to achieve this through the
•^Essays on the Drama (London, 1858), p. 148.
41
sanctions of the Lord Chamberlain— is in its way eloquent
proof that the notion of a truly free stage simply did not
obtain inside St. James's Palace, 1843 notwithstanding.
But it was impossible to retreat to the older protec
tionist policy. It is obvious now that the 184-3 move was at
least helpful insofar as it increased the number of avail
able stages, but it was only a half measure, and an ineffec
tual one at that, in the attempt to provide the "full open
ing as well to the higher as to the more humble orders of
dramatic talent" which had been hoped for by the parlia
mentary committee prior to the passage of the theatre li-
4
censing law.
The failure of the 1843 theatre licensing law to im
mediately promote the development of a serious art form
helped to postpone the dispute about the efficacy and de
sirability of the censorship of plays. It is evident now
that no such dispute was possible or necessary until a num
ber of moves toward the development of a significant drama
had been made. The "decline of the drama" had to be
4The Past and Present State of Dramatic Art and Litera
ture (London [1839]), by Frederick Guest Tomlins examines
hopefully the prospective theatre which he, and others, be
lieved would emerge upon the lifting of the patent monopoly.
42
arrested before the need for censorship reform could become
evident. But those who thought that that decline was at
tributable largely to the lack or presence of stage restric
tions failed to include a number of factors which interfered
with the hoped-for movement toward maturity of the art.
Mid-century Victorian drama operated under a number of
severe handicaps in addition to the lingering theatre li
censing problem. This was the age of the actor-manager and
of the star system. Heroic and melodramatic drama, all of
it highly sentimental and much of it written in blank verse,
filled the "serious" stage. Comedy was frivolous, fatuous
and highly conventionalized. The intellectual tone of the
audience was relatively low; the intellectual elite had for
the most part abandoned the theatre. Theatres were filled
instead by new members of the middle class, patrons who had
acquired their dramatic tastes first in the music halls.
Until all of these traits of the theatre began to change,
and until writers more dedicated to the drama as a serious
art form began to emerge, the censorship was not seen as a
hardship to be overcome.
The censor's position was both directly and indirectly
supported by all of these persistent characteristics. The
actor-manager was especially influential. As manager, he
tended to select plays taken from the old repertory or
patterned on proven successes. As actor, he chose the most
flattering vehicles for his talents. In both his roles, he
was anxious to avoid conflict with the authorities and con
sequently was careful to see that his productions complied
with the Lord Chamberlain's requirements. He was part of
the "star system" and helped to perpetuate the heroic modes
of acting which contributed to the decline of the drama.
His was the theatre of the declamatory set speech and the
grand gesture which had developed in the enormous Covent
Garden and Drury Lane houses. The audience had learned to
judge plays not on their intrinsic merits but by the oppor
tunities they afforded favorites to display their histrionic
virtuosity.
All of these factors— financial considerations, the
degree to which a play satisfied conventionalized audience
expectancies, the extent to which it was considered "safe"
by the authorities--had a part in preserving a system under
which the author was bound by severe restrictions. He was,
to all intents and purposes, in the employ of the manager,
a man who necessarily viewed a work as a commercial property
first and as a work of art second, if at all. Certainly
what is presented in an actor-manager dominated system
44
differs inherently from any alternative arrangement in which
5
the playwright is a freer, if not entirely free, agent.
Doubtless, drama has always been influenced by the notion
that what is good theatre is commercially profitable, but
the early and mid-Victorian stage was especially afflicted
by a non-experimental spirit, by an extreme conservatism
with regard to what was considered to be a marketable com
modity. It seems clear that under these circumstances the
censor-playwright problem would not arise in any significant
way. Except in isolated instances, the censor did his work
unreproved.
The censor's strength, during these years in which the
playwrights offered little or no resistance to him, derived
in part from attitudes concerning the nature of the average
audience. The shift in its composition which was noted
above led to concern about the effects of the drama on its
viewers. Many had observed what Dion Boucicault pointed cut
to one of the parliamentary committees: the pits and gal
leries of the theatre were filled by members of the lower
^For an example of the extent to which the actor-mana
ger helped to determine the actual form and content of a
play, see the letters which were sent to Charles Macready by
Bulwer-Lytton during the writing and production of the lat
ter 1 s Richelieu. Letters of Bulwer-Lytton to Macready (New
ark, N. J., 1911).
45
classes who had been "recruited from the music halls" (1865,
Q. 4238). It was argued that "Indeed, while the music-hall
is a grade above the gin-shop, it is the curse of the stage
. . ."6 "Theatre," "music-hall," and "gin-shop" were all
caught up in an associative tangle which clearly was in the
minds of the proponents of control. The upper classes might
be trusted to look after their own morals, but it was rather
generally conceded that formal restrictions were necessary
to safeguard those of the lower classes (see 1856, Qq. 1831-
1832). It was "well known that there is always a congrega
tion of people of a lewd and dissolute character in the
atres, who ought to be kept strictly within the code of
morality . . ." (1854, Q. 3628).
This new theatre-going public helped, too, to prevent
the rise of the serious drama which would challenge the
censor's position. Boucicault also testified that the gen
eral decline of the fine arts could be attributed to the
change in audience. He observed that since the mid-1830s,
the lower classes . . . have received great intellectual
development, and the consequence has been, that they are
greater consumers of thought, and the thinkers have con
descended to supply the market. . . . every possible
means has been resorted to for the purpose of supplying
6Escott, p. 545.
46
this enormous demand, from the rising of the lower class
es of people into a better intellectual condition, and
the result is, that the drama itself, in all its forms,
has equally gone down. (1866, Q. 4276)
More and more frequently mid-Victorian commentaries
reflected a growing realization that part of what was wrong
with the drama was its divorce from reality and the dis-tance
which had developed between the characters on the stage and
the audience. But the notion that serious drama ought to be
heroic died slowly. Its persistence indicates that, among
those who did not see the theatre as inescapably a force for
evil, the ideal drama was expected to elevate the emotions
of the spectator. The mirror it held up to nature was in-
7
tended not so much to reflect truly as to reflect ideally.
In 1858 William Donne still saw this desire for the
heroic as a governing force in the theatre. He observed
that a leveling was taking place in society, a phenomenon
^See, for example, the pamphlet by "Lynx" which begs
for moral drama based on the lives of great men and for com
edy which reproves folly. It concludes: "Or, shall we go
on laughing immorality into our youth, poisoning mentally
our children, staring at tinsel and gew-gaw, at ballet-girls
and foreign songsters, till some 1hoarse-throated age'
laughs the frippery of our vapid Histrionisms to rags, and
bellows from its parched throat, 'A New Drama, or we
faint I1?" A New Drama: or We Faint 11 I Decline of the Dra
ma 1 1 1 Review of the A c t o r s (London, 1853), p. 7. Also
in Bentley's Monthly Review. I (1837), 143-145.
47
which was later to produce an entirely new dramatic move
ment. But at this date it seemed to Donne that the leveling
itself created the demand for heroism:
The Spectator comes to witness in representation some
thing different from what he sees daily in the streets
and markets, in the law-courts or the drawing room, and
is discontented if the plot have in it no dash of ex
travagance, or the costume and scenery do not blaze with
splendour. (p. 125)
It is perhaps indicative of the transitional state of the
drama of those days that Donne, in the same work in which he
cited the lingering desire for the heroic, could turn and
point to an opposite reaction which was establishing itself.
Something had happened, under the influence of mechanization
and the accelerated pace of life, which made the nobler
forms of the art inappropriate. Donne also wrote:
Society is, in fact, in an adverse position to the
drama . . . because it [the drama] has reached a period
of refinement incompatible with strong and natural emo
tions. We are become, in all that regards the theatre,
a civil, similar, and impassive generation. To touch
our emotions, we need not the imaginatively true, but
the physically real. The visions which our ancestors
saw with the mind's eye, must be embodied for us in
palpable forms. . . . We neither believe in part, nor
prophesy in part; all must be made palpable to sight,
no less than to feeling; and this lack of imagination
in the spectators affects equally both those who enact
and those who construct the scene. (pp. 205-206)
The demand for the "physically real" observed by Donne
found its first significant expression in 1865 when
48
Robertson's Society opened in London. That production dem
onstrated by its success that the English audience was pre
pared to support a new, more relevant dramatic form. In the
six years which remained before Robertson's death, it seemed
to many that the long-awaited cure had been found. They
named it realism.
In many respects, Robertson's work was different from
his predecessors'. He was a conscious artist who found him
self in the unique position, for a playwright, of being
listened to sympathetically. His judgments on the theatre
coincided with those of the Bancrofts, who managed the
Prince of Wales's Theatre. That couple found in Robertson
the native English talent they had been seeking. The three
of them sought to re-establish a more intimate theatre. One
can tick off the gains which were realized at the Prince of
Wales's, and in doing so summarize most of what can justly
be said in Robertson's favor: the theatre was small, well
decorated and comfortable. The actors were interested in
participating in plays which relied on "ensemble" acting
rather than the eloquent solo piece. They were willing to
be directed by the playwright himself and to follow his in
terpretation of his own work. The sets were constructed not
of traditional painted flats, but as is so often pointed
49
out, with real doors having real door-knobs. The small
change of ordinary conversation made up the dialogue of his
plays. But here the list must end. Robertson's realism was
a realism of surfaces— no real death blow to the old heroic
modes. It was a necessary first step, nothing more. The
superficiality of Robertson's realism is suggested by an
1870 London Times description of the achievement made at the
Prince of Wales's:
Mr. Robertson depends for the pleasure he gives his audi
ence on other means than action or story. Give him the
smallest material in this kind that will carry the due
amount of character, cohesion, and climax for the capa
cities of his actors and the character of his audience,
and he will use it so adroitly, disguise its tenderness
by such pleasant artifice of sparkling and vivacious
dialogue, he will spice it with such short and sharp
dashes of pleasant cynicism and witty worldliness, the
pungency of whose pepper never rises to pain, that in
the hands of the very competent and well-trained company
of his own peculiar theatre he can make certain, humanly
speaking, of his effect upon his public.®
Robertson's plays attracted large audiences. Squire
Bancroft attributed this directly to their realism: "With
every justice was it argued that it had become a subject of
reasonable complaint with reflective playgoers, that the
O
Quoted by Maynard Savin in Thomas William Robertson:
His Plavs and Stagecraft (Providence, Rhode Island, 1950),
p. 99.
50
pieces they were invited to see rarely afforded a glimpse of
9
the world in which they lived." The author of Society had,
Bancroft maintained, "rendered a public service by proving
that the refined and educated classes were as ready as ever
to crowd the playhouses, provided only that the entertain
ment given there was suited to their sympathies and tastes"
(p. 83).
All of Robertson's plays passed virtually untouched
through the office of the Examiner of Plays at St. James's
Palace. But nevertheless, he is an important figure in the
censorship dispute. His greatest contribution to the Eng
lish stage lies perhaps in the fact that he finally was able
to break with the old conventions and to introduce a spirit
of experimentation where none existed. In Robertson, the
playwright convinced of the value of his own judgments and
equipped with an artistic theory finally appeared. But he
is of special interest to the present study specifically
because of his realism. By later standards of realism, his
plays were nothing more than the old sentimental drama
tricked out in a new suit of British homespun. But only an
^Marie Effie Bancroft and Sir Squire Bancroft, The Ban
crofts: Recollections of Sixty Years (London, 1909), p. 83.
51
approach as superficial as Robertson's could have begun to
open the English stage to that particular movement.
As a basic premise, now that realism has shown us what
it does indeed involve, it can be asserted that there is a
philosophical stance inherent in the movement which insists
that the genuinely realist writer must not tamper with
material in such a way as to exclude the unpleasant. Rath
er, he must guarantee fidelity to matters like the relation
ship of cause to effect, and must attempt the honest por
trayal of situations without maneuvering them toward out
comes which have their "messages" or "rewards" thrust upon
them from without. But few, if any, in England during the
1860s and early 1870s understood these commitments to be
included in the term. It is necessary, therefore, when dis
cussing the English variety of "realism" yearned after by
the reformers, to distinguish it from the French variety
which was to furnish the driving power behind the drama of
the closing years of the century.
The French novel, in advance of the French drama, in
troduced England to the continental variety of "realism" and
put the English on their guard against a form of literature
whose characters were presented in ways in which the Vic
torians chose not to see themselves. If the English learned
52
to tolerate the French novel during the century, they were
not prepared to admits for a number of reasons, that the
theatre was the proper place for the exploration of serious
social themes, particularly if such examination involved the
questioning of taboos. Throughout the century, in parlia
mentary reports, dramatic criticism, wherever the subject
arose, the verdict was always the same: if a play was
French, it had to be Englished (i.e., translated and emas
culated) before it could be shown. And nearly always, too,
critics modified the French species with words like "crawl
ing" or "putrid."
An article which appeared in The Theatre clearly illus
trates this "so far: no further" attitude. The author saw
the growth of realism on the stage as a logical adjunct to
the "matter-of-fact principle" expressing itself in an "Age
of Progress." He welcomed Robertson's attention to detail,
and admired the "superb revivals, replete with archaeologi
cal research and artistic instinct, faithful echoes of the
past, truthful transcripts of bygone times" exemplified by
the productions of Kean and of Irving; but when he consid
ered the imitators of French realism, the craving after sen
sational subjects, he asked, "With what putrid pabulum will
53
this morbid appetite find satiety?He then expressed
typical unwillingness to follow wherever the spirit of
realism might lead:
So far as the stage is concerned, one cannot question
but that, so long as dramatic Realism is true and with
out offence, so long as it is used to give effect to
the work of the author and the effort of the actor, so
long as it is restrained from gaining such prominence
as to smother the words of the playwright and stifle the
work of the player, so long may it be given its way with
out let or hindrance, and be permitted to fulfil its
legitimate mission. As for the less desirable phase of
Realism to which allusion has been made, there can be
little doubt but that when it once oversteps that margin,
so easy to divine. so difficult to define. it will at
once be crushed out of existence beneath the iron heel
of public opinion and popular resentment. (p. 131)
The French use of the term "realism" is easily defined
because the French variety has prevailed, but one must
search through the commentaries to begin to understand what
kind of realism was being sought as a corrective in England.
What emerges from the investigation is the realization that
the English proponent of realism was seeking something with
much less extravagant claims than those advanced on the
other side of the Channel. What was hoped for was a drama
which was neither fatuous nor frivolous. It should be "hon
est" in the sense of being non-sophisticated, it should be
■^Philip Beck, "Realism," The Theatre. II, N.S. (July-
December 1883), 127-130 passim.
"plain," and have a wholesome quality about it. It should
above all be a drama which Victorian wives and daughters
could view without blushing. The stage reformer was not
prepared to go beyond this very limited position. Robert
son's significance for the English drama of his day lies in
the fact that he was the first to discover how to provide
the kind of realism which was sought. His significance for
the later drift of the English stage toward more deeply
realistic drama is to be found in the fact that he gave
realism in its diluted form an opening which facilitated the
later movement. Once the movement toward truth had been
initiated, an irreversible process began through which re
alism of surfaces reached down to touch the substance of the
drama as well. But before that could happen, a repudiation
by the playwrights of Robertson's method had to occur. By
the mid-1870s, a revaluation of Robertson was possible.
Mowbray Morris, for example, observed that for ten years or
more Robertson had been the model of young English drama
tists, but that their allegiance was fading because results
had been disheartening:
On this good thing we thought we had found, not recog
nising, in our first transports of discovery, how its
goodness counted rather by comparison than by any direct
and native virtue— on this good thing we went on refin
ing and refining, till we rested at last on sheer
55
nothingness; and filling up the places of life, and
feeling, and action, with dresses, and furniture, and
decorations, we came, with slow but inevitable steps,
amid a chorus of mutual congratulations, back to the
old era of 'Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lac
quer'd chair! . .
The revaluation Morris's article suggests was to lead to
realism fully worthy of the title.
It is ironic that Robertson, whose plays did nothing to
insult the defenders of the status quo, should have prepared
the way for the more relentless form of realism, for this
latter form was to be deeply offensive. Once it had estab
lished itself, the difficulties between playwrights and
censor began in earnest. At that point, conservative crit
ics like Clement Scott looked back longingly to the days
when "Robertson, in his simple and manly little plays, spoke
12
from the heart ..."
One of the commentaries on Robertson written during his
years of success can be taken as the description of the only
type of playwright who could expect the censor's approval.
James Hain Friswell wrote;
. . . Mr. Robertson is the dramatist of the age, and
■ ^Essays in Theatrical Criticism (London, 1882), pp.
166-168.
-^Thirty Years at the Play (London [1892]), p. 25.
56
reflects the artificial manners of society. He has no
depth, little pathos, small humour; but he knows his
business and his audience, his time, stage, and actors
thoroughly. . . . His pieces are not highly moral, but
they are not immoral, and are quite up to the morality
of the age. He has been accused of sneering at every
thing: this he does not do, he only sneers at what he
and society does not believe in. He is exceedingly
artificial, but then so are the times; . . . he is at
any rate on the side of virtue and of manliness so far
as that is consistent with kid gloves and an evening "
dress.^
I O
1JModern Men of Letters Honestly Criticized (London,
1870), pp. 355-356.
CHAPTER IV
VICTORIAN CENSORSHIP: THEORY
AND PRACTICE
If one fact becomes clear in studying the censorship of
the Victorian period, it is that the censor, for all his
official courtly claims, was nothing more or less than the
alter ego of the vast and ordinary public. So long as a
writer knew his public and did not set out either to in
struct or antagonize it, his play would suffer nothing more
than minor changes. The evidence for this--the censor's
identification with the public— must be cumulative, but it
is revealed by an examination of the mid-century practice of
the censorship.
General Considerations
The operations of the Examiner of Plays went virtually
unchanged throughout the century. At the time of the the
atre licensing law's passage, John Mitchell Kemble, the son
57
53
of Charles Kemble, held the office. He was succeeded in the
mid-century years by William Bodham Donne, who was, accord
ing to Clement Scott,
a learned antiquary and scholar, to whom clung some of
the traditions of the prudish George Colman school.
One day, so it is said, they found his children in
his study prone on the floor, all studying plays for
license.
"Father 1 father!" shouts one, "here is 'God' again."
"Cut out 'God,1 my dear, and substitute 'Heaven!'"!
Edward Smyth Pigott was sworn in to succeed Donne, and he in
turn was followed in the 1890s by George Alexander Redford.
The actual work of reading a play was carried out by
the Examiner. If a play did not meet with his approval but
the changes required were minor, the manager of the theatre
at which production was intended was summoned and the lapses
were discussed with him. So far as the Lord Chamberlain's
office was concerned, the playwright did not exist. No
record was kept of authorship, and most of the manuscripts
in the Lord Chamberlain's collection of plays are not
signed. In the unusual event that the manager was unwilling
to see the alterations carried out, or if the play from the
beginning seemed to the Examiner not to deserve approval,
^The Drama of Yesterday and Today (London, 1899), II,
480.
59
the manuscript was sent along to the comptroller of the
office, a man of greater authority, for his opinion. During
most of the period under consideration in this study, this
post was filled by Sir Spencer Cecil Brazonby Ponsonby-Fane,
a man who was unbending in his role as protector of public
taste and morals. If even he could not reach a decision,
the play was forwarded to the Lord Chamberlain himself.
The license which was issued for an approved play,
aside from its putative value as an imprimatur. served a
useful practical purpose for both manager and author. In
the case of each of them, it protected their investments.
It was indispensable to the manager. It indicated, in the
first place, that his theatre was operating within the law
in London.
The license enabled the theatre manager to avoid accu
sations that he was remiss in his duty to protect the pub
lic's morals. When, for example, controversy blew up in the
London papers about the decency of Charles Reade1s Shilly-
Shally - an adaptation of Trollope's Ralph the Heir. theatre
manager John Hollingshead stayed resolutely out of the argu
ment and took refuge behind the imposing figure of the Lord
Chamberlain. His disclaimer was included in an article
which appeared in the Saturday Review of February 22, 187 3:
60
As long as the Government burdens me with a Lord Cham
berlain, I must decline to take any moral responsibility
in connection with plays produced at my theatre. I paid
two guineas, the official fee, to the Official Censor of
Plays for his official certificate of purity as regards
Shillv-Shallv.^
Hollingshead reflected that "It is a comfort to be able to
lay the blame, if there be any, . . . upon so broad a back
as that of the Lord Chamberlain" (p. 213). He considered it
remotely possible that those in the licensing office were
less aware than the general public of the harmful tendency
of certain words and passages, and that the public theoret
ically still had the right to protect its own best inter
ests. But if the system was not particularly efficient, it
was clearly not up to the managers to remedy it:
. . . division of labour is the secret of effective work.
The manager does his business, and expects the Official
Censor to do his. Morality is not in the managerial de
partment. (p. 214)
In the provinces, the Lord Chamberlain's license as
sumed enormous significance. Clearly, if a play had re
ceived the approval of a member of the Queen's Household,
there could be little wrong with its production in the
opinion of local magistrates. Theatres located in the
^Quoted in John Hollingshead, Gaiety Chronicles (West
minster, 1898), p. 213.
61
provinces and the more numerous London-based traveling com
panies were eager to have the license, too, to forestall
interference by local vigilance groups whose standards of
morality were apt to be more strictly drawn than those of
the cosmopolitan city. Throughout the century, whenever
managers or others connected with the production of plays
were asked to go on record about the censorship, they in
evitably urged the continuation of this particular mode of
licensing. Whatever their personal feelings about the phil
osophical issue of censorship, the Lord Chamberlain's seal
of approval was viewed as an absolute necessity from a prac
tical standpoint.
The license had one beneficial effect, too, in the case
of playwrights. If an author wrote for an unlicensed house,
the manager could refuse payment without fear of reprisals
since the playwright, no less than the manager, was in vio
lation of the law. The author was of course without re
course under such circumstances (1852-1853, Q. 7747).
The extent to which the licenses protected the morals
of audiences obviously remains open to dispute, but it was
the prevailing theory that they did operate in the best in
terests of the public. But one realizes, of course, that
the claims made on behalf of this primary function of the
62
license were often advanced by persons who had vested in
terests in seeing the system perpetuated: the theatre man
agers, those in the employ of the Lord Chamberlain himself,
and other members of special groups which set themselves up
as protectors of decency. The extent to which the system
succeeded or failed should become apparent when specific
plays are later discussed. But if one sets aside the testi
mony of those who had self-interested reasons for the con
tinuation of the censorship, and listens to others, one
senses the existence cf a situation with respect to the
drama which no one knew how to change. It is as if those
who merely tolerated the censorship found themselves holding
the lion by the tail, and no one was willing to be the first
to let go in order to discover whether the animal had teeth.
Control of plays was exercised in a number of ways. In
the simplest situation, when an author had transgressed only
to the extent of including expressions or lines which of
fended because of their political, religious or moral cast,
the Examiner took it upon himself to make substitutions
3
which were acceptable or to omit the lines entirely.
3
The daybooks of the office of the Examiner, in which
were entered the titles of plays, the theatres in which
their production was intended, and the dates of licensing,
This minor sort of censorship had a certain insult
value attached to it in the eyes of the playwrights, and
most jokes about the censorship attack it, as the descrip
tion of Donne cited above indicates. But the more substan
tial interference with a play— its banning— was a complex
affair which was apt to occur in one of several ways. One
of the great difficulties encountered in this study has
arisen from the fact that outright censorship meant that not
only was the playwright considered not to exist, but no
official notice of the existence of his work was taken ei
ther. The rejection of a play was not acknowledged by a
title entry in the daybooks. No record, beyond interoffice
memos, was kept of a rejected play's having been submitted,
and even these traces are not to be found for all of the
plays known to have been banned. Testifying before the 1866
committee, Sir Ponsonby-Fane described the fate of the re
jected work: "... that play is merely banished, and there
is an end of it" (1866, Q. 188). When asked if any reason
for the refusal of a license was given, he replied, "I do
not know whether it is actually given in writing, but the
author or manager who sends it is made perfectly to
also provided space for recording required changes.
understand the reason" (1866, Q. 189). Sir Ponsonby-Fane is
inaccurate on at least two counts in this last statement:
in the first place, an author very rarely dealt with the
office in the matter of submitting a work, and, according to
the testimony of the many writers whose works were rejected,
reasons were not always made clear. In support of this con
tention, a careful search of the office's correspondence for
the purposes of this study produced no copies of written
statements which might have accompanied banned manuscripts
on their return to the managers. Sir Ponsonby-Fane was
quite right in asserting at the outset that the plays were
"merely banished."
But on occasion unfinished plays were halted, too, when
the author learned that a projected work would not be al
lowed. As Donne pointed out:
. . . sometimes I have been asked the question before
hand, "Will you admit so and so," and I have said, "Cer
tainly not"; and if I have come to any knowledge before
hand of a piece not likely to be passed, I have, when
possible, said to the author, "Do not send it to me
since you must in that case pay me for the trouble of
reading it." (1866, Q. 2413)
Perhaps the most significant type of censorship with
which the Lord Chamberlain was empowered— and certainly the
most difficult to assess now— was the control of plays in
the idea stage. In this case, it is not a matter of tracing
65
lost manuscripts, but of trying to discover what directions
a playwright might have taken had not whole areas of dis
cussion been considered improper for the stage. Information
relating specifically to this point was not solicited in any
systematic manner from among authors until after the turn of
the century. But, again, the parliamentary hearings of 1866
and the testimony of the censors themselves furnish adequate
information for these middle years. When the question, "Do
you think the knowledge that there is such a supervision has
checked authors at all in what they have written?" was put
to Sir Ponsonby-Fane, he replied in the affirmative (1866,
Q. 389), and when asked if he thought that a large number of
plays were excluded by the indirect effect of the censor
ship, he replied, "Yes, because the managers know what will
be excluded before they send them in" (1866, Q. 390).
The Lord Chamberlain, Viscount Sydney, was asked if he
thought that the censorship operated a hardship on authors.
His response suggests that the censorship during this period
was operating efficiently in the sense that playwrights had
learned from experience. He responded that the censorship
represented no hardship: "The authors know pretty well what
will be allowed; the only pieces that we have any difficulty
with are pieces translated from the French" (1866, Q. 7618).
66
He stated later that "Most of the plays are written by the
same people, and they know pretty well what will pass"
(1866, Q. 7627).
Donne frankly rejected the notion that control had any
adverse effect on the quality of drama: "I do not think any
restrictions are put upon them [the playwrights] which can
or at least ought to cramp any man's powers" (1866, Q. 2461).
But one can infer, from his earlier testimony to the effect
that authors of 1865 submitted works which required little
if any correction (1866, Q. 2236), that Lord Sydney's ob
servations were correct and that any experimental spirit
had been effectively controlled.
On occasion the censor misjudged public opinion or
miscalculated what would be considered acceptable for po
litical reasons. In these rare circumstances, production
was summarily halted, and the play was either changed to
conform with new directives or withdrawn altogether.
Political Censorship
A play might be objected to on any one of three
grounds. It was scrutinized to discover whether it con
tained anything of "an immoral, irreligious, or seditious
character; perhaps the more proper expression may be,
politically offensive" (1852-1853, Q. 8120). In political
matters, the censor had to consider what effect a play might
have both on foreign relations and on domestic affairs.
Real problems in foreign relations occasionally arose be
cause of the government's willingness to undertake approval
of plays. Since a special office existed for the scrutiny
of plays, and since this office was attached to the royal
household, the more na’ ive foreign powers sometimes reached
the logical conclusion that the issuing of a license con
stituted endorsement by the government of sentiments ex
pressed in a play. As might be expected, occasions did
arise in which some foolish business on the stage which made
light of a foreign head of state gave offense to the country
involved. There was, for example, the case of Don Juan. It
was a play of small importance, but in it the king of Persia
appeared at one point on stage wearing a necklace of pawn
tickets. The inevitable happened: word of the play re
turned to Persia, objections were made on the ambassadorial
level, and instructions came from the Foreign Office to the
4
Lord Chamberlain to have the play discontinued.
^Great Britain, Public Record Office MSS, Lord Chamber
lain's Office, Vol. 601, Letters 129, 136. Frequent refer
ence will be made to the correspondence of the Lord
68
In July of 1864, a play whose author is now unknown was
proposed for the Adelphi Theatre in Liverpool. Its title
was The Last Slave, and it dealt with the American civil
war. In his hand-list of plays, Allardyce Nicoll records
the Examiner's note that it was "[at first banned and then,
on 18-7-67, passed 'in consequence of the change in American
affairs' ]."^
Earlier there had been the case of a play by John
Hollingshead.
5822. . . . Some years ago I wrote a piece called
"Lola Montes"; that was a piece de circonstance about
one of her escapades. It was licensed in the first in
stance, and played for two nights at the Haymarket The
atre. It was then suppressed by the Chamberlain; but
afterwards, having been sent in to him with no altera
tion but a change of title to the "Pas de Fascination,"
it was performed again. That seemed something arbitrary
and capricious, and all authors, of course, are sub
jected to the risk of the same excess of authority. . . .
5825. What reason was alleged?— No reason was
alleged.
5826. Then how were you or the manager of the the
atre aware that a change of title would be sufficient if
that had not been suggested to you?— Mr. Webster, who
was lessee of the theatre, made the alteration. The
title was changed, I believe, on consulting with Mr.
Chamberlain's Office. Items will be cited in the text by
volume and letter number.
^A History of English Drama: 1660-1900; Vol. V: Late
Nineteenth-Century Drama: 1850-1900 (Cambridge, England,
1959), p. 705.
69
Donne. The King of Bavaria was supposed to have been
alluded to in the piece; on its reproduction, he was
simply made a Russian count.
5827. In what year was that?— That must have been
in 1848. (1866 testimony.)
It was understood that plays depicting heads of state,
both English and foreign, would probably not be allowed.
The restriction was imposed whenever there was any question
of a play being interpreted as critical of a sovereign.
From the earliest days of the censorship it had been a mat
ter of policy that a play licensed by one Examiner remained
licensed by all. Because of this practice, the works of
Shakespeare, even when they brought royalty onto the stage,
were permitted, since it was assumed that the Master of
Revels had allowed those works when they were first written.
But a new sensitivity was developed during the thirteen-year
period when King George III was mentally incompetent. Kina
Lear could not be performed then because of its too close
similarity to the current situation (1866, Q. 2542). And
when the delicate question of whom the young Victoria should
marry was being decided, Victor Hugo's Ruy Bias was with
drawn from the stage;
That was forbidden about 20 years ago; the alleged rea
son then was that there was a queen in it. The queen
was in love with Ruy Bias, but they changed the queen
into a princess, and then they admitted it.
70
4157. Was it on the principle, Ne touchez pas a la
Reine?— I suppose so. (1866, Qq. 4156-4157)
After Victoria's marriage the play was permitted; the deci
sion to allow it came from the Lord Chamberlain himself
(1866, Q. 7625).
Characters who were frankly intended to represent ac
tual members of royalty were never permitted. The Examiner
of Plays noted in his daybook that the stage directions for
an 1852 farce called Charade introduced an actress dressed
"as Prince of Wales in his sailor's costume." It was, how
ever, not allowed; "the designation of Prince of Wales must
not appear in the bills of performance, as it is strictly
6
prohibited to introduce the Royal Family upon the stage."
Protection of those in positions of esteem was not re
served for the sovereign and her family alone. In 1858, for
example, the following lines were stricken from Kenilworth.
a burlesque:
The Honorable Order of the Bath
And pure should be the man that order hath.
It upon great Warrior's breasts we fix,
^British Museum, Department of Manuscripts, Daybooks of
the Office of the Lord Chamberlain. Vol. II, p. 45. The
seven volumes of the Lord Chamberlain's Daybooks covering
the period 1824-1903 will be referred to frequently and will
be cited by volume and page numbers in the text.
71
But often times confer it on mere sticks.
Can this be true oh Deary me
Then any one can be a KCB.
(Daybooks. II, 154)
The Lord Mayor of London was rescued from one of the
Christmas pantomimes of 1853, Harlequin and Tom Thumb or Gog
and Magog and Mother Goose's Golden Goslings. The Examiner
directed:
Omit from representation comic business Scene 1. Box
labelled "Statue Testimonial 1853— Subscriptions re
ceived by the Lord Mayor" and "Duty-off Soft Soap— a
large supply at the Mansion House."
He deleted other topical allusions, as well as the business
in which
Clown and Pantaloon are attacked by indignant Lord Mayor
whom they struggle with and at last place in Guy's chair—
Harlequin bats— placard "The Great Guy of 1853," boys
return and take off Lord Mayor struggling. (Daybooks.
II, 122)
The courts of law were not to be depicted in any very
literal fashion. Their presentation was to be "rather sug
gestive than complete," and a scene depicting the pronounce
ment of the death sentence had to "in performance be short
ened" (Daybooks. Ill, 8).
Restrictions were applied which prevented actors from
making up to look like living members of the government,
and gagging, even punning, about political figures was pre
vented whenever possible. The censor found the following
72
references "too near forbidden personalities":
M. Your tone is sad!
B. It isn't— it's gladstone.
M. I've a grand vill to send you off to France.
You'd lead the natives there a merry dance.
B. Manage your foreign rows! Play fast and loose!
Not I indeed; I'd maybe get a bruce.
M. I'll turn you out of office. B. Oh! Yes freely.
M. The cabinet you'll quit. B. Quit? Dis? raely?
(Daybooks . III., 135)
He pruned them from The Veiled Prophet of Kharassan. or the
Maniacf the Mystery and the Malediction of 1870.
The charges in What Will They Sav at Bromoton were well
outside the limits of what could be said on the stage about
Parliament:
No we wont
Wait until Parliament has met, for Treason
We're certain then to find some ample reason
I'll follow the debates— watch every Bill
They smuggle through our Liberties to kill:
Scan o'er the Estimates with careful Eye
Some Robbery in them we are sure to spy,
And when the Imbeciles who make our laws
For Insurrection give us valid cause
This Life Preserver to some hasty friend
By Parcel Company prepaid we'll send.
The Examiner commented that "these political allusions are
inadmissible and quite out of place on the stage" (Daybooks.
II, 317).
More substantial control of the drama existed where
frankly controversial issues were made the subject of a
73
play. Material which was permitted the novelist was denied
the playwright. Shirley Brooks attempted an adaptation of
Benjamin Disraeli's Coningsby. but the Lord Chamberlain
thought it inadvisable. Brooks is quoted here at length
because of the picture his verbatim testimony gives of an
author's encounter with authority:
I did not quite see my way to dramatising the story, but
being at the age when we are ready to undertake diffi
culties and almost impossibilities, I did do it; I put
in a character or two, and invented a few scenes, and
we really thought that we were going to do very well
with the piece; we had got a tolerably good Coningsby.
and we had a splendid scene of the montem at Eton, and
every thing was very nearly ready, when I suddenly re
ceived an intimation that the piece would not be al
lowed. In a great state of consternation I went down
to see the Lord Chamberlain about it. He received me
with the greatest courtesy, and proceeded to say, that
he thought there were many reasons for which it was un
desirable to produce this piece, and, after some con
sultation, we agreed to go through the piece, act by
act, if not scene by scene, and the singular objections
that were taken by the Lord Chamberlain to points in
that piece, which appeared perfectly harmless, astounded
me. After a tenth or twelfth effort to get over some
of the small points which he raised, I very nearly gave
it up as a hopeless business. The Lord Chamberlain said,
"You see that you are writing a kind of quasi political
piece, and here you are exhibiting a sort of contrast
between the manufacturing people and the lower classes;
do not you think now that would be a pity?" I ventured
to explain to him, that over the water at that very time
there was a right honourable villain in almost every
piece that was played in one of the theatres there, who
was always sending poachers to gaol, and always seducing
his inferiors' wives, and that that person was exhibited
on the stage with a star or a garter or a ribbon, or
something of that kind, on his breast, the whole object
of this transpontine drama being obviously to bring the
74-
aristocracy into unfavourable comparison with another
class. Now, in my own piece I had an aristocrat, who
was behaving rather better in a scene where a mill was
burning, or something of that kind; however, that had
to come out. Then, this was not to be in, and that was
not to be in; something might be construed with an allu
sion to some family in Shropshire; Mr. Holloway's oint
ment was not to be put in as Mr. Highgate1s ointment,
because really Mr. Holloway was an industrious trades
man, and employed a good many people, and so on. Of
course, a series of things of that kind places a dra
matic author in a very unfavourable position, but that
was the only time when I had a difficulty, and that was
about the time when "Coningsby" had caught the top of
the tide . . . It was in 1845. (1866, Qq. 4480-4481)
In 1866 the manager who submitted Harlequin. Cock Robin
and the Children in the Wood was told that "the allusion to
the Hyde Park Riots" would have to be deleted:
Talking of Parks my right there has been a tried one
But I have found my way there, that was a Hyde one.
(Daybooks. Ill, 55)
Public taste, too, helped to keep material with a
strongly political flavor off of the stage. According to
Tom Taylor, a topic had to "be already a matter of free pub
lic comment" in order for it to be effective on the stage
(1866, Q. 4765), and if a subject was too politically load
ed, if, for example, "the late Duke of Kent was put on the
stage?— Of course during the lifetime of the Queen the pub
lic taste might object to that" (1866, Q. 4833). Dion
Boucicault agreed with him:
75
4143. . . . do you think if politics were introduced
on to the stage that the audience, so far from objecting
to it, would be delighted with it by way of change?— No;
I have tried political allusions occasionally, and I have
seen them tried, but they did not answer.
4144. But suppose you went a step further, and, as
was suggested the other day, Mr. Buckstone was to act
Lord Russell?— I think the public would stop it; I feel
sure of that.
4145. You think there being two parties in the coun
try the public would not allow it?— I think the public
would form one party on that subject, and say that it
was bad taste.
414-6. . . . They would not allow it. (1866)
Political censorship, then, was exercised in order to
avoid insult to foreign powers, to protect the Establish
ment, particularly the Crown, and to prevent the abrasion of
social wounds. The concept of the stage as a political
forum had not yet arisen. This battle was not really to be
fought until the period between the World Wars, when at
tempts were made to turn plays into vehicles of propaganda
on behalf of the fascist or the communist cause.
But to return briefly to the area of discussion of
which the Coningsby incident is a part, it is worth noting
that the censorship, while it was slow to change, was not
entirely static. Authors who opposed the censorship con
sistently objected that no clearly defined set of regula
tions existed which dealt with all contingencies. The prob
lems associated with this fact are, from the authors' point
76
of view, manifest. But it would seem that whatever flexi
bility the censor had stemmed from the lack of clear defi
nition of objectionable material. In 1870, for example, a
play was submitted for approval which took up some of the
subjects touched on in Coninasbv. The censor passed the
play along to the Lord Chamberlain for decision:
May 18, 1870
My Lord
A play entitled "Put Yourself in his Place" has been
read by me and I have no hesitation, so far as my private
opinion goes, in recommending it for your sanction. But
I think it advisable to depart from the usual form of
recommendation, because the subject of it is the relation
of mill-owners to workmen and deals with the matters of
Unions, strikes, and the persuasion of non-unionists by
their combined fellow-workmen. (Vol. 232, letter 94)
A similar play, The Union Wheel, had caused sniping in Punch
on the grounds that it was inciteful of strikes and vio-
7
lence. But the censor denied that either of the plays was
justly open to such charges, and he asked the Lord Chamber-
lain to support him in that opinion. Put Yourself in His
Place was approved, despite Punch's obvious favoring of the
exclusion of such topics from the stage.
^"The Union Wheel" (anon, rev.), Punch. LVIII (May 7,
1870), 185.
77
Religious Censorship
The case for religious censorship is relatively uncom
plicated. Given the close alliance between Church and State
in England, it was not altogether illogical that a minister
of the government should have been asked to assume part of
the role of defender of the faith. Although cases of the
church demanding specific action on the part of the censor
are rare, the office operated on well-established principles
when dealing with religious matters. The tradition provided
that biblical figures could not be presented and that stor
ies from the Bible could not be dramatized. The name of the
Divinity could not be used, and, of course, no representa
tion of the Divinity could be attempted. These restraints
seem odd in view of the roots of English drama, but only
until one recalls the impact of the Interregnum and the
change in the concept of the function of the drama which
attended the Restoration.
It is important to notice that there existed in England
a large and articulate sectarian population which saw the
drama as irredeemably evil. Their protests against the the
atre did much to keep the notion of the separation of church
and stage alive in the minds both of those who frequented
78
8
the theatre and those who saw to its regulation. Relig
ious opposition to the drama was militant. Placards which
announced that the theatre was "The Synagogue of Satan"
urged "Ministers of the Town and neighbourhood to sound the
9
trumpet of warning." Pamphlets were circulated which com
plained that
The example of the sinner is made far more attractive
and impressive than that of the reformed person. The
boldness, the wit, the daring of the offender, and all
that false glare, which is spread over him to excite
interest, engages very much more than the sorrow and
regret of the same individual when his time comes to
be cut down by the sword of justice, which he had long
defied, and by which he is overtaken only so late, and,
ID
as it were, by chance.
The theatre, it was maintained, was the first easy step
toward ruin:
It is told of an ingenuous youth, that after a struggle
he prevailed over his better self so far, as to find
himself at one of the entrances to a play-house; but,
to make sure, he raised his eyes to the transparency
that hung over the avenue, and read these words, "The
O
George Henry Lewes attributed what he called the
"inevitable decadence" of the stage to the "odious tyranny
exercised by this 'religious world1 over the respectable
classes." Selections from the Modern British Dramatists
(Leipzig, 1867), pp. 10-11.
^"The Theatre," a placard (Stirling, 1856).
■^Anonymous, The Theatre and the Church: or, Gospel
Truth to Be Realized (Woodbridge, 1845).
79
way to the Pit!" The PIT! the PIT! flashed upon his
mind, and remembering earlier days and better feelings,
he hurried back to his home— he fled from the "PIT."H
An 1865 pamphlet indicates that those who feared the
stage counted the censor on their side. The author would
have none of the notion that the theatre could lay claim to
goodness on the basis of its origins; to argue in this way
was to "plead for Baal" or to mistake a "monkish represen
tation" for religion.
For the same purpose (morality's sake), also, is the
Lord Chamberlain appointed to supervise Theatres and
their performances, lest licence, being unbridled,
common morality should speedily degenerate into that
indecency which would be a feast to the vile passions
of many of the profligate, who are known to frequent
the place.^
According to one Examiner of Plays, these prejudices
against the theatre, the prevailing notions that it was
evil, "abstract from its benches many of the more intellec
tual members of society, and thus lessen the demand for a
13
higher and better order of drama."
Even those intimately connected with the stage tended
^Rev. John MacDonald, What Is the Theatre? (Launces
ton, Tasmania, 1856).
^Rev. A. J. Baxter, The Theatre "A Religious Institu
tion" (London, 1865).
• * - 3Donne, p. 137.
80
to view it as tainted, so that one finds confessional writ
ings of a sensational cast such as The Truth about the Stage
by an actor who wrote under the pseudonym Corin. The book
was
written with a twofold object. Firstly, to point out
the temptations and dangers which beset aspirants for
histrionic fame, and to warn stage-struck youths and
maidens, who wish to quit the sphere of life in which
circumstances have placed them, for the perilous and
precarious vocation of a player.
Much later in the century, as estimable a figure as Clement
Scott, a man who had earned his living as a drama critic,
15
was asked, "Does the Theatre Make for Good?" The theat
rical world never forgave him for his emphatic "No!"
T. H. S. Escott, in a book cited by E . F. S. Pigott,
the Examiner of Plays (see pp. 117-122 below), pointed out
that
the stage is not at the present time a vehicle for the
inculcation of the higher morality, and that as matters
are, it is not likely to be one, must be confessed. The
relaxation of public manners which has been in process
in this country during several years is reflected by the
footlights, and in the pieces which attain popularity
behind t h e m . -*-6
-^(London, 1885), p. iii.
•^Raymond Blathwayt, Does the Theatre Make for Good?
An Interview with Mr. Clement Scott (London [1898]).
•^England: Its People. Polity, and Pursuits, p. 544.
81
Dion Boucicault's description of the reception of cer
tain lines in his play Old Heads and Young Hearts indicates
that even the theatre-going public was not prepared to tol
erate the presentation of religious material in plays:
There was a love scene at the end, where the gentleman
. . . had to say to the lady, "I came to scoff, but I
remained to pray," he being on his knees; that expres
sion, out of Goldsmith, the audience mistook; they
thought it came out of the Bible, and they hissed it.
(1866, Q. 4060)
The Victorian stage was viewed with general mistrust by
members of society to be found everywhere from the pulpits
of non-conformist churches to the stalls of the theatres and
the office of the Lord Chamberlain itself. Given this mis
trust as a background, the censor's willingness to keep
matters divine unprofaned by contact with the theatre is no
surprise.
Many of those who wrote on the subject would have
agreed with the animadversions of the Reverend A. J. Baxter:
Only admit the religious nature of the Theatre with its
light and shade, and every other place and form of
worldly amusement becomes religious also— excepting
palpable immorality— and the world and the Church form
a gross and indefinable medly. (p. 7)
But a counter-movement had begun which made the extraordi
nary claim that the theatre and the church had similar mis
sions . The agitators argued that the stage had a
82
sacramental role to fulfill. As early as I860, members of
the Young Men's Christian Association were listening to
arguments for a drama subservient to morality. In that year
a precedent was established. New Year's Day services were
held in the Garrick theatre and the gospel was preached to
"some of the most depraved and neglected of our fellow
17
creatures," a practice which the speaker hoped would pro
duce a further good:
. . . in connection with entertainments, the minds of
the masses will think differently, their tastes be
raised, and they will not be satisfied with dramas of
a low and immoral nature, but will desire something of
a more innocent character, and of a more elevating
tendency. In short the preaching of the Gospel in
Theatres will produce a healthful reform in dramatic
performances. (pp. 14-15)
One of the more determined efforts to make the theatre
respectable and to force a change in the opinion which held
that religion and the stage must be forever separate was
made by a priest of the Church of England, Stewart Headlam.
Against the wishes of his bishop, he selected the theatrical
community for his ministry. His biography indicates a shift
in attitude toward the stage on the parts of the Bishops of
London. When Headlam's first bishop removed him from his
•^Thomas a. Binckes, Preaching in Theatres (London,
1860), p. 9.
83
curacy as a punishment for his obduracy in defending the
stage, the bishop wrote:
It is of course vain to argue with one who prefers so
unhesitatingly his own judgment, backed by the approval
of actors and the proprietors of music-halls, to that
of his incumbent and bishop, neither of whom can be
considered Puritans. But I do pray earnestly that you
may not have to meet before the Judgment Seat those
whom your encouragement first led to places where they
lost the blush of shame and took the first downward
step towards vice and misery.
The ban was not lifted until 1898, when Headlam1s later and
more understanding superior was moved to Canterbury. But by
then, as his biographer writes, the work of Headlam1s Church
and Stage Guild had been accomplished. The names of those
who attended its meetings indicate that the group did not
represent merely the lunatic fringe: "Many distinguished
men took part in these gatherings and in the discussions
which followed— Eernard Shaw, William Archer, Hubert Bland,
Belfort Bax and others" (pp. 21-22). The concessions made
on the part of at least the Church of England were acknowl-
19
edged in The Theatre of June 1, 1897. The writer noticed
l^Donald Hole, The Church and the Stage: The Early
History of the Actors1 Church Union (London, 1934), p. 15.
19
Anonymous, "The Church and the Stage," The Theatre
(June 1897), pp. 307-309.
84-
with satisfaction the symbolic value of Henry Irving's read
ing of Becket in the chapter house at Canterbury Cathedral
and of the speech by the Archdeacon of London on behalf of
actors' orphans. A rapprochement was being effected which
would have been unthinkable twenty years earlier. Just
after the turn of the century, the change had become obvi
ous. At the Annual Conference held by the Church and Stage
Guild at the Coronet Theatre in 1909, the Bishop of South-
20
wark took the chaxr.
This counter-movement, and its success, can be seen as
stemming in part from the increased self-reverence and sense
of mission which moved the theatre and those associated with
it. A redefinition of roles, related to the movement toward
realism in which all aspects of life were seen as valid
material for the stage, was in progress. But the censor
ship, by its nature a conservative institution, obviously
could not be expected to change its views as quickly as did
those groups which helped to establish its policy. As a
result, we find the office of the censor by the end of the
period in some regards holier than the church itself and
less willing to take even tentative steps toward a new
^Hole, p. 102.
85
freedom of representation of religious matter on the
21
stage.
Writers complained that the mid-Victorian injunction
against the presentation of religious themes was capricious
ly invoked. It was pointed out, for example, that the Lord
Chamberlain's Office had, at the instigation of the Bishop
of London (1866, Q. 7788), forbidden a production of Ros
sini's Moses in Egypt, while allowing the play in another
form and under a different title. The same had been true of
a presentation of "The parable of the Prodigal Son" (1866,
Qq. 4147, 4151-4154). But William Donne chose to see what
others called inconsistencies as the judicious application
^Reasons for this become apparent when one consults
the verbatim report of the 1966-1967 parliamentary committee
on stage censorship. Even in this latest document, the old
attitude persists in the reports submitted on behalf of the
Roman Catholic community: "The church is the proper place
for mystery, morality and miracle plays, and though the the
atre may have some technical advantages it is doubtful
whether these outweigh the sacred atmosphere which is neces
sary to the proper performance of such plays. . . . As to
Christ in the theatre, I am opposed to the removal of cen
sorship because although I am sure there would be respectful
and possibly highly poetic and apostolic presentations, the
danger of the reverse is too great. If Christ, why not God?
Effective control without censorship would be impossible and
I am sure that Christians generally would be affronted."
Report of the Joint Committee on Censorship of the Theatre.
H. C. 503, Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed,
19 June 1967, p. 136.
86
of restraint:
I have never said that I would entirely interdict reli
gious subjects in a drama. I saw no reason why a reli
gious drama . . . should not be presented, nor do I,
provided it is not doctrinal. (1866, Q. 2463)
It was, he maintained, the performance of biblical stories
in character which was objectionable.
It is obvious why he, and censors to follow him, should
have held this opinion so strongly. While an audience might
simply interrupt a play to hiss lines it misconstrued to be
from the Bible, a deluge of irate letters flooded the Ex
aminer of Play's office whenever a frankly biblical play was
attempted. Joseph and His Brethren alone accounted for a
considerable part of the official activities of the censor
all during the 1870s and 1880s. The play was attempted
frequently throughout the century, particularly by touring
companies in the provinces, and inevitably the fact was
brought to the attention of the Lord Chamberlain, with a
demand for intervention. The Lord Chamberlain listened to
the objections. The exchange of letters occasioned by the
attempted 1878 production of the piece in Sheffield illus
trates how the censor moved against illegal performances.
On April 20 a letter from a "common informant" reported
"that the unlicensed Sacred Drama of 'Joseph and his
87
Brethren' is now being played tonight, and to be continued
every night during next week in a Licensed House . . ."
(Vol. 341, letter 75). As was so often the case, the letter
came from a theatre manager who had previously been pro
hibited from showing the piece. He enclosed a poster an
nouncing the play and demanded justice.
The office of the Lord Chamberlain then sent telegrams
to the manager of the house in question, warning him that he
would be "liable to heavy penalties" if the performance con
tinued, and to the mayor of Sheffield, reporting the ex
change. Both replied, indicating that the performance would
not take place. The former, again typically, closed his
letter by requesting to know the name of the informant (Vol.
341, letters 75-78). But the Lord Chamberlain, as usual,
did not respond to that particular question.
In the memo of May 13 regarding the incident, the Ex
aminer observed what other step might have followed. In
keeping with the tradition established in the time of James
I, "The Penalty is recoverable by any informer in a Police
Court— and as a consequence of conviction the license for
the Theatre becomes void" (Vol. 343, letter 49). But there
is no indication that in this case charges were preferred.
In a situation of this sort, the rival theatre manager was
88
usually content simply to see production stopped.
It was proposed in 1878 to bring the Oberammergau Pas
sion Play to England, and against the warnings of the Ex
aminer, a tour was attempted (Vol. 342, letter 218). The
unlicensed play prompted ten letters of objection (Vol. 342,
letters 221-230), among them a petition from the Masters of
Winchester College "to protest against the extreme profanity
and impropriety of its transference from its natural home to
a place of Entertainment in London" (Vol. 342, letter 222).
More than one writer agreed with the correspondent who found
the play appropriate to Bavaria, but thought that "in a
London Theatre it can be but a burlesque and most blasphe
mous" (Vol. 342, letter 218).
After this incident, whenever the censorship was at
tacked, it became a matter of course to deride the office
for having seen something objectionable in the Oberammergau
play, but this matter of the presentation of the Divinity
or biblical figures on the stage demonstrates clearly the
weight of public opinion. In his response to these works,
the Examiner was literally acting as the extension of the
public mind.
Even biblical themes, however, could be modified to
meet with the Lord Chamberlain's approval. In 1855 The
89
Triumph of the Jewish Queen was refused a license. But it
was altered, and subsequently licensed. In his letter to
the Lord Chamberlain, the Examiner of Plays pointed out:
The story is that of Esther: several even of the names
in the Bible are retained, viz. Haman, Mordecai, Vaskti,
Esther, etc.— with the treatment of the subject I have
no fault to find: my objection lies against the em
ploying of a portion of the Bible which moreover is oc
casionally read in the Church-service, as a dramatic
theme. (Daybooks, II, 151)
Partly as a concession to feelings against "popery,"
partly out of reverence for the person of Christ, no cruci
fix could be shown, and a "simple cross" had to be substi
tuted (Daybooks. II, 3). The word "Hosanna" was forbidden
(Daybooks. II, 22), as were the representation of the Bible
and the taking of oaths upon it (Daybooks. II, 138). The
lines
"Listen what am I worth?"
"About eight and twenty pieces of silver"
contained an inadmissible allusion (Daybooks. II, 164).
The opera Mefistofele had to be altered:
The "Prologue in Heaven" . . . to be entirely omitted
in reproduction so far as mise en scene and dramatic
personae, and dialogue are concerned. The Prologue as
an Introduction to the dramatic actions of the piece,
according to the composer's intention, may be treated
orchestrally. The choral portions being sung behind
the curtain. A scenic representation of Heaven and
the heavenly host, would be calculated to shock the
religious susceptibilities of an English audience.
90
(Daybooks. V, 127)
The clergy too received something like the protection
given to royalty and persons of political importance. In
1885 the Examiner of Plays found the presentation on the
stage of a clergyman
a gross libel on the English Church, and calculated to
give just offence to a considerable portion of any mis
cellaneous English audience. The delineation of a reli
gious hypocrite is perfectly legitimate; but it gains
in force (and loses in offensiveness) by being made that
of a layman, as in Moliere's Tartuffe. (Daybooks, V,
160)
Only three years earlier, the Lord Chamberlain had
reason to know the precise feelings of the hierarchy with
regard to such presentations. In August 1882 he received a
letter from the Bishop of London:
My dear Lord
My attention has been called to the enclosed play in
which, for the first time I am told, Clergymen have been
introduced on the stage "pour vive." singing comic songs
and the like. Your Lordship will, I think, agree with
me that such an exhibition is not only objectionable in
point of good taste, but not without danger in its bear
ing on reverence for sacred things, and thus indirectly
even on religion itself. . . .
It is with the concurrence of the Archbishop of Can
terbury that I have ventured to bring this matter before
you. (Vol. 399, letter 169)
The Examiner was reprimanded for his oversight in licensing
the play. The Bishop could not agree with him that "to have
91
refused to license the piece because clergymen were [humor
ously treated] would have done more to harm the cause of
religion than its performance can possibly have done" (Vol.
399, letter 176).
By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, a
generally more flexible attitude toward the possible role of
the stage began to manifest itself. It was expressed in the
occasional crumbling of the restrictions against religious
drama and politically flavored plays. But beyond question,
the greatest readjustment of thought was required before
there was any willing relaxation of the control of "immoral
ity" on the stage.
Moral Censorship
Of all the interdicted areas, that which had to do with
the discussion of moral values is by far the most difficult
to describe, and was obviously the most difficult for the
censor to deal with. But certain aspects of it are simpler
to examine than others. Throughout the entire period, the
Examiner of Plays took a firm stand with regard to the por
trayal of crime. The unvarying disfavor that met any play
which depicted criminals stemmed largely from the mistrust
of the sympathies and morals of the lower classes who
92
supported the sensational drama. William Henry Bodkin,
Assistant Judge for Middlesex, saw a tenuous but certain
relationship between the state of the theatre and the rise
of crime:
I only know that cases frequently come before me of a
crime that is now very much on the increase, I mean the
crime of embezzlement, robbing employers; and I find
that the young men are very much induced to get into
these difficulties through attending cheap places of
amusements of this kind. (1866, Q. 1834)
He would, he said, put as little temptation as possible in
the way of everybody (1866, Q. 1836).
The fact that sensational plays built around stories of
crime generally ended by pointing out a moral was not enough
to save them from censure. Their influence on the lower
classes was feared:
What is a harmless realism among the higher classes may
conceivably become a very dangerous realism if gratified
in the case of the lower. . . . Again, early in the month
of December, 1875, it was announced on a series of yellow
and black posters, fixed upon every available vacant space
in the town of Sunderland, that a startling drama of real
life was to be produced, founded on certain incidents in
the career of Henry Wainwright, who was then lying in the
condemned cell of Newgate under sentence of death for the
murder of his paramour! . . . If this hideous farrago of
criminal tableaux, rendered articulate with criminal
speeches and vicious sentiments, had been actually given
to the public, who can doubt that it would have exerted
a directly debasing and pernicious i n f l u e n c e ? 2 2
22Escott, p. 547.
93
The Lord Chamberlain halted the performance. For a similar
reason the author of The Kina of the Mint or Old London by
Night was ordered in 187 3 to delete the scene which involved
pocket-picking (Daybooks. Ill, 70). The play Evicted met
with disapproval; according to the notation in the Lord
Chamberlain's daybook, "As at present written it reads like
an apology for crime" (V, 57). In 1869 the author of The
Ghost of Cock Lane was instructed to change the name of a
character: "The name of Kent to be changed as that is mixed
up with an occurrence--the unexplained Road Murder— which
may still be fresh in public remembrance" (Daybooks. II,
109) .
Even Dickens' great popularity as a novelist, and a
moral novelist at that, was not enough to persuade the pub
lic that what was acceptable in written form ought to be
viewed:
2416. Have you found that pieces are particularly
popular among the lower classes which are founded on
burglaries and robberies?— Yes; and the results have
been that two or three pieces of that order have not
been allowed to be performed. "Oliver Twist" was one;
it had a bad influence, and the Lord Chamberlain had a
great many letters from parents and masters requesting
that such pieces should not be exhibited, because they
had an ill effect on their sons and apprentices. New
plays turning on such plots are now not recommended for
license.
2417. Would the play, however, have a worse effect
on them than reading the books?--No doubt there is that
94
difficulty, that you may buy for 6d_. at a railway stall
what you may see for 3d,, at a theatre. But it is to be
remembered that representation of a story appeals much
more strongly than merely reading one, to the senses of
an audience. (1866)
Jack Sheppard was a real problem. The story of the
highwayman, a folk-hero, is one of the most persistent of
the century. Several variations of the tale were licensed,
but the play was tolerated rather than approved. Because of
objections from one sector of the public, the license was
withdrawn from one version ten years after it had been le
gally upon the stage (1866, Qq. 2544, 4043). Two attitudes
toward the play were revealed in the exchange between George
Gray and his interrogator during the 1852-1853 parliamentary
hearings:
7723. . . . Are you aware of the success which at
tended the representation of "Jack Sheppard"?— I am.
7724. . . . I do not see myself anything particularly
demoralising in "Jack Sheppard"; it is so silly a thing,
and so harmless, that I am sure it was seen through by
the class of people among whom I have been making repre
sentations .
7725. You are not aware of a case which occurred at
the police office of a man whose delinquencies the police
actually traced to his witnessing the performance of
"Jack Sheppard"?--I have heard of men being choked with
a leg of mutton.
Violence was also interdicted. Executions were not to
be shown on stage (Daybooks. II, 109, 124, 163); a scene
which involved vitriol throwing had to be changed (Daybooks.
95
V, 202). An adaptation of the Bill Sikes and Nancy subplot
of Oliver Twist was licensed, without consultation by the
Examiner of any higher authority. Except for the fact that
in the play Nancy and Bill were man and wife, the stage ver
sion followed Dickens' original closely. But the violence
of the play caused such a public outcry that it closed after
only a brief run. The incident occasioned the insertion in
the official correspondence files on August 5, 1878, of a
"Confidential Memo" in which the Examiner justified what
others considered a remission of duty. In this rather
lengthy document, Pigott ruminates that
Such pieces as these founded on "Oliver Twist" are,
to my sense, profoundly repugnant, and repulsive.
But the Examiner of Plays has not to consult his own
personal tastes and feelings; he has to consider on what
grounds a licence for the representation of such and
such a piece can be refused.
Now it might be contended, with something more than
plausibility, that, however revolting to the sensibili
ties of the better portion of an audience may be certain
scenes, incidents, and persons in "Oliver Twist." neither
the general tendency, nor the ultimate effect, of their
representation can be considered as opposed to the in
terests of public morality; inasmuch as vice and crime
are presented under a hideous, and by no means seductive
mien, and are punished in the end; whereas in such pieces
as Jack Sheppard and Claude Duval, the youthful burglar
and the gallant highwayman are presented as fascinating
heroes of romance.
There is absolutely nothing in the degradation and
redemption of the poor workhouse foundling "Oliver
Twist"; in the horribly grotesque figure of "Faain"; in
"Bill Sikes" and his associates in crime; or in "Nancy";
to tempt the imaginations of young members of the
96
dangerous classes sitting in the gallery . . . (Vol.
343, letter 65)
But Pigott here is indulging in a rationalization which did
not always occur to an Examiner when it was time to judge
the merit of a work. For him, the end did not always justi
fy the means, as will be demonstrated.
Now that the device of the "Confidential Memo" has been
introduced, it should be pointed out that the only worth
while key, aside from parliamentary testimony, to the opera
tions of the office of the Examiner of Plays and to the
principles upon which the censor operated are to be found in
these private documents. The "Nancy Sikes" episode is typ
ical. It illuminates the fact that the censor seems only to
have been moved to write down the reasoning which prompted
him to take a particular stance when his judgment was called
into question, or when he found himself unable to reach a
decision regarding a play and sent manuscript and memo along
to higher authorities for judgment. As Norman Macdonald,
Superintendent of the Lord Chamberlain's Department, pointed
out to the 1853 parliamentary committee, the Lord Chamber-
lain did not indicate to the Examiner upon what principles
he was to proceed in his examination: there were "no speci
fied rules" (1852-1853, Q. 8122).
97
The censorship of plays on moral grounds because of
their treatment of sexual or social problems is the most
complex aspect of the three categories to describe, since
the Victorian self-view is involved in it. On the simplest
23
level, the double-entendre. when it was recognized, was
stricken from the manuscript. Any play which touched on the
theme of incest was summarily rejected, and on this basis
Myrrha. a play which dealt with a daughter’s passion for her
father, was refused a license in 1856. The censor was more
consistent in the application of this stricture than of many
others, but it led to difficulties. By this exercise of his
power, he was forced later in the century to reject the per
formance of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Shelley's The Cenci.
The censoring of Oedipus earned him scorn. The latter move
provided a major impetus in uniting the opponents of the
control of the drama.
Comedies were controlled to assure that they did not
become too naughty, but the censor winked at transgressions
if an author had no serious message. According to propo
nents of the earnest drama which was to come later, so long
^Donne earned the guffaw of the era among opponents of
the censorship when he maintained in 1866 that this form of
humor was a thing of the past (1866, Q. 2496).
98
as a play centering around a sexual theme was treated light
ly— or, as they preferred to say, "in a sniggering manner"—
the censor did not interfere.
Minor deletions or instructions are occasionally re
corded in the daybooks. In the play A Yule Log, for exam
ple, the manager was ordered to "Omit in representation the
words in brackets— Yes Mockes, the continent— [isn't that
the natural refuge for the incontinent?]" (Daybooks. Ill,
145). The director of the Queen's Theatre received the fol
lowing warning: "The American young ladies in this drama
fL'Oncle Sami are often introduced as decolletees. . . .
This scanty attire must be kept within bounds" (Daybooks.
IV, 85).
The reason for the relative infrequency of reprimands
for breaches of taste such as the two cited above is no
doubt to be found partly in the difference between the sub
mitted versions of plays and the final form they took on
presentation. It was difficult for the censor to guess how
the method of delivery might change the sense of otherwise
innocuous lines or what the effect of a gesture or facial
expression might be. There was no practical way of assuring
that stage business was not inserted which would never have
met with his approval. "Gagging," the insertion of ad lib
allusions, was a continuing problem for the censor, one
which it was difficult to control. The license itself con
tained warnings that it was valid "with the exception of all
Words and Passages which are specified by the Examiner in
the endorsement of this License and without any further
variations whatsoever." But liberties were, of course,
taken, especially in variety pieces which relied in part on
topical references. When an informer called it to the at
tention of the Lord Chamberlain's office that the approved
script of a play was not being followed, the theatre was
visited by an official, or letters of warning were sent to
the management. But visits were not always effective: the
deputies were recognized, and plays reverted to their li
censed forms whenever an inspector was known to be in the
house .
An examination of the daybooks shows that the censor
apparently found little overt offensiveness in the native
English comedy. But the situation was considerably differ
ent where French plays were concerned. Statistically, "Eng
lished" French plays fared far worse than native works.
Evidence for the existence of a "nothing but" syndrome is
scattered throughout the commentaries on banned plays in the
Lord Chamberlain's correspondence. Plays with English
100
titles were "nothing but" imported works: Baby was the
French Bebe. The Double Ladder was La double echelle. and so
forth. But the attitude toward the French drama was ambigu
ous. In the case of some of these works, a different theory
was applied. It was recognized by the Lord Chamberlain's
office that French plays reached a much smaller and gener
ally more sophisticated audience than did the translated
variety. One can observe the censor arguing to himself that
such pieces should therefore be measured by different stand
ards and that different cultural values should be taken into
account.
The performers are French, the language employed is
French, the pieces are written by French authors for
French audiences; and if under these circumstances the
Examiner of Plays recommends for License in the original
language, a farce, or drama, which he might be slow to
sanction in English adaptation, he has right and reason
on his side. To borrow an expression from the domain of
international law, the Lord Chamberlain will scarcely
err if he gives French plays performed in London a kind
of "extra-territorial" privilege; if, in fact, he treats
the stage on which they are presented as for the time
being a part of France, projected by accident into Eng
land. (Vol. 419, letter 68)
But in spite of this "'extra-territorial' privilege,"
the French drama, particularly the serious drama, fared very
badly in England. In 1866, Donne agreed with the suggestion
that adaptations were often not acceptable because "The
French manners show through the English workmanship." He
101
told his interrogator: "... that is generally at the root
of much that is improbable in modern comedy; the importation
of foreign manners not according with our own" (1866, Q.
2487). Throughout the century the foreign work— novel or
drama— was seen as somehow subversive of English values. It
is not going too far to describe the general Victorian set
of mind as somehow paranoid in this respect. The existence
of this resistance to foreign values must be emphasized
since it helps to account for the English fear which was
later to greet the work of Ibsen and other major European
playwrights. While plays which refused to accept common
place judgments on social problems would no doubt have been
seen as a threat under any circumstances, their acceptance
cannot have been encouraged by what amounted to a very real
mistrust of imported goods.
Dumas fils' La dame aux camelias is a case in point.
It was one of the most debated plays of the century, and
generated fierce loyalties on both sides of the censorship
question. The play is interesting because the resistance it
met was based on precisely those prejudices which were only
fully revealed after 1880.
The Lord Chamberlain's office acknowledged having
banned two plays in 1853; one of them was entitled Camille.
102
24
an adaptation of Dumas fils1 novel. The censor's action
was not as unpopular then as it was later to become.
George Henry Lewes wrote:
At Drury Lane we were threatened with a version of La
Dame aux Camelias- but the Lord Chamberlain refused a
licence to this unhealthy idealisation of one of the
worst social evils of our social life. Paris may delight
in such pictures, but London, thank God! has still enough
instinctive repulsion against pruriency not to tolerate
them. . . . if any Lord Chamberlain be supine enough to
p C
licence it,— but there is no fear. 3
Another unsuccessful attempt to license the play is
recorded for 1859. In 1866, Donne explained his actions and
pointed out one of the continuing grievances against the
morality of serious French works. He said that he would
feel free to license plays about Faust, unconventional as
they might be, because "'Faust' is a European story; there
may be portions of the story which it would be advisable to
cut out for stage representation, but the story is common
property" (1866, Qg. 2304-2305). But La dame aux camelias.
in spite of being "common property," was not permissible:
Of course there is this difference to be observed, the
OA
^Report from the Select Committee on Theatrical Li
censes and Regulations. 1866, Appendix K, p. 294.
25John Forster and George Henry Lewes, Dramatic Essays,
ed. William Archer and Robert W. Lowe (London, 1896), pp.
241-242.
103
drama must deal with the exhibition of human passion,
and when that passion is represented as leading to evil
or to good consequences, that is a legitimate object;
but in cases where it is insinuated that, after all.
wrong may be right, or, after all, not so very wrong;
that becomes a far more serious question. (1866, Q.
2305; italics mine.)
Precisely on this point, the question of a relativistic
attitude toward morals, the censorship was most sensitive.
In arguing that "wrong may be right, or, after all, not so
very wrong," the French dramatists were exploring an area
which the English stage, especially an English stage which
presented only officially approved works, was simply not
prepared to investigate. The standard of morality, so far
as the Examiner of Plays was concerned, had traditionally
26
been based on "decorum." All serious plays succeeded or
failed with him depending on how they passed the test of
propriety. The notion of decorousness, however, sidesteps
the issue of fundamental morality, and substitutes for it
the prevalent notions of society with regard to how things
ought to be, particularly on their surfaces. So long as
^This stemmed from the wording of the law of 1843:
"It shall be lawful for the lord chamberlain for the time
being, whenever he shall be of opinion that it is fitting
for the preservation of good manners, decorum, or of the
public peace, so to do, to forbid the acting or presenting
any stage play. . . ." Statutes. 1950, 6 & 7 Viet., c. 68,
par. 14, p. 6 39.
104
middle-class attitudes regarding decorum remained rigid,
anything which disputed those values could only be viewed as
distasteful at the very least, and at a deeper level as
dangerous. In expressing his fear of the notion of rela
tivism in morals, Donne was anticipating by two or three
decades the response which met the seriously realistic dra
ma .
La dame aux camelias could be controlled for many
years. But as the passing of time revealed that this was
indeed an important work in the history of the development
of the novel, it became increasingly more difficult to re
sist the growing demand for the presentation of it on the
stage. Accordingly, in 1880, a license for the performance
of an expurgated version was issued.
The play was eventually turned into a rod with which to
beat the censor during the 1890s when the advocates of a
free stage were most active. William Archer pointed out
that the work was as popular then in London as in Paris and
was conceded to be "the starting-point of the serious modern
drama."
Could there be a more trenchant commentary on the uses of
the Censorship? The supporters of that institution are
in a cleft stick. If the play is not harmful, why was
it vetoed at the outset, and England in so far shut off
from the dramatic movement? If it is. harmful, why has
105
the Censorship been false to its trust, and permitted,
any time in the last seventeen years, this pollution of
our chaste boards? There is no escaping from the di
lemma; either the Censorship was vexatious and tyrannous
in 1853, or it was culpably lax and compliant in 1880.
It may perhaps be alleged that the absolute merits of
the play are of secondary importance, and that the fact
of its being commonly reputed immoral in 1853 was suffi
cient to justify the action of the Censorship. In that
case the office resolves itself into a patent mechanism
for keeping the English stage thirty years behind the
rest of the world? for it is clear that every enlarge
ment of the dramatist's domain will always shock timid
ity and outrage hypocrisy.^7
The key to the whole problem is included in Archer's
closing observation. The enlargement of the dramatist's
domain did necessarily include offenses against decorum.
An anonymous 1856 pamphlet discussed the significance of the
system of values implied in the Dumas story. While the play
was denied a license, the operatic version, La Traviata. had
been allowed. In Remarks on the Morality of Dramatic Com
positions: With Particular Reference to "La Traviata." the
author maintained that
The popularity of the work mentioned on the title-page
is a favourable sign of the times, rather than other
wise. It shows a tendency to regard mere artificial
law-made sins as no sins at all. It shows that genuine
pity for suffering humanity, ruined and victimised by a
hollow and atrocious system of society, animates the
bosoms of the highest and the fairest in the land. It
27The Theatrical "World" of 1897 (London, 1898), pp.
189-190.
106
shows the prevalent disregard for a rotten convention
alism. It shows a growing contempt for the cant of
orthodoxy, and the frauds of a gross and withering su
perstition. It shows that the genuine principles of
true morality are recognized, and that there is some
thing in human nature which we could rely on still, even
amidst decomposing institutions, and society in a state
of dissolution and collapse.^8
George Henry Lewes 1 choice of the phrase "threatened with a
version" cited above could not have been more apt, for it
was the old order which came under attack as soon as the
drama's decline had been slowed and a reorientation begun
with the introduction of the mitigated variety of realism
described earlier. But it is too simple to explain the 1880
licensing of La dame aux camelias as the sign only that the
drama had grown strong enough to challenge older values.
The truly unmeasurable factor in the gradual loosening of
censorial restraint must remain the gradual shift in values
and set of mind which was occurring within society itself.
It does seem clear, however, that a substantial share of the
success which was finally realized in the freeing of the
drama is attributable to the swing away from mid-century
loyalties and -isms and toward more flexible points of view
described by Walter E, Houghton:
^8(London, 1856), p. 6.
107
Weary of the futile struggle to choose between conflict
ing opinions, the post-Victorians [by this Houghton means
post-1870] were ready to welcome skepticism because it
put an end to the whole business. And having done so,
they made a virtue of necessity and boasted, with a con
venient appeal to liberalism, of having tolerant and
undecided minds. Or they turned cynical out of sheer
disillusionment
The licensing of the story as opera, while it was
banned both in French and in translation as play, illus
trates another aspect of the censorship. This apparent in
consistency was defended both by the comptroller of the Lord
Chamberlain's office and by the Examiner of Plays. Each
maintained that a distinction should properly be drawn be
tween purely dramatic presentations and productions in which
plot was of subsidiary interest to music. But the opinions
ventured were not entirely consistent. While Sir Ponsonby-
Fane insisted on the relative harmlessness of the play sung
in Italian, because so few could understand it, he never
theless stated that, had he "been there the license would
have been refused in the first instance" (1866, Q. 232).
Donne, on his part, insisted that he was as careful in his
scrutiny of opera librettos as of manuscripts of plays
(1866, Q. 2392). But Dutton Cook was pleased to point out
2^The Victorian Frame of Mind; 1830-1870 (New Haven,
1957), p. 108 and Chap. VII, passim.
108
the inconsistencies of the censor in this matter both with
regard to La Traviata and other works:
As instances of his procedure, it may be stated that
upon religious grounds he has forbidden such operas as
the "Nabucco" of Verdi and the "Mose in Egitto" of Ros
sini, allowing them to be presented, however, when their
names were changed to "Nino" and "Zora" or "Pietro l'Ere-
mita" respectively.^
When Wagner's Per Rina des Nibelungen was introduced in
1882, Pigott considered banning it. In a memorandum, he
reflected about the principles upon which he was to operate:
In allowing or forbidding of particular representa
tion, the responsible authorities have, I assume, to
consider:
1. Whether it is in itself offensive.
2. Whether it is contra bonus mores.
3. How it may be related to the habits of the people
(E.g. Scriptural subjects are excluded from the stage
in this country, in this age). (Vol. 399, letter 94)
But he found in Wagner's work "scarcely anything which in
itself could be called offensive, in the sense of being
obscene, indecent, or provocative of sensual ideas," and it
would therefore "be ridiculous to say that it had an immoral
tendency, because the story is connected with no conceivable
state of human society." Expediency— nearly always an
•^A Book of the Plav: Studies and Illustrations of
Histrionic Story, Life, and Character (London, 1876), I, 80-
81.
109
important factor in the censorship— also influenced Pigott1s
decision to allow the play. Because of Wagner's acknowl
edged importance, Pigott failed
to see how the Lord Chamberlain's responsible adviser
could either refuse it, or cut it down, especially as
it is not profane in dealing irreverently or familiarly
with the Divine Being or the Bible, nor immoral in the
ordinary sense of the word, any more than it is immoral
to speak, in Grecian mythology, of Jupiter's amours with
his own daughter. It seems to me therefore to stand on
altogether different ground from those French pieces
which pretend to represent certain morbid phases of
modern life and contemporary society. (Vol. 399, letter
94)
The censor was expected, then, to review all manu
scripts to determine that they did not contain material
which offended sensitivities where matters of religion,
politics, or morals were concerned. But he occasionally saw
it as his duty, too, to look beyond the written versions of
plays. On June 11, 1870, Donne noted, with regard to La vie
parisienne. which had been submitted for licensing:
Whatever might have been made of La Vie Parisienne
in 1866 [when it had been licensed in another version
for another theatre], by another actress, I can perceive
it to be just the sort of play in which Mademoiselle
Schneider might take several degrees of latitude. She
would have very little, whether as Paulina or Gabriella,
to say in it, but it is very likely, in my opinion, that
she would find a good deal to £lo in it, which Your Lord
ship would not approve or thank me for affording her the
occasion of doing. Also as the dialogue is in itself
very meagre, it may be thought to require some additions
which are not written down in the book. (Vol. 232, let
ter 104)
110
The interoffice memos reveal that the censors saw their
job as in some ways extending to a definition of the drama
and a consideration of the proper uses of the stage. In
1885, for example, a Mrs. Weldon wrote a play in which she
proposed to star in London. But the Examiner was aware of
the fact that litigation for infidelity was pending against
her husband at the time. Pigott saw in the plot of the play
her attempt to influence public opinion in her favor. He
worried that it would be "a dangerous precedent, to allow
any one to libel people wholesale, under the thinly dis
guised pretext of writing a play," and wondered if a libel
was less a libel if acted and spoken instead of written. He
had, he said, read the play to a small group, "who received
it with shouts of derisive laughter. . . . I feel very
strongly the importance of preventing the stage from being
made the vehicle of attacks on individuals." But Mrs. Wel
don had used the office of the Lord Chamberlain well, and
Pigott was left to worry whether it was
advisable to refuse the license, and so give Mrs. Weldon
the profit of an extra advertisement; or let her have
her fling; at the same time putting a strong pressure on
her management to prevent any libellous matter. (Vol.
453, letter 147)
The Lord Chamberlain agreed to the latter course.
Ill
The Censor and His Public
In many respects, the Lord Chamberlain's duties with
regard to the theatre had little to do with the plays them
selves. Under the terms of 6 & 7 Viet., c. 68, he was
charged with the licensing of the theatre buildings in the
London municipal boroughs. The bulk of the correspondence
from his office dealt with matters of public safety and with
the annual problem of issuing theatre licenses. The minu
tiae of the theatre— the problem of fire hazards, such as
seats placed in gangways and exit doors which were not kept
unlocked, the question of the propriety of ballet dancers 1
costumes, the appropriateness of posters--all came within
his purview, and when the public detected some offense along
these lines, letters flowed into his office. Fire preven
tion was no small matter. A series of theatre disasters on
the continent in which many hundreds of lives were lost made
this an aspect of his work which had to be most carefully
attended to. It is clear from reports of alterations in
buildings which were ordered by the licensing authority that
all members of the office took seriously their responsibil
ity for the public safety. If a high-wire act was too dan
gerous, or if children were used in unsafe stunts, the com
plaints came to the Lord Chamberlain (Vol. 232, letter 50).
112
He was asked to prevent "the Tichborne Claimant" from making
speeches about his right to an inheritance (Vol. 453, letter
40). A fastidious old Victorian lady hoped that he would
stop an American woman medical doctor's lecture series about
the anatomy and physiology of males and females (Vol. 4-53,
letter 68). It was brought to his attention that women were
being admitted free to the Empire Theatre, and this possible
encouragement of prostitution elicited a letter of reprimand
from him to the theatre's management (Vol. 453, letter 182).
In view of the scope and number of responsibilities
which were placed on the Lord Chamberlain and his Examiners
of Plays, and in view of their apparent willingness to cope
with whatever situation arose, there can be small surprise
that the censors seem to have come to view themselves as
the final arbiters of taste and propriety in all theatrical
matters. By the last quarter of the century, the censor had
thirty-five or forty years of unchallenged paternalism be
hind him, and he was used to being obeyed in all his dicta.
Nevertheless, within the office itself an explicit set
of rules regarding what was and what was not permissible had
never been established. And because of this lack the censor
not infrequently made a decision on a play which seemed to
be in direct opposition to some earlier judgment. One can
113
find examples of the censor trying to define his own role,
for example, in the case of a play like Not Alone, cited
above, or in the note Pigott sent in 1885 to Sir Ponsonby-
Fane about what was by then an old problem:
There seems to be a rage just now for political "gag."
. . . Excepting official personalities, and making up,
I do not see how, without doing more harm than good, and
exposing ourselves to ridicule, and to the charge of
frivolous and vexatious interference, we can interfere
with these despicable buffoons. It is surprising that
any audience should tolerate such miserable substitutes
for wit and humour. If the result in any case should be
provocative of disorder, I should immediately request
you to call the management to accounts. Most political
allusions we could not, I am satisfied, attempt to re
press. If we did, the reins would snap in our hands,
and we should overturn the coach. If this sort of buf
foonery is to be regarded as a safety valve, it would
be very "unEnglish" to sit upon it. But, at all events,
your principle is the best— not to draw hair thin lines,
but to deal with each particular case on its own merits.
(Vol. 453, letter 50)
In these half-philosophical documents, a discussion always
developed of the balance which had to be struck by the cen
sors between the ideal and the real. On more than one occa
sion Pigott found cause to express his fear of having the
reins snap in his hand.
As the century progressed, there were more and more
concessions to practicality, as this 1883 memo indicates:
. . . with respect to some farcical comedies which have
been deemed objectionable, it may be a mistake, even on
high moral grounds, to take such performances too seri
ously. After all, a theatre is not a church, or a
114
chapel. As long as there is genuine drollery and genu
ine laughter, there is not much harm done.
Even the French drama received some consideration:
The people who affect to be shocked at the license of
French pieces performed in London are either the same
people who rush to see the same pieces performed in Paris,
or, at all counts, who rush to see them in London, per
fectly well knowing their risky character; or they are
persons who never go to any Theatre at all, and who cry
out against pieces they have never seen, because all
French pieces are inevitably, as they assume, even more
objectionable, than plays of home manufacture. . . .
It may be added that since it is of course impossible
in these days for any authority to exclude French Dramat
ic companies and French Pieces altogether from the Eng
lish Stage, while the intercourse between the two nations,
and the two capitals, increases year by year in facility
and frequency, anything like a minute or meticulous cen
sorship of French pieces would simply cover the Lord
Chamberlain and his advisers with ridicule.
This last consideration was never far from sight. Pigott
enlarged upon it: "Assuredly, no authority that exercises
a discretion in questions so delicate and so fluctuating as
those which concern public talk and public manners, can
afford to make itself ridiculous" (Vol. 419, letter 68).
The censor did not always agree with common informants.
Following complaints about the shortness of a ballet dan
cer's dress, a representative of the Lord Chamberlain's
office visited the theatre in question to form a decision
and reported:
. . . her dress did not strike me as being much beyond
115
the ordinary sort of thing. It was certainly scanty and
about the shortest one I have seen but my eye has become
so accustomed to ballet dancers of the present day that
I was not shocked. There were several young ladies
amongst the audience who appeared to take it all as a
matter of course and looked upon the woman as a ballet
dancer and nothing more. Their minds being unsullied
they were blind to anything bordering on indecency. But
one woman apparently about 50 got up and left the house
the moment the dancer in question appeared--Honi soit
qui mal y pense . . . (Vol. 453, letter 71)
Had the playwrights who opposed the censorship so vocally a
few years later had access to these private documents, they
would not always have recognized their opponent; but the
censor's public face remained a stern one which refused to
blush before its accusers.
The censor's more broad-minded sentiments were, for the
most part, either concessions to practicality or temporary
falls from grace. One cannot help but be impressed by the
audacity and adherence to self-imposed principle which it
took for the Examiner of Plays to resist the wishes of his
future monarch to see the banned play Sapho performed. The
play had been denied a license, but Mr. Mayer, the director
of French plays at the Gaiety, whose property the piece was,
had the ear of the Prince of Wales, and Pigott was summoned
on the night of January 29, 1885 to the royal box of the
Princess's Theatre. After the interview, he rushed off a
note to Sir Ponsonby-Fane, apprising him of what had
116
happened:
. . . I ventured to assure the Prince that it was not a
question of this or that passage, . . . but that, from
beginning to end, it was a disgusting piece and would
create an outburst of indignation and disgust, if pro
duced in England. The Prince asked me whether I had
seen it acted in Paris; and added that he had neither
read the novel nor seen the play. I answered that I
had not seen, and did not want to see it, but that I
had read both the novel and the play twice; and that I
was sufficiently well acquainted with the French stage
to understand, wTithout having seen it, what such a play
must be; and that in effect, it was intended to be, as
written and acted for the Parisian audience— but that
the Parisian public was one thing and the London Public
quite another thing.
Upon this, the Prince begged me to tell Mr. Mayer
that he had spoken to me on the subject; but that if it
was "impossible," there was no more to be said about it.
I must say, it occurs to me most regrettable that
the Prince should be persuaded by a person of Mr. Mayer's
species (an Anglo-French-Jew theatrical adventurer) to
put this sort of pressure upon a responsible public ser
vant . . . , in the exercise of functions, always pecul
iarly difficult and delicate, and exposed to the most
invidious criticism. I would not for the world that
the Prince's interference were made known; and if it
should be, it will be by Mr. Mayer— not by me.
Nothing could induce me to sign the licence for the
production of "Sapho" in England, in any form; and I
have plainly reminded M. Mayer, that Paris does not give
the law to London. (Vol. 469, letter 17)
And that was the end of Sapho.
Among the letters of the Lord Chamberlain's office is a
lengthy "confidential" memo by Pigott (Vol. 417, letter 60).
It is unique because it alone of all the memos is printed.
It is further remarkable because it is the most extensive
study of the censorship— from that official's point of
117
view— to be found. There is no indication for whom it was
intended, or how or whether it was circulated, but it was
evidently written as an apologia for those who hoped to see
theatre licensing, and possibly even dramatic licensing,
31
transferred to the hands of the London magistrates.
In his pamphlet, Pigott reviewed the history of the
censorship beginning with the Tudor period and pointed out
that the legislature had been careful to preserve as much of
"old forms and usages as might be compatible with the cir
cumstances and requirements of a later age." He chose to
see his role first as that of protector; the theatre enjoyed
the patronage of the Crown:
One may say "enjoyed," because, if the age of protection
and patronage is past, it should not be forgotten that
until the great Rebellion, and again after the Restora
tion, it was only the favour and protection of the Crown
that gave to actors a secure and respectable position,
and rescued them from the designation of "rogues and
vagabonds."32
The stage had historically been beset by two sins,
licentiousness and scurrility, and because of them the
3-*-Nine years later, during the 1892 parliamentary hear
ings, Pigott evidently read much of this document into the
testimony. His words then were nearly identical to those
contained in the circular.
London, 1883), p. 2.
118
Examiner of Plays was able to perform a service:
Against such excesses of its own on the one side, and
against puritanical prejudices (not always unjust or
unfounded) on the other, the interposition of the pre
siding influence and authority of the Crown, as repre
sented by a great officer of State, has been a safe
guard not ungratefully acknowledged by those in whom
the highest interests of Dramatic Art were from time
to time personified. (p. 2)
The Examiner of Plays had to administer the law
with the discernment and discrimination that belong to
a wide knowledge of the world, and that cultivated sym
pathy with literature and art which is equally regardful
of public morality and public decency and of the freedom
and dignity of a liberal profession and a noble art.
(p. 3)
He must not concern himself with simple matters of taste:
"It is only at the point where public manners affect public
morals that his responsibility begins. The guardianship of
abstract morality must always belong to the pulpit" (p. 3).
The term "censorship" tended to obscure his true function,
which Pigott saw as "nothing, in effect, but the friendly
and perfectly disinterested action of an adviser who has the
permanent interests of the Stage at heart" (p. 3).
The prosecution of law-breakers was only part of his
duty. He took as seriously his preventive function "against
those theatrical speculators and parasites who would will
ingly degrade the one and the other, by turning theatres
119
into disorderly houses, if not into houses of ill fame" (p.
3) .
He operated on three principles:
. . . to eschew even the faintest semblance of a frivo
lous or vexatious interference with managers; not to
fritter away official influence upon details; to act as
much as possible by personal intercourse, or confiden
tial correspondence with managers, and in some cases
even, unofficially, with the authors of plays; in short,
to avoid all unnecessary friction. (p. 4)
He prided himself on the smoothness of his official
relations with the managers of both metropolitan and pro
vincial theatres. They had given each other credit for the
best intentions. But he had found it necessary to interfere
on occasion, and he was pleased to list a few of the abuses
he had been able to fend off: the dramatization of a recent
murder, performances of the can-can, the Oberammergau Pas
sion Play, the posting of placards advertising a play with a
blasphemous title (God and Man). He had rejected some half-
dozen manuscripts of plays, most of which were French adap
tations, and had required the modification of dialogue and
action in numerous other pieces of questionable virtue.
As for his detractors, he knew to which group they be
longed:
It should be understood that of the pieces of all de
scriptions produced at theatres throughout Great Britain,
a considerable portion are written by obscure literary
120
nondescripts, without name or fame, who eke out a pre
carious and vagabond existence between the gin shop and
the stage door by the dirtiest sort of work on which pen
and ink can be employed. Between these and the few dra
matic authors, properly so-called, whose names belong to
English literature, there are a legion of unknown pro
fessional adapters, whose industry consists in translat
ing the latest and riskiest production of the Boulevards,
from bad French into worse English. These gentlemen are
apt, I believe, to complain of not enjoying an unre
stricted license in their importations of obscenity.
(P. 4)
He recognized that it was the morality of the age, not
legislation, which determined the moral tone of the stage,
and he presumed to do nothing more than prevent the delib
erate corruption of moral tastes and passions. He had tried
to extend the widest political freedoms to the stage, but he
had been forced on occasion to ask various managers if they
thought the public, in a country so saturated with politics,
wanted to see the stage turned into a political arena or
pillories for public men. The writers had learned from his
firm application of restrictions in the past, so that at the
time of his pamphlet, warnings on endorsed licenses were
adequate to regulate abuses.
He was convinced that without preventives there would
be numerous attempts to present material contrary to the
best public interests on the stage. Such material would
find a wide audience from all social classes. If the
121
censorship were abolished, Pigott thought, a period of li
centiousness would begin which would, in its turn, stimulate
old feelings of animosity toward the theatre. The old dis
tinction between music-hall and theatre would disappear, and
entertainments
would accordingly consist of more or less indecent
dances, more or less obscene songs, and of occasional
farces and opera bouffes, plentifully garnished with
scurrilous doggrel sparing neither Church nor State,
neither religious bodies nor political institutions,
neither public nor private life, neither sex nor age,
until the inevitable reaction set in, and Pandemonium
was cleared out by a succession of police raids. (p. 6)
There was no point in his arguing the issue with an
individual who could not see immediately the great differ
ence between what is read and what is represented. Excesses
in printed matter should be punished, he felt, but their
influence was as nothing compared with the effect
upon a mixed audience of a thousand or two thousand men
and women of all classes, to be repeated for two or
three hundred nights in succession, and at all the large
towns throughout the kingdom. Here you have eyes and
ears at once assailed, not by mere dumb printed paper,
but by living flesh and blood; by singers of obscene
songs, by speakers of obscene or scurrilous dialogue.
What is worse, the offence may be to unwilling eyes and
ears, since among a large and mixed audience there are
many who enter a theatre in the candid belief that they
are paying for amusement without shame or harm. (p. 6)
It was too much to expect that a manager should police
his own house since his backers, interested only in
122
financial gain, could force him to accept only what provided
the quickest reward. Those who advanced the claim that it
was the public's job to protect themselves and be their own
censors
forget that everybody's business is nobody's business,
and that they do not even protect themselves, their
health, their safety, their comfort and convenience,
their lives and property against street nuisances,
against fire and flood, against roughs and burglars
and quacks, against the acts and negligences of their
own boards and vestries, against the rapacity of public
companies, against a thousand injuries and scandals pro
moted by human craft and knavery, and supported by human
inertness and credulity. (pp. 6-7)
The doctrinaire might call the censorship an anomaly,
but the Examiner of Plays would rest content in the august
traditions of the censorship's past and its good offices of
the present.
That is how the censor saw his job, and certainly his
opinion coincides, during these middle years, with those of
his most influential contemporaries. The managers and cer
tain authors saw it as financially expedient to continue the
censorship. Representatives of the law saw it as a neces
sary protection of lower-class criminal tendencies. Members
of the religious community considered it a guard against
licentiousness. Tom Taylor, whose view can-perhaps be taken
as representative of that of the commercially successful
123
playwright, thought the censorship had "no appreciable [ill]
effect" (1866, Q. 4753), and believed "the inspection [was]
kept as a rod, hanging up, to be used when necessary" (1866,
Q. 4873). He "would keep it in terrorem" (1866, Q. 4874).
Escott's view was typical of that held by many:
The raison d'etre of a censorship of the stage in
countries where the press and all other forms of liter
ary publication are absolutely free, is to be found in
the essential difference between what is read and what
is represented. . . . The peculiar influence of dramatic
representations depends upon the contagious sympathy of
a crowd. ^
Others, like author-manager H. Wigan, thought "that the Lord
Chamberlain's jurisdiction [was] not even severe enough"
(1866, Q. 4627).
Those who argued against the institution saw things
differently, but by no means from a single point of view.
Scattered complaints came from playwrights whose individual
works had brought them to a first-hand knowledge of the
effects of the censorship. Fairly early in the century two
authors of undisputed personal integrity, Mary Russell Mit-
ford and Martin Archer Shee, R. A., saw their well-inten
tioned and, they thought, patriotically-toned plays struck
"^Escott, p. 549. In his pamphlet (p. 7) Pigott ac
knowledges his indebtedness to this work by Escott, the only
one so cited by him.
124-
down on political grounds. In the preface to the printed
version of Alasco: A Tragedy in Five Acts. Shee worried
whether
the British Theatre shall, in future, afford an intellec
tual enjoyment worthy of a free people; . . . or whether
it shall be degraded to a place, where we may expose
everything but public vice, and inculcate anything but
public virtue;— a place which the vile and the venal may
visit, without fear of being put out of countenance;—
where the slave and the sycophant may see themselves re
flected in flattering similitude, and sit in all the
complacency of self-admiration.^^
But he was in no mood either to lead a crusade or to pursue
a dramatic career:
The offence which I have committed, I am not likely
to repeat. There is little to be envied in the feelings
of that writer, who can acquiesce in the arrogant con
trol to which he is now subjected.— What picture of
prostrate talent and debased literary spirit can be more
humiliating than that which represents an unhappy dra
matic poet struggling in such trammels! Imagine the
mortification of genius preparing for such a review!—
cooking his conceptions to the taste of authority;—
anxiously picking out, as poisonous, every ingredient
of good feeling, and seasoning his production, not to
his own liking,— not to the palate of the public, but
according to the official relish of distempered court
zeal! (pp. xxv-xxvi)
Somewhat later, Mary Russell Mitford withdrew more
gracefully after Charles the First was banned, but not with
out first reproving the Lord Chamberlain in the printed
London, 1824), pp. ix-x.
125
version of the play:
Under his administration a similar case can hardly occur;
since, however a characteristic delicacy might have with
held him from rescinding a declared resolution or nulli
fying a positive decree of his noble predecessor, the
Duke of Devonshire, is too eminent for liberality and
kindness, too tasteful and enlightened a patron of the
acted Drama to be led by the fear of an imaginary danger
into placing fetters and shackles on an art which he
loves.35
Emma Robinson was content to be martyred and warn oth
ers away from a similar fate when her play, Richelieu in
Love. was forbidden. In the preface to the play she wrote:
The life of a dramatic author is typified in the
eastern apologue of the ant which a sage one day ob
served trailing a millet-seed up a wall, in a cleft of
which she had her local habitation. The persevering
insect fell eleven times, at various points, in the
effort to accomplish this task. On the twelfth attempt,
she triumphantly reached the top of the wall, and was
immediately devoured by a sparrow which had condescend
ingly waited for her arrival. Therefore, all you young
Shakesperes who intend to repolish the mirror of human
ity— for such the stage was once— take warning from my
sad example, and turn Scotts instead.36
For those who had safely maneuvered around the censor,
the question was more academic. George Gray was among the
first to advance notions which were eventually to become the
unanimous opinion of the proponents of the free drama. When
35charles the First: Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts
(London, 1834), p. iv.
^ (London, 184-4), p. xvi .
126
asked, as he argued for the abolition of the censorship,
what he would substitute in its place, he replied,
Public opinion, and there is the common law upon the
subject. If a party commits an offence in that direc
tion, punish him as you would any other offender; and
if the present law is not sufficient, make it more
stringent. (1852-1853, Q. 7755)
He felt that the proprietor himself should be responsible
for the examination of works to make sure that they did not
transgress the laws of libel and obscenity. But there, he
felt, censorship should end (1852-1853, Qq. 7743, 7755).
Dion Boucicault advanced other claims against the cen
sorship: in his opinion it was both inconsistent and in
effectual. The inconsistencies stemmed from the fact that
the Lord Chamberlain changed with every change of ministry,
and one Lord Chamberlain differs from another in his
views; we have been greatly disturbed in consequence of
the Lord Chamberlains having different opinions on the
same subject, both with regard to plays and with regard
to theatres. Some plays have been licensed, and have
been withdrawn after eight or ten years; others have
been refused, and then a license has been granted after
10 or 13 years; we do not know when a piece will be re
fused, or on what grounds it will be refused. (1866,
Q. 4042)
So far as he was concerned, the public itself was the prin
cipal check after production, and the actors were a more
efficient check before:
. . . we very often have pieces performed containing
things which the licenser has passed, and which even the
127
actors themselves have passed (though they are more
sensitive than the licenser, because of course, they do
not want to be hissed), but what escapes them does not
escape the public. (1866, Q. 4059)
John Hollingshead, who presented himself before the
1866 parliamentary committee as author, journalist, and mem
ber of the Dramatic Authors' Society, agreed with Bouci-
cault's opinions regarding the inefficiency of the censor's
office. He did not think that the restrictions had in any
way supported or elevated dramatic literature, and he of
fered by way of proof the example of plays then running in
London which violated the canons of good taste, but which
would be assured of long runs, in part because of the Lord
Chamberlain's protection. He saw more efficient control of
the drama, if the sanction of the Lord Chamberlain's license
did not exist, coming from another source:
I think that the censorship of the press is always in
advance of the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain, and
is constantly found making objections to the morality
of pieces which he passes as being correct and decent.
(1866, Q. 5244)
These scattered opinions that public, press and pro
prietors should be responsible for control of the drama were
eventually to form the core of the proposals for replacement
of censorship in St. James's Palace.
In 1876 Dutton Cook collected and published in A Book
128
of the Plav what he considered to be major examples of the
inconsistencies of the office. He ended his review with a
complaint about the effect of the censorship and an appeal
to authority:
. . . we have the strange fact of the Examiner stepping
between the English public and what have been held to
be the masterpieces of the French stage. . . .
In 1832, Lord Lytton (then Mr. Bulwer), addressing
the House of Commons on the laws affecting dramatic
literature, said of the authority vested in the Lord
Chamberlain: "I am at a loss to know what advantages
we have gained by the grant of this almost unconstitu
tional power. Certainly, with regard to a censor, a
censor upon plays seems to me as idle and unnecessary
as a censor upon books." (I, 82)
Nothing in the nature of a sustained attack on the
censorship developed during the years up to 1878. The in
stitution was periodically questioned, and the censor's
major blunders were dissected in the press. But generally
speaking, there seems to have been considerable ambivalence
toward the subject. J. R. Planche is, in this matter, a
representative figure. In 1872 he wrote in Recollections
and Reflections:
The correspondence last Christmas respecting certain
personal allusions to members of the Cabinet, which had
been prohibited by the present examiner, brought the
whole subject again before the public, and opinions were
strongly expressed respecting the necessity of some defi
nite understanding being come to of the power entrusted
to the Lord Chamberlain, and the question again raised
of the propriety of its entire abolition. It is a very
important question, and should not be hastily decided;
129
but decided it must be at no very distant date, for the
present state of affairs is unsatisfactory to all par
ties, and no law is good and worthy of preservation the
open violation or ingenious evasion of which is, for any
reason, constantly permitted to pass unpunished, or fre
quently feigned to be unobserved. (II, 106-107)
He then testified from personal knowledge that the law
was evaded by playwrights and violations were winked at by
authorities:
There can be no escape from the horns of the dilemma;
either the regulations are just or reasonable, and com
pliance with them should be strictly and invariably en
forced, or they should be rescinded, either as no longer
necessary, or incapable of being carried into effect.
(II, 110)
But Planche retreated from the position to which he had so
carefully reasoned, and, in a gesture typical of those who
agreed that redress was important, refused to abandon the
ineffectual system of controls which then existed;
At present there is a law that can be enforced in
extreme cases. The objections to it are obvious enough;
but, if it cannot be rendered more efficient and con
sistent, it may be better for us to "bear the ills we
have than fly to others that we know not of." The re
sults of our former attempts to improve the condition
of our national drama by increased freedom of action
have not been so satisfactory as to encourage a repe
tition of the experiment. (II, 114)
These were the conditions, then, which prevailed both
as regards the censorship and the drama itself by the clos
ing years of the 1870s. Change was in the wind for both of
130
them. Tentative steps toward more serious drama had been
taken, and more were about to come. The question of the
censorship had been considered, and modest agreements had
been reached by some that reform was in order. In 1878, two
plays were banned whose authors responded in ways which in
dicated that the fight was on. In 1879 another play, taken
from the hard-core French realist school, was adapted in
such a way as to prove that the rigid and simplistic Vic
torian self-view was still by no means dead. A considera
tion of these three works will open the next chapter and
introduce us to the period which saw the collision of irre
sistible force and immovable object realized.
CHAPTER V
THE CHALLENGE TO AUTHORITY
Among the plays which were submitted for licensing in
the late 1870s, three are of special significance. They are
illustrative of the kind of balance which existed between
the freedom and restraint of the stage, and are indicative
of the ways in which that balance was to be upset. All of
them were adaptations from the French. One of them, Drink.
passed unharmed through the Examiner's office at St. James's
Palace. This version of Zola's novel, L'Assommoir. exem
plifies the kind of treatment which was needed in order to
transmute "crawling realism" into something safe. A second
play, A False Step, failed where Drink had succeeded: it
was banned. The banning was, in itself, not surprising; but
the author's response to it was. He chose to protest in the
traditional way by issuing a printed version of the play;
but he carried this old device a significant step further
when he successfully enlisted the support of one of the most
131
132
conservative drama critics of his day in the defense of his
reputation. The third play, A Novel Reader, was banned,
too. But in the case of this play, as a sign that authors
were at least prepared to test the judgments of the censor,
the fight was carried directly to the public for a decision.
A "private performance" was given.
In his introduction to The "Assommoir." Emile Zola
wrote:
I have sought to picture the fatal downfall of a family
of workpeople, in the pestilential surroundings of our
faubourgs. After drunkenness and idleness come the
loosening of family ties, the filth engendered by pro
gressive forgetfulness of all upright sentiments, and
then, as denouement, shame and death. It is simply a
lesson in morality. . . .
It is a work of truth, the first novel of the people
which does not lie and which possesses an odour of the
people. And one must not conclude that all the lower
classes are bad; for my characters are not bad, they
are only ignorant and spoilt by the surroundings of
rough work and misery amidst which they live.^-
In the novel Zola introduces us to Gervaise, a woman
who is living-illicitly— with Lantier, who is a drunkard
and profligate, and their sons. She is abandoned by Lan
tier, but Coupeau, a skilled laborer, courts and marries
her. In the early parts of the novel, Gervaise and her hus
band, because of their industry and temperance, are able to
^(London, 1884), pp. xv-xvi.
133
raise themselves to a relatively secure position. But Cou-
peau is injured at work and emerges from a long recuperation
with his ambition destroyed. He begins to drink, and Ger
vaise is unable to support them both by her efforts alone.
She enters into a brief affair with a family friend, Gouget,
and then also begins to drink. Lantier re-enters her life,
this time as a parasite. He comes to live with the couple
and leads Coupeau into dissolution. The three major charac
ters, Gervaise, Coupeau, and Gouget, ruin and are ruined by
one another. Coupeau dies of delirium tremens in an insti
tution. Gervaise, destitute and an alcoholic, is forgotten
and dies of starvation. Gouget is left alone, unable ever
to love again.
At only one point in the novel does Zola present mid
dle-class values in a way which suggests that they are a
possible solution to the problems of the lower classes. Up
to a point it seems that Gervaise and Coupeau are to be re
warded for their hard work and determination to better them
selves but Zola allows them their partial success and
glimpse of freedom from despair only as a means of making
their descent more bitter. Circumstance, in the guise of
accident and an unintentional infatuation, operates against
them. The force of the temptations of their surroundings
134
and a gravitation toward meanness in the face of difficul
ties are too powerful to be combatted with their inadequate
personal resources.
Gervaise demands special notice, especially in view of
the change she underwent in her translation to the English
stage. At the outset Zola gives her a degree of determina
tion which— had he not taken a pessimistic, or, in his opin
ion, realistic, world view— would have been sufficient to
enable her to realize her modest hopes:
"I'm not ambitious; I don't ask for much. My desire is
to work in peace, always to have bread to eat, and a
decent place to sleep in, you know; with a bed, a table,
and two chairs, nothing more. Ah I I should also like
to be able to bring up my children, to make good men of
them, if possible. I've still another wish, which is
not to be beaten if I ever live with any one again; no,
I shouldn't like to be beaten. And that's all, you see,
that's all." (p. 43)
But, of course, a good deal of the strength of Zola's state
ment regarding the inevitability of failure derives pre
cisely from this pitting of the woman of determination and
modest hopes against environmental forces which inevitably
triumph. To suggest the nature of these forces, he has his
"heroine" not merely fall but also surrender to and embrace
the state she had initially striven so consciously to es
cape. The completeness with which she relinquishes her old
hopes is part of the core of his statement. He strips her
135
utterly of whatever sensitivities she had at first possessed
and by novel's end leaves us with a character who is filthy,
aged beyond her years, and thoroughly decayed. Her only
release is to be found in death. The novel relies in large
part for its impact upon the contrast between Gervaise's
earlier state and her last. It relies, too, on the person
ality change which inexorably overtakes her. She is not
simply one who suffers at the hands of fate. By the close
of the novel the deterioration of her character is so com
plete that she can neither understand nor resent her situa
tion. Zola does not pull sentimental strings in order to
obtain the reader's response.
The Gervaise of the English stage resembled her French
counterpart in name only. The changes wrought in her by
2
Charles Reade gave him his greatest theatrical success and
O
"'Drink' was infinitely his greatest success in the
metropolis, from a pecuniary point of view. Thousands came
rolling in where before he had received by tens." Charles
L. Reade and the Reverend Compton Reade, Charles Reade:
Dramatist, Novelist, Journalist (London, 1887), II, 312-313.
The Zola-Reade story, drastically modified to fit six quarto
pages, passed into even wider circulation as Gervaise Cou
peau: a Story of Drink (London [1880 ]), one of the penny
"Success of the Season" series. The title page announced
that the publication was "Founded on the famous French Nov
el, whence is derived Charles Reade1s Princess's Drama, Cal
lender's "D. T.," Coleman's "Ruined Home," and the Versions
by Butler Stanhope, Augustin Daly, etc. . . ."
136
suggest to us part of what it was in French realism which
threatened an English audience.
The transformation which Gervaise undergoes at Reade's
hands is suggested at the outset of the play. She is made
respectable by being already married to Lantier, She is the
wronged wife who tells the sympathetic Coupeau,
"Oh, no doubt he has taken a drop. That is how a wife's
troubles begin.. . . Drink is the spur to all a man1s
vices, Lantier has taken to drinking, and with that and
ill company he abandoned his wife."
The sentimentality with which she will be viewed throughout
the play is signalled by Coupeau1s bathetic first act solil
oquy which follows on Lantier's desertion of Gervaise:
"LantierI Lantier1 Think what you are doing. Oh, the
heartless brute. . . . No robber would waste his time
here, the husband has been too good a thief. He has
stripped her to the skin, and flung her on the world.
. . . It is a good riddance, for that matter, but dear
heart, she won't see that, how can she, she loves him
so. Oh, how she loves him. . . . I've seen her cry and
sob once today, and it seemed to turn my bowels inside
out. . . . And she hasn't broken her fast. Grief on an
empty stomach 1 It is enough to kill her, she shall have
mine. . . . She won't know where it comes from. She
will think that blackguard had one drop of man's blood
left in his heartless heart. What a home to come home
to! Poor little woman." (pp. [19-20])
Coupeau's last gesture in this scene invites the audience to
3
Drink 1. British Museum, Lord Chamberlain's Plays MSS,
Vol. 53218, No. 29, p. [10].
137
understand how deeply moved it should be. The stage direc
tions say that he "Puts the back of his hand to his eyes,"
and exits to music (p. [20]).
But Gervaise is not merely to be pitied: she is to be
admired. Reade goes out of his way to make Gervaise heroic.
In the novel she is involved at the wash-house in a fight
with another woman, Virginie, who taunts her with the fact
that Lantier has abandoned her. In Zola's treatment of the
scene, Gervaise comes off the better of the two, but she is
both humiliated and injured. This is not so in the play.
Reade moves through this episode with a series of tableaux
and quick curtain drops in which Gervaise vanquishes Vir
ginie amid the "Bravo's" of the other washerwomen. The act
ends with the wronged Gervaise triumphant,
. . . her [laundered] clothes on her shoulder, and her
baton in her hand, walking slowly up the central divi
sion [of the wash-house], Virginie leaning crushed, but
vindictive, against tub. She Xs to C . and threatens
Gervaise. Gervaise turns suddenly and eyes her like a
retiring lioness. She shrinks. The washerwomen all
applaud Gervaise who turns again on the steps.
Act Drop. (p. [43])
Reade widows Gervaise to enable her to marry Coupeau,
a departure from the original story which necessitates sev
eral changes in the plot. But by the end of the sixth and
final act, the couple have been ruined. In the play,
138
however, the picture of the wronged woman which was estab
lished at the outset has been reinforced. Gervaise has
maintained her temperance and been loyal to Coupeau, but he
has become a drunkard. In the closing act Gouget finds her
starving in the snow. Because he is pure in his love for
her, the strength of his faithfulness gives her a new will
to survive. All is well with Gervaise, who is eager to live
so long as she is loved.
Gervaise, then, is turned into an heroic and wronged
woman. The virtue she has maintained against all tempta
tions earns her the sentimental heroine's reward: a man who
both loves her and is, by the purity of his heart, shown to
be worthy of her. But the treatment of Gervaise is not
Reade's only departure from Zola.
Zola suggests that the escape into middle-class secur
ity is, given the environmental forces which confront the
poor, an impossibility. Even the cautious Gouget in the
novel is trapped into abandoning his orderly life. But in
the play he remains the exemplar of temperance and thrift
and becomes the spokesman for shrewd political economists:
"Look here, Coupeau: a mechanic, if he is ever so skil
ful, can't make a fortune, with his one pair of hands.
Our road to fortune, my man,— is to be sober, and save
a bit, and then employ two or three hands, and so creep
on till we can employ a hundred. Say we make but one
139
shilling a day out of each man. That doesn't hurt them—
the public pay it— but the total profit to the employer
is as large as the items are small." (p. [109])
From his mouth comes the old truism about the differences
between the morality of the upper and lower classes:
"... sensible, educated people . . . can be temperate.
But experience proves that a poor workman is not safe,
unless he abstains altogether. There are too many traps
laid for him, too many pits of perdition, like this,
yawning for him in every street." (p. [57])
Gouget tries to persuade Gervaise to have Coupeau sign
the temperance pledge: it is in his best economic interests
to do so.
"He is a friend of yours, do persuade him to sign my
book, forswearing drink, upon his honour. See, all
those who have signed, are getting on in business, well
dressed, and putting by for a rainy day." (p. [57])
And Coupeau's reward, when he does sign, is immediately
forthcoming: on the strength of that pledge, Gervaise ac
cepts his marriage proposal.
The closing line of the play makes it apparent how far
from L1Assommoir1s unremitting realism Reade has carried the
English version. In the novel the forces of destruction
operate without any suggestion of intervention by divine
agency. In Reade1s version one of the characters, Phoebe,
is afraid that she has caused the deaths which have oc
curred. But Gouget is there to deflect the play for the
140
last time away from any vestigial claim to realism. To her
expression of fear that her tongue has "taken two guilty
lives/' he responds, "No Phoebe— you are but an instrument.
There is a Providence— Severe— but just 1" (p. [162]).
By the time that Reade had finished with L1Assommoir
literally nothing remained to disturb the Victorian stereo
type of the virtuous woman, the economically sound and tem
perate man, and the forces which govern the universe. The
cliches which Zola had forsworn were forced into the plot,
and conclusions which his work utterly denied were pasted
on. There will be reason, shortly, to remember Gervaise-
as-Victorian-woman. Other women, the Mrs. Alvings and Mrs.
Warrens, who would not permit this kind of tampering, were
about to appear. Their appearance, because it suggested so
much about the passing away of the old, safe way of viewing
things, was to stir the kind of resentment that only sur
faces when something thought immutable is shaken. But the
discussion of what was signified in the changed attitude
toward woman must be postponed until the anti-Gervaise1s
have come on the scene.
Reade understood how to civilize Zola in ways which did
not occur to the English editor of his novels. During the
November Sessions of 1888, Henry Vizetelly was charged with
141
the publication of obscene books. He retreated from an ini
tial plea of innocent, paid £100 in fines, and was forced to
4
remove the novel m question from the market. The book
which was prosecuted was Zola's The Soil, but the earlier
appearance of The "Assommoir" had helped to establish Zola's
work as tending to "deprave and corrupt those whose minds
were open to such immoral influences and into whose hands
5
the publication might fall." This assessment of Zola's
work was widely held. The Saturday Review of April 1888,
for example, observed:
But of late has come a brutal change over this spirit
of not too innocent fun, and the name of the worker
of the transformation is Realism, and Zola is his
^The sentence did not persuade Vizetelly to abandon the
production of Zola's work. But that he learned from his
experience can be assured by a comparison of the texts of
1884's The "Assommoir" and his 1897 edition of the same nov
el under the title The Dram Shoo (London, 1897). The plots
of the novels are the same, and most of the text is essen
tially unaltered; but the language of the later edition has
been elevated somewhat to remove Zola's coarser directness,
and certain objectionable passages have been removed.
^The law according to which Vizetelly was found guilty
has been superseded by the Obscene Publications Acts of 1959
and 1964, but the basic test continues to be the tendency
of a work to foster depravity or corruption. Also under
stood now under those terms is the fostering of cruel or
sadistic tendencies. Under the newer laws, the publisher
can plead that because the work has overriding literary
significance its publication should be allowed.
142
Prophet. Realism, according to latter-day French lights,
means nothing short of sheer beastliness; it means going
our of the way to dig up foul expressions to embody
filthy ideas; it means not only the old insinuation of
petty intrigue, but the laying bare of social sores in
their most loathsome forms. . . . In a word, it is dirt
and horror pure and simple.
Mention of the litigation against Vizetelly as the pro
ponent of what was considered to be an unhealthy form of
realism is less a digression that it may seem. His case is
an example of one type of control of the arts, but a type
which had seemed in the past to a few playwrights to be
preferable to control which was exercised prior to the pro
duction of a piece. It was a variety which most of the
militant dramatic authors sought later in the dispute.
Vizetelly, despite his fine and the financial loss he sus
tained in removing his editions from the market, was in what
appeared to many an enviable position. He had his day in
court and his opportunity to vindicate himself. From the
point of view of those denied this right, he was fortunate.
But, to anticipate the conclusion of this study, something
of the quixotic nature of the demands of the reformers of
^Quoted in the National Vigilance Association's pamph
let, Pernicious Literature. Debate in the House of Commons.
Trial and Conviction for Sale of Zola's Novels. With Opin
ions of the Press (London [1889]), p. 6.
143
the laws of the stage censorship is suggested by Vizetelly's
fate in his lawsuit. His position, from a theoretical view
point, had the advantage of according him the possibility of
vindication. But it is perhaps worth noting that he was not
in fact vindicated. The claims of the spokesmen of offended
society carried the day.
Reade knew his audience. Arthur Matthison apparently
did not. In February of 1879, Pigott sent a report to the
Lord Chamberlain listing the plays which had been refused
licenses during the previous year. Heading the list was
1. "A False Step": being an adaptation of the French
drama entitled "Les Lionnes Pauvres"; the subject of
which is a wife selling her honour to her husband's
dearest friend, in order to obtain money for the payment
of her dressmakers and upholsterers. (Vol. 357, letter
17)
If the Examiner's description of the play adequately repre
sented the facts, the justice of its fate would perhaps be
apparent. But Pigott's description of it, even for a memo,
is slight. It ignores the more significant half of the play
and excludes the author's treatment of two major characters.
It is true that Celia sells her honor to her husband's dear
est friend— and for the reasons given. But she is held up
throughout the play, and not just at its conclusion, as an
object of scorn. What is more significant, and perhaps
144
comes closer to suggesting the underlying causes of the
play's failure in the eyes of the censor, is the author's
treatment of the other woman in the play, Eleanor, a charac
ter to whom the play clearly belongs.
In A False Step. Celia is married to an indulgent and
trusting older man, Prendergast. He is the guardian of
Eleanor, a woman of high principle who is married to Duval.
Duval is the recipient of Celia's affections— in exchange
for large sums of money which she owes to her dressmaker.
In the course of the play, Eleanor comes to realize that it
is her husband who supplies money to the wayward Celia.
Eleanor's first concern, once she understands the truth of
the matter, is to protect the feelings of Prendergast. But
he discovers the facts, and Eleanor leaves her husband to
join the older man, preferring the role of mother and
daughter to that of a dishonored but loyal wife.
The play, more than simply "moral," is moralistic.
Celia is punished, as is Duval. By abandoning their respec
tive partners, Eleanor and Prendergast demonstrate that
there is a kind of honesty and respect which advances higher
claims than those of the marriage contract. This descrip
tion of the play in no way distorts the obvious "message" of
the work, nor does the assertion that the play belongs to
145
Eleanor. In terms of structure, her major speeches, in
which she scales the heights of propriety and righteous in
dignation, are strategically placed so that it is she who
brings the curtains down. Celia and Duval are left to one
another with disdain. It is impossible not to see the play
throughout as one which sides firmly with virtue and against
vice.
But if this is true, one can only wonder at the play's
rejection. There is no evidence, beyond the memo cited, to
establish what precisely was in the mind of the censor. And
as a result, it is impossible not to reject the reasons he
advances— since they clearly misrepresent the play— and to
look for alternatives which seem more appropriate. One
wonders, for example, if the "nothing but" syndrome is as
serting itself here, and if the French origins of the play
explain its fate. At the same time, the possibility sug
gests itself that Eleanor took too decisive a step. Her
action— the abandoning of her husband because of "nobler"
claims to her own dignity— anticipates Nora's somewhat simi
lar action in A Doll's House by more than ten years. In
some respects, Eleanor is the new woman come on the scene a
decade too early.
The author claimed that the play was thoroughly moral,
146
and this is the concession he gained from outside authority.
Matthison reacted angrily to the banning of A False Step.
Within weeks copies of it, with title pages which announced
that the work was "Dedicated to the True Censor of the Brit
ish Stage--The British Public," were available at London
7
booksellers. But even before the book's appearance,
Matthison had carried his protests to the press. In an open
letter in The Era of October 13, he publicly solicited the
judgment of the drama critic, Clement Scott. Did Scott
think, Matthison asked, that the play was indecent? Hadn't
the Lord Chamberlain wronged the author by calling the
8
play's situations "extremely scabreuses"?
Perhaps Matthison's boldness in insisting that Scott
stand up and be counted can be appreciated in the light of
what Sydney Grundy had to say about the critic many years
later. Two men, in Grundy's opinion, had dominated the
theatre during his time. One of them, Grundy regretted, was
Bernard Shaw. The other one was Scott:
For some 20 years, the late Mr. Clement Scott was
monarch of all he surveyed. By this generation his des
potism cannot be imagined; there has been nobody like him;
7London [1879].
^Matthison, p. 4.
147
only by those who have groaned and sweated and starved
under his tyranny can the curse of his oppression be
realized. But Mr. Scott honestly adored the theatre,
and had a marvellous faculty of impregnating the public
with his prejudices.^
It was to this monarch that Matthison appealed. Scott,
in a curious reply, gave with one hand what he took away
with the other. In a lengthy discussion of A False Step.
Scott found what the Examiner had missed and what Matthison
insisted was there. The play was indeed moral, Scott con
ceded. But unruly young authors were not to gain the im
pression from this error by the Examiner that the censorship
was therefore an institution to be challenged. Scott took
note of
a certain hastiness in protesting against the opinions
of those who are by law appointed to guide your pen
into the paths of moral rectitude, and to determine for
you and other educated authors of our time the limit of
stage satire.
Matthison, satisfied to have his innocence established on
such high authority, included the newspaper exchange as
preface to the printed edition of the play (pp. 4-8).
Scott's reply points out something about the nature of
^The Plav of the Future by a Playwright of the Past
(London, 1914), pp. 13-14.
l°Matthison, p. 5.
the drama criticism of the day. Earlier in the century
various writers had suggested that, until a vital sort of
criticism had been developed, a new drama which would re
store the glory of the stage could not develop; and these
predictions would seem to have been borne out in fact. With
Scott's counsel to young writers to obey the judgments of
older and wiser heads, we can perhaps see the way in which a
whole group of influential men associated with the stage
viewed the censorship. Grundy maintained that Scott "hon
estly adored the stage," but it can be shown from his writ
ings that he also mistrusted it. And while he wrote, as
Grundy said, he was a powerful force in impregnating the
public with his prejudices. In a few years, however,
Scott's supremacy was to be tested by a younger critic.
When William Archer appeared, the new drama found its crit
ic, as, in another sense of the word, did the censorship.
But for Matthison's purposes, it was probably as well that
Archer was yet to come. Scott's vindication of the play had
the advantage of coming from a conservative who could be
listened to without the mistrust which meets the pronounce
ments of the avowed liberal.
Sydney Grundy himself felt the Examiner's displeasure
in 187 8. He and Joseph Mackay adapted La petite marquise
149
of Meilhac and Halevy for the English stage, but it was re
fused a license. In the case of The Novel Reader. Pigott
observed: "... the English adaptation has successfully
got rid of all the wit and grace of the original, and has
substituted grossness and dulness" (Vol. 343, letter 109a).
He noted that the Grundy-Mackay version centered around
"projected adultery," "attempted seduction," "divorce by
collusion," and the "return of the wife from her intruding
seducer to the collusive husband, on the discovery that the
former means seduction, and not divorce, or marriage." He
went on to observe that
The pretext for his wife's infidelity to her husband is
that the latter is older than herself and devoted to
antiquarian pursuits; and her excuse for being led astray
is that she is given to reading the novels of "Ouida."
Whenever she is on the point of "falling" she reads out
(to her audience) some of the hottest passages from the
works of that writer. Hence the trouble of the English
play. (Vol. 343, letter 109a)
But Grundy was not inclined to accept the loss of repu
tation which attended the banning of a play. His response
was even more direct than Matthison's. He decided to use
the dodge provided for by 6 & 7 Viet., c. 68 itself, and to
present a private performance at which no money or other re
ward would be taken either directly or indirectly. No pur
chase of any article would be made a condition for the
150
admission of any person to the theatre. His action could
not have been more straightforward. In a letter of November
11, 1878, to the Lord Chamberlain himself, Grundy announced
his intention and asked for an acknowledgment that such ac
tion was his legal right:
I am aware that it is no part of your lordship's legal
duty to reply to my inquiry; but I write in the assur
ance that any gentleman, who, in the administration of
his public office, has felt himself compelled, through
his subordinates, to cast so foul a slur upon another,
will be anxious to help that other to avail himself of
every opportunity which the law affords him, to vindi
cate his reputation. (Vol. 342, letter 241)
Grundy's staying power was demonstrated by the fact
that the proposed performance did not take place until four
years later. When it was clear that the play was finally to
be seen, it caused a flurry in the Examiner's office. A
memo of October 3, 1882, observed that
Lord Kenmore [the Lord Chamberlain] raised the question
as to whether this play . . . was a legitimate action
on the part of the author or manager. The comptroller
and Mr. Pigott decided that the best course to follow
would be to beat the author with entire indifference.
(Vol. 401, letter 107)
On September 29, 1882, the critic for the Morning Post
observed that a large crowd, "curious to witness the produc
tion of a piece which, it was rumoured, had shocked the
moral sensibilities of the Examiner of Plays," had come to
151
the Globe Theatre the previous afternoon and vindicated the
authors.
If there be any truth in the rumour, it is difficult to
discover why the gnats in "The Novel Reader" have been
strained at, considering how many imported French camels
have been officially swallowed. For though curiosity on
tip-toe vigilantly watched the progress of the play,
closely scrutinising every gesture, and subjecting the
dialogue to a searching moral analysis, it failed to
detect any special depravity of tone, nor were there
many of those brilliant little naughtinesses which even
the immaculate Mrs. Grundy is inclined to tolerate.
(Vol. 401, letter 107)
Grundy was victorious: the play, only slightly re
vised, was authorized for presentation. But it was not to
be produced for profit for another five years. In April of
1887, The Novel Reader reappeared, finally under the title
May and December.
Two things about The Novel Reader incident are worth
noting. The first of them is Grundy's use of the old but
neglected loophole provided by the law itself to gain a
hearing for the play. Dodging the law, as has been indi
cated, was nothing particularly new. The operators of il
legal theatres during the eighteenth century had understood
that the means of control of the theatre to some extent con
trolled the officials themselves. But Grundy was operating
on principle. His first consideration was to clear his
name. What had served his personal purposes was soon to be
152
adopted— again in defense of a philosophical principle— when
the exponents of the controversial drama found no official
welcome for their plays. In their case, they employed the
private performance less as a means of salvaging reputations
than as an expedient for gaining a hearing for what they
considered significant works which the public ought to view.
The second important thing to recognize in the Grundy
case is the lack of preparedness on the part of the Exami
ner's office to cope with new assaults on its authority. No
one was sure how best to handle the situation, and Grundy
had his way. The best that officials could do was to at
tempt to "beat the author with entire indifference." The
confusion caused by The Novel Reader was minor, however,
compared with what was soon to follow. Taught by Grundy
and Mackay, proponents of the literary drama were shortly
to offer the challenge which has been cited as the beginning
of the contest between the censor and his opponents: they
insisted upon staging the banned play by Shelley, The Cenci.
During that particular episode, the censor began to realize
that some more effective attitude than one of indifference
had to be adopted. The battle with Grundy suddenly began to
look like a very small incident indeed. But the contest
between the Shelley Society and the Lord Chamberlain was
153
only a logical next step taken along directions pointed out
by Matthison and Grundy in 1878.
At the same time that the Examiner of Plays was ada
mantly prohibiting the performance of Sapho mentioned pre
viously, the Shelley Society, a group only peripherally en
gaged in dramatic problems, sought the permission of the
Lord Chamberlain to present The Cenci. The play had never
been either licensed or performed. Shelley admirers there
fore saw their proposed production as a gesture appropriate
to the observance of the centenary of the poet's birth.
Their encounter with the Lord Chamberlain is in many ways
interesting. To begin with, they were apparently naive
about the censor's attitude toward the question of what
constituted objectionable material. If they were aware that
a play called Myrrha had been refused a license thirty years
earlier because of its incest theme, it evidently did not
occur to them that Shelley's work might receive the same
stern judgment. They were, in any case, ardent admirers of
the poet, and as a result a kind of personal disengagement
from the claims of the censorship could assert itself
amongst them. The reputation of an author was not at stake;
that was already established. With simple directness they
sought the right to perform what they considered a suitable
154
act of devotion. Their enthusiasm was undoubtedly height
ened by the tantalizing fact that they, by offering The
Cenci. would be doing something for Shelley which he had
never been able to do for himself. The group of admirers
wished only the satisfaction of seeing a single performance.
They were willing to do whatever was technically necessary
in order to see their plan through. They intended the per
formance primarily for their own and their guests' edifica
tion. They were a sophisticated audience, and apparently it
never occurred to them that the Lord Chamberlain's regula
tions were written for their protection. So far as they
were concerned, the question was not whether they should see
their plan realized, but how, and they set to work to find
the way.
To one of the numerous 1885 memos regarding the Sapho
problem, Pigott attached a postscript:
There is another matter for Lord Latham to decide.
A certain so-called "Shelley Society," recently estab
lished, propose (according to certain paragraphs I have
seen) to represent Shelley's "Cenci" before a public
audience. The "Cenci." I need scarcely remind you, is
a literary masterpiece, and from the first line of it
to the last, there is not an impure word or thought in
it. But the central motive of the tragedy is incest:—
the incestuous attempt of a father upon a daughter, out
of sheer devilish hate, in order to punish her for de
fending her mother and brothers from his cruelty. Now,
it seems to me that all the genius in the world cannot
make a play of which incest is the central motive, proper
155
to be licensed for public representation. And I should
propose to Lord Latham to give timely notice that such
a representation will not be permitted. No attempt to
perform the tragedy (which was written more than 60
years since) has ever yet been made; and of course sixty,
or even a hundred years, cannot confer a prescriptive
right of representation without license in such a case.
(Vol. 453, letter 174)
Lord Latham agreed, and shortly after, Pigott reported hav
ing informed the head of the Society, Dr. F. J. Furnivall,
whom he described as "a most respectable and harmless Prig,"
that only a private performance would be tolerated (Vol.
469, letter 14).
Several of the confidential documents testify to the
censor's fear of the establishment of precedents, but evi
dently that fear was turned into a private joke when The
Cenci was proposed. On January 25, 1886, Pigott wrote to
his superior, "I roared over your notion of dramatizing "Lot
and his Daughters," but the laugh took on a hollow ring,
for, he reported, Furnivall had made precisely that proposal
when next they met. Pigott, who of course refused, was
shocked:
But the conceit of these people is unbounded. What, I
ask myself, would not be attempted on the stage by un
scrupulous managers in search of a sensation, if there
were no twisted snaffle in their mouths! (Vol. 469,
letter 14)
The Society's members understood the terms of
156
restrictions, which they were careful to meet. But West End
theatre managers were afraid to help them. After long
search, however, an Islington auditorium was finally placed
at their disposal. The manager of the Grand Theatre wrote
to the Lord Chamberlain, informing him that he had "given"
the theatre to the group for a morning performance, and
guaranteed "that the performance is to be a strictly private
one, admission being gained by invitation tickets, and no
money will be taken whatsoever" (Vol. 469, letter 54).
But the Lord Chamberlain's office watched the proceed
ings carefully, and at last a summary memo was written:
The performance of "The Cenci" took place, accordingly,
. . . on Friday afternoon, the 7th May, 1886, before an
audience of some fifteen hundred persons, including a
considerable number of ladies. Assuming that each mem
ber of the Shelley Society, which consists at present
of 300 members more or less, distributed five cards of
admission, an audience of fifteen hundred is accounted
for. (Vol. 469, letter 66)
The memo went on to observe that a specially prepared
edition of the play "was, it seems, circulated gratis among
the audience." Pigott had previously cautioned the organi
zers against selling playbooks before the performance and
had warned the theatre management against posters and ad
vertisements. Apparently the group was careful to remain
strictly within the law, and Pigott was powerless, there-
157
fore, to prevent that which he viewed with such disfavor.
In his closing remarks on the incident, he took satisfaction
in the newspaper reviews of the enterprise, observing that
the play had been a failure, except to the actors themselves
and to the enthusiasts "who came prepared to be martyrs to
the 1 cause 1 ."
That cause, it must be supposed, was the right of
representing a play of which the central motive is the
rape of a daughter by her father, in order to do homage
to the genius and memory of a great poet and to an ac
knowledged literary masterpiece. The grounds on which
the Shelley Society are understood to justify a repre
sentation, which is severely censured by all the prin
cipal organs of public opinion, are as follows:
1. That Shelley was a poet of genius, and that he wrote
"The Cenci" for the stage.
2. That the story of "Cenci" is open to doubt, so far
as actual incest is concerned.
3. That Lord Byron's "Manfred" has been licensed for
representation.
Upon these somewhat contradictory or irrelevant allega
tions, it is enough to remark that all the genius of
all the greatest poets that ever lived cannot make in
cest a subject fit for representation in a Christian
country. That the authenticity of the incidents on
which the tragedy is based, or the purity of the hero
ine, may be doubted, or confirmed, without affecting
the fitness of the play in question for public repre
sentation. That as to Lord Byron's dramatic poem "Man
fred," there is nothing in that poem itself to warrant
the suggestion that the secret of Manfred's mysterious
remorse was an incestuous passion. (Vol. 469, letter 66)
The performance of the tragedy, Pigott was pleased to note,
was discovered to be "insupportable" and had been "condemned
by the general sense of the public as expressed by the
158
public journals."
This last observation was not strictly true, or not
true in the sense in which Pigott implied it. The reviewers
did consider the play a failure. The sentiment on the four
and one-half hour ordeal was unanimous. But beyond that, a
division occurred which is worth noting. This is Clement
Scott:
Four long hours of a lovely May afternoon were yes
terday occupied by the Shelley Society in laboriously
proving the worthlessness of The Cenci for all practical
stage purposes. The Examiner of Stage Plays, a liberal-
minded man and of catholic intelligence, having very
properly refused his sanction for the public performance
of Shelley's hideous tragedy in any theatre licensed by
the Lord Chamberlain, the unusual course was taken of
hiring a public theatre in order to play The Cenci be
fore hundreds of enthusiastic Shelleyites and invited
guests.H
But his real disgust was reserved for the numerous ladies
Pigott had noticed at the performance:
The ladies, many of them young, who went to Islington
yesterday, presumably knew, or ought to have known, the
kind of subject that Shelley had selected for his trag
edy, and it was their fault, or that of their husbands,
fathers, and brothers, if they were shocked.^
■^Quoted in the anonymous The First Performance of
Shelley's Tragedy The Cenci: with Additional Notices of
Miss Alma Murray's Beatrice. Chiefly from the Shellev So
ciety ' s Notebook (London, 1887), p. 8.
■^Quoted in The First Performance, p. 8.
159
The other side of the case was argued in Stewart Head-
lam's The Church Reformer:
We have always maintained that in this ugly, over
wrought competitive world of ours all that is bright,
light, and merry on the stage is deserving of serious
support; at the same time we maintain as strongly that
the stage has a right and duty to deal with the terrible
problems of life. . . . But whenever this is seriously
attempted there is an outcry.
We can understand a court official's objection to
such a play. "The wrinkled vice and rank malignity
spawned from the opulent slime of Italy" is only in de
tail different from that spawned from the opulent slime
of England, and even so far as mere detail goes, within
a mile of where the play was acted the opulent slime of
landlordism has caused the crime on which The Cenci turns
to be almost commonplace, giving rise to no maddening
horror in the sufferer, no righteous vengeance on the
immediate or real causes of the horror.^
The importance of the censor1s actions with regard to
the Shelley Society, and that group's use of the private
performance, was to grow with the passage of time. Eventu
ally, the notion that a "masterpiece" like The Cenci could
be banned became ludicrous, and the censor was reminded of
it frequently. That particular performance was important
for a second reason, however. It signalled the beginning of
the return of the intellectual audience to the theatre. The
spectators that May night included George Meredith, James
Russell Lowell, and Robert Browning.
T o
Quoted in The First Performance, p. 32.
CHAPTER VI
THE ADVENT OF THE NEW DIDACTICISM
Among those who reviewed The Cenci— and considered it a
failure— was George Bernard Shaw. At the time of the per
formance his novel, An Irrational Knot, was being serialized
in the Fabian Society publication, Our Corner, and he had
been for the past year that magazine1s art critic. His con
nection with the play had been closer, though, than simply
that of spectator and reviewer. Shaw belonged to the Shel
ley Society, and he had been responsible for press relations
for The Cenci.^ He was in a position to know at first hand
the difficulties which the Lord Chamberlain's resistance had
caused.
To this new critic, the play was "monstrous," but an
evaluation of it was only part of his discussion. He
-^George Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters: 1874-1897.
ed. Dan H. Laurence (London, 1965), p. 154.
160
161
observed that
So far, the anticipated depravation of the public seems
not to have come off; for the conduct of the nation has
not perceptibly altered for the worse since the after
noon of Friday, the 7th May, 1886; whilst the attempt
to drive theatre-goers from the performance of the
Shelley Society to such licensed alternatives as the
Criterion Theatre, for example, has so accentuated the
anomaly, folly, and hypocrisy of the censorship as to
strengthen the hope that the institution may soon be as
extinct as the Star Chamber, to which, in point of ob
noxiousness to all accredited political principle, it
is exactly similar.^
Shaw, in this early pronouncement, is supercilious but some
what disengaged from the issue of the censorship, but his
disengagement was not to last long.
In the same issue of Our Corner in which Shaw equated
the censorship with the Star Chamber, a series of articles
by John Robertson entitled "Evolution in Drama" was drawing
to a close. In that final section, he evaluated the ability
of the English stage to accommodate the naturalistic drama
then beginning to sweep northern Europe. He was pessimistic
about what he saw:
We in England have hardly emerged from the stage of the
strawberry-mark and the unexpected uncle; the secret
drawer and the missing will are still rampant among us;
we are quite complacent in our endurance of the wind-up
in which three proposals are simultaneously made in one
p
Art Corner" (rev. of The Cenci). Our Corner. VII
(June 1886), 371.
162
room, and the three engaged couples come simpering for
ward to a simpering audience.^
"Febrile prudery," "one of the contributions of the Victo
rian age to the list of human vices," had taken even the
"modicum of realistic pith" out of the fiction of a past
generation "to produce for a hectic and emasculated audience
a form of emotional entertainment such as may satisfy the
fictional requirements of a boarding-school" (p. 337).
In Robertson's opinion, the Shelley Society's courting
of old heroic forms was a foolish return to meaninglessness
in the drama,
a factitious union of recitation with stage-gesture, in
which there is attainable neither the charm of the verse
(supposing there to be any), since the listener wants to
follow the acting, nor the elusive charm of genuine act
ing, since actor and onlooker are alike in the toils of
a web of non-natural diction which will not permit the
one to be life-like or the other to be intelligently
passive. (p. 340)
The vaster audience which was not interested in these
heroic excursions was not on any surer path. As patrons of
the higher melodrama, they were "avid chiefly of thrilling
'situations,' tirades, scuffles, and scenery." The actor-
manager was their favorite performer, "his double function
^"Evolution in Drama," Our Corner. VII (June 1886),
? 36 .
16 3
eclipsing that of the author and that of the simple player"
(p. 340).
Given these two audiences, Ibsen seemed to Robertson an
impossibility:
The idea of a performance, say, of his "Ghosts" in a
London theatre, is one of those thoughts from which the
imagination recoils aghast, as from Teufelsdrock's
"Naked House of Lords." (p. 336)
Robertson went on to point out that the drama's for
tunes, more than those of any other art, were connected with
the state of society and that the drama could not conceiv
ably rise above the taste of the majority. He saw small
hope for an "ideal drama" before the society which could
appreciate it— one with a "rounded culture"— had evolved.
The domestic history of the past fifty years had seen the
development of a "large and ill-cultured proletariat, which
must needs seek its scanty pleasures in crude forms," and of
a new moneyed class which naturally, in its first form,
devoted its energies not to refinements but to the gathering
of wealth (p. 340). He turned to the Darwinian observation
that
The survival of the fittest in such a society as ours
tends to mean in large measure the survival of a type
that is comparatively tasteless and mindless, being
highly evolved only in capacity for commercialism . . .
(p. 341)
164
Drama aimed at higher tastes would ignore this most influ
ential group and "leave that wide public of crude tastes to
the old dramatic pabulum." Without specifying how it was to
be done, or who was to do it, he closed with the suggestion
that the best work of the drama would be to "enlarge and
enlighten human sympathy" in order to bring about the ele
vation of society as a whole (p. 341). By "enlarge and en
lighten" Robertson meant something quite different from what
had been meant by the earlier theoreticians who expected the
drama to be a mirror which reflected mankind ideally.
In the light of what was to follow, Robertson was out
lining a theory of the state of the drama and pointing to
ward a mission which the new dramatists would soon claim as
their own. It is important to note that Robertson is here
assuming for the drama the role of social reformer; and im
plied in that assumption is an overturning of the values of
the powerful commercial class alluded to— and the supplant
ing of those values with something else. The new drama
tists, Ibsen first among them, were set up as one potential
force, with the intransigent tastes and inclinations of the
public as their opposite.
In his articles, Robertson said that Ibsen seemed a
hundred years ahead of England. In fact, Ibsen was not,
165
except in a metaphorical sense. Edmund Gosse had already
introduced the name of Henrik Ibsen to England in the early
4
seventies, but the English public's acquaintance with Ibsen
was limited almost entirely to translations of his work.
Emperor and Galilean. A Doll's House (in translation by
Archer and in a bowdlerized version by Henrietta P. Lord),
Ghosts. Pillars of Society. An Enemy of the People, and Ros-
5
mersholm were all available to readers m 1889. Clarence
Decker notes:
The actual "outbreak of Ibsen-mania and Ibsen-phobia,"
to use Archer's phrase [sic], did not occur until 1889-
90; during the eighties, while Zola absorbed the atten
tion of the National Vigilance Association, hostility,
at least on the surface, remained quiescent. (p. 118)
In 1880, a morning performance of a "slightly condensed"
translation by William Archer of Pillars of Society had been
given at the Gaiety theatre. But, as Archer noted later, it
"failed to make any impression."^
Ibsen's first appearance of any note on the English
^His 187 3 "Henrik Ibsen" was reprinted and expanded in
Gosse's Northern Studies. ed. Ernest Rhys (London, 1890),
pp. 38-104.
^Clarence R. Decker, The Victorian Conscience (New
York, 1952), p. 118.
^"Breaking a Butterfly," The Theatre. Ill, N.S. (Jan
uary- June 1884), 210.
stage came in 1884, when Breaking a Butterfly, the adapta
tion of A Doll's House by Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Her
man, was staged. Reviewing the play, and noticing the fact
that the playbills had advertised that Breaking a Butterfly
was "founded on Ibsen's Nora," Archer observed that the ex
pression "indicates even more than the authors' actual obli
gation to their original, and would be more exact if it read
'founded on the ruins of Ibsen's Nora'" (p. 214).
Jones and Herman had, in fact, done to Ibsen's play
what Reade had done to Zola's novel five years earlier. In
Breaking a Butterfly, as Archer pointed out in his compari
son of the Norwegian original with the Englished version,
the adapters turned resolutely away from the basic theme of
A Doll's House. Reade, in Drink and Zola in L'Assommoir had
traveled the same road up to a point. Both works did, after
all, set out to describe the evils of alcohol. The impor
tant difference between those two pieces lay in the senti
mental view of the central female figure. Changing her did
a disservice to Zola's theory of the effects of heredity and
environment, but left ample provision for a temperance
tract.
The Ibsen problem was considerably different, however.
A Doll's House ends with Nora, who has grown to a
167
realization of her own potentiality and her husband's weak
ness, slamming the door on a man who has failed to live up
to her heroic expectations of him: expectations which, in
terms of his character, were never realistic. She leaves
him— and, in a gesture probably more significant for the
Victorian attitude toward woman's role, leaves her children
---in order to discover herself. Neither of these actions
could be changed without changing the whole bias of the
drama. Speaking of Dumas fils. Archer pointed out that he
does not have
Ibsen's art of welding his didactics into his action.
He preaches through the mouth of one or other of his
characters, so that in many of his plays a few strokes
of the pen would remove all the moralizing, and leave
the action intact. Ibsen never preaches, or, at least,
never makes one character his mouthpiece. His moral,
or rather his morals, for they are many, must be in
ferred from the whole structure of character and ac
tion. His didactics cannot be cut away at one stroke;
they must be torn out by the roots, and are then found
to have sent fibres into every scene and speech of the
play.7
Jones and Herman, like Reade before them, understood what it
was in the original that an English audience would not tol
erate. The result of their application of the method used
by Reade proves how correct Archer was.
7"Breaking a Butterfly," pp. 209-210.
16 8
The Ibsen play depends upon Helmer's disappointing
Nora. She has, long ago, forged her father's signature in
order to procure money to save her husband, an act of which
Helmer is unaware. When the holder of the note threatens to
reveal her illegal act, she is certain that Helmer will
claim the guilt, and she is prepared to commit suicide to
prevent him from making the sacrifice. But instead of de
fending her, he turns on her. Because of his action, she is
forced to see his true nature and the nature of their rela
tionship. The effect of this insight is both to free her
and, in view of her new knowledge about their sham marriage,
to force her out of self-respect to leave her home.
Jones and Herman altered both of these basic elements.
Their "hero," Goddard, does assume the blame, and in good
sentimental style faces down the man who threatens them.
His doing so, of course, removes the "heroine's" reasons for
walking out on the marriage.
The Jones and Herman alteration resembled that of Reade
in the change they effected in the Helmer-Goddard character.
Zola had insisted that Gervaise was incapable of overcoming
her situation, but Reade had avoided such an interpretation.
The Ibsen play depended upon Helmer's nature. Archer de
scribed him as a
169
moral sensualist, conventionally moral by reason of a
sort of mild aesthetic sensibility which stands him in
the stead of conscience, but, for the rest, thoroughly
self-righteous, shallow, and egoistic. What English
audience could be expected to take the trouble of under
standing a character like this? (p. 212)
Helmer's counterpart in Breaking a Butterfly assumed the
same kind of stature, if not the comic incongruity, Gervaise
had demonstrated when she was turned into a lioness among
the laundry tubs.
Just before the moment of dramatic recognition in the
Ibsen play, that is, just before Nora begins her clear-eyed
description of how her treatment at the hands of her husband
and father has involved a denial of her individuality, Hel
mer offers her forgiveness:
"Oh, you don't know a true man's heart, Nora. There is
something indescribably sweet and soothing to a man in
having forgiven his wife— honestly forgiven her from the
bottom of his heart. She becomes his property in a
double sense. She is as though born again; she has be
come, so to speak, at once his wife and his child. That
is what you shall be to me henceforth, my bewildered,
helpless darling. Don't worry about anything, Nora;
only open your heart to me, and I will be both will and
conscience to you."®
This subjection, of course, is precisely what Nora re
jects. Although Breaking a Butterfly differs significantly
Q
A Doll's House: Play in Three Acts, trans. William
Archer (London, 1889), pp. 111-112.
170
from Ibsen's original in a number of ways, both plays do
eventually come to a similar crisis. But the English ver
sion has done nothing to provide for any movement beyond
this point and rests here. Goddard, the damning note in his
possession, declares in the last lines of the play precisely
what Nora's departure from her home announces in the Ibsen
work. But because of the changes the English authors have
made along the way, Goddard's last words mean something
quite different from what they say:
(going to his writing-table, where candle is still burn
ing, and holding the note over the flame) "Nothing has
happened, except that Flossie was a child yesterday:
today she is a woman.
By Ibsen's standards, of course, Flora's capitulation
to her husband represents the exact opposite of a sign of
maturity. Other changes occur in the play. For example,
the figure of Dr. Rank does not appear. Nora's means of
securing the return of the promissary note are altered, as
is the complex nature of the "villain" who held it. But
these are less important than the fundamental changes in
Helmer's and Nora's characters and in the denouement which
9
Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman, Breaking a But
terfly: A Plav in Three Acts (Printed for private use only;
NOT published, n.d.), p. 76.
171
proceeds from their interaction.
The tarantella remains, however. In the Ibsen play,
Nora dances to distract Helmer's attention from the letter
box which contains a message which will reveal the truth to
him. She succeeds, and the whole dance episode thus makes
dramaturgic sense. But in the Jones-Herman version, the
success of the dance in distracting Goddard is immediately
dissipated by the arrival of an informant who bares the
whole truth, and, as Archer points out, "all the excitement
has gone for nothing.The whole episode in the adapted
version is reminiscent of the gimmicky quality of Drink. In
that play, Reade grasped immediately the sensational value
of two scenes from the novel, the wash-house fight and Cou-
peau1s seizure with delirium tremens. He capitalized on
them, to the extent that the play's fame came to rest on the
water-throwing scene and the alcoholic's dance of death.
Jones and Herman apparently saw a similar opportunity in the
dance around the letterbox.
Archer's comparison of the two plays, however inter
esting, is overshadowed by other comments he makes in his
article. As has been mentioned, up until the time of
10"Breaking a Butterfly," p. 213.
172
Breaking a Butterfly, the London audience was ignorant of
what precisely Ibsen was like on the stage. Yet Archer
sensed in advance what the response would be. Only a year
later, in the same publication, he was to write an extremely
optimistic piece about audience desires. In that article he
expressed the opinion that a few years earlier
The public seemed . . . to be "pleased with a rattle,
tickled with a straw," thrilled by mere bombast, moved
by sheer fustian. "Write down to your audience, and
you can't write too low down," would then have been the
best practical advice to a practical playwright. But
have not audiences changed, and are they not day by day
changing? Wherever the impetus may have come from . . .
there has undoubtedly been an advance in all departments
of theatrical life, and not least, as a matter of course,
in the character of audiences.
Wherever the impetus which supposedly raised audience
standards may have come from, it must have come within a
twelve-month period, for in the article cited earlier,
Archer took a much more dismal view of the possibility of
unadulterated Ibsen and the English Victorian mentality ex
isting comfortably together. He had opened that article
with the opinion that the "British public will not have
didactics at any price, and least of all such didactics as
What Does the Public Want?" The Theatre. V, N.S.
(January-June 1885), p. 271.
173
12
Ibsen's." In closing, he noted that Jones and Herman had
tried to make their work sympathetic, and in doing so had
made it trivial, but, he added, "I am the last to blame them
for doing so. Ibsen on the English stage is impossible. He
must be trivialized . . ." (p. 214).
Archer's opinion was obviously correct. In 1889 A
Doll's House, the Norwegian version, was presented at the
Novelty Theatre. In 1884, Archer had correctly described
the play as
a plea for woman's rights— not for her right to vote and
prescribe medicine [which were the axes being ground at
the time by the feminists], but for her right to exist
as a responsible member of society, "a being breathing
thoughtful breath," the complement and equal of man.^
Yet A Doll's House, astonishingly, passed unchallenged
through St. James's Palace. This was a surprising oversight
on the part of the censor. It becomes increasingly apparent
that, as the century waned, the major area of sensitivity
for the censorship became the woman question— not "The Woman
Question," but the larger and certainly more subtle redefi
nition of roles which was in progress during the closing
years of the century. We will have reason to investigate
1^"Breaking a Butterfly," p. 209.
13"Breaking a Butterfly," p. 213.
174
this attitude at length soon, but not until we see the fate
Of Ibsen's heroine.
There can be small doubt that Ibsen remained, so far as
the censor was concerned, a relative unknown for another
three years. Early in 1891, when the Examiner of Plays got
wind of the projected production of Ghosts. a memo was sent
to the Lord Chamberlain which described Ibsen as "a Danish
writer who has attained a reputation of late as a Realistic
Writer after the manner of Zola: His work however being
Dramatic instead of Novelistic" (Vol. 565, letter 8).
But if the Examiner of Plays overlooked A Doll's House,
others did not. In January of 1890, Walter Besant rose to
the defense of the old order in an article which set out to
right matters by supplying the moral Ibsen had neglected.
The article is called "The Doll's House— and After," and the
pregnant pause implied by the dash is eloquent of the gath
ering Victorian judgment. What Besant supplied was a sequel
to Ibsen's work, a short story, in which Nora, the emanci
pated woman, returns to the town she had left. Torvald
Helmer, in the opening, thinks over the past:
Then he saw how the household, which had been his joy
and pride, so full of comfort, order and sweetness, fell
to pieces; how there ceased to be any order; how his
servants robbed him; how his children were neglected;
and how he himself came home at night to gloom and
175
discomfort. He remembered how people talked, and many
looked askance at him, saying that no woman would leave
husband and children who was treated with kindness and
love— the thing was impossible on the face of it. How
at the bank the customers who were wont to consult him
freely and with confidence, now confined themselves to
their business and went away. How he fell out of so
ciety; people recognize a bachelor and widower, but one
who is neither, what can they do for him? All the misery
of this early time came back to him. He remembered what
he suffered in his loneliness, he who had been accus
tomed for eight years to the company of a sweet and lov
ing wife— sweet and loving until the very moment before
she left him. And at this point he cursed the woman
again.
Then he remembered how he would sit alone in his
study all evening, caring no more for work, though still
from habit he brought home his papers. And now, beside
him, close at his elbow, a bottle.-*-^
The length of the quotation is perhaps justified by
what it reveals, first, about how little of Ibsen's analysis
of Helmer's character and responsibility in Nora's action
the average Englishman— if one can call Besant that--had
caught. It is more interesting in what it suggests about
the fears associated with "emancipation" which might en
courage women to turn themselves into Noras. "Order and
sweetness" fell to pieces; in the wake of their collapse
came financial loss, neglected children, and personal dis
comfort. People talked; they lost confidence in an
• ^The English Illustrated Magazine. [VII] (1889-1890),
317-318.
176
abandoned man. He lost his recognizable social character
istics. And at the bottom of the abyss waited the bottle.
So much for the fate of the Torvald Helmers.
And Nora? She had gone forth to find "Herself," and
the something called "Herself" which she found
told her that religion was sheer imposture and pretence;
that the ordinary laws of life were designed for no oth
er purpose than to keep women in slavery. . . . She threw
aside, therefore, all the conventions, and openly, not
secretly, in the sight of all, she began to live the life
of perfect freedom. She wrote novels also, which the
old-fashioned regarded with horror. In them she advo
cated the great principle of abolishing the family, and
making love the sole rule of conduct. (p. 320)
In Besant's tour de force. Nora returns home unobserved
long enough to learn that her daughter no longer loves her.
We learn that the younger son, heredity being what it is,
has become a forger, that the older son and Helmer are
drunkards together, and that the daughter's fiance has given
her up because of Nora's reputation. The girl drowns her
self, and Nora sees and recognizes the body just as she is
about to enter the train which will take her away again;
As the mother looked, her colour came and went; the
tears rose in her eyes, but she repressed them; she
reeled and trembled, but she steadied herself; she
parted her lips twice to speak, but twice she refrained.
In a word, Nora Helmer, the apostle of the new and bet
ter creed, was threatened with some of the weakness of
the ordinary woman; for a moment she was almost capable
of weeping over her daughter; but. she was mistress of
herself; she rose to the occasion; she became perfectly
177
cold and indifferent. (p. 325)
Thus did Besant instruct Ibsen.
But of course, he did not dispose of him. It may be
useful, however, to take the combination of the Besant se
quel to and the Jones and Herman treatment of Ibsen as sug
gestive of an imaginary line across which the drama could
not expect to step without summoning the fears--and hostil
ity— of society at large.
CHAPTER VII
THE NEW DIDACTICISM AND SOCIAL ORDER
The old realism had, by the early 1880s, reached a kind
of saturation point. Gordon Walker, in The Theatre, had
written of it:
Now in this year of grace 1880, we see the child
[the realistic drama] full-grown, crammed with learn
ing, archaeology, heraldry, art in every branch, of
course aesthetic; knowledge . . . oozing out at his
finger-ends .
The logical thing, given a child so wondrously grown, oc
curred: it began to insist upon recognition of its new ma
turity. But the way in which the new drama began to carve
out a share of recognition for itself had about it much of
an adolescent idealism and spirit of rejection of old val
ues. The Matthison-Scott exchange described earlier is a
case in point. But the theory of the drama as a reforming
^"Realism," The Theatre. II, N.S. (July-December 1880),
284.
178
179
force, at least so far as England was concerned, was yet to
be articulated. What became evident, when it finally did
find expression, was that the movement was to be marked by a
new didacticism which, by its very nature, assured that it
would be viewed with distaste and alarm by those it sought
to instruct.
The split which thus occurred, which placed the serious
dramatists on one side of a chasm and the larger part of
society, including the censor, on the other, was wedged
apart by differing concepts of what was proper on the stage.
The old spirit which had sought the control of the amuse
ments of the lower classes was still abroad. Henry Blau
wrote, and here we approach the Besant attitude toward A
Doll's House, against plays which developed tastes in the
public for what they desire as opposed to what they ought to
have:
It is a fact, acknowledged by physiologists and those
who study human nature, that there is a feeling in fa
vour of cruelties in men which can be easily aroused by
the performance of sensational pieces. If this feeling
exists among the educated class of people, a class which
by means of their superior advantages, should try to
subdue it, cost whatever it may, it seems hardly wonder
ful that' it should exist among those who have not de
rived much benefit from the blessings of the Education
p
Act.
O
Some Notes on the Stage, and Its Influence on the
180
Another element, related to this last attitude, which
helped to make the abyss seem deeper, was best expressed by
Clement Scott in The Theatre of 1888. In his article en
titled "Why Do We Go to the Play?" he advanced the old
claims for diversion and ennoblement, but he saw a new cast
of characters gathering, fathers who would sell the honor of
their daughters, wives who could be bribed to ruin the ex
pectancies of their husbands, clergy who mingled in disrepu
table society, men and women without breeding or morals. It
was beside the point if the picture drawn by the new drama
was true. Grant, said Scott, that society is as rotten as
it is depicted to be,
that men are as base and women as untrue. . . . that the
bayonet is twisted, the water poisoned, the air pesti
lential. What good is done by lingering over this nas
tiness? What lesson is taught by it? What moral drawn
from it? What pleasure is derived from it?^
The real harm, beyond the damage to individuals, would be
done to society itself. If the upper classes laughed at and
applauded these caricatures of themselves, the pit and the
gallery would believe them to be true. The drama was
Education of the Masses, Players, and Playgoers (London,
1884), p. 5.
^The Theatre. XI, N.S. (January-June 1888), 122.
181
a very dangerous weapon to place in the hands of any
one who has no sense of responsibility or care of con
sequences. . . . In these days, when the swift stream
of democracy is sweeping all before it, and rushing on
with resistless force, will it be arrested or encouraged
by these pictures of a society that distort nature, and
do a grave injustice to the age in which we live? (p.
123)
The new drama had serious implications for the politi
cal fabric of society. Any change it might introduce was
apt to upset the prevailing balance which favored the posi
tion of the privileged classes. Commentators on the drama
of the 1880s were finding broader issues involved than had
been the case in a simpler time when only the decorousness
of a work had to be considered. A new socially-crusading
spirit, obviously at odds with the old order, was making
dangerous claims for the rights of the drama.
At the same time that A Doll's House was being pre
sented on the London stage, Emile Zola published Le natu-
5
ralisme au theatre in France. In it he evaluated the whole
struggle between the reforming stage and decadent romantic
dramatic forms. What he claimed then was shortly to be
claimed by English critics, with Shaw at their head. Zola's
assertions directly contradicted older notions of what ought
^Paris, 1889.
182
to be. The battle, as he saw it, was between the romantic
drama and naturalism. Every age, he maintained, had its
formula. That of the romantic period had laughed at the
truths of facts and had come to be nothing more than a pas
tiche of Shakespeare and Hugo. But the new drama, based on
the intelligences of the later nineteenth century, had its
roots in the present. Its formula would therefore derive
from the fact that an age of experimental science and exact
6
analysis had arrived. Anything which ignored the "great
sorrowful cry of suffering humanity" was not moral: it re
sulted only in the blunting of all virilities; it was "a
7
precious time lost to the frollicking of a puppet show."
^"Le naturalisme decoule de 1'art classique, comme la
societe actuelle est basee sur les debris de la societe an-
cienne. Lui seul repond a notre etat social, lui seul a des
racines profondes dans l1esprit de l'epoque; et il fournira
la seule formule d'art durable et vivante, parce que cette
formule exprimera la fagon d'etre de 11 intelligence contem-
poraine. ... Je designe par drame romantique toute piece qui
se moque de la verite des faits et des personnages, qui pro-
mene sur les planches des pantins au ventre bourre de son;
qui, sous le pretexte de je ne sais quel ideal, patauge dans
le pastiche de Shakespeare et d'Hugo. Chaque epoque a sa
formule, et notre formule n'est certainement pas celle de
1830. Nous sommes a un age de methode; de science experi-
mentale; nous avons avant tout le besoin de 1'analyse
exacte." (Le naturalisme. pp. 14, 16)
^"Comme c'est etroit, ces luttes d'honneur faux sur des
points qui devraient disparaitre dans le grand cri doulou
reux de l'humanite souffrante! Ce n'est pas vrai et ce
183
Two sets of morals applied, one to literature, another to
life. He observed, "That which is commonly accepted in the
street and at home becomes simple ordure when it is print-
g
ed." Zola maintained that readers, who knew and tolerated
promiscuity and all of the little things that make up life,
were "not accustomed to see themselves in a faithful mirror,
9
and they start to scream about lying and cruelty." But
readers and spectators would accustom themselves to the new
art. The authors had on their side the power of "the eter
nal morality of truth.It was not up to the public to
n'est pas grand. Est-ce que nos energies sont la? est-ce
que le labeur de notre grand siecle se trouve dans ces pue
rilities du coeur? On appelle cela la morale; non, ce n'est
pas la morale, c'est un affadissement de toutes nos virili-
tes, c'est un temps precieux perdu a des jeux de marion-
nettes." (p. 45)
^"Toujours les deux morales. II est admis que la vie
est une chose et que la litterature en est une autre. Ce
qui est accepte couramment dans la rue et chez soi, devient
une simple ordure des qu'on l'imprime." (p. 48)
^"La bonhomie de I1existence, les promiscuites tole-
rees, les libertes permises de langage et de sentiments,
tout ce traintrain qui fait la vie, prend immediatement dans
nos oeuvres ecrites l'apparence d'une diffamation. Les lec-
teurs ne sont pas accoutumes a se voir dans un miroir fi
de le, et ils orient au mensonge et a la cruaute. " (p. 48)
-*-®"Les lecteurs et les spectateurs s'habitueront, voila
tout. Nous avons pour nous la force de l'eternelle moralite
du vrai." (p. 48)
184
impose its tastes on the authors; rather, it was the authors
who were charged with directing the public.'*''*'
So far as the English stage was concerned, it was,, in
Zola's estimation, fallen down to melodrama, and apt to fall
still further because it prohibited human truth. He found
it curious and sad that the English genius, which had seen
in the past the flowering of the most violent temperaments
among writers, had, as a result of social changes, emascu
lated its dramatists just at a time when the spirit of ob
servation and experiment was bringing the century to the
12
study and solution of all its problems. To a writer m
The Times who had abhorred the English practice of importing
French pieces, he suggested meditation on the thought that
"The bastards of Shakespeare do not have the right to mock
Pour conclure, ce n'est pas le public qui doit im-
poser son gout aux auteurs, ce sont les auteurs qui ont
charge de diriger le public." (p. 59)
-1-2"De la, a coup sur, la mediocrite ou s'agite leur
litterature dramatique: IIs sont tombes au melodrame, et
ils tomberont plus bas, car on tue une litterature, lors-
qu’on lui interdit la verite humaine. N'est-il pas curieux
et triste que le genie anglais; qui a eu dans les siecles
passes la floraison des plus violents temperaments d'ecri-
vains; ne donne plus naissance, a la suite d'une certaine
evolution sociale, qu'a des ecrivains emascules, qu'a des
bas bleus qui ne valent pas Ponson du Terrail? Et cela
juste h l'heure ou 1'esprit d 'observation et d'experience
emporte notre siecle a 1'etude et a la solution de tous les
problemes." (p. 70)
185
the legitimate children of Balzac."
Just two years later, Shaw was to publish what amounted
to an apologia for the new dramatic movement. In The Quint
essence of Ibsenism he noted that the "Holy War" between the
Puritans, "who regard Art as a department of original sin,"
and "those who regard Art in all its forms as a department
of religion" was on again.
The Puritans were being particularly vigorous:
If their opponents do not display equal energy, it is
quite possible that we shall presently have a reformed
censorship ten times more odious than the existing one,
the very absurdity of which causes it to be exercised
with a halfheartedness that prevents the licenser from
doing his worst as well as his best. The wise policy
for the friends of Art just now is to use the Puritan
agitation in order to bring the matter to an issue, and
then to make a vigorous effort to secure that the up
shot shall be the total abolition of the censorship.14
But more important to the points now under discussion
than Shaw's warning about the censorship is the definition
he advanced of what constituted "moral" art. It demon
strates the same kind of spirit manifested in Zola's work
and makes clear how revolutionary were the reforming aims of
^•3 "Quant au redacteur du Times. il fera bien de mediter
cette pensee: Les batards de Shakespeare n'ont pas le droit
de se moquer des enfants legitimes de Balzac." (p. 72)
l^lst ed. (London, 1891), p. 152.
186
the new didacticism. Shaw argued that "immoral" "implies
conduct, mischievous or not, which does not conform to cur-
15
rent ideals." He left no doubt that the new Art had new
plans for society:
The point to seize is that social progress takes effect
through the replacement of old institutions by new ones;
and since every institution involves the recognition of
the duty of conforming to it, progress must involve the
repudiation of an established duty at every step. (p. 7)
Shaw was not startled that Ibsen and others who sought so
cial change received small welcome, for "every reformer is
denounced accordingly" (p. 8).
Shaw anticipated resistance for the new drama, and it
is no surprise that he was not disappointed. It is clear
from his statements in The Quintessence of Ibsenism and from
those of Zola cited above that men in the vanguard of the
new drama set out with malice aforethought to overturn con
ventions. There is small chance that Shaw ever forgot that
he had expected and even courted difficulties at the outset.
But as the movement toward serious drama developed, it be
came customary for its proponents, especially Shaw, to ob
ject that their earnest works were banned while frivolous
and naughty pieces were allowed. It remained for Chesterton
i k .
• ^ Quintessence of Ibsenism. p. 129.
187
to point out the simple explanation for the hostility en
gendered by serious drama:
And he [Shaw] has always been foremost among the fierce
modern critics who ask indignantly, "Why do you object
to a thing full of sincere philosophy like The Wild Duck
while you tolerate a mere dirty joke like The Spring
Chicken?" I do not think he has ever understood what
seems to me the very sensible answer of the man in the
street, "I laugh at the dirty joke of The Spring Chicken
because it is a joke. I criticize the philosophy of The
Wild Duck because it is a p h i l o s o p h y ^
Almost without exception, the plays which brought the
censor up short in the closing years included in this study
were works which were based on a philosophy of drama as so
cial irritant. It was natural that the militant play
wrights, given their determination to reform society, should
engage in the major controversies of their day. On the oth
er hand, what had developed within the office of the Lord
Chamberlain was a set of mind which closely paralleled that
of respectable society and which therefore sought to resist
any sweeping changes in social structure. By the middle of
the twentieth century, one of those central Victorian con
troversies, the redefinition of the role of woman, has lost
some of its significance. It is a fact, however, that the
prolonged and often violent dispute about the nature of
^ Georae Bernard Shaw (London, 1910), p. 52.
188
woman and her consequent rights was the major underlying
point of contention between censored dramatists of the late
nineteenth century and representatives of the established
social order. No other single issue taken up by the new
didactic drama caused such alarms within the office of the
Examiner of Plays. When the censor moved against plays
which made disturbing suggestions about woman's true nature,
he was participating in the attempts of the conservative
order to keep Nora in her doll's house, but, more important
ly, to keep the nature of the female animal in understand
able and manageable terms.
The debate about the proper role of woman was prolonged
and complex, but two of the attitudes toward women which it
revealed are relevant to this study. Both of them were
rigidly hierarchical. One of them derived its thrust from
the "argument from nature" which held that
It is evident that the man, possessing reasoning
faculties, muscular power, and courage to employ it, is
qualified for being a protector: the woman, being lit
tle capable of reasoning, feeble, and timid, requires
protection. Under such circumstances, the man natural
ly governs: the woman as naturally obeys. . . .
It would be just as rational to contend for man's
right to bear children, as it is to argue for woman's
participation in philosophy or legislation.-*-^
-*-^A. Walker, Woman Physiologically Considered as to
189
It is worth noting that the division of labor suggested in
this "argument from nature" was accompanied by a moral im
perative. An anonymous mid-century writer argued:
Take human society in any phase we like, we must come
down to these radical conditions; and anv system which
ignores this division of labor, and confounds these
separate functions, is of necessity imperfect and
wrong.
The argument which accepted woman's subservience as
stemming from her nature had its counterpart in another
widely-held theory about woman's spiritual qualities: woman
was nobler than man. As one commentator pointed out, "the
object of man's worship [is] always something unknown, ex-
19
traordinary, ideal." The following description of her
could have been written by Reade about Gervaise:
See how they [her strong affections] transform her from
nothing to a terrestrial angel. This devotedness of
her love renders her the most perfect work of creation's
Architect. Even an angel's power of speech could not
pourtray the exaltation added to her nature by this
Mind. Morals. Marriage, Matrimonial Slavery, Infidelity, and
Divorce (London, 1840), p. 120, quoted in J. A. Banks and
Olive Banks, Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian Eng
land (Liverpool, 1964), p. 22.
•*-®Italics mine. Modern Women and What Is Said of Them:
A Reprint of Articles in the Saturday Review (New York,
1868), p. 281.
■^Max O'Re11, The Dear Neighbours (London [1885 ]), p.
208.
190
endowment 1 . . . Behold her clinging even to her betray
er with a devotedness bordering on madness! Mind and
body a complete wreck, effected by arts the most dia
bolical, so that one would expect her to arm herself
with fiendish vengeance, and drink his heart's blood;
yet behold her fondly embracing him, and still delight
ing to serve him even to the utmost that devotedness
can possibly devise! Keeping sleepless watch night
and day over his sick bed! Seizing every opportunity
to load him with kindness! Closing her ears to what
ever is uttered against him! Blind to his faults,
though as palpable as Egyptian darkness . . .
The litany goes on and on.
As Esme Wingfield-Stratford points out, if a woman
would escape becoming that despised creature, an old maid,
she had to attract a husband and become the mother of a
family. Once she had entered into that sacrosanct bond,
the message of Victorian society to her was like that
of Wellington to a commander who sent him a S.O.S. for
reinforcements; "Tell him to die where he stands."
Which may appear a heartless attitude, but can hardly
be called sentimental. For it was based upon a belief
that permanence is an essential condition of the family
union, without which none of its advantages can be safe
guarded .
The family was the Ark of the Victorian Covenant, and
it followed that the noblest work of woman was that
2 1
which she performed in her capacity of its priestess.“
If the prevailing relationship between the sexes was
not easily relinquished because stability could not be
^ . S. Fowler, Love and Parentage. Applied to the Im
provement of Offspring (Manchester, n.d.), pp. 36-37.
2^-The Victorian Sunset (London, 1932), pp. 224-225.
191
sacrificed and because woman had been idealized, the system
was also perpetuated out of masculine self-interest. John
Stuart Mill argued that
All the selfish propensities, the self-worship, the un
just self-preference, which exist among mankind, have
their source and root in, and derive their principal
nourishment from, the present constitution of the rela-
PP '
tion between man and woman.
But beyond this self-interestedness, so far as man was con
cerned, the basic assumptions regarding his ideal state in
cluded the concepts of balance and responsibility. Peter
Cominos points out that the models of behavior for the
respectable man were inescapable,
for they were integrated in the Respectable Social
System of relationships. Behavioral patterns, rela
tionships, and thought were in a condition of congru
ency. These models not only provided patterns of moral
behavior . . . towards which gentlemen could orient,
but these models also fostered an equally indispensable
approximate regularity of expectations. ^
Perhaps it is only an accident of history that it was
the woman element of the social equation which began to
shift, so that on the surface it was the concepts of wife
and mother which were threatened. But if one accepts
^The Subjection of Women (London, 1869), p. 148.
P
Late-Victorian Sexual Respectability and the Social
System," International Review of Social History. VIII
(1963), 227-228.
192
Cominos1 notion of a world of congruency, or the equation
metaphor, it would seem that the equally important notions
of man's role and his self-definition would change to the
extent that balancing factors changed. Such speculation is
more properly material for psychologists and sociologists.
But the issues associated with the relative roles of the
sexes never operated in any kind of vacuum; and, so far as
the last part of the nineteenth century is concerned, they
were an active factor in the formation of the serious drama
and the censorship's attitude to it.
It is perhaps worth observing that up until the last
quarter of the century, Victorian drama usually dealt with
woman in two forms. She was either the coy temptress— in
which guise she was tolerated on London stages throughout
the century— or she was the redemptrix. In either case she
was predictable, easily recognizable, and readily under
stood. But she was beyond the control of the average mind
as soon as she deviated from these stereotypes. The lady of
the camellias, the wronged prostitute, had been forced to
stand for thirty years waiting for permission to enter the
stage door, and by the time she got in, she was familiar,
well past her climacteric, and a threat to no one. Nora's
significance, of course, lies in the fact that she did not
193
do the predictable thing, and the Jones-Herman alteration
of the work proves how important predictability was. Equa
tions would produce familiar results so long as all of their
elements remained constant. But once alterations were in
troduced, a fearful uncertainty developed about what unknown
might be produced. There was no way to predict where change
would lead.
There can be small doubt that "woman" was one of the
great Victorian institutions. Any attempt to change her was
nothing less than an attempt to change society itself. In
addition to her ministering and stabilizing function, she
had also been elevated to the realm of myth. But there is
always a sacrosanct aura about myths, a sense of tabu. When
one reads the plays which insisted upon dealing with woman
as a rational and independent animal, and then observes the
violent reactions to them, one can sense both the indigna
tion and the fear which attend the despoiling of something
untouchable. It seems difficult to account otherwise for
the astonishing amount of emotional heat generated by the
roasting of old notions.
Among the plays to be discussed during this period,
which is marked off at one end by the first large-scale pro
duction of an Ibsen drama and at the other by the
194
parliamentary debates of 1909, censored plays will occa
sionally be encountered which failed the test of political
circumspection or religious propriety, but they will be
rare. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from the banning
of a play which was both a-religious and a-political was
that it was im-moral. But the definition of immoral had
evidently shifted. At an earlier time, when the adaptation
of French farces was the rule, the word had meant something
like "naughty"— only stronger. But it is apparent now that,
with the arrival of the new drama, the root of the word was
to be found in the notion "subversive of established social
values." The writers objected to the implication that they,
in their moralistic plays, were naughty in the old tradi
tion. But it is helpful to recall Shaw's definition again:
"Immorality does not necessarily imply mischievous conduct;
it implies conduct, mischievous or not, which does not con-
24
form to current ideals."
He went up and down the 1890s and early 1900s announc
ing himself to be "immoral." At first glance this seems
like the Shavian love of outrage and paradox, and no doubt
to some extent it is partly that. But on closer examination
^ Quintessence of Ibsenism. p. 129.
195
it becomes evident that what he, as spokesman for the new
didactic drama, considered immoral and what the censor con
sidered immoral were really one and the same thing. The
difference lay in the view taken by each of the desirability
of permitting the immoral to do its work.
At an earlier time, the word "immoral" had referred to
the relationship between men and women under certain circum
stances. In the years of the Ibsen storm and after, it re
ferred to that relationship in a new way and was extended to
other areas. While the old meaning still applied, the term
came to include whatever was damaging to society's sacred
cows. It may not be punning too outrageously to suggest
that the concept of woman fitted this category best of all.
Toying here with the words "moral" and "immoral" and the
concepts behind them may seem like nothing more than seman
tics, and perhaps to some extent it is. But it is faithful
to the Ibsen period to describe the shifting and toying that
went on then. The fact that new interpretations and new
values could be forced onto very old words is indicative of
the pervasiveness of the changes then in progress.
CHAPTER VIII
THE INDEPENDENT THEATRE AND THE CENSOR
In 1889, readers of Le revue d'art dramatique in France
were being informed of the state of the English drama
through a series of "Letters" by J. T. Grein, a Dutchman
involved in various theatrical enterprises who had recently
moved to Great Britain. In one of these articles"*- Grein
tried to explain to his continental readers the peculiar set
of mind which accounted for the unfriendly reception which
foreign works met on the British stage. Grein did not think
the English censorship ridiculous; the English knew well
that "the passions play a large role in human life, that
love is a moving power of one part of our actions." Observ
ing that social institutions, such as marriage, had a dif
ferent significance north of the Channel which made a
■*""La pruderie sur la scene anglaise," Le revue d'art
dramatique. XIII (1889), 242-245.
196
197
certain hostility to licentiousness inevitable, he remarked:
The Englishman, like all the world, does not believe in
seeing certain situations transferred to the stage, how
ever much they are useful to the action or serve to dem
onstrate the passions and display the sentiments of a
character. He does not believe in bringing his daughter
to these spectacles, but he abhors the cynical immoral
ity of the author who is immoral for the pleasure of
being so. The Englishman wants to be respected, and he
is right. Dramatic authors respect John Bull. (p. 244)
Making allowances for the difference in temperament of the
Englishman, Grein defended the British censor who rigorously
applied his blue pencil to the sympathetic presentation of
extramarital liaisons and "equivocal pleasantries."
Grein's brief disquisition on the censorship is impor
tant to an understanding of the part he played in the move
ment which was shortly to begin in England, largely through
his work. Grein had seen the work of Andre Antoine in Paris
which had resulted in 1887 in the formation of the Theatre
Libre. Antoine's group, by the expedient of subscription
theatre, had been able to evade the much less stringent
French censorship. As N. H. G. Schoonderwoerd points out in
his study of Grein, this had been only part of that organi
zation's aim. Antoine had also
wanted a theatre free from the old conventions of play-
writing and acting. He wanted new plays and a new way
of acting. . . . He took on what he found, provided he
thought it good drama. As the naturalistic school of
literature and drama . . . was just then coming into
198
its own, it was natural that Antoine should want natu
ralistic plays, morceaux du reel as he called them, but
he was also interested in philosophical and poetical
plays, if they were plays, and not merely of literary
value
As Schoonderwoerd indicates, "'Free Theatre1 was in the air
at the time." The Tooneelvereeniaing (Stage Society) had
been founded in 1888 in Amsterdam, followed in 1889 by the
Berlin Freie Biihne. In both American and Denmark groups had
also been formed with a more or less similar aim: the free-
3
m g of the stage from commercial interests.
This was the experimental type of theatre which Grein
hoped to bring to London. But his commitment to oppose the
censorship, as the "Letter" cited above indicates, did not
stem from any philosophically based resistance to that par
ticular institution. He was interested primarily in what
was "new," and the new thing was the realistic drama which
was apt to be viewed with disfavor by both a large public
and the Examiner of Plays. As a consequence, Grein initi
ally accepted opposition to the censorship as a means of
subserving his wider aim of producing "advanced" dramatic
^J. T. Grein: Ambassador of the Theatre: 1862-1935
(Assen, 1963), pp. 96-97.
-^Schoonderwoerd, p. 96.
199
forms,
A receptive group of men, similarily impressed by the
experimental Theatre Libre, awaited Grein in England. Among
them were William Archer and George Moore, both of whom were
in agreement with Grein about the limited aims of the new
venture. From the very beginning, the Independent Theatre
was aimed at a select audience, reminiscent of the special
few who had been so eager to see The Cenci. licensed or not,
given a brief airing on the London stage.
The group which formed around Grein to support him
shared his hopes to form "a theatre free from the shackles
of the censor, free from the fetters of convention, unham-
4
pered by financial considerations." They sought to foster
the kind of eclecticism of which the commercial stage was
necessarily deprived. Among the pamphlets of the Indepen
dent Theatre to be found in the British Drama League Li
brary, Schoonderwoerd located one, written by Grein himself,
in which were expressed the group's original aims:
. . . a British Theatre Libre would aim, neither at fos
tering playwrighting of a merely didactic kind, nor at
introducing subjects of an immoral, or even unwholesome
realistic nature. It would nurture realism but realism
of a healthy kind, it would strive to annihilate the
^Grein, quoted in Schoonderwoerd, p. 101.
200
puppets which have done yeoman's service for years and
years, and would instead depict human beings, bearing
human characters F s i c 1. speaking human language, and
torn by human passions. It would nurture didactic
drama to a certain extent, in so far as dramatic con
struction, delineation, and analysis of characters are
concerned.
The aim of the group, however, was at no time to evade the
law in order to smuggle the "vulgar, low and cynically im
moral" onto the stage:
Its chief ideal ought to be to admit all who have some
thing new to say, who have the courage and the ability
to cast aside banal sentiment, faulty construction, and
useless parody when writing for the stage.^
William Archer sounded even more insistent than Grein
regarding the need for such a theatre:
If such an institution was needed in Paris, how much
more in London! Here we have not a single theatre that
is even nominally exempt from the dictation of the crowd.
Here the actor-manager reigns supreme. Here the uphol
sterer runs rampant, and it takes a hundred performances
to pay his bill. Here the Censor swoops down on uncon
ventional ethics, while he turns his blind eye to con
ventional ribaldry.^
It had been suggested that matinee performances at
licensed houses could achieve the theatre group's aims, but
^Grein, quoted in Schoonderwoerd, p. 101.
^Grein, quoted in Schoonderwoerd, p. 101.
^"The Free Stage and the New Drama," The Fortnightly
Review. L, N.S. (July-December 1891), 666.
201
Grein rejected the possibility. Matinee performances, he
wrote,
are subject to the censor, their efforts are scattered
and lost. The attack upon existing conventions of form
and subject must be concentrated upon one stage, in one
theatre.®
Grein was soon to be disappointed in both of these last ex
pectations, freedom from the censor and concentration upon
one stage, but it was with these hopes that he set about
launching the project in the opening years of the 1890s.
The Independent Theatre's aims, in terms of audience
size, were modest; but they were relatively extravagant in
terms of audience quality. Something of a tradition of two
audiences had existed in England throughout the century,
dating from the days when the decline of the theatre had
been a recognized fact. The closet dramas of the early
1800s were part of the tradition. One can sense the sepa
ratist attitude, for example, in the prefaces which Byron
9
attached to his plays. In the 1840s, a group known as the
Syncretics had been formed to promote more sophisticated
g
Quoted in Schoonderwoerd, p. 102.
^Byron, for example, denies that Sardanapalus. The Two
Foscari or Cain were in any way intended for the stage. The
Complete Poetical Works of Lord Byron (Boston, 1905).
202
forms of the art among the appreciative.^ The Shelley So
ciety of the 1870s proved that there were a substantial num
ber of people who prided themselves on fine sensitivities
and were willing to join in the role of a special audience.
It was on this kind of spirit that J. T. Grein hoped to
capitalize with the foundation of the Independent Theatre.
William Archer explained why the organization was di
rected toward this group, and what he thought could be
achieved by appealing to an exclusive audience. He main
tained that "what is newest, subtlest and most truly alive
in art will never appeal to the crowd, and therefore cannot
have money in it."^ The evidence of the Theatre Libre had
proved the truth of
the principle that what is novel and daring in dramatic
art must be directly subsidised for their own behoof
and benefit by the few who have the wit to care for it.
(p. 667)
Archer saw in the new movement a shift in emphasis away
from the earlier attempts to revive the stage:
The progressists [sic] of the 'sixties and 'seventies
were bent upon popularizing the stage, upon attracting
-*-°See Fred C. Thompson, "A Crisis in Early Victorian
Drama: John Westland Marston and the Syncretics," Victorian
Studies. IX, No. 4 (1965), 375-398.
H"The Free Stage," p. 665.
203
the great public, in a mass as it were, to the theatre.
We, progressists of the 'nineties, without any sort of
hostility to the popular drama . . . , are desirous of
elevating a certain section of the stage into a higher
intellectual atmosphere, in answer to the demands of a
lesser public which has been gradually segregating it
self from among the great public.^
But Archer made it clear that he did not share the beliefs
of those who would turn the Independent Theatre into "a
private body of art lovers, who ask only to be left alone to
13
take their artistic pleasures in peace." From the begin
ning the Independent Theatre had as its aim the infusion
into London theatre life of what was new and controversial.
It would, of course, be possible to place the Independent
Theatre on the basis of a club, not to invite the press
to its performances, and in every way to deprecate dis
cussion and criticism. But the drama is essentially a
social art. It cannot draw breath of life in such an
austere, airless seclusion. It demands an atmosphere of
open appreciation and dissent. In a word, it exists to
be discussed and criticised. (p. 668)
Even in matters of art, Archer pointed out, man was a pros
elytizing animal. The Independent Theatre could not be
simply at the disposal of didactic art because it was the
currently advancing form. The London playgoer's social
conscience was not the only target. His tastes needed to
12"The Drama in the Doldrums," The Fortnightly Review.
LII, N.S. (July-December 1892), 155.
13"The Free Stage," p. 668.
204
be reformed, too, if reform was possible:
Clearly as we may recognise that delicate art is not
for the crass majority, we would fain bring over to the
minority all who are capable of fine perception, and
even, it may be, disturb the placid torpor of the many,
and render them in some degree accessible to higher, if
not to the highest artistic emotions. (p. 668)
Given these rather pretentious aims, it is not sur
prising that many viewed the projected enterprise with dis
dain. One critic, Oswald Crawfurd, observed that a reform
movement was afoot patterned after the Paris Theatre Libre.
He was willing to grant that a theatre free of the Lord
Chamberlain and of the commercial considerations of the
ordinary theatre might produce some remarkable work,
but it would be work for the minority and not for the
majority, and, I suspect too, not for the minority of
thinking persons, but mainly for the still narrower
minority of those who hold with the "realists" and are
afraid to face the censor and the judgment of decent
folk. . . .A free theatre may do good, for it may
bring hidden talent to light, but I do not think it
can of itself seriously affect the London stage. Noth
ing that does not reach the hearts and understandings
of the educated mass of our countrymen can ever do that.
14"The London Stage," The Fortnightly Review. XLVII,
N.S. (January-June 1890), 513. For another expression of
distaste for the notion of the select audience, see Herbert
Tree's Some Interesting Fallacies of the Modern Stage (Lon
don, 1892), p. 29, in which he is afraid that the "blandish
ments of dilettante patrons of the stage" will refine the
drama away "until it reaches its apex in a vanishing point."
See also the anonymous [Scott] review, "Ghosts," The The
atre. XVIII, N.S. (January-June 1891), 205-206.
205
He did not think any censorship which could have permitted
a revival of the Pink Dominoes. the Scandinavian morality of
Ibsen, and the "crude naturalism" of Tosca could be "a very
hard ordeal to pass through."
But the leaders of the Independent Theatre, at least
for their first performance, did not choose to subject them
selves to the censorship, however mild it might prove to be.
Grein had begun his crusade with the aim of presenting the
works of English playwrights who had not found themselves
welcome on the commercial London stage. Confident that they
would soon step forward, manuscripts in hand, Grein declared
his policy and awaited their arrival. In the interim he
turned to the most controversial play of the decade and
announced that the first production of the Independent The
atre would be Ibsen's Ghosts. Sir Ponsonby-Fane sent noti
fication to the Lord Chamberlain of the projected perform
ance on March 14, 1891:
The Independent Theatre is not a Theatre at all— it
is a Club founded by a Mr. Green [sic] on the model of
the "Theatre Libre," at Paris, to produce for private
performance pieces which have not passed the Censorship.
In the case reported to-day in the newspapers Mr.
Green hired an unoccupied Theatre "The Royalty" for a
private performance for "Members of the Club and their
Friends only" of Ibsen's unlicensed Play of the "Ghosts,"
which though harmless in language is suggestive of an
unwholesome state of things, and would certainly not be
licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. . . .
206
The Performance being absolutely a Private one the
Lord Chamberlain has no power to interfere. (Vol. 565,
letter 8)
Except for the performance of A Doll's House in 1889,
very little of Ibsen had been seen on the London stage. But
his name had been much discussed and copies of his plays
15
widely circulated. It was generally understood, both on
the basis of the Doll's House performance and as a result of
the frequent discussions of the work of the Scandinavian
which had appeared in the press, that Ibsen represented a
point of view which was not entirely sympathetic to the
established order of English society, and his coming was
awaited with considerable misgiving by those who were not
initiates. Another article by Crawfurd, evidently written
before the Independent Theatre production of Ghosts but
printed in the spring of 1891— that is to say, just after
the play had been staged— is fairly representative of the
various grounds on which non-Ibsenites resisted the inva
sion. In this article, Crawfurd, who declared himself to be
outside the camp of the followers, speculated whether
■^In 1893, Archer calculated that 100,000 copies of
Ibsen plays had been read in the English-speaking world
alone. "'The Mausoleum of Ibsen'," The Fortnightly Review.
LIV, N.S. (July-December 1893), 87.
207
Ibsenism was to become "a serious revolutionizing influence
16
upon the stage" or would "die out as a fad and a fallacy?"
He observed that Ibsen had not yet received his test in the
playhouse. Crawfurd was pessimistic about what the outcome
of that test would be, because
Between the Scandinavian's point of view in literature
and in the drama, and the Englishman's, there lies a
great gulf, and it may well be that the imperfect appre
ciation of Ibsen in this country and in Germany and the
almost complete rejection of his work in France, is,
after all, a question of race. It is always difficult
for the man of one race to enter into and assess the
literary work of a race not akin to his own in blood,
or to which he is not affiliated through literary tra
dition. (p. 725)
Crawfurd saw the disfavor which Ibsen's works were meeting
in England as stemming from two sources besides that of
"race":
. . . their plain-speaking on many points on which the
breeding of the civilized world has brought itself to
avoid plain speech, and their already noticed failure
to rise to our Western standard of right expression—
in plain words, their lack of style, as we non-Scandi
navians understand style." (p. 727)
When he examined Ibsen's "grossness," he found it different
from the French variety, which was "mere indecency sought
out and set forth in order to please 1'homme moven sensuel."
16"The Ibsen Question," The Fortnightly Review. XLIX,
N.S. (January-June 1891), 725.
208
and which had no connection with the plot or purpose of a
work. Ibsen's realism was "rather the scientific grossness,
the academic plain speech of the anatomical theatre" (p.
727). The importance attached to this particular charac
teristic of Ibsen's work can perhaps be inferred by recall
ing the fact that Jones and Herman in Breaking a Butterfly
had entirely removed the character, Dr. Rank. An alteration
of his role was apparently necessary because he professed
his love for a married woman in the play. But his total
removel is perhaps accounted for because he most clearly
embodied the Ibsen notion, which was to form a central motif
in Ghosts. that the sins of the father transmit a physical
heritage to his son. In A Doll's House Rank waits for and
then goes to meet death from the same "brain fever" which
was to turn Osvald into an idiot at the close of the later
play.
Crawfurd conceded that Ibsen's particular type of
realism was not gratuitous, that it mostly served the pur
pose of the play and pointed a moral. He was willing to
trust that Ibsen used his directness unconsciously, and he
equated its use with a kind of provincial boorishness at
tributable to an "inexperience of modern manners" (p. 727).
The threat Ibsen posed to the Victorian world-view, however,
209
was summed up in Crawfurd's closing observation: "If his
types are to be accepted as normal the world is certainly a
viler as well as a gloomier place than most of us have sup
posed" (p. 740).
Edmund Gosse had already noted that Ibsen was to some
extent a prophet of doom. Gosse maintained that Ibsen had
not begun as a social reformer; rather, he had set for him
self the task of chronicling the collapse of Western civi
lization from within. In the disillusionment of his matur
ity, Ibsen resolved that "he would spend the few years left
to him before the political agony of Europe in noting down,
with an accuracy hitherto unparalleled, the symptoms of her
17
disorder." It was for William Archer to point out that
Ibsen meant to change things: his art was "ultimately di
dactic," essaying "to teach as life itself teaches, exhibit
ing the fact and leaving the observer to trace and formulate
18
the underlying law." The reputation which had been es
tablished for Ibsen before the Independent Theatre made its
first move was not one calculated to reassure those among
•^Edmund Gosse, "Ibsen's Social Dramas," The Fortnight
ly Review. XLV, N.S. (January-June 1889), 109.
Ibsen and English Criticism," The Fortnightly Re
view. XLVI, N.S. (July-December 1889), 31.
210
the powerful middle class who agreed with Clement Scott's
abhorrence of "a tendency in recent years to make the stage
a pulpit and a platform instead of a place of legitimate and
general amusement," a place which was no longer to be "a
reaction and a relief from the worries of the day, but an
19
aggravation of its argumentative horrors."
The reputation of Ghosts had been pre-established as
well. In the 1889 article cited above, Gosse had advanced
extravagant claims for it, putting the poignancy of its last
act on a level with that of Aeschylus and Shakespeare. His
description of the fate of the play on the continent was a
precise prediction of what was soon to happen in London:
A storm of ill-will from the press was at first the
only welcome which Ghosts received. It was not possible
that it should be otherwise. Conventional readers were
shocked by the theme, and the drastic treatment of the
theme; artistic readers could not reconcile themselves
to such an outrage upon dramatic tradition. The tide
soon turned; the amazing power and originality of the
drama, and its place in its author's work, were present
ly perceived. In the meantime the wash-pot of journal
ism was poured over the poet.^®
Those in the Lord Chamberlain's office at the time of
the Grundy and Mackay private performance and later at the
■^"The Worship of Bad Plays," The Theatre. XVI, N.S.
(July-December 1890), 261.
Ibsen's Social Dramas," p. 116.
211
time of the Shelley Society's production of The Cenci had
learned that the law under which they were expected to
operate, the law of 1843, was inadequate. The framers of
the law had overlooked the practical problem of providing
those who were expected to administer it with the legal
means of initiating prosecution; The theatre license lever
remained, however, and the Lord Chamberlain adverted to it.
Grein, after difficulties, had finally managed to secure the
use of the Royalty Theatre, Soho, from Kate Santley, by
guaranteeing that the performance would be strictly private
within the definition set forth by the law. But a news
paper article had observed that "the terms of membership,
including admission to stall and dress-circle," was to be
£2. 10s. The writer of the article wondered
whether the Lord Chamberlain will regard the "terms of
membership" as another name for admission money. Also
whether he will adopt any means to prevent the perform
ance in a licensed theatre of an unlicensed play.2-1-
Miss Santley, in obvious fear of the loss of her the
atre license, wrote to the Examiner of Plays enclosing the
article, assuring him that she had let the theatre only
21source unknown. A clipping, without identification,
is included among the Lord Chamberlain's Correspondence,
Vol. 56 5, letter 6, March 7, 1891.
212
under the condition that no money would be taken for the
performance, and closing with the assurance that she was
"most anxious to do whatever you desire in the matter and
await your commands as to whether the play shall be given or
not" (Vol. 565, letter 6).
The Independent Theatre's method of operation had been
22
learned from the earlier Shelley Society, but m this case
the Lord Chamberlain's office was in a more difficult posi
tion than it had been before. During the earlier Grundy
private performance, it had been possible for the authori
ties to decide to answer with silence since Grundy's aim had
been a single reputation-saving performance. Later, with
the Shelley Society, the office was faced with a group only
peripherally involved in the theatre, and a little harass
ment and supervision had been adequate; the Shelley incident
soon passed. But with the appearance of the Independent
Theatre, the Lord Chamberlain had a problem on his hands
which showed no signs of soon disappearing. Grein and his
associates had insisted upon making an issue of the censor
ship in the press. They had not attacked the institution
^Michael Orme [Alix A. Grein], J. T. Grein; The Story
of a Pioneer 1862-1955 (London, 1936), pp. 74-75. See also
above, pp. 152-158.
213
directly, but they had declared their intention to remain
outside the reach of the law. Under the circumstances, the
Lord Chamberlain's Office could hardly have been expected to
overlook the implied challenge. The full significance of
the Independent Theatre's move, if indeed it requires fur
ther explanation, can probably be substantiated by an arti
cle which appeared several years later. Grein failed be
cause the Lord Chamberlain found means, which will shortly
be described, to frustrate the aims of the group. In 1906,
however, St. John Hankin, writing on behalf of an organiza
tion which attempted to follow along lines indicated by the
Independent Theatre, solicited funds for the erection of a
private theatre building which, because it was private,
would never be forced to apply for the Lord Chamberlain's
theatre license.
It would make this difference, that the attitude of the
censorship, which at present is only mischievous, would
become ridiculous, and when institutions become openly
ridiculous, they are either reformed or abolished. The
censorship is not ridiculous at present. It does too
much harm for that. An institution which can silence a
dramatist absolutely in this country, making it impos
sible for his work to receive adequate production and
interpretation, cannot be dismissed as merely absurd.
But once build an important theatre in the centre of
London where any play of artistic or ethical importance
for which a license was refused could, and would, be
produced as a matter of course, and you draw the cen
sor's teeth. . . . That is what happened to the Freie
Buhne's performances in Germany.
214
The Examiner of Play's office had reason to fear being
made to appear ridiculous, and Kate Santley1s letter sug
gested an obvious way at least temporarily to meet the
threat of the new group. In addition to the fear of being
made to look foolish, immediate pressures hardened the Lord
Chamberlain's resolve to frustrate the Independent Theatre.
As usual, commercial interests asserted themselves. James
Carter-Edward, for example, the manager of the Sunderland
Avenue Theatre, wrote to assure the Lord Chamberlain that
"the public voice would be in your favour if you do anything
towards preventing such plays as Ibsen's 'Ghosts' from being
thrust before the public." But, as usual, the man making
the complaint assumed a tone which indicated that commercial
interests were merely secondary.
. . . I cannot yet comprehend how the sanctity of such
"privacy" can cover such a multitude of sins in defiance
of all moral laws. The plea of privacy which is put
forward is so little and paltry, as an excuse, that I
heartily believe there is yet some power great enough
to reach the exhibitions of these evil dramas.
If such dramas would not be passed by you for public
show— why should they be suffered to poison the public
in so-called "privacy"?
In the interests of the public, as much as in the
23"Puritanism and the English Stage," The Fortnightly
Review. LXXX, N.S. (July-December 1906), 106 3.
215
interests of my own art, I most respectfully pray that
if you have any power in the matter to use that power
firmly and without delay. (Vol. 564, letter 39)
Many years later, when Grein's wife wrote the biography
of her husband, she recalled how the critic of the Daily
Telegraph. the "Holy Clement," as she called Scott, had
"hailed the forthcoming event with brimstone and hell-fire
24
and called upon the Lord Chamberlain to interfere." But
Scott had not been content simply to denounce Ibsen in the
press. On March 10, 1891, he wrote to Sir Ponsonby-Fane:
Could you see me today for 5 minutes at 3.15. The
point we want to ascertain is this. How far can these
Independent Theatre people go in opening the Royalty
and playing Ibsen's "Ghosts" without a Lord Chamber
lain's license. They say it is a Club and yet they
send out tickets to the Press and to private friends.
The performance of "Ghosts" is at the Royal Theatre
next Friday evening and I presume the Royalty Theatre
is licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. (Vol. 564, letter
25)
Even if the Lord Chamberlain had been inclined to ignore the
new theatre group, the pressures on him would have made it
impossible to do so.
On March 13, 1391, in the midst of official confusion,
Ghosts was performed at the Royalty Theatre. The uproar
about the play was great enough to cause the Lord
P A
Orme, p. 79.
216
Chamberlain's Office to appeal to the Home Secretary for
advice, but evidently it was clear that the new group was
sufficiently within the law to make any overt move against
them impractical. Sir Ponsonby-Fane recorded that
Mr. Mathews after carefully considering all the details
I could give and all the circumstances bearing upon
them . . . was of opinion that the Lord Chamberlain was
justified in leaving the matter alone in the past— and
in the future.
But, the memo went on to note, the Lord Chamberlain decided
it was "advisable to exercise a quasi-arbitrary power to
prevent such performance" in the future (Vol. 564, letter
27) .
Exactly how warnings of this "quasi-arbitrary power"
were circulated is not clear from the correspondence files,
but it is evident that London theatre managers began to
understand the connection between private theatre produc
tions and theatre license renewals. On March 20, 1891, Kate
Santley again wrote to the Examiner's office to report that
Grein had sought her theatre for a repeat performance of
Ghosts. She reported that this time she had refused him and
promised the Lord Chamberlain, "Nor will I ever have any
unlicensed work performed at my theatre" (Vol. 564, letter
31). Later in the year she was reminded by Sir Ponsonby-
Fane that he "could not advise her to let the theatre for a
217
quasi-Private performance as to the legality of which so
much doubt existed" (Vol. 564, letter 126).
In this atmosphere of quasi-arbitrary power and quasi
private performances, the Lord Chamberlain's power began to
be eroded. It became apparent to others outside the Inde
pendent Theatre itself that the Lord Chamberlain’s weak
point had been discovered. All the stage militants of Lon
don seemed eager to squeeze through the breach forced by
Grein and his supporters. By the end of October of the next
year, C. W. Oldham, a legitimate theatre manager, wrote to
complain:
Sunday after Sunday throughout London at twenty so-
called "Workmen's Clubs,"— some Radical, some Conserva
tive, others non-Political— dramatic performances are
given, not only in places which are not licensed as
Places of Amusement, but the pieces played have not re
ceived the sanction of the Lord Chamberlain, to whom I
take it every stageplay should properly be submitted
before being publicly produced.
In numerous instances the theatrical representations
thus given are not merely in very questionable taste,
but frequently are very demoralising in their tone and
general character. (Vol. 583, letter 142)
Oldham hoped that the Lord Chamberlain would find some way
to put a stop to them. But the Lord Chamberlain was forced
to reply that he had no jurisdiction over unlicensed halls.
Nevertheless when he could exert his influence, he did.
In April of 1892, Furnivall, who had staged The Cenci. was
218
back in the Examiner's office again, and again to no avail.
Pigott wrote to Sir Ponsonby-Fane:
Your polite Coup de pied will do him and his Society
good. I have also had a letter from another prime
Prig, a certain Dr. Todhunter, asking me to reconsider
the question of Licencing "The Cenci"1 I am replying
to him that of the "Shelley," or any other similar
"Society," I can have no official cognizance, and that
whenever any actual and responsible manager of a li
censed Theatre applies for a Licence for representation
of "The Cenci," I shall be prepared to give the matter
immediate attention, and to justify my decision. (Vol.
583, letter 29a)
Whenever the subject of the censorship is examined
during these years, Shaw's red beard can be seen in the
background. Such is the case with this later effort of the
Shelley Society to restage the play which had been initially
instrumental in revealing the Lord Chamberlain's weak point.
Shaw's collected letters suggest that Furnivall naively
accepted the word of the Lord Chamberlain's Office and
sought a "responsible manager" to help them in their proj
ect. Shaw's letter on the subject indicates the way in
which control was being maintained during this time. He
wrote to Mrs. Froman on August 16, 1892:
It is impossible to get the Cenci licensed. We tried
our best; but Pigott is evidently determined not to take
the responsibility. It was said that he was quite ready
to wink at an invitation performance; but when Beerbohm
Tree was on the point of lending us the Haymarket, an
interview which he had with Pigott completely changed
219
his tone: he remained sympathetic, and offered to lend
us the scenery &c; but it was quite evident that he had
been effectually bound over by the censorship. I be
lieve Pigott persuades the managers that if they do not
support him they will be put under the control of the
County Council, which they particularly dread. Unless
Pigott is succeeded by a more liberal licenser or else
abolished altogether I see no chance of getting the
Cenci out of the Index.
This evidently is the kind of censorship in terrorem
which denied Grein his two wishes for the Independent The
atre: plays free of the censor and a permanent stage.
Among the Independent Theatre's productions, only Ghosts was
attempted without a license. Grein bowed to the Lord Cham
berlain 's ability to outmaneuver him in the matter of un
licensed plays. But, as was indicated at the beginning of
this section, he had never been unalterably opposed to the
censorship. He had approached the English stage with what
he thought was an understanding of the way in which the
office operated in Great Britain. But his experience proved
to him that he had overestimated that institution's ability
to tolerate experimental forms. By 1900, he had come to
recognize the differences between the control exercised over
the English stage and that of other countries. He wrote:
^ Collected Letters: 1874-1897. p. 361.
220
I loathe the censorship, and I contend that, as far
as art is concerned, those countries where the inquisi
tion does not exist at all, or where, as in France, it
is conducted liberally, almost imperceptibly, by men of
letters who understand their people, are in the van of
progress. At the same time, protested as I have like
everybody else, I am convinced that at the present
moment we are not ripe for an abolition of the hated
office. For in a country where the theatre is entirely
in the hands of commerce, where pay! pay!! pay 1 I! . . .
le, and art a Cinderella, there must be
^"Censor and Censors," Dramatic Criticism. Vol. Ill:
1900-1901 (London, 1902), p. 85.
CHAPTER IX
PROPHETS OF CHANGE: ARCHER AND SHAW
The production of a play of such stature as Ghosts was
important, too, as became evident in the few months immed
iately following its production. Before it became clear
that Grein, in order to continue with his broader aims, was
going to be forced to give up the particular part of his
crusade which refused to acknowledge the extent of the Lord
Chamberlain's power, a new air of freedom breathed through
the London theatre. The unlicensed presentation of Ghosts
furnished writers like Archer the opportunity to advertise
for new authors who would throw off the strictures of con
vention and write the plays they wanted to write. In 1891,
before the limitations of Grein's success had become appar
ent, Archer wrote,
The paths of the coming playwright are sedulously
smoothed for him. Even the great gates of the actor-
managed drama stand ajar; but if the opening be still
too narrow for his genius, the side wicket of the Inde
pendent Theatre allures and invites him. Never was
221
222
Messiah more eagerly awaited. We are all on tiptoe,
with our trumpets at our lips, ready to hail his advent.
And yet he comes not. We do not even cry, "Lo, here I"
and "Lo, there 1"— no one appears who can for a moment
be mistaken for the master that is to be. ^
Even after it had become apparent that the Independent The
atre would have to redefine its aims to bring them into
closer relationship with reality, Archer could still point
to the events of 1891 as the beginnings of a new era. He
was disgusted at the critical abuse which had welcomed the
2
first performance of Ghosts and with the insularity which
had driven the press to ask "Who is this Dutchman . . . who
dares to be dissatisfied with our honest, healthy, comfort
able, fat and flourishing English drama?" The anti-intel-
lectualism which had risen up against the "unconventional
trash," even before production, appalled him, as did the
jeers which echoed in the press when Grein, accepting the
inevitable, took the Independent Theatre's second manuscript
in hand and accepted the Lord Chamberlain's license for
•'■"Free Stage," p. 663.
^For Archer's compilation of the abuse heaped on the
play, see his "Ghosts and Gibberings," Pall Mall Gazette.
April 8, 1891, p. 3, reprinted in Shaw, Quintessence. pp.
89-92.
223
3
Zola's Therese Raquin. None of the abuse, however, was
enough to persuade Archer that the Independent Theatre's
first attempts had been anything but the coming of the new
age. 1889 had seen its beginnings under the impetus of
French realism,
But it was on the 13th of March, 1891, when Henrik Ib
sen's Gencrangere was produced, under the artistic con
ditions devised in Paris by Andre Antoine, that the two
forces coalesced and made their united impact on our
theatrical life.4
A year later Archer stopped and began looking around
him. It had become apparent that none of the three major
playwrights of the English stage— Jones, Pinero, or Grundy—
were ready to avail themselves of the Independent Theatre's
willingness to produce works written by those writers for
their own satisfaction instead of for commercial interests.
Consequently Archer welcomed the appearance of Barrie and
Wilde, "though one has fatal facility, the other fatal fas-
5
tidiousness, not to say indolence."
While Archer was casting a half-wishful eye in the
direction of Wilde, Oscar himself had conceived of and
3
"Free Stage," pp. 666-668, passim.
4"Free Stage," p. 664.
Drama in the Doldrums," p. 160.
224
executed a play calculated in its own way to outrage those
who controlled the drama. On June 17, 1392, Pigott wrote to
Sir Ponsonby-Fane:
My dear Sir Spencer,
— I must send you, for your private edification and
amusement, the MS of a 1 act piece intended for perform
ance . . . and written by Oscar Wilde! It is a miracle
of impudences, and I am bound to say that when [the
manager] called on me, in answer to my summons, he lifted
up his eyes with a holy shudder of surprise, when I de
scribed the piece to him. . . .
The play turns on the incestuous passion of Herod for
his step daughter (his own marriage with her mother being
also incestuous) and the furious [passion?] of Herodias
[sic 1 for John the Baptist, who is the hero of the piece.
Her love turns to fury, because John will not let her
kiss him in the mouth— and in the last scene, where she
brings in his head . . . on a "charger"— she does kiss
his mouth, in a paroxysm of sexual despair I
The piece is written in French— half Biblical, half
pornographic— by Oscar Wilde himself. Imagine the aver
age British public's reception of it! (Vol. 582, letter
79)
But while Wilde was showing his contempt for conven
tionality in his own style, the two men who assumed the bur
den during the 1890s of exposing the abuses of the system of
censorship, Archer and Shaw, were becoming insistent about
the issue. Shaw, according to Archer too prone to devote
his talents to the exposition of other men's philosophies—
6
at the expense of the development of his own — had seized on
^This is a recurrent theme in the Archer letters among
Ibsen and made of him a cause. The ultimate expression of
this devotion was Shaw's explication of the Scandinavian's
thought, The Quintessence of Ibsenism. A short time after
its publication, Archer himself was testifying before the
1892 parliamentary committee on the licensing of theatres
and music halls. During these hearings, as had been the
case earlier in the century, the question of the censorship
was touched on. Archer was its most outspoken opponent. In
his testimony he argued that the censorship failed to
achieve decency, which "might be secured if the public were
more alive to its responsibilities," and that it repressed
serious dramatic work (1892, Q. 3935). In his opinion the
only effective censor was the public because it was "the
only censor who is always on the spot, and always hears and
sees the intentions of the actor and the author" (1892, Q.
3946). He described to the committee the original Cenci
incident as well as the difficulties then being encountered
by the Shelley Society in its attempts to produce the play
for a second time "because of the fear entertained by mana
gers that granting the theatre for an unlicensed performance
might establish a prejudice against them at the Lord
the Shaw correspondence, British Museum, MS 50528.
226
Chamberlain's office" (1892, Q. 3953).
For the most part, Archer's interrogators were not dis
posed to listen sympathetically to what he had to say. In
addition to whatever prejudices might have been operating
against him, the simple facts of history weakened his case
when he was asked about the previous effects of censorship.
He had to acknowledge that only in isolated cases had the
censorship caused grave loss to authors in the past. Be
cause his questioners lacked his faith in the importance of
the drama to come, they could not grasp his arguments
against the existing system. He told them:
. . . I do not think that it really did any very great
harm because the serious drama in England was almost
entirely the classical drama, Shakespeare and so forth,
which was outside the censor's cognisance altogether.
The modern drama, with which he deals, consisted mainly
of trumpery farces, melodramas, and so on, and adapta
tions from the French of the school of Scribe, which
were more or less inoffensive. I do not think that his
interference really tended to put down any serious dra
ma because there were no stirrings of serious drama.
Now, on the other hand, I am sanguine enough to hope
that there are stirrings of serious drama, and I think
that the censor's influence is necessarily repressive
and terrorising to native authors, and that he acts in
the way of excluding serious foreign works from the
stage. (1892, Q. 3951)
It is clear from the drift of the questioning that Archer's
arguments were being wasted. The question with which he was
dismissed demonstrated this point. He was asked:
227
If, as some people think, the existence of this censor
ship does put a reasonable check upon anything extrava
gant, improper, or offensive, or immoral in connection
with play-wrightings, and does no serious harm, do not
you think it would be desirable to continue it?
Archer could only point out that what had been stated was a
hypothesis and make one last, and vain, attempt to convince
the committee that even ideally exercised censorship could
not guarantee to continue to be ideal under other Lord Cham
berlains and with other Examiners of Plays (1892, Q. 4085).
Archer, with his earnestness, and Shaw, with his wit,
were opening the dispute to public discussion. But, as
might be expected, their view was no more sympathetically
entertained in the press than it had been in the closed com
mittee room. In an article entitled "The Dramatic Censor
ship," Arthur Goodrich doubted that the public would censor
itself and pointed out that it would take weeks, under
Archer's plan, to get an offending play off the stage.
Goodrich's observation that a jaded audience would relish a
licentious stage revealed animosity toward the foreignness
of Ibsen and Grein:
This class may not be known, perhpas, in "Sinless Scan
dinavia" or "Happy Holland," but in all great centres,
in rich cities like Paris and London, there are to be
found tired votaries of pleasure, sensualists, hard-
headed reasoners, cynical mockers of virtue, men whose
craving after something new is so great that they would
228
sooner listen to the dialogue between a corpse and a
worm than to the refreshing intellectuality of the
noblest play ever written.^
He was unimpressed by Archer's charge that the censorship
was irresponsible: "Well, what if it is?" he asked. "Some
of the greatest rulers of modern times have been practically
irresponsible rulers. Unlimited freedom once ruined France,
and a despotism built up Prussia" (p. 235). It was simply
the duty of the censor to reject the immoral, to protect and
encourage the moral. "Therefore, all the dramatist has to
do is to conform to the regulations which, personally, he
may object to, but which he has no right to set aside" (p.
236). Goodrich was unconvinced that the drama suffered from
the censorship, and he was dissatisfied with Archer's reform
suggestions. If playwrights could not demonstrate that
their position was right, he thought that
they may perhaps be induced to support Mr. G. Bernard
Shaw's proposal which is simplicity itself, Abolish the
Monarchy, and you abolish the Lord Chamberlain, says Mr.
Shaw. How this gentleman does long to fire the prairie!
(p. 237)
In this last observation, of course, Goodrich was right.
Shaw never denied it.
In March of 1898, two volumes appeared under Shaw's
^The Theatre. XIX, N. S. (January-June 1892), 234.
229
name entitled Plays. Pleasant and Unpleasant. The first
volume, the "unpleasant" plays, contained Widowers' Houses.
The Philanderer, and Mrs. Warren's Profession. The reason
for their label was obvious: in the preface to the book
Shaw wrote that "their dramatic power is used to force the
spectator to face unpleasant facts" (p. xxiv). Shaw recog
nized that any realistic play was bound to
wound the monstrous conceit which it is the business of
romance to flatter. But here we are confronted, not only
with the comedy and tragedy of individual character and
destiny, but with those social horrors which arise from
the fact that the average homebred Englishman, however
honorable and goodnatured he may be in his private capa
city, is, as a citizen, a wretched creature who, whilst
clamoring for a gratuitous millennium, will shut his
eyes to the most villainous abuses if the remedy threat
ens to add another penny in the pound to the rates and
taxes which he has to be half cheated, half coerced into
paying. (pp. xxiv-xxv)
The three plays in that first volume had been finished
by Shaw in 1892 and 1893. Later, Shaw acknowledged what
J. T. Grein1 a activities had meant both to himself and to
the English stage just before those years:
When you first desperately stuck an advertisement into
the papers to say that an unheard-of enterprise called
the Independent Theatre would on a certain Sunday night
O
London, 1898. Hereafter cited in the text as Un
pleasant .
230
and Monday afternoon perform an unheard-of play, total
ly unlike any play then current in the theatrical mar
ket; when the papers thereupon declared that the manager
of the theatre ought to be prosecuted for keeping a dis
orderly house, and that you and the foreign blackguard
named Ibsen who was your accomplice, should be deported
as obvious undesirables, you made a hole in the dyke;
and the weight of the flood outside did the rest.9
The playwright Shaw was part of the flood Grein let in.
Shaw continued:
When you declared that you would bring to light treasures
of unacted English drama grossly suppressed by the mana
gers of that day, you found that there was not any un
acted English drama except two acts of an unfinished
play (begun and laid aside eight years before) by me;
but it was the existence of the Independent Theatre that
made me finish that play.^®
"That play," Widowers1 Houses. was the first full-
length original English drama produced by Grein. On Decem
ber 9, 1892, it was presented at the Royalty Theatre. In
this work, Shaw stayed on the right side of the censor. But
in his preface to its first printed edition, published by
the Independent Theatre to inaugurate what Grein intended to
be a series of all the works staged by the group, Shaw made
his aims quite clear. The preface to the Unpleasant Plays
^In J. T. Grein, The World of the Theatre: Impres
sions and Memoirs. March 1920-1921 (London, 1921), p. vii.
- * - ^ World of the Theatre, p. vii.
231
edition was cast in a haIf-whimsical tone. He described the
play simply as showing "middle class respectability and
younger son gentility fattening on the poverty of the slum
as flies fatten on filth" (p. xxv). But in the original
edition, Shaw was all pugilist. He granted that
nobody will find it a beautiful or lovable work. It is
saturated with the vulgarity of the life it represents:
the people do not speak nobly, live gracefully, or sin
cerely face their own position: the author is not giv
ing expression in pleasant fancies to the underlying
beauty and romance of happy life, but dragging up to
the smooth surface of "respectability" a handful of the
slime and foulness of its polluted bed, and playing off
your laughter at the scandal of the exposure against
your shudder at its blackness.
In the preface, Shaw attacked modern commercialism
which pretended to be what it was not— enterprising and
humane. He had spent his life in cities, where his sense of
beauty had been starved while his mind had been gorged on
social problems such as the slums of Widowers1 Houses.
Finally, he said, he had come to relish the problems enough
to turn them into material for his plays. He concluded, "I
am no novice in the current critical theories of dramatic
art; and what I have done I have done on purpose" (p. xix).
•^Widowers' Houses. A Comedy bv G. Bernard Shaw.
First Acted at the Independent Theatre in London (London,
1893), p. xviii.
232
But the play was less offensive, somehow, than Shaw
thought. The censor evidently passed it without a quibble.
The explanation for this lenience is probably to be found
within the play itself. If the play was intended as a so
cial tract, it was possible to miss the precise point of it.
Shaw never put his spectators into the slums. They are dis
cussed— in a way. Instead, the dramatic interest of the
piece centers around whether Dr. Harry Trench, a young man
of high ideals and aristocratic birth, will or will not
marry Blanche Sartorius, the daughter of a rack-renting
landlord, a self-made man. Trench, whose family holds the
mortgages for Sartorius1 property, is righteously indignant
when he discovers how Sartorius has enriched himself at the
expense of the poor tenants. The outcome of the play de
pends upon Trench's agreement to cooperate in a questionable
deal with Sartorius and his rent collector, Lickcheese. In
spite of his earlier fine sentiments, Trench accepts Sar
torius ' judgment that he is no better than Sartorius him
self. As mortgage holder, he is implicated. Sartorius
points out,
"What Lickcheese did for me, I do for you. He and I
are alike intermediaries: you are the principal. It
is because of the risks I run through the poverty of
my tenants that you exact interest from me at the mon
strous and exorbitant rate of seven per cent, forcing
233
me to exact the uttermost farthing in my turn from the
tenants. And yet, Dr Trench, you have not hesitated to
speak contemptuously of me because I have applied my
industry and forethought to the management of our prop
erty, and am maintaining it by the same honourable means."
(Unpleasant. I, 45)
Such is the "message" of Shaw's play. But in spite of it,
Shaw arranges that Harry and Blanche are reconciled. Trench
agrees to "stand in" on the deal. If there is any validity
to the theory that ritual comedy, ending as it generally
does in marriage, suggests life and expectancy and fruition
and order, then Shaw can blame himself if the play is less
than convincing as social document: Blanche and Trench,
neither of whom are unsympathetic characters, are to be
married. It is impossible not to see this union as the more
significant issue of the play.
Shaw described the reception of Widowers1 Houses by
the Independent Theatre audience:
It made a sensation out of all proportion to its merits
or even its demerits; and I at once became infamous as
a dramatist. The first performance was sufficiently
exciting: the Socialists and Independents applauded me
furiously on principle; the ordinary playgoing first-
nighters hooted me frantically on the same ground.
(Unpleasant. I, xii)
The Philanderer, also written at Grein1s instigation,
followed. It is similarly diffuse, and if Shaw intended to
pillory anyone but the New Woman and the Ibsenites, it is
234
not evident from the play. He, however, chose to see the
play as describing
the grotesque sexual compacts made between men and women
under marriage laws which represent to some of us a
political necessity (especially for other people), to
some a divine ordinance, to some a romantic ideal, to
some a domestic profession for women, and to some that
worst of blundering abominations, an institution which
society has outgrown but not modified, and which "ad
vanced" individuals are therefore forced to evade.
(Unpleasant. I, xxv)
But it takes a preface to make that clear. The Independent
Theatre turned the play down, according to the preface, be
cause it made acting demands which Grein1s group could not
meet (Unpleasant. I, xiii), according to Shaw's letters,
"because it [was] vulgar and immoral and cynically disre-
12
spectful to ladies and gentlemen."
Whatever the reason for the play's rejection by the
theatre group, Shaw, as he put it,
immediately threw it aside, and, returning to the vein
I had worked in Widowers' Houses, wrote a third play,
Mrs Warren's Profession, on a social subject of tremen
dous force. That force justified itself in spite of
the inexperience of the playwright. The play was every
thing that the Independent Theatre could desire— rather
more, if anything, than it bargained for. (Unpleasant.
I, xiii)
^Letter to Golding Bright, June 10, 1896, in Collected
Letters: 1874-1897. p. 632.
235
In this play, Shaw did finally manage to keep his focus on
the edge of the axe he was trying to grind. He wrote:
In Mrs Warren's Profession I have gone straight at the
fact that, as Mrs Warren puts it, "the only way for a
woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be
good to some man that can afford to be good to her."
(Unpleasant. I, xxv)
It seems impossible not to suspect that Shaw, by writ
ing a play which he must have known would be banned, was
putting his head on the block and daring the censor to chop
it off. In any event, the censor's action— in view of the
Ibsen experience— cannot have been much of a surprise. Ac
cording to Shaw, the trouble started while Pigott still held
the Examiner's post. Shaw described him as being "openly
hostile to the New movement. . . . In dealing with him Mr
Grein was at a heavy disadvantage" (Unpleasant. I, xv-xvi).
Lacking a license, Grein would have to offer the play at
some building other than a theatre, and the guests would not
be allowed to pay. The Independent Theatre was in no posi
tion to dispense with financial support.
The deadlock was complete. The play was ready; the In
dependent Theatre was ready; and the cast was ready; but
the mere existence of the Censorship, without any action
or knowledge of the play on its part, was sufficient to
paralyze all these forces. So I threw Mrs Warren's Pro
fession aside too, and, like another Fielding, closed my
career as playwright in ordinary to the Independent The
atre. (Unpleasant. I, xvi)
236
If Shaw's dates are correct, his career with the group
was not entirely ended, however, nor was Mrs. Warren's.
Pigott died during the spring of 1895, and toy November of
that year, Redford had just assumed office. It is not clear
that there is any direct relationship between Redford's ad
vent and a second attempt toy" Shaw to stage his play, tout at
least a presentation was contemplated. If there was a time
when a new test was warranted, it would have been during
this period. Shaw's motives are conjectural, but in a let
ter to Golding Bright of November 11, 1895, he wrote:
It is very possible that the Licenser will object to
"Mrs Warren's Profession." It is not as yet settled
whether the I.[ndependent] T.[heatre] will give an
invitation performance of the play without troubling
him (as was done in the case of "Ghosts") or apply for
a license & risk the dropping of the project through
his refusal.
The matter was settled by June of the next year. Shaw wrote
again to Bright that "There is no question of its immediate
or remote production." The Independent Theatre was, in
stead, interested in one of his "pleasant" plays, preferably
Candida. But Shaw, recognizing that these plays were more
commercially valuable products, refused the theatre group's
■ * ‘^Shaw, Collected Letters: 1874-1897. p. 570.
237
request,
unless it is prepared to put it up in first rate style
for a London run on ordinary business terms. Conse
quently there is no likelihood of any work by me being
produced by the I. T., although "Mrs Warren" is still
talked of on both sides as eligible.^
The play was, in fact, not to be presented to the pub
lic until after the turn of the century, but even then it
was still controversial. In 1902, the Stage Society pro
duced it. By this time, Grein had turned his attention to
criticism, and he found in the Stage Society's production an
opportunity to make his feelings about the play public. He
wrote:
It was an exceedingly uncomfortable afternoon. For
there was a majority of women to listen to that which
could only be understood by a minority of men. Nor was
the play fit for women's ears. By all means let us
initiate our daughters before they cross the threshold
of womanhood into those duties and functions of life
which are vital in matrimony and maternity. But there
is a boundary line, and its transgression means peril—
the peril of destroying ideals.^
The review is, on the whole, a surprising one to have
come from the man who had earlier been eager to produce
^ Collected Letters, p. 632.
15"'Mrs Warren's Profession'," Dramatic Criticism. Vol.
Ill: 1900-1901. p. 293.
238
realistic experimental drama. But it explains in part why
Grein did not do more when he directed the Independent The
atre to counter the Lord Chamberlain's moves to control that
group. Grein was convinced that most of the men and women
in the audience could only guess at Mrs. Warren's profes-
siorij but that its representation was nevertheless "unneces
sary and painful." "It is mainly for these reasons," he
continued, "that, in spite of my great admiration for Ber
nard Shaw, the play was not brought out by the late Inde
pendent Theatre" (p. 293). It was not sufficiently true to
life to qualify as "straight talk to men only"; it failed
as drama because its characters were nothing more than
mouthpieces for the author. Its true place, Grein con
tended, was in the study, as literature (pp. 293-294). He
complained that Shaw's male characters were dealt with un
fairly, tainted "with a streak of a demoralised tar brush."
Mrs. Warren's daughter, as the sympathetic element in the
play, was "cold-blooded, almost sexless." Mrs. Warren her
self was so unclearly drawn that pity and disgust for her
constantly vied with one another (p. 294). He closed with
the observation that
If Mr. Shaw had fully known the nature of Mrs. Warren's
profession he would have left the play unwritten, or
produced a tragedy of heartrending power. Now he has
239
merely philandered around a dangerous subject; he has
treated it half in earnest, half in that peculiar jest
ing manner which is all his own. (p. 295)
Grein's criticism of Shaw's play is, of course, partly
correct. Certainly he is on the right track when he talks
about the curiously mixed tone, so typical of Shaw, of ear
nestness and jest. Grein's shocked review, however, is a
reminder of how difficult it is, in mid-twentieth century,
to see the controversial works of the closing years of the
last century as they were seen at the time.
Unfortunately, the censor's response to Mrs Warren's
16
Profession was not filed with his other correspondence.
-^The only mention of the play in the correspondence
files lists it as one of the two banned plays submitted in
1898 (Vol. 692, letter 169). The notification indicates
that an expurgated version was subsequently licensed. Shaw,
in order to protect his stage rights, had to obtain permis
sion for at least one public production of the play. This
1898 licensing which coincided with the publication of
Plavs: Pleasant and Unpleasant therefore represents nothing
more than Shaw's pragmatic acceptance of the right of the
censor to order changes in a dramatic work.
In order to secure approval for the play, Shaw
changed Vivie's illegitimacy and her unconsciously incestu
ous relationship with Frank, as well as her mother's profes
sion. Croft's speech, for example, which reads; "Allow me,
Mister Frank, to introduce you to your half-sister, the
eldest daughter of the Reverend Samuel Gardner. Miss Vivie:
your half-brother" (Unpleasant. I, 214) is replaced by;
"This young lady's mother was convicted five times of shop
lifting before she took to her present trade of training
young girls to the profession of larceny" (British Museum,
Lord Chamberlain's Plays MSS, Vol. 53654, No. 550, p. [29],
240
But what was wrong with the play can be surmised. As Martin
Meisel points out,
The simplest way of exploiting a popular genre for
revolutionary purposes was by the method of systematic
counter-convention, by the creation of a genre anti
type. Mrs. Warren's Profession, the first of Shaw's
genre anti-types, is based upon the materials of the
Courtesan Play. . . . it was designed to make the con
ventional uses of the materials artistically unaccept-
* 1 T
able to men of intellectual conscience. '
In the play, a young woman, Vivie, a variety of the "New
Woman," discovers that her mother has supported her through
prostitution. Mrs. Warren justifies her actions since, as
she points out, her alternatives were practically nonexis
tent. She could have remained a scullery maid, but if she
had, neither she nor Vivie would have enjoyed any of the
advantages which attach only to money. The second act
closes with her assuring Vivie that she is convinced that
what she has made of her life makes sense. When Vivie asks
her whether she regrets her past, she says:
"Of course not. What sort of mother do you take me
for! How could you keep your self-respect in such star
vation and slavery? And what's a woman worth? What's
life worth? without self-respect! Why am I independent
and able to give my daughter a first-rate education,
when other women that had just as good opportunities are
17
Shaw and the Nineteenth-Century Theatre (Princeton,
N. J., 1963), p. 141.
241
in the gutter? Because I always knew how to respect
myself and control myself. (Unpleasant. I, 197)
Mrs. Warren's easy acceptance of her place in life,
however, was certainly not the only shocking element of the
play. The woman is partly the predictable, sentimental
mother when it becomes clear -that her daughter is about to
reject her, but the more significant part of her nature is
pragmatic, analytical. She justifies her actions not on the
basis of any absolute moral code, but in terms of the soci
ety in which she exists. Mrs. Warren at her cold-hearted
best pronounces the most damning judgments on the Victorian
world. She has seen the fate of lower-class women who did
the respectable thing. Her half-sisters worked in a white
lead factory; one died of lead poisoning, the other, only
"a little paralyzed" from her work, married a drunkard. She
herself worked for four shillings a week and board. No
self-respect could come from such poverty and drudgery.
Mrs. Warren had taken the only possible route to security.
And once she had achieved it, in the form of money, she ac
cepted the inner standards of the monied class. Judgments
are scattered throughout Mrs. Warren's major speeches:
"What is any respectable girl brought up to do but catch
some rich man's fancy and get the benefit of his money
by marrying him?--as if a marriage ceremony could make
242
any difference in the right or wrong of the thing!"
(Unpleasant. I, 195-196)
"Where would we be now if we'd minded the clergyman's
foolishness?" (p. 197)
"You think that people are what they pretend to be--
that the way you were taught at school and college to
think right and proper is the way things really are.
But it's not: it's all a pretence, to keep the cow
ardly, slavish common run of people quiet. . . . Vivie:
the big people, the clever people, the managing people,
all know it. They do as I do, and think what I think."
(p. 230)
The whole of Mrs. Warren's argument, however, ultimate
ly relies on a description of the power of and the necessity
for money. The spokesman in the play for the "capitalist"
point of view is Crofts, Mrs. Warren's business partner in
a string of European brothels. He reveals to Vivie the ex
tent of her mother's involvement in prostitution. When
Vivie grows righteous, Crofts describes respectable English
society as one which willingly ignores the source of an in
dividual's wealth. Crofts implicates everyone, from the
Archibishop of Canterbury to his own philanthropic brother
who "gets his 22 per cent out of a factory with 6 00 girls in
it. and not one of them getting wages enough to live on,"
and asks,
"And do you expect me to turn my back on 35 per cent when
all the rest are pocketing what they can, like sensible
men? No such fool! If youre going to pick and choose
your acquaintances on moral principles, youd better clear
243
out of this country, unless you want to cut yourself
out of all decent society." (p. 212)
When Vivie refuses to believe him, Crofts insists that
"So long as you dont fly openly in the face of society,
society doesnt ask any inconvenient questions; and it
makes precious short work of the cads who do. There are
no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody
guesses. In the society I can introduce you to, no lady
or gentleman would so far forget themselves as to dis
cuss my business affairs or your mothers." (p. 213)
Assuming that the Victorian audience had been able to
applaud this kind of description of itself, even from the
mouth of a charlatan, Shaw himself so arranged the play that
acceptance of it was finally impossible. Grein correctly
noted a major artistic flaw in the play when he observed
that Shaw had used a "cold-blooded, almost sexless daughter
as the sympathetic element." Vivie does reject Mrs. War
ren's and Croft's set of values, but it is impossible to
warm to her, and consequently to accept her righteousness
as any significant judgment on those who follow the pragma
tist's way to success.
With the creation of Mrs. Warren and Vivie, the number
of unacceptable women figures of the late Victorian stage
had grown to be considerable. All four of these major plays
of the closing years of the nineteenth century, Doll's
House. Ghosts, Salome, and Mrs. Warren's Profession, which
244
received such hearty censure from the general public and the
censor, share some interesting characteristics. All of them
are "women's plays." The action, in each instance, is dic
tated by the response of the female leads to their surround
ings. Nora and Salome are particularly direct. Their plays
are climaxed by their pursuit of desired objects, and in
both cases something is revealed about the depth and
strength of the instincts which compel them to act. In
neither case is the compulsion fully described. Nora only
begins to understand that she has unrealized possibilities,
and she sets out in search of them. Salome, entirely un-
reflective, is driven by sexuality. She acts without ex
amining her feelings in any context of right or wrong. In
the revelation of Salome's character, morbidity and volup
tuousness are entangled, displayed, and insisted upon to the
exclusion of all other traits. But the play itself is no
less a statement about one aspect of human desires.
The other emancipated women, Mrs. Alving and Mrs. War
ren, like Nora, dominate plays which examine the victimi
zation of women. Mrs. Warren is flexible. Without prin
ciple, she has been uniquely equipped to respond to oppor
tunity, to exploit the system which would otherwise have
exploited her. On the other hand, given a society which
insisted upon external conformity to patterns of behavior,
Mrs. Alving has discovered her strength through isolating
herself inside her home and working toward understanding
the hollowness of values she has never really accepted.
Vivie, with her coldness, sees a possible solution in an
aggressive kind of isolation which admits the claims of
neither mother nor fiance. None of the women is a stereo
type. They resist classification either with conventional
heroines or with one another. But they are alike in the
peculiarly disfiguring image of society which reflects from
them. Their isolation from and even antagonism toward the
men in their respective universes is almost complete. Their
attitudes are accompanied by implications of feminine su
periority. The general reaction to these females was that
they were "unwomanly women," a charge which certainly goes
much deeper than the simple accusation that they were nei
ther maternal nor "feminine" in their instincts. Somehow,
to see these plays merely as works which grew out of and
supported the image of the "New Woman," is to overlook the
fact that they offered, obliquely, a penetrating commentary
on aspects of the nature of woman which few moderate wom
an's rights proponents would have been willing to acknowl
edge .
246
In 1892, a commentator on the state of the drama wrote:
The great awakening of the soul of woman is the most
portentous social event of the closing years of the
present century. Both on and off the stage it is giving
rise to many new and dramatic situations. And the play
wrights, whose works will be regarded by posterity as
the best dramatic products of the age we live in, will
be those who seize upon these situations, and who por
tray with greatest force some of the distinctest fea
tures of this great awakening. Seeking only truly to
depict the modes and manners of their little day, all
our first playwrights have been transfixed by this
central Truth, that women are becoming independent crea
tures, with brains to think, hearts to feel, and ambi
tions to be satisfied apart from the men, who have
i 6
hitherto controlled their destinies . - LO
The J. D. Hunting who signed the article was clearly a wom
an. From the feminist point of view, these plays of the
last decade of the nineteenth century were nothing more than
a public representation of the great "Truth" alluded to
above. But the tone of the article, fairly representative
of the tones of other woman's rights articles, has a kind of
superficial, crusading romanticism of its own which does not
quite match up with the reality of the situation. For every
"right" which was claimed by the women in these plays, a
matching "right" was relinquished by the men who had pre
viously held it. In the kind of social dislocation which
1 8
J. D. Hunting, "Moral Purpose in a Modern Drama," The
Theatre. XIX, N.S. (January-June 1892), 125.
began with this redistribution of roles, more was left un-
19
answered than was solved. It is interesting that none of
the "heroines" of the pieces emerges as anything like a
whole person— womanly or otherwise. It is as if none of
the authors involved could do more than negate the old
stereotype. None of the "heroines" is in any way an answer
to the question, "What, in reality, is woman?" The compos
ite picture of woman which emerges from these characters is
not more than partly human, with the possible exception of
Mrs. Alving. We have, for example, nothing but the vaguest
hints of what the new Nora will be, and, in fact, Besant's
prediction is no less a possibility than any other one which
can be imagined. Obviously, neither Vivie, nor her mother,
nor Vivie's cousin in Widowers1 Houses. Blanche, nor any of
the other women from Shaw's "unpleasant" plays is an ac
ceptable alternative. Salome, not properly described as a
"new woman" at all, is something atavistic, a Lilith figure,
a succubus. But she is suggestive of the now generally
accepted Jungian concept of the enormously powerful female
unconscious.
19
For a discussion of the confusion resulting from the
redefinition of the role of woman, see Belfort E. Bax, The
Legal Subjection of Men (London, 1908).
248
The observation that society did, indeed, use the way
in which woman was presented as a major reason for rejecting
the plays, refusing to look further at their implications,
is supported by the testimony Edward Pigott offered in 1892
to the parliamentary committee on theatre licensing. Pigott
is speaking here specifically about Ibsen's plays. Neither
the Wilde nor the Shaw insults had yet been submitted. He
observed that he had studied Ibsen's plays "pretty care
fully," and that all the characters in them appeared to him
morally deranged. He then focused on the women, and dealt
with them at rather greater length. The "argument from
nature" appeared again:
All the heroines are dissatisfied spinsters who look on
marriage as a monopoly, or dissatisfied married women
in a chronic state of rebellion against not only the
conditions which nature has imposed on their sex, but
against all the duties and obligations of mothers and
wives.
The characters of the men were dismissed with a few words:
"they are all rascals or imbeciles" (1892, Q. 5227). The
plays themselves were simply "too absurd altogether" (1892,
Q. 5229).
But in view of all of the complex forces operating in
the banned plays, it is too simple to view the resistance of
the censor and the general public to them as simply an
249
attempt to keep woman in her mid-century place. It is per
haps closer to the truth to see the plays as unacceptable on
a number of grounds. In the process of asserting their in
dividuality, the women characters and the men associated
with them attacked all of society's major institutions: a
society based on money and external propriety supported a
corrupt moral code; family ties bound individuals together
in destructive relationships; the church could offer nothing
but outworn shibboleths which merely perpetuated all that
was false in the Victorian world, and so forth. Even Ibsen,
whose most controversial plays, A Doll's House and Ghosts,
were seen as feminist tracts, acknowledged his wider aims
when he stated:
I have never regarded the women's cause as a question
in itself, but as a question of mankind, not of women.
It is certainly desirable to solve the woman question
among others, but that was not the whole intention.^®
Shaw had wider aims, too, and certainly after the ban
ning of Mrs. Warren's Profession they included more firmly
than ever before a resolve to overthrow the censorship.
Pigott died in 1895. Unfortunately, he never went on record
20
Quoted xn James Huneker, Iconoclasts: A Book of
Dramatists (London, n.d.), p. 68.
250
about the works of George Bernard Shaw. But Shaw had many
years before him, and he spent a significant part of them
describing the works of Examiners of Plays. His attacks on
the censor gained momentum all through the 1890s. Many of
the cases of suppression involved Shaw closely, and when
they did not, he occasionally made them his business. As
was indicated before, he was part of an attempt to see The
Cenci staged a second time. As an Ibsenite, he made the
censuring of Ghosts the occasion of a disquisition on Ibsen,
the new drama, and social reform. In the Appendix to the
1891 edition of that work, Shaw made a plea for the support
of the Independent Theatre and Grein. Shaw wrote:
One of the most formidable and exasperating obstacles
in his way is the detestable censorship exercised by
the official licenser of plays, a public nuisance of
which it seems impossible to rid ourselves under ex-
. pi
isting Parliamentary conditions. x
Shaw expressed what was probably his major reason for
a lifelong opposition to the censorship at about this time
in a letter of Jules Magny. Morality by rulebook received
all his contempt:
I really hardly know how to describe my position in
telligibly in a few words. I attack the current morality
^ Quintessence of Ibsenism. p p . 149-150.
251
because it has come to mean a system of strict observ
ance of certain fixed rules of conduct. Thus, a "moral"
man is one who keeps the ten commandments; and an "im
moral" man is one who breaks them. Among the more
thoughtful classes this evil (for such I hold it to be)
is intensified by the addition to the ten commandments
of sentimental obligations to act up to ideal standards
op
of heroism. c
The virtue of Ibsen's plays for Shaw lay in the fact that
they were "simply dramatic illustrations of the terrible
mischief and misery made every day, not by scoundrels, but
by moral people and idealists in their inexorable devotion
to what they call their 'duty'" (p. 277). The censorship
was one open manifestation of this kind of morality in oper
ation .
At first Shaw was not involved with the censorship on
his own behalf. He had his first encounter, after the
Shelley Society incident, through the experiences of his
friend, William Archer. In his testimony for the 1892 par
liamentary hearings, Pigott insinuated that Archer, as the
translator of Ibsen's plays, presumably had a vested inter
est in seeing the censorship changed (1892, Q. 5228). What
affected Archer to some extent affected Shaw as well. In
deed, the Archer-Shaw friendship was a long and close one.
^December 16, 1890; Collected Letters, p. 277.
252
It was Archer who, in 1885, supplied Shaw with the begin
nings of a plot and encouraged Shaw to produce the first,
23
unsatisfactory draft of Widowers 1 Houses. Archer's urging
and influence in 1886 moved Shaw from the closed circle of
the Fabian publication, Our Corner, and secured for him the
24
job of art critic with The World. The Archer letters
among the Shaw manuscripts at the British Museum reveal the
extent to which the thoughts of the two men influenced one
another.
In 1892 Archer again provoked Pigott's displeasure. In
this instance Grein, having retreated from his earlier posi
tion on the censorship, submitted Archer's translation of
Brandes' A Visit for licensing. The play was presented in
February of 1892 by the Independent Theatre, but not in its
original form. That had been unacceptable, and Archer had
been forced to make a number of deletions. In his irrita
tion, Archer compiled the deletions, had them printed, and
distributed them to the audience which came to witness the
play.
23 .
Widowers ' Houses. pp. lx-xm.
PA
“ ^British Museum, Shaw Correspondence, letter from
Archer, Vol. 50528 [1886].
253
He contended that the Lord Chamberlain by his elimina
tions had impaired the effect of the drama, and had,
moreover, defeated his own ends by thus preventing the
work from being credible and moral. Such interference,
Archer felt, was not to be endured.^
26
An examination of the manuscript reveals why Archer should
have been insulted, but it also reveals why the Lord Cham
berlain ordered changes in the play. Its central question
is whether a husband, who has done nothing to deny his own
promiscuity before marriage, can in justice punish his wife
when he discovers that she also has had a romantic episode.
The visitor alluded to in the play's title is an old friend
of Kai Neergaard, and he turns out to have been the seducer
of Kai1s wife, Florizel. Kai begins to suspect as much,
and Florizel finally admits it to him. Kai orders the
visitor, Emil, out of his house, and is about to do the same
to his wife. But she reasons with him, and gains his grudg
ing permission to remain.
The passages stricken from the manuscript by the Exami
ner, Archer's objections notwithstanding, did little to al
ter the general plot of the story but made it generally much
^Orme, pp. 104-105.
British Museum, Lord Chamberlain's Plays MSS, Vol.
53494, No. 50, 1892.
254
less explicit. At one point, the censor was clearly moving
against an imputation that pre-marital sexual experience was
not wrong. For Emil's speech,
"You forget, Mrs. Neergaard, that at the time you were
not his at all. Think of that!— you have in no way
sinned against him. You owed no one an account of your
actions, you were your own mistress; it was an adventure
that tempted you, a Midsummer Night's Dream, in which
you were Titania and I Oberon. Oh 1 the most exquisite
adventure of my life, which comes back to me as en-
trancingly as ever in its sweet secrecy, now that your
lovely form is once more before me."
and so forth, the censor substituted, "Why not let us be
friends and forget the past" (Act II, p. 5). Archer might
have objected to this kind of finicking treatment of the
work, but certainly the plot remained clear enough to be
understood. What is interesting about the changes required,
however, is the fact that almost all of the insistence on
the fact that the girl had indeed not understood what she
was about, and that she had fled her seducer "like a mad
creature" the next morning, were removed.
Shaw, of course, was aware of the censor's treatment of
Archer's translation. An incident which occurred in 1894-
1895 indicates that Shaw had widened his interest in the
censorship issue. He had taken it upon himself to turn up
controversial English plays for the Independent Theatre.
255
The incident is worth reporting in some detail, for it gave
the playwrights their first notion of how the duties of the
office of Examiner of Plays were to be interpreted for the
next few years. The post left vacant by the death of Pigott
had been filled, after some delay, by George Redford. He
was relatively unknown to the playwrights. The "man of the
world" whom Pigott had described as suitable for the posi
tion was, in this case, qualified primarily on the basis of
the friendship which had existed between the two men. Red
ford, a bank clerk, had substituted for Pigott during the
latter's absences from England, a fact which was to cause a
good deal of comment during the 1909 parliamentary hearings.
Robert Buchanan had written a play, The New Don Qui
xote . which Arthur Bourchier had agreed to produce. But,
on recepit of the manuscript, Redford balked. He wrote to
Sir Ponsonby-Fane to tell him that he had consulted with
Bourchier, who had suggested changes in the play. But Red
ford apparently doubted that it would be possible to make
the play acceptable. He reported that Bourchier suggested
in answer to my objections to the baldly sexual tone of
the piece, . . . that the speeches of "Short," a sort
of Freethinking spouter, off the stump, might be modi
fied and what I call the non-consummation episode less
emphasized. . . . This play is really written up to the
situation, and it is essential that it should be made
prominent. (Vol. 639, letter 160)
256
Redford wondered why the managers didn’t learn: "There's
really no money in these sexual plays, and the public
doesn't want them." He thought The New Don Quixote "poor
stuff, though it is. dramatic which is more than can be said
for some of them" (Vol. 639, letter 160).
But Buchanan was not to be dismissed so lightly. On
December 12, he wrote to Redford. He was indignant. He
pointed out that he had been honorably connected with liter
ature for thirty years and demanded, in view of the imputa
tions which attached themselves to rejections, that Redford
meet him ex officio to explain the basis for his judgment
(Vol. 639, letter 165). Redford replied immediately that he
had to
respectfully decline to accede to your request for a
personal interview, nor can I enter upon an explanation
of the course which I have considered it my duty to take
with reference to your play. . . .
I may say, however, that the play was submitted to,
and read by Lord Lathom, the Lord Chamberlain, and Sir
Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, without any comment from them,
and their independent opinion quite coincided with that
which I had expressed to Mr. Bourchier at a private
interview. (Vol. 639, letter 165)
He enclosed Pigott's "official circular" of some years be
fore so that Buchanan would understand that "the difficult
duties of [the Examiner of Plays] preclude the possibility
of any 'ex officio' correspondence or interviews" (Vol. 639,
letter 165).
257
Lord Lathom wrote to Ponsonby-Fane that he thought Red
ford 's letter "a capital one, though as you say he might
have left our names out" (Vol. 639, letter 166). But the
matter had not ended there.
By December 13, Redford had evidently begun to realize
something more about the "difficult duties" he would have to
perform. He wrote again to the comptroller:
Verily the lot of the Lord Chamberlain's buffer is
not a happy one, when an irate and vituperative author
is on the warpath 1 I send you a long rigmarole just
received from Mr. Robert Buchanan. It is a fair sample
of his literary style which, as you know, is generally
more pointed than logical. (Vol. 639, letter 167a)
In the letter which Redford enclosed, Buchanan equated the
censorship with the Star Chamber and the Dark Ages and com
plained that he was left "wholly in the dark, which is per
haps natural, seeing that such things are done most fitly in
moral and intellectual darkness." He objected that Pigott
had been willing on occasion to consult with authors. He
was nonplussed by Bourchier's report that Redford was will
ing to reconsider an altered version of the play: "If that
is so, may I enquire how an emendation is possible, when the
author is completely ignorant of the nature of your objec
tion?" He went on to observe that it seemed that control
was only exercised over "works which attempt to deal
258
seriously and reverently with the great issues of life and
thought," and that it protected plays which were offensive
to all thinking men. Buchanan declared that he intended to
take the matter to the British public. He gladly accepted
the role of scapegoat for his profession, and closed with a
postscript:
Your letter is marked "Private," but I must decline,
respectfully, to consider it so, for I will lend myself
in no way to a suggestion that this matter, a public
matter, is to be discussed under the veil of secrecy.
(Vol. 639, letter 168)
True to his word, Buchanan went into print with the
matter in an article entitled "The Ethics of Play-Licens
ing ." By the time it appeared, Lathom had already wired his
acceptance of an abridged version of the play (Vol. 6 39,
letter 172), but Buchanan still insisted upon being heard,
and demonstrated the style which had so struck Redford,
writing:
He does not object to Nudity, or to honest Horse-play;
he is charmed when comic artistes want political crack
ers, "party" crackers, to let off; he will clap you on
the shoulder if you eulogise Doctor Jim and insult Gen
eral Booth; if you want to describe drunkenness in draw
ing-rooms he will give you the benefit of the doubt; if
you desire to import frisky French farces, he will smile
upon you amiably; in short, he is a thoroughly good fel
low, a man of the world, like Mrs. Sparkler, with "no
259
27
bigod nonsense about him."
Buchanan then turned to a description of what would not be
allowed, carefully pointing out first that the Examiner was
"quite in touch with Lord Lathom, Sir Spencer Ponsonby Fane,
and Society in general." Anything was acceptable, so long
as it did not touch on institutions. He assured his readers
that, unjust as it was, "Mr. Redford has public opinion with
him, and that nine Able Editors out of ten would agree with
him that discussion of social morality on the stage is in
the worst possible taste" (p. 255).
Shaw apparently missed Buchanan's acknowledgment that
the play had finally been licensed. Despite its previous
experience, the Independent Theatre evidently was still
searching for unlicensed plays to present. At any rate,
Shaw was. Among his correspondence is a copy of the letter
Buchanan sent, as Shaw noted, "Replying to my suggestion
that the Independent Theatre should copyright his play."
Buchanan wrote:
Dear Timon,
You and the I-T- be blessed! I should sooner hang
myself than march thro1 Coventry with any such pack of
scarecrows and amateurs. . . . the N.D.Q. is. copyrighted--
The Theatre. [XXVII] (January-June 1896), 255.
260
I took care of that— and licensed. Some of these fine
days, perhaps, it will be acted, to your disgust, for
Marcus Aurelius Hurt is a character in it, a sort of
Charles by friend. Perhaps, however, that won't matter,
since I know now that my fancy-sketch is not a bit like
Bernard Shaw.^®
Shaw, by this time, was interesting himself in any in
stances of censorship in which the Examiner was manifestly
on shaky ground. On December 14, 1894, he wrote to Golding
Bright,
This year a licence was refused by Mr Pigott to a play
fA Freedom in Fetters 1 by Mr. Sydney Olivier, who, as
an upper division clerk in the Colonial Office, ranks
as a more highly qualified man than Mr Pigott, whose
appointment is a matter of patronage, and who might
quite possibly be an illiterate person, whereas an
upper division civil servant has to pass a very stiff
examination. The license was applied for by Miss Farr,
who wished to produce the play at the Avenue Theatre.
Mr Olivier attempted to discuss the question with Mr.
Pigott, but found him to be an ignorant and prejudiced
opponent of the movement begun by Ibsen. It was quite
useless to talk to him: he was well intentioned enough,
but incapable.29
Shaw expanded on the incident in a Saturday Review
article in which he can be seen chiding the publisher-play-
wright, William Heinemann, for having failed to come to the
support of Olivier at the proper time. Shaw records that
P R
^British Museum, Shaw Correspondence, Vol. 50552,
June 16, [1896].
^ Collected Letters, p. 47 0.
261
"after one horrified glimpse into this strange region," that
of the British tropical colonies, Pigott had refused to li
cense the play. Olivier then "sought the usual remedy--
publication." He turned to Heinemann, but the publisher
30
refused to act.
Heinemann, however, soon understood at first hand what
Olivier's position had been. He wrote a play, The First
Step. which Pigott similarly suppressed. Under these cir
cumstances, Heinemann turned to John Lane of the Bodley Head
and had 500 copies printed to clear himself (1895), as Shaw
put it, "from the imputation of having written something
worse than the intentional gross indecencies which Mr.
31
Pigott has licensed from time to time."
Years later, Shaw had still not finished entirely with
Heinemann. Another of his plays had encountered difficul
ties at St. James's Palace, and in 1899 Shaw wrote:
It appears from the preface to Summer Moths that Mr
Heinemann has once more got into trouble with the Cen
sorship. He tells us that the Queen's reader of plays,
"requiring, with ladylike niceness, a good character
for the frail heroine, not only deprived the play of
its purpose, but rendered it, if not positively immoral.
^Our Theatres in the Nineties. 3 vols., rev. ed. (Lon
don, 1932), I, 22.
O 1
Our Theatres in the Nineties. I, 23.
unmoral. to say the least."
262
Heinemann's words were enough to send Shaw off on an elabo
ration of the logic of Heinemann1s charge and Redford's
action: it was the Examiner's duty to make plays unmoral.
to prevent them from having any effect on public opinion
whatsoever, since, if he did not, he would have to accept
the responsibility for the ideas expressed in a play. Shaw
returned to attack the question of qualifications, and won
dered
what dramatist of any serious pretension could level his
conceptions of the destiny of society to the little set
of social prejudices which constitute the "views" of a
gentleman appointed without examination to a post in the
palace household with a salary of £320 per year? (Ill,
349)
It was in the nature of his job that the censor should be
without qualifications:
If Mr Redford knew the difference between a good play
and a bad one, the temptation to license the good plays
and veto the bad ones would be overwhelming; and the
stage would instantly become a social and political
power— the very thing his post was instituted to pre
vent. (Ill, 349)
Redford, he maintained, knew too much to be a good censor:
he had made the mistake of licensing some of Shaw's own
32
Our Theatres in the Nineties. Ill, 348.
26 3
plays which were intended to influence public opinion, and
which had stimulated public discussion.
Before Shaw relinquished his position as drama critic
for the Saturday Review in 1898, he had managed to discuss
publicly a number of his complaints against the censor. In
"A Purified Play" (February 16, 1895), he drew attention to
what he believed to be the subtler effects of the censor
ship, its ability to frighten playwrights away from an hon
est exploration of subjects they took up. Reviewing A
Leader of Men, he wrote:
It is true that no question of censorship arises on the
play Mr Ward has written. But it arises very pointedly
indeed on the much better play he did not write, but
evidently would have written but for the certainty of
seeing it strangled at its birth by Mr. Pigott.^
The work which Shaw described was one which was obviously
patterned on a recent scandal which had exposed a love
triangle involving two members of the government and one of
their wives. "We all know their story," Shaw wrote, "as it
was played out on the larger stage which Mr Pigott, doubt
less to his own great scandal, is not empowered to purify."
Shaw's argument ran that
33pur Theatres in the Nineties. I, 37.
264
Probably there is not a playwright in the country who
has not thought of giving artistic life and form to
that drama, only to relinquish the project at the
thought of Mr Pigott, and to pass on, possibly, to
some farcical comedy theme sufficiently salacious to
be sure of a license. (I, 37)
In the play which Ward had written, the pattern of the
public case was followed up to a point, but the older man,
whose wife had been unfaithful to him, was made by Ward to
die, enabling, as Shaw put it, "the play to comply not only
with Mr Pigott1s ethical code, but also with the public de
mand that virtue shall cost nothing" (I, 38).
Shaw, however, was in his most abusive form in the
obituary for Pigott which he wrote just a month later. He
wrote the article to counterbalance a eulogy in the Daily
Telegraph which he mistakenly assumed to have been written
34
by Clement Scott.
Shaw's article was vituperative:
The late Mr. Pigott is declared on all hands to have
been the best reader of plays we have ever had; and yet
3^See Collected Letters, pp. 496-497, for Shaw's letter
of apology to Scott. In it Shaw accepts the blame for a
misjudgment, but continues, "I therefore shuffle all the
blame on the shoulders of anonymous journalism and the ten
dency of younger writers to copy their favorite masters'
styles." Shaw followed this by a public acknowledgment of
his mistake in the Saturday Review of March 16, 1895. Re
printed in Our Theatres in the Nineties. I, 65-66.
265
he was a walking compendium of vulgar insular prejudice.
. . . He had French immorality on the brain; he had
American indecency on the brain; he had the womanly
woman on the brain; he had the Divorce Court on the
brain; he had "not before a mixed audience" on the
brain; his official career in relation to the higher
drama was one long folly and panic, in which the only
thing definitely discernible in a welter of intellectual
confusion was his conception of the English people rush
ing towards an abyss of national degeneration in morals
and manners, and only held back on the edge of the prec
ipice by the grasp of his strong hand.35
With the publication in 1898 of the first edition of
Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. Shaw used the preface to a
collection of dramatic works to bring the censorship issue
before the public. It was a practice he was to repeat in
the future. This first case, however, illustrates the truth
of the observation that Chesterton had to make about the
real significance of Mrs. Warren's Profession. Chesterton
wrote:
I say that this drama is most important because of the
quarrel that came out of it. If I were speaking of some
mere artist this might be an insult. But there are high
and heroic things in Bernard Shaw; and one of the high
est and most heroic is this, that he certainly cares
much more for a quarrel than for a play. And this quar
rel about the censorship is one on which he feels so
strongly that in a book embodying any sort of sympathy
it would be much better to leave out Mrs. Warren than
^ Our Theatres in the Nineties. I, 49.
266
36
to leave out Mr. Redford.
In the preface Shaw maintained that he considered the
official reading of his plays an "impertinence," and the
"allowance" of his plays an "impudence." At the time of the
publication of the book, a strong move was afoot to have the
Lord Chamberlain's authority over plays transferred to the
London County Council, a move which was resisted by managers
and authors alike. Shaw, dreading the result if a "seven
headed devil" were allowed to replace a "oneheaded one,"
insisted that
Until the nation is prepared for Freedom of The Stage
on the same terms as it now enjoys Freedom of The Press,
by allowing the dramatist and manager to perform any
thing they please and take the consequences before the
ordinary law as authors and editors do, I shall cherish
the Queen's Reader as the apple of my eye. (Unpleasant.
I, xv)
By this time Shaw had become fully aware of the prac
tical difficulties that would be involved in a move to dis
pose entirely of the censorship. He had, he reported, at
one time considered organizing a petition to the Prime Min
ister, but nine out of ten authors and managers clearly
stood against the notion:
36Bernard Shaw, p. 137
267
. . . but as it was obvious that nine out of ten of
these victims of oppression, far from daring to offend
their despot, would promptly extol him as the most sal
utary of English institutions, and spread themselves
with unctuous flattery on the perfectly irrelevant ques
tion of his estimable personal character, I abandoned
the notion. (Unpleasant. I, xv)
Shaw, in this last statement, describes what did finally
force the committee hearings of 1909, and describes accu
rately, too, the behavior of the theatre managers and a
minority of the authors called to testify. But Shaw, in
1898, was ahead of his time. A few more individual authors
had to be frustrated by the Examiner of Plays before Shaw's
complaints were able to summon any very significant support.
By the next year, his nearly single-handed crusade took
on a new geographical dimension. In August of 1899, Shaw
instructed the American people about the nature of the Eng
lish censorship. Until then, he said, no English editor had
ever dreamed of asking him to deal with the subject: the
institution was so entrenched that it would "probably out
live the House of Lords and the supremacy of the Established
Church, as quietly as it has outlived the Metropolitan Board
37
of Works and the Irish Church." There was, at the time,
The Censorship of the Stage in England," The North
American Review. CLXIX (1899), 262.
268
no concerted effort to remove the censorship. Only the few
dramatists who had seen their plays suppressed tried to do
anything about it. There were no complaints before Parlia
ment, in the press, or from societies of authors or mana
gers. Since it was not a political issue, since there were
neither money nor votes in it, it continued to be ignored.
As a result, Shaw continued,
the Examiner of Plays, humble, untitled, "middle-class"
though he be, is yet the most powerful man in England
or America. Other people may make England's laws; he
makes and unmakes its drama, and therefore also the
drama of America; for no American dramatic author can
afford to defy a despot who can, by a nod, cut him off
from any English stageright worth possibly $20,000 in
London alone. (p. 252)
He decribed Redford's lack of qualifications and Pigott's
lack of sense when the latter had insisted that the heroine
in a translation of Feuillet's La tentation announce to her
audience that she "sinned in intention only." He questioned
the logic of a system which prevented the representation on
stage of a child's baptism and yet condoned the child's
being killed during the play. The central problem in the
notion of the censorship was that while a playwright might
be a man of genius, the Examiner never was. Furthermore,
the censor could never deviate from one fundamental rule,
and that rule is that a play must not be made the
269
vehicle of new opinions on important subjects, because
new opinions are always questionable opinions, and the
censor could not make her majesty the Queen responsible
for questionable opinions by licensing them. (p. 259)
Shaw recognized that his article would be wasted in England,
but he thought that it might do some good in America,
in view of the likelihood of attempts to set up State
Censorships in that country. In which case, 0 my friends
across the sea, remember how the censorship works in Eng
land, and DONT. (p. 262)
At the same time that Shaw's American audience was
reading his description of the English censorship, a new
independent group, the Stage Society, was being formed in
London. Grein had given up the leadership of the Indepen
dent Theatre in 1895. The organization had continued under
new directors until December of 1898. By the time it
stopped operation, it had presented twenty-eight plays, only
four of which had been previously seen in London. One
Flemish, one Danish, three Dutch, three Norwegian, five
38
French, and fifteen English plays had appeared. Ghosts
had been the Independent Theatre's only unlicensed offering.
In 1909, the Stage Society looked back over ten years
of production in the tradition established by Grein. In a
OO
Schoonderwoerd, p. 116.
270
commemorative booklet, they described the aims with which
the group had been founded. The Stage Society had dedicated
itself to the presentation of works of obvious power and
merit which lacked, under the conditions which prevailed in
1899, any opportunity for production. The search for new
playwrights had been for them, as for Grein, their primary
aim. They had sought to introduce classical and foreign
plays. The introduction to the publication concluded with a
declaration:
To these two features of the Society's work a third
has to be added in the production of plays for which the
Censor has refused a licence. These include works by
Maeterlinck, Brieux, Bernard Shaw, and Granville Barker.
The Stage Society in fact, is an Experimental Theatre
unhampered by the crippling influence of the Censor,
and in nothing has its work been more justified than by
the hearing it has given to these plays of dramatic
force and high morality.^9
By the time the Society's first ten years had elapsed, it
had presented a total of fifty plays. It wore its eight
censored works as a badge of honor. The roster of banned
playwrights included the names of most of the men whose
works were to furnish rallying points for a growing body of
opinion against the censor.
■^^The Incorporated Stage Society, Ten Years 1899 to
1909 (London, 1909), pp. 8-9.
271
During the society's first season, Olivier's Mrs. Max
well 's Marriage failed to receive official approval, but the
play seems not to have caused much stir. The case was dif
ferent, however, with the presentation of a second banned
play during the group's third season.
There is evidence, if it was intended in earnest, from
Shaw's own pen that he had grown to fear Mrs. Warren's Pro
fession . In 1897, he wrote to Ellen Terry, "It's much my
best play; but it makes my blood run cold: I can hardly
bear the most appalling bits of it. Ah, when I wrote that,
40
I had some nerve. He apparently had not changed his mind
by 1901, when he wrote to Golding Bright that there had been
a rally round the play which had astonished him:
I opposed its production by the Stage Society on the
ground that it might expose the manager of the theatre
to the resentment of the Censor, who has, unhappily,
committed himself to the old censorial position that
illicit sexual relations must not be mentioned on the
stage unless . . . the heroines of them are made ex
tremely attractive, so as to offer the largest possible
inducements to poor girls in the gallery to follow their
example. ^
Shaw suggested, instead, the presentation of the previously
^Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence, ed.
Christopher St. John (New York, 1931), p. 171.
^Advice to a Young Critic: Letters 1894-1928 (London,
1933), p. 93.
272
unproduced Philanderer. but the Society "objected to the
morale and tone" of that play, and insisted on Mrs. Warren.
He knew, from the reviews of Plays: Pleasant and Unpleas
ant. that the work was likely to be misconstrued as "mere
impropriety." Shaw went on to acknowledge that the censor
had, however, "disclaimed, as far as he officially can, any
concern with private performances." But Shaw was still
concerned about the intimidation of West End managers which
42
might result from the offense.
In this last concern, Shaw was proved right. In their
Third Annual Report the Stage Society described the harass
ment and apparent intimidation of managers which became
apparent when they attempted to secure a cast and a theatre
for the production. After the notices of production had
been posted, the manager who had promised his theatre wrote
to withdraw his offer, adding that he would be glad to pre
sent any licensed piece instead. "Twelve theatres (in addi
tion to those previously approached without success), two
Music-Halls, three Hotels and two Picture Galleries were
then approached in succession," before the New Lyric Club
^ Advice to a Young Critic, pp. 93-94.
273
43
was finally secured.
An edition of Mrs. Warren's Profession was published in
the same year that the Stage Society finally presented the
play. As might be expected, Shaw took the occasion to add a
preface in which he described the difficulties the group had
encountered in trying to find a theatre. The managers who
had reneged, Shaw said, had been warned from the beginning
of the disfavor with which the Examiner viewed the play, but
at the last moment suddenly realized that Mr. Redford
had their livelihoods in the hollow of his hand, and
backed out. Over and over again the date and place were
fixed and the tickets printed, only to be cancelled, un
til at last the desperate and overworked manager of the
Stage Society could only laugh, as criminals broken on
the wheel used to laugh at the second stroke.44
In the preface to this edition, Shaw took censor,
sovereign, and public to task. The play was, he contended,
the only one of his works which he could submit to the Ex
aminer without any doubt of the outcome. But he would wel
come the judgments of sterner moralists, the Salvation Army
and the Central Vigilance Committee. He challenged the cen
sorship and the press to acknowledge that the presentation
^The Stage Society, Third Annual Report (London,
1903), pp. 12-13.
44 (London, 1902), p. xxxiii.
274
of prostitution on the stage was only welcomed provided the
play suppressed a discussion of the evils of the trade.
Shaw impartially blamed the king, too:
Yet our King, like his predecessors, says to the drama
tist, "Thus, and thus only, shall you present Mrs War
ren's profession on the stage, or you shall starve.
Witness Shaw, who told the untempting truth about it,
and whom We, by the Grace of God, accordingly disallow
and suppress, and do what in Us lies to silence." For
tunately, Shaw cannot be silenced. "The harlot's cry
from street to street" is louder than the voices of all
the kings. (pp. xi-xii)
So far as the public's part in the perpetuation of an iniq
uitous institution was concerned,
The ordinary Briton thinks that if every other Briton
is not under some form of tutelage, the more childish
the better, he will abuse his freedom viciously. As
far as its principle is concerned, the Censorship is
the most popular institution in England; and the play
wright who criticises it is slighted as a blackguard
agitating for impunity. (pp. xvii-xviii)
On January 5, 1902, Shaw's play was finally produced.
Its presentation in the face of so many difficulties was the
sign of stiffening resistance to the notion that the stage
was not the proper place for the discussion of all manner of
things. Shaw and Archer had combatted that notion for more
than a decade, but they would no longer work alone toward
reform of the censorship. Many were now prepared to affirm
their belief in the full rights of a free drama.
CHAPTER X
THE EARNEST ART: THE STAGE
AS PULPIT AND FORUM
The challenge to the censorship which developed during
the closing years of the nineteenth century was, from one
point of view, simply part of a much larger attempt to reme
dy a number of weaknesses which hampered the growth of a
vital stage. The control of the content of plays was, ob
viously, a serious problem. But it was not the only one.
As early in the century as 1871, Tom Taylor had named the
long run as one of the hindrances to the development of new
authors."*' The disadvantage of that particular system lay in
the fact that no manager was willing to venture the expenses
of extravagant production on playwrights who had not already
demonstrated their ability to attract a wide audience. Ex
cept for occasional experimental ventures by Irving and Tree
~ * ~The Theatre in England, p. 5.
275
276
with special productions at seasons' ends, the short run
drama had not been attempted on a commercial basis. Inde
pendent theatre groups such as the Stage Society, the New
Century Theatre, and the Elizabethan Stage Society, which
did offer short runs, had made no attempt to turn their
theatrical ventures into playing propositions. It was this
state of affairs which John Vedrenne and Harley Granville-
Barker tried to remedy. They hoped to involve a wider pub
lic in the movement toward a mature art. In 1904, they set
out to form a theatre which would "pay its own way, yet make
2
a principle of frequent changes of programme."
Their venture is of interest because it indicates that
a commitment to improve the state of the drama was inducing
change in the accepted system. Barker, as Anna Miller
points out, had been connected with the other independent
theatre groups and with several professional companies. He
had
thought much about the problems and destinies of the
modern theatre. . . . In 1901 his conversion to social
ism resulted in deeper interest, for the theatre came
to seem to him "a great instrumentality in the life of
our time," and the repertory system, or rather a
^William Archer, The Vedrenne-Barker Season. 1904-1905:
A Record and a Commentary (London, n.d.), p. 2.
277
modified form of it, the most effective method of
reaching the public.
The first Vedrenne-Barker season made works by Euripides,
Maeterlinck, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, and Yeats available to
London audiences on something other than a private basis.
The year's work served to indicate, too, that Shaw was in
deed the one who had been sought by critics like Archer and
W. A. Bettany, who, in 1892, had wondered
who is to be the coming dramatist, and why does he
tarry so long? . . . Time will tell. All that can be
said is that the time is ripe for such a consummation,
and the public and the critics are waiting expectantly.^
It required a shift away from the long run drama to
make it clear that Shaw was to be the man. Archer, in his
review of the first Vedrenne-Barker season, explained why,
in a series made up of twelve plays, five of them should
have been by Shaw. Archer blamed the "undue preponderance"
of Shaw's works on
the timidity of the long-run managers [who ] had so
effectually excluded Mr. Shaw from the London stage,
that a considerable public had grown up which demanded,
^The Independent Theatre in Europe: 1887 to the Pres
ent (New York, 1931), p. 196.
^■"Criticism and the Renascent Drama," The Theatre . XIX,
N.S. (January-June 1892), 283.
278
so to speak, "Shaw, all Shaw, and nothing but Shaw."
His apparently sudden vogue was an outburst of latent
or suppressed popularity: a protest against the neglect
he had hitherto suffered. He was, in short, the hero of
a perfectly natural and in itself welcome reaction.^
Shaw's future difficulties with the censor were made all the
more conspicuous by his widening influence. The same was
true of Barker. His theatre operated within the laws of
censorship and demonstrated his real concern for the serious
drama. He was a respected actor and producer. But he was
soon to see one of his plays rejected by the Examiner of
Plays, and this incident was to be a major precipitating
factor which finally made a review of the censorship in
evitable .
In the interval, the theatre was laying claim to new
rights of production. The Ibsen controversy, which reached
its peak before the turn of the century, had at least made
public the fact that the theatre had new aims. By 1894, the
extent to which the stage had become a forum for new ideas
had already been commented upon. At that time, an anonymous
reviewer for The Theatre remarked that sixteen years earlier
no one would have been able to guess the scope of the
5
The Vedrenne-Barker Season, p. 10. The Shaw plays
presented were John Bull's Other Island. Candida. How He
Lied to Her Husband. You Never Can Tell. Man and Superman.
279
changes which were to take place in the English drama. The
writer observed that
The historian of 1878 could not foresee the irruption of
Ibsen's social dramas, the fierce controversy between
romantic ideals and the "problem play/' the fitful erup
tions of the Independent Theatre and the dramatic excur
sions of Mr. Bernard Shaw.^
Nor could the historian have predicted that Paula Tanqueray,
Pinero's courtesan-heroine, would have been acceptable to
the Lord Chamberlain, much less that her story would have
been used as the subject of sermons or "accepted by Mrs.
Grundy as a valuable object lesson in actual life" (p. 90).
By 1894, that writer was not able to say that Ibsen suited
the English stage, but he could not help remarking that the
Doll's House characters had had a bearing on and resemblance
to English men and women. By 1900, James Joyce could see
the objections to Ibsen, who had once been denounced as "a
meddlesome intruder, a defective artist, an incomprehensible
mystic, and, in the eloquent words of a certain English
critic, a muck-ferreting dog," dying away: "The dissonant
cries are fainter and more distant, the random praises are
^"Our Stage To-day," The Theatre. XXIV, N.S. (July-
December 1894), 90.
280
7
rising in steadier and more choral chaunt." The change in
attitude toward Ibsen which Joyce noticed was one of the
signs that large concessions were finally being granted by
an increasing public with regard to the kind of claims the
drama could make for itself.
Another kind of erosion of old notions was in progress,
too. The injunction against the stage presentation of re
ligious plays was being challenged. But in this case, it
was not a matter of the newer dramatists insisting upon
reform. The religious play, The Sian of the Cross, was im
ported to London from the United States. Archer took note
of it in his article "The Blight on the Drama":
On the 4th of January it was produced at the Lyric The
atre, before an audience liberally sprinkled with cler
gymen, and was greeted with frantic applause. The
clergy, from the bench of bishops downwards, played
their part with the utmost docility; there was no effec
tive protest in the press; and the "great religious dra
ma" has, as we know, run through the whole year to
crowded houses, it being apparent, observers tell us,
that a large proportion of any given audience consisted
of people who had never been to a theatre before.^
Archer did not seem to recognize the important fact
"^"Ibsen's New Drama," The Fortnightly Review. LXVII,
N.S. (January-June 1900), 57 5.
^The Fortnightly Review. LXI, N.S. (January-June 1897),
22.
281
that the presence of this audience of theatrical novices
represented a substantial shift of attitude, or at least
made one more easily possible in the future. He was more
concerned, as an aesthetician, that the drama was such poor
stuff, that "its vulgarity, puerility, and brutality" had an
"unholy attraction for the ordinary playgoer as well." He
saw the play, in fact, as "a phenomenon that could not but
strike a chill to our hopes of progress" (p. 22). By 1905,
however, the significance of the play had become apparent.
B. W. Findon wrote then:
Whatever exception may be taken to The Sign of the Cross.
it must be admitted that it accomplished an end which
entitles it to a position the critic could not allow it
on its merits as a play. Those who were interested in
dramatic art regarded its success with mingled feelings
of humiliation and satisfaction; we could not but feel
pleased at the manner in which it appealed to those who
considered the theatre as the home of vice, albeit we
regretted this appreciation was not brought about by
worthier means. . . . But The Sian of the Cross showed
us that the "Nonconformist conscience" was not wholly
dead to theatrical art, and that, approached in the
right manner, it was prepared to gratify its human
yearning for amusement under the flowing robe of relig-
9
ion.J
In his article, Findon naively anticipated some alteration
of the laws of censorship. He thought that the Examiner
^"A Plea for the Religious Drama," The Fortnightly Re
view. LXXVIII, N.S. (July-December 1905), 714-715.
282
might be enjoined to sanction religious plays so long as
they were reverent in spirit.
Findon was being prematurely optimistic. The presenta
tion of The Sian of the Cross did not signal any major
change in the censorship. In 1897, the year in which it was
first permitted, for example, the play Barabbas. "a Scrip
tural play involving the trial and crucifixion of Christ,"
and The Conversion of England, "a series of tableaux with
dialogue of very religious tendency, unsuitable for repre
sentation in a licensed theatre," were both banned.’ *'^ The
censorship of Shaw's Blanco Posnet. on the grounds that it
was blasphemous, was not to come until 1909, a sign, per
haps, of personal animosity toward Shaw, but certainly proof
that the injunction against the discussion of religious
topics was by no means dead. The importance of The Sian of
the Cross, however, does lie in what Findon himself pointed
out— the modification it suggested in the climate of opinion
among one group which had worked so hard in the past to keep
church and stage absolutely separate— and in the further
general weakening which it signalled in the concept that
10vol. 675, letter 140. There is no indication, among
the correspondence, of why The Sian of the Cross escaped
interdiction.
283
many things simply did not belong on the stage.
But the shifts of attitude described here were nothing
more than hints of change. Certainly an article by S. P.
Kerr, "What Are Immoral Plays?", which appeared in the popu
lar journal, the Westminster Review, is much more typical of
the view commonly expressed about problem plays. He wrote:
The stage, we hold, is not the place for the discussion
of any and every kind of subject. It is not so for two
reasons: one . . . that the natural limitations of the
drama prohibit any satisfactory discussion of knotty
problems; the other that the theatre is attended by an
enormous number of people who are not fit to assist in
a discussion of that kind, and are likely to be influ
enced in a wrong direction, because they are incapable
of weighing for themselves the pros and cons of the
question treated by the dramatist. Therefore we go so
far as to say that a play, honest in intention and
reticent in treatment, may often do incalculable harm
to those witnessing it, because of their immaturity and
inexperience. It is absurd to thresh out sexual prob
lems before school-girIs; it is worse than absurd, it
is harmful, but it is certainly absurd.H
In 1902, the banning of a "harmful" play by Maeterlinck
angered the supporters of the advanced drama. It is impos
sible to say precisely why the outcry at the banning of
Monna Vanna was so much greater than it had been at the time
of the production of Mrs. Warren's Profession, but several
considerations probably help to account for the difference.
H-CLV (January-June 1901), 449-450.
284
In the first place, Mrs. Warren had in fact been around for
a number of years before anyone had given her her brief
moment on the stage. Certainly Shaw had pointed to her
vigorously enough over a long period. Second, Shaw's play
claimed only questionable status as an indisputable work of
art. Reflections on the sociological meanings of Mrs. War
ren's life might have brought Shaw to an understanding of
the oldest profession, but the work was so obviously a re
forming tract first and a play second that no one could en
tertain the notion that Shaw had written a "masterpiece."
It was bright, but without any of the poetic brooding that
helped to attract such a varied following to Ibsen.
Maeterlinck's play was all of the things Shaw's was
not. But Monna Vanna and Mrs. Warren were the same woman to
Redford, and neither of them was allowed. In view of the
natures of the banned women discussed above, it is interest
ing to look closely at the character of Monna Vanna and to
observe the way in which her virtue was defended against
Redford's imputations. Monna is, as a matter of fact, the
"feminine" woman born again, the tragic heroine out of the
comfortable old heroic drama and melodrama. The response
which the slandering of her name elicited from the play
wrights has about it all the look of chivalry asserting
285
itself once again.
In Maeterlinck's play, the city of Pisa is besieged by
the Florentine army and is on the point of capitulation.
Guido Colonna, the commander of the Pisan garrison, has sent
his father, Marco, to learn from the Florentine general,
Prinzivalle, what terms of surrender he will accept. Marco
returns with the surprising information that Prinzivalle
fears for his own life in Florence, and that he consequently
proposes to defect to Pisa. But he puts one condition on
his abandoning of the army of Florence. He will relieve
Pisa only if Guido will send his wife, Monna Vanna, to his
tent that night. Guido refuses, but Monna learns that it is
a question of the sacrifice of her virtue or the lives of
the Pisans, and she insists upon complying with Prinzi
valle 1 s wishes.
In the second act she arrives at Prinzivalle1s tent.
He asks her if she is clad only in her mantle, which she
replies is the case. He then orders her to sit beside him
on his bed:
"It is a warrior's couch, rugged and fierce, narrow as
a tomb, and but little worthy of you . . . Lie here, on
these tiger skins, that have never yet felt the gentle
touch of a woman. . . . Place this soft fur at your
feet. . . . It is the skin of a lynx that an African
286
12
monarch gave me on the night of a victory."
But this voluptuousness goes no further. Prinzivalle re
veals to Monna that he is her old childhood companion. She
confesses that she does not really love her husband, but she
insists, out of duty, upon being faithful to him. Prinzi
valle urges that she at least admit she loves him, but she
refuses, saying that since she is married it would be im
proper to do so. She urges Prinzivalle to return to Pisa
with her, and he agrees.
In the last act, the triumphant Monna re-enters her
city, but is rejected by Guido, who thinks she has given
herself to Prinzivalle. When she tries to convince her hus
band that such is not the case, he assumes that she does so
because she has fallen in love with Prinzivalle and is
therefore anxious to save him from death. Her husband's
lack of trust releases Monna from her obligations to Guido,
and she is free to love Prinzivalle. She pretends to want
him imprisoned, but arranges that he will be released.
The Stage Society applied to the Lord Chamberlain for a
license for the play, but it was refused. Its performance
took place, nonetheless, on June 20, 1902, and the Examiner
^Trans. Alfred Sutro (London, 1904), p. 77.
287
of Plays' troubles began. One of the reviews which followed
the production suggests much about the spirit which Monna
Vanna evoked. Laurence Alma Tadema wrote:
I believe that, beholding this play, we are carried
heart and mind exactly where Maeterlinck meant we should
be carried— away from all consciousness of the theatre,
from all consideration of the beauty of words, from all
questionings as to the actuality of what is put before
us; we cease to remember that the common way of bringing
us close to the contemplation of human lives is to dis
sect in our presence some petty personality, some paltry
and adulterated passion; we are brought to the very
centre of beings ....
A wind has blown into our faces. . . . We find our
selves thinking of selflessness, of fruitful sacrifice,
of simple duties leading to miraculous rewards; of that
part of love which is more potent than life, as inevit
able as death. And above all we think of Truth, lumi
nous Truth, who still must creep about this world of
men disguised, with a lie upon her lips.^
On the day following the production, the Lord Chamber
lain's office received a letter from that of the Secretary
of State indicating that the Secretary was to be asked in
the House of Commons
whether he is aware that a protest has been made
against the refusal of the Lord Chamberlain to license
the production of a play of Maeterlinck's entitled
Monna Vanna; and whether he can take any steps to se
cure the grant of a license.
The Secretary asked for his Lordship's observations on the
■^"Monna Vanna," The Fortnightlv Review. LXXII, N.S.
(July-December 1902), 155-156.
238
case (Vol. 767, letter 68).
The Lord Chamberlain's office sent a reply saying that
he had considered the play carefully and saw no reason to
alter his judgment. For the information of the Secretary of
State, the Examiner’s analysis of the play was included:
The central idea of "Monna Vanna" is, in my opinion,
essentially sensual and sexual. The "Stage Business"
and situations, necessary to the plot, are grossly im
moral, and the thinly veiled indecency appeals mainly
to the grosser instincts of the audience. It matters
little that Monna Vanna is herself actuated by high and
noble motives, and that the audience knows that Prinzi
valle has not taken advantage of his opportunities; be
cause the matter is openly discussed, as if the impro
priety had taken place . . . (Vol. 767, letter 68,
memorandum A)
On June 28, J. T. Grein's estimate of the play ap
peared. He devalued the work itself: its success he con
sidered due only to the furor which had been raised by its
banning. It was not Maeterlinck's proclamation of new doc
trines about destiny but a vehicle he had written in the old
tradition for the sake of his new wife, a tragedienne. But
Grein's further comments, which dealt with the banning of
the play, are of far greater significance, for they sound
the desperation which was beginning to be felt by the advo
cates of the advanced drama and indicate that a new will,
growing out of desperation, was manifesting itself.
289
Maeterlinck's play, Grein wrote, had been put on the "Cen
sor's Index" because
Mr. Redford considers the play detrimental to the morals
of the nation. Yet Mr. Redford gives no reasons; he
simply forbids, because, presumably, such is his power
by virtue of his office. It is eminently a case to be
tested, to be fought out to the bitter end in order that,
at last, the public and the theatrical managers should
know where the possibility of obtaining a licence ends
and where licentiousness begins.
For Grein, the simple fact of the banning was less frustrat
ing whan the elusiveness of the playwrights' opponent:
And the worst of it is that we do not know where to
lodge an appeal. Would else a handful of literary lumi
naries resort to the Times to utter a futile cry in the
desert? Evidently Mr. Redford is considered all-power
ful. He appears to be beyond the control of the Lord
Chamberlain, beyond control of Parliamentary Acts, be
yond the control of common sense and logic. - * - 5
Grein then enumerated licentious plays which had been ap
proved, "masterpieces" which had been banned, and protested
that no one in a position of power had taken up the case.
Things are simply allowed to drift, regardless of pro
test after protest. For the drama is not considered
seriously. Let it go to the dogs, let it muddle through
somehow under the grandmotherly patronage of the Lord
44"Maeterlinck 1s 'Monna Vanna,'" Dramatic Criticism.
Vol. IV: 1902-1903 (London, 1904), p. 230.
l^Page 230. The letter Grein refers to appeared in The
Times of June 20, 1902, p. 7.
290
Chamberlain's office. Who cares but the few? Mean
while, we are the laughing-stock of all the world, and
our dramatic production is, with but rare exceptions,
on the infantile level of the nursery, or of the equiv
ocal character commonly associated with the bar and the
smoking-room. (pp. 230-231)
Furor at the banning of a play did not exhaust itself
as easily in the case of Monna Vanna as it had at the time
of the censoring of Mrs. Warren's Profession. The authors
clung to it, cherishing what they evidently considered to be
an example of the censor revealing that his ineptitude ex
tended to all forms of the drama. The issue of the problem
play was disputable on aesthetic grounds, and the general
support for the censor in his resistance to the discussion
of sociological problems, as has been indicated, was sub
stantial. But in the case of the banning of this more con
ventional form of the drama, the opponents of the censor
ship could rely on some degree of sympathy from those who
still hesitated to accept the more controversial realistic
plays. It was perhaps for this reason that Grein saw Monna
Vanna's banning as "eminently a case to be tested." Monna
Vanna. banned in 1902, was by no means a dead issue in 1909,
as the testimony before the parliamentary committee indi
cates. The authors seized upon this example of an "artistic
masterpiece" which had been suppressed, and sought to
291
embarrass the Examiner with it. For their defense of the
newer, reforming type of drama, they could look to the work
of another foreign author, one more demonstrably righteous
than Ibsen had been, for between 1905 and 1907, three plays
by Eugene Brieux were banned.
One has only to read Brieux's plays to realize that the
man was a moralist bent on arousing the bourgeois con
science. His own description of himself substantiates the
description:
It is my nature to preach. . . . I have always wanted
to preach. My plays all have a purpose. That is why I
write them. Had I lived in the seventeenth century, I
would have been a preacher. Then the Church wielded an
enormous influence. But now, I write plays. The the
atre is what attracts people; there you can get them.
And I want to bring the problems before them. I want
them to think about some of the problems of life.-*-^
In 1911, three Brieux plays were published in transla
tion, introduced by a preface which Bernard Shaw had written
in 1909. The preface is noteworthy for the analysis it
makes of the response which Shaw insisted Brieux's plays
demanded from the public, and because of Shaw's description
of the threat contained in that demand. Brieux produced
■^Quoted in Archibald Henderson, The Changing Drama:
Contributions and Tendencies (London, 1914), p. 111.
292
slice-of-life plays which end in no catastrophe, and which
therefore have a peculiar effect on the spectator:
You come away with a very disquieting sense that you are
involved in the affair, and must find the way out of it
for yourself and everybody else if civilization is to be
tolerable to your sense of honor.^
Shaw pointed out that while Brieux attacked convention, he
was "doing something even more unpopular. He [was] propos
ing new obligations to add to the already heavy burden of
duty" (p. xxxiv). Shaw then reasonably argued that the
bourgeois whom Brieux scandalized, a man who was not an ex
pert in morality, was not to be dismissed by the man of
letters simply because the bourgeois preferred old ways and
mistrusted new ones. The ordinary man, relying on old ways
for whatever order his life possessed, held desperately to
what he could understand in order to dispel terror:
He says, in effect, "If I am to enjoy a sense of secur
ity, I must be able to reckon on other people behaving
in a certain ascertained way. Never mind whether it is
the ideally right or the ideally wrong way: it will
suit me well enough if only it is convenient and, above
all, unmistakeable. . . . But the one thing that I can
not stand is not knowing what the social contract is."
(pp. xxxiv-xxxv)
According to Shaw, what determined the response of the
17
Eugene Brieux, Three Plays (London, 1911), p. xvii.
293
ordinary man to new ideas was not the content of those ideas
or the position which they represented; it was simply their
newness which was terrifying. As a result, whenever pos
sible, the artist was forbidden to say anything unusual
about morals, religion, or any other socially tabu subject.
Shaw saw this fear on the part of the ordinary man, the
"brave bourgeois," as intimately connected with the censor
ship;
This is the terror which the English censorship, like
all other censorships, gives effect to. It explains what
puzzles most observers of the censorship so much; name
ly, its scandalous laxity towards and positive encourage
ment of the familiar and customary pornographic side of
theatrical art simultaneously with its intolerance of the
higher drama, which is always unconventional and super
bourgeois in its ethics. (p. xxxvi)
Certainly the banned Brieux plays did not present an
image of man or of society which could be accepted with
equanimity. They were distasteful on a number of counts,
and in the case of two of them, The Three Daughters of M .
Du Pont and Maternity, the objectionable material was so
pervasive that a simple blue-pencilling could do nothing to
rescue them. Both plays are alike in suggesting that the
over-all picture of average society is one of petty jealous
ies, avarice, conformity with meaningless moral values, and
a selfish concern with the protection of one's own skin.
294
The leading male roles depict the men as the ultimate trans
gressors against decency.
Shaw suggested seeing these two plays as a pair whose
themes counterbalance one another. In the former play, the
author's major concern is to expose marital sex which pre
vents the procreation of life as an unnatural victimization
of women, whose principal desire is for children. In this
work, Antoine indicates to his wife, Julie, that he will
never allow children to be born of their marriage. But what
Shaw did not point out was that Brieux was not satisfied to
make Julie the victim, Antoine the victimizer. Society,
with its monied base, is finally responsible. Julie argues:
"People talk of tyranny; they make revolts against Gov
ernments; there are women who clamor for a vote; who
demand that the marriage law should be the same for
women as for men; and they don't understand that it is
marriage itself they should attack, that they should
attack with fury, since it allows such an infamy." (p.
160)
But Antoine has already shown where the greater guilt is to
be found. He is a product of his society, and as such must
accept its values. However, that society's acknowledgment
of worth is given only to those who can accumulate wealth.
Children are extravagances which prevent a man from amassing
money, and hence from receiving approval. Certainly the
295
indictment in the play of a value system which equates
riches with quality is at least as prominent as the question
of a woman's right to have children. All of the minor char
acters support this thesis. Antoine's parents arrange his
marriage on the mistaken assumption that Julie's father will
provide a large dowry for his daughter. The Du Ponts are
eager for the match because M. Du Pont expects that An
toine's uncle will be useful to him in securing large gov
ernment printing contracts and that on his death he will
leave a substantial inheritance to their son-in-law. The
other two daughters mentioned in the title, Angele, the
woman who sells her favors to support herself, and Caroline,
the spinster who earns her living by painting china and who
makes the mistake of trying to buy a husband, implicate the
peculiar set of social values which insist that a woman have
wealth, yet deny her a respectable means of earning it.
Shaw saw the other play, Maternity. as the discussion
of an opposite kind of abuse of the rights of marriage. In
this work, Lucie Brignac is married to Julien, an ambitious
minor civil servant, who insists that she bear him a son in
spite of her having borne him three daughters in their four
years of marriage. Lucie begs for a postponement, calling
his treatment of her slavery: "After all you are disposing
of my health, my suffering, my life— of a year of my exis
tence, calmly, without consulting me" (pp. 10-11). But
again, the play goes beyond an indictment of the male. This
time, the French government is described as concerned at the
falling birth rate; part of Julien's job as a provincial
official is the improbable one of convincing local mayors
that they should form committees to do something to alter
the trend. His attitude toward his wife's productivity is
evidently determined by the feelings of his employer. Again
in this play, the necessity for accumulating wealth is
blamed for many things. Lucie's younger sister, Annette, is
in love with Jacques. Lucie discovers that Annette is preg
nant, but when an attempt is made to force Jacques to do the
honorable thing and marry the girl, he refuses. He is sup
ported in his refusal by his parents, who oppose the mar
riage because Annette is poor. Both of Jacques' parents had
begun in poverty, but they had made the accumulation of
wealth the major aim of their lives. Successful at last in
the eyes of society, they have forgotten how to enjoy what
they have earned, and live only to earn more.
Brieux presses in Maternity for a heavier indictment of
men in general. Julien refuses to help persuade Jacques to
marry Annette; and at the same time he refuses to shelter
297
the girl during her pregnancy. Her presence might interfere
with his career. Lucie then points out that society does
not value motherhood in itself, but the bearing of children
under certain strict rules of respectability. Julien ac
knowledges that this is so, simply because such a system is
"easier." Lucie insists on seeing the problem whole:
"And that's your justice 1 The truth is, you all up
hold the conventions of society. . . . And the proof is
that if Annette stayed here in the town to have her
baby, you'd all cry shame upon her; but if she goes to
Paris and has it secretly and gets rid of it, nobody
will blame her. Let's be honest, and call things by
their names: it is not immorality that is condemned,
but motherhood. You say you want a larger number of
births, and at the same time you say to women 'No moth
erhood without marriage, and no marriage without money.'"
(pp. 49-50)
Lucie leaves her home to go with Annette, but the girl
finds an abortionist and dies as a result of the operation.
Brieux closes the play with a courtroom scene in which the
abortionist is tried. She argues that through the illegal
operations she gives the victimized women a chance at a
decent life, prevents an increase in the number of neglected
children, and saves them from social ostracism. Women who
have had abortions are called to testify, and their argu
ments all blame a society which says that it values new
life, yet makes it impossible for life to be lived in
298
dignity without wealth. The trial ends in recriminations
and near riot, with witnesses and the defendant shouting
accusations:
"Why should we kill ourselves to get wage-slaves and
harlots for other people?"
"And all the men that seduced the girls I saved— have
you punished them?"
"The guilty ones are the people that tell us to have
more children when the ones we have are starving."
"The seducers are the guilty ones; and social hypoc
risy . "
"The fine gentlemen that get hold of them and humbug
them:"
"And the rich young men, and the old satrys— and the
men1 . The men! All the men I" (pp. 67-69)
The curtain falls on a repetition of this last line.
The Stage Society produced The Three Daughters of M .
Du Pont on March 12, 1905, and Maternity on April 10, 1906.
By March of the following year, a third Brieux play, Les
hannetons, had been rejected. The situation with this work
was slightly different, however. Les hannetons. unlike the
other two plays, could be expurgated without a complete loss
of intelligibility. The Stage Society refused, however, to
permit it to be tampered with; they produced it in its
299
original form. Because the play was thought to be a valu
able commercial property, it was subsequently altered to
suit the Examiner. The title was changed to The Incubus.
18
and the play was moved to the Coronet Theatre. But the
bowdlerization of the text gave Shaw another wedge against
the censor. Redford had approved a version which demon
strated Shaw's old thesis that licentiousness on the stage
was not condemned, while the unconventional treatment of
forbidden subjects was. In the play, a young woman has in
duced a young man to enter into sexual relations with her.
She tells a friend that she was able to do so only because
she convinced her lover that there had been others before
him. In this way she dispelled the sense of responsibility
which the young man would otherwise have felt at the pros
pect, as Shaw put it, "of tempting a girl to her first step
from the beaten path." This, according to the girl, was an
ordinary occurrence.
Shaw saw this part of the play as most significant:
This is one of those terrible stripping strokes by
which a master of realism suddenly exposes a social sore
which has been plastered over with sentimental nonsense
about erring Magdalens, vicious nonsense about gaiety,
18
Dorothy Knowles, The Censor, the Drama and the Film:
1900-1934 (London, 1934), p. 30.
300
or simply prudish silence. No young man or young woman
hearing it, however anarchical their opinions may be as
to sexual conduct, can possibly imagine afterwards that
the relation between "les hannetons" is honest, charm
ing, sentimentally interesting, or pardonable by the
self-respect of either. It is felt instinctively to
have something fundamentally dishonorable in it, in
spite of the innocence of the natural affection of the
pair for one another.
The rest of the play, which Shaw maintained showed a totally
unsympathetic heroine managing through her deceit to fasten
on "the meanly prudent sensual man," was approved and staged
without retaining any of the elements which would have
served as a warning to thoughtless couples contemplating
anarchic sexual relations.
By 1906, the time had finally arrived for the discus
sion of the censorship to begin spilling over out of pref
aces, reviews, and books about the theatre. At the end of
that year, an article appeared which was devoted simply to
the subject of the abuse of the stage by the censorship and
which was aimed at the vast, deprived public. "Puritanism
and the English Stage" by St. John Hankin made substantial
charges against the system: it was no wonder, he wrote,
that the English stage languished. Recent years had seen a
change in the attitude of the religious Puritans. The
19
Brieux, Three Plays, p. xxxvn.
301
number of those who saw the stage as nothing but the snares
of the Evil One had been reduced. The intellectual Puritan
had been persuaded by the independent theatre groups that
there were forms of the drama worthy of his consideration.
He was beginning to attend the theatre again. But, Hankin
wrote, the censorship still operated'on the same principles
which had applied when there was no work of any significance
to be controlled. Now it was exerting a pernicious influ
ence on the art, preventing playwrights from dealing with
large amounts of worthy material. Simple financial reasons
brought about this effect. Fear on the managers' parts of
the Lord Chamberlain's ability to withhold theatre licenses
destroyed the commercial value of unconventional plays. No
religious dramas were tolerated, and in this sensitive area,
Hankin maintained, the old Puritan consciousness, in the
person of the censor, expressed itself
in its baldest and crudest form. The theatre is one of
the devil's strongholds. It would be preposterous to
permit it to concern itself with serious matters of
faith or morality. It would be impious to do so. (p.
1058)
The censorship, Hankin argued, was not "animated with
a malignant desire to do all the harm it can." It operated
with admirable intentions. But, he asked, what would have
3 02
been the effect on literature if Milton had not been allowed
to publish Paradise Lost, or on art if the National Gallery
could not show pictures of the crucifixion or the Madonna
and Child? The answer, he felt, could be inferred from the
fact that at the time he was writing, London had "five-and-
twenty theatres— and no drama" (p. 1059). The only restric
tions, he insisted, besides the one so blindly invoked
against the production of religious plays, were those which
crippled works which dealt with serious moral issues in a
serious way. The drama was therefore not allowed to become
a socially responsible force.
With this assertion by Hankin that theatres, public and
playwrights stood ready for a free and responsible drama,
and that the censor remained as the single major obstacle to
the appearance of that drama, we have come full circle. We
have seen the way in which the censorship evolved and have
traced the beginnings of opposition to it. We have arrived
again at 1907. By then the issues were clear to all of
those directly concerned with the censorship. The censor
had a duty, imposed on him by law, which he was expected to
perform. When he failed in the execution of that duty, when
the sensibilities of the mythical representative man were
threatened, on either religious or moral grounds, or when
303
the censor, as a member of the royal household, permitted
the expression of sentiments which could embarrass the sov
ereign or the government, he was reprimanded both by society
and his superiors. When he interpreted his duty in a re
strictive way, he incurred the wrath of men who, like Shaw,
had fought for their places in the literary world and who
were equipped with a marvelous facility of abuse. The play
wrights, for their part, could see the restraints on the
continental drama disappearing and were forced to leave all
of the excitment of experimentation to European playwrights
whose hands were not tied. The growth of a freer attitude
toward the stage on the part of an increasing audience could
not be exploited, except in private performances. Because
they were unprofitable, those performances could not offer
the writer any means of supporting himself. He, in a sense,
had to pay to write the plays which mattered to him, while
managers of the commercial theatre risked nothing. This
latter group found protection for their financial invest
ments and a guarantee against harassment by vigilance
groups in the Lord Chamberlain's official approval.
But the attitude toward dramatic art on the part of
many authors and a few managers had undergone an irrevocable
change during the closing years of the nineteenth century
and the first years of the new one, and nothing short of a
major catastrophe or the simple exhaustion of the movement
could shake them from their insistence that the drama had
come of age and deserved to be allowed the same dignity as
other art forms. Only one or two more insults to that dig
nity were required before the delicate balance of censor,
playwright and manager would be shifted, at least long
enough for the playwrights to state their case fully and
publicly.
CHAPTER XI
THE MILITANTS
With the banning in 1907 of Edward Garnett's play, The
Breaking Point, the first serious agitation for the banding
together of the playwrights began.
Garnett, as the beginning of this study indicated,
rushed his play into print, complete with a lengthy protest
against the highhandedness of the censor. Redford had sug
gested privately to the manager of the theatre at which pro
duction was intended that the piece be withdrawn. But Gar
nett objected strenuously to this. The play, he acknowl
edged, had been effectively put out of circulation, but he
refused the anonymity its simple withdrawal would have con
ferred upon him. Addressing Redford in the preface, Garnett
wrote:
Perhaps you reflected that though, in official theory,
plays come into being without authors, yet there was
probably a playwright somewhere around; and you told
yourself that you were following the dictates of human
ity in suffering him to bury his work in secrecy and
305
306
silence. You would not blight his young career by put
ting on record the inquest and the verdict of censure.
But Garnett saw an evasion of responsibility and attempt to
assure "silent acquiescence in your verdict" in Redford's
suggestion that the play be withdrawn. Redford had put the
play out of existence, but Garnett did not propose to aid
him "in pretending that it never existed at all" (p. xxiv).
In his irritation at the treatment of his play, Garnett
turned to John Galsworthy for support and suggested to him
that a league for the protection of playwrights be formed to
make a formal protest against the censorship. Harold Vin
cent Marrot contends that nothing much was done until early
October of 1907, when Barker's new play, Waste. was also
2
refused a license by Redford. But that does not seem to
have been the case. A good deal was happening.
Galsworthy, together with Archer, is credited by Gar
nett with taking the foremost part in the movement. The
3
letter to the censor quoted above had been drafted by him.
^The Breaking Point, p. xxiii.
^The Life and Letters of John Galsworthy (London,
1935), p. 216.
^Letters from John Galsworthy: 1900-1932. ed. and with
introd. by Edward Garnett (London, 1934), pp. 12-13.
307
He also had counselled Garnett to object to the censorship
not on behalf of injured art, but on the basis of the cen
sor's autocracy: "This is a plea which appeals to all in a
democratic country and does not excite in the public mind
4
the antipathy and contempt which talk about Art excites."
On July 16, 1907, Galsworthy wrote to Garnett that he
and Archer had discussed the censoring of The Breaking
Point:
He [Archer ] was at first for an impersonal sort of Com
mittee, but came round to the idea of a League with a
small fighting executive. We decided to get out a short
statement and appeal that could be sent round to all
kinds and conditions of people likely to come in, then
we should know what we could reckon on in the autumn.
We shan't print and send this out unless you, Barker
and Shaw agree. (p. 144)
In the same letter, Galsworthy indicated that he had written
to a member of the House of Commons, apparently about the
possibility of the introduction of a bill. Barker, however,
on hearing of it, had informed Galsworthy that he had un
successfully tried the same thing some time earlier, but had
received no response. Galsworthy suggested the names of a
number of other possible supporters within the government.
Later, in July, Galsworthy doubted that much could be
^Letters. p. 147.
done; "people" were "too scattered," but he had hopeful
signs to report. He understood through the prime minister's
private secretary that the prime minister was in favor of
abolition of the censorship. Galsworthy also had been able
to get Mason to ask in the House, "'When or on what vote it
will be fitting to discuss the position of the licenses of
plays . . .'" (p. 145). Galsworthy had spoken with Vedrenne,
too, but he had reservations rather typical of the managers:
"too dangerous for him— he said— all right for authors, but
not for those who like him made his living by leasing the
atres" (p. 146). By the end of August, Galsworthy had dis
cussed the project with Shaw, who was "quite set on doing
away with R.[edford] altogether and substituting the li
censed theatre for the licensed play." Galsworthy had no
convictions about what would be the best substitute for the
present system; he only "had a down" on the censor because,
he said, he detested tyranny of any sort. His own aim in
the whole matter would be to smooth down conflicting opin
ions and get "some sort of action taken--I don't care a d---
what" (p. 154).
In early October, Waste was banned, and the support for
the new movement became substantial. Men of reputation be
gan to acknowledge publicly that they stood behind the move
309
to abolish the censorship. Galsworthy's circular letter of
protest finally attracted seventy-one signers. Gilbert
Murray had joined the group, and he brought with him J. M.
5
Barrie. In October, Galsworthy wrote to Garnett:
I hear from Barrie that Meredith, Hardy and Gilbert
have signed; we now wait for Jones, Pinero, Swinburne
and Stephen Phillips before issuing the general invita
tion. I got Henry James— we have up to date 17 signa
tures. Jones being on the sea on his way here from
America will delay the thing a few days— no matter— it's
important to get him.^
By the end of the month, the number of signatures had
grown to fifty, including "all the really big names," and
the protest was ready for presentation. Galsworthy proposed
circulating it to every member of the Government, as well as
to the prime minister, before whom the protest was to be
laid (p. 158).
Conrad's help was solicited by Garnett, and he agreed
to give it, but doubted that it would be of much use:
. . . I don't think my word will have any weight at all.
I've been so cried up of late as a sort of freak, an
amazing bloody foreigner writing in English . . . that
anything I say will be discounted on that ground by the
public— that is if the public, that mysterious beast,
5Marrot, p. 216.
^Letters. p. 156.
310
7
takes any notice whatever--which I doubt.
Most of the public, Conrad felt, had never heard of the cen
sor, and when they did, they would side with him: "To have
a court official standing by to warn off criminal attempts
on the delicacy of their morality will appear to them flat
tering— and natural too." The public would be on the side
of the Examiner because the existence of such protection "in
the corporeal shape of the Censor expresses the great fact
of national self righteousness." Conrad urged total aboli
tion of the censorship (pp. 206-207).
The mention of Henry Arthur Jones in Galsworthy's let
ter of October 10 explains something of that dramatist's
conspicuous absence from the quarrels of 1907. Jones had
never had any overt difficulty with the censor, but for many
years he had argued for the right to present all aspects of
life on the stage. His early attacks, however, were aimed
less at removing the censor than at convincing the public
that free drama necessarily involved the free treatment of
subjects.
In the preface to his book The Renascence of the Eng-
7
Letters from Joseph Conrad: 1895-1924. ed. with in-
trod. and notes by Edward Garnett (Indianapolis, 1928), p.
205 .
311
lish Drama Jones pointed out that he had always
fought for the entire freedom of the modern dramatist,
for his right to portray all aspects of human life, all
passions, all opinions; for the freedom of search, the
freedom of phrase, the freedom, of treatment that are
allowed to the Bible and to Shakespeare, that must
necessarily be allowed to every writer and to every
artist that sees humanity as a whole.®
As early as 1885, he had argued in the Nineteenth Cen
tury Review against the old prejudices which kept religious
topics off the stage. One particular statement he made in
that article was considerably advanced for the mid-1880s.
He wrote:
The question of the right of dramatists to faithfully
depict modern religious life is only part of the much
wider and more general question of their right and duty
and ability to deal faithfully with whatsoever aspect of
the huge, unwieldy mass of modern human life engages
their attention. That larger right and duty indubitably
contains the smaller, and cannot in any way be detached
from it.®
Jones, together with Pinero and Grundy, was one of the
three men to whom critics had looked in their search for the
playwright who was to lead them out of the wasteland of late
nineteenth-century drama. In at least one of his plays,
8(London, 1895), pp. viii-ix.
^"Religion and the Stage," reprinted in The Renascence
of the English Drama, p. 55.
312
Jones pushed the drama into waters officially considered too
deep. It is possible that he never realized how close he
came to joining the ranks of the distinguished censored
authors. The licensing of Michael and His Lost Angel, a
play generally conceded to be Jones' best work, was an over
sight on the part of the Examiner of Plays. That oversight
was pointed out on the highest possible authority.
In 1896, Redford offhandedly offered to send along the
manuscript of Jones' new play for the perusal of his super
iors. The play, he thought, was
very strong, well written, but pitched in a very low key
and preachy. It turns on a clergyman, after having com
pelled a young girl of his flock to make "open confession"
of a lapse of virtue, falling into an exactly similar
fault, and himself having to openly proclaim it to his
congregation assembled.
He went on to observe:
I should have no hesitation in licensing it, but I wish
they would not write plays on such extraordinary sub
jects, and I fancy this will be the feeling with nine
out of ten who see it. Surely the idea of open confes
sion is extremely rare in the English Protestant Church
even in the highest circles! (Vol. 657, letter 2)
Redford evidently received no reply, and the play was
approved. It was, by then, too late to do anything about it
without causing a stir, but the secretary of the Prince of
Wales was apparently requested to inquire how the work had
313
come to be licensed. Redford wrote his description of the
first night of the play, claiming that Jones' treatment of
otherwise unlicenseable material had made it impossible for
him to refuse it. He added,
I take it that as "Examiner of Plays," I am not con
cerned with questions of taste, and as for the central
situation in this play there are numerous precedents
both on the Stage, and unfortunately in real life.
(Vol. 657, letter 10a)
The Prince of Wales replied, on receiving a copy of the
memo, that Mr. Redford missed his point,
which is not whether the "subject is treated with the
greatest delicacy and refinement" or not, but whether
the principal character who commits a grossly immoral,
and, under the circumstances, blackguard act, should
be filled by a clergyman. The situation is also aggra
vated by the church scene. (Vol. 657, letter 10b)
Redford justified his actions in two other memos (Vol. 657,
letters 10c and lOd), but the issue of Michael and His Lost
Angel was closed.
Sentimental as that play is, the distance between it
and Breaking a Butterfly is considerable. In 1897, Augustin
Pilon interpreted the English stage for the French people,
and Jones was invited to write an introduction to the book.
He took the opportunity to apologize for his treatment of
the play:
314
When I came up to London sixteen years ago, to try for
a place among English playwrights, a rough translation
from the German version of The Doll's House was put into
my hands, and I was told that if it could be turned into
a sympathetic play, a ready opening would be found for
it on the London boards. I knew nothing of Ibsen, but
I knew a great deal of Robertson and H. J. Byron. From
these circumstances came the adaptation called Breaking
a Butterfly. I pray it may be forgotten from this time,
or remembered only with leniency amongst other trans
gressions of my dramatic youth and ignorance.-*-0
In that preface, Jones explained why he thought the
gains realized over a ten-year period by the advanced drama
had come to be so badly mistrusted. The burgeoning English
drama had "got caught in the skirts of the sexual-pessimis
tic blizzard sweeping over North Europe, was confounded with
it, and was execrated and condemned without examination"
(p. 17).
By 1904, Jones was still disappointed in the state of
the English stage. Serious plays were decreasing in number;
despite a shaking of the Puritan prejudices against the
stage, the "grave and serious" drama which might have been
expected had not emerged. The literary drama still held
aloof from the commercial stage; actors and actresses were
^The English Stage; Being an Account of the Victorian
Drama. trans. from French by Frederic Whyte, intro, by Henry
Arthur Jones (London, 1897), p. 13.
315
11
poorly trained.
The factors mentioned by Jones in this last article as
contributory to the poor state of the English drama fairly
well summarize the aspects of the theatre he had sought to
reform. It was not until the time of the parliamentary
hearings that he finally made it publicly clear what his
attitude toward the censorship was. But it was evident to
the men who knew him that he was on their side in the strug
gle. As a respected dramatist, they awaited his arrival
12
from America.
Garnett had been useful in initiating the movement for
the abolition of the censorship, but the banning of Barker's
Waste furnished the final impetus needed to bring the sup
port of many writers to the nucleus of leaders who had
started to organize. By that time, the news of the new
movement had begun to receive attention. An anonymous arti
cle in The Nation, entitled "Dramatic Censorship Again,"
avoided discussing Barker's more formidable work and focused
^The Need for a National English Theatre (London,
1904), passim.
12Jones did not testify personally. Instead he pub
lished The Censorship Muddle and a Way Out of It. A Letter
Addressed to the Right Honourable Herbert Samuel (London,
1909).
316
on Garnett's play, which was "not immoral," but "uselessly
and unnecessarily crude in its references, unpleasant and
13
improbable in its theme, and unnatural in its treatment."
The writer thought that the censor could make a good case
for his own defense in this particular instance. He accused
the movement which the play's banning had started of deriv
ing from a sense of private injury rather than any general
public demand. The writer listed several of the axioms on
which Garnett was basing his attack, among them one which
held that it was not the censor's job to suppress intellec
tual plays which criticized contemporary life or introduced
new moral teaching. But, the writer protested— and in this
he voiced what was probably the typical view of the censor
ship—
. . . the real danger to be guarded against, of course,
is veiled indecency, the artful suggestion that puts a
gloss upon vice, disguises vile and morbid passion in
specious and alluring form, confuses right and wrong,
and, under the pretence of serving truth or revealing
beauty, panders to the lower instincts. (p. 440)
The censorship was, for him, useful, "if only in the sup
pression of the host of cheap and pestilential melodramas
with which the whole country is overrun, and the pesters of
13LXXXV, No . 2211 (November 14, 1907), 439.
317
which many are often a disgrace to our civilization" (p.
440). The author granted that Garnett and some of his sup
porters were sincere, but he thought that much hypocrisy
underlay the zeal and that the desire for financial gain
moved most of the supporters of the advanced drama.
Barker's play was not a cheap or pestilential melodra
ma. It was, however, an indictment of what its protagonist
14
called "an adulterous and sterile generation." In Waste.
the man who makes that accusation, Trebell, has the briefest
of affairs with Amy O'Connell, a married woman. When she
discovers that she is pregnant, she has an abortion, and
dies as a result of the operation. But the play's central
interest lies neither in the affair nor the abortion. The
play deals with the effect of a potential public scandal on
the prime minister and the cabinet he is forming. Trebell
is a non-conformist, but a man eminently well equipped to
put through a bill for the disestablishment of the English
church. He is, in fact, the only man capable of seeing to
it that the bill will not be abused and that the financial
gains from it will be channeled into a project to give
•^Harley Granville Barker, Three Plavs bv Granville
Barker: The Marrying of Ann Leete— The Voysey Inheritance--
Waste (London, 1909), p. 293.
318
educational opportunities to thousands. But Trebell, be
cause his private act has been made known to cabinet ap
pointees, men more worldly or narrow than he, is rejected
for the cabinet post, even after it becomes apparent that
his part in Amy O'Connell's death will never be made pub
lic. It thus becomes evident to Trebell that his life is
useless, that he will never be allowed to use his great tal
ents. The attitudes of a society which rewards external
conformity and punishes those who will not flatter that con
formity in others assure him of that. Trebell commits sui
cide .
The play's examination of the meaning for Trebell of
the unborn child is interesting. He is deeply shocked that
Amy should have sought an abortionist. The killing of the
child becomes symbolic to Trebell of the death of his fu
ture. Convinced that he is not irreplaceable, that "Time
brings forth such men as it needs and lobster-like can grow
15
another claw," he sees in his own death a way of making
the cabinet members reflect on the implications of their
support of conventionality.
The play deals with several kinds of dangerous material.
• * - 5Barker, p. 332.
319
It was ostensibly banned because of its reference to the
illegal operation, but C. B. Purdom is probably correct in
thinking that the political aspects of the work were in fact
16
responsible. The entire third act depicts men of high
rank deciding to do the expedient thing, dump Trebell, and
then ratiionalizing their ways to honorable excuses for a
dishonorable deed. But the treatment of the Church and the
discussion of virtue in the play are also prominent. Tre
bell, for example, in discussing his hopes for the new leg
islation, describes the supernatural as being "a bit blown
upon . . . till we re-discover what it means. But it's not
essential. Nor is Christian doctrine." He hopes to turn
all the "theology mongers" into doctors or schoolmasters.
Education is the new religion, "and those who deal in it are
priests without any laying on of hands." He sees "schools
in the future . . . not built next to the church, but on the
site of the church." He thinks the world is "grown up
17
enough to do without dogma." Trebell argues that society
is made up of sinners and that an alteration of law would
^ Harley Granville-Barker: Man of the Theatre, Drama
tist and Scholar (London, 1955), p. 74.
■^Barker, Three Plays; Waste, pp. 248-249.
320
have exonerated him when he says,
"I know that if your God didn't make use of men, sins
and all . . what would ever be done in the world? That
one natural action, which the slight shifting of a so
cial law could have made as negligible as eating a meal,
can make me incapable . . takes the linch-pin out of
one's brain, doesn't it?" (p. 295)
But the notion that the play was rejected simply be
cause of the illegal abortion prevailed at the time of its
censoring and during the parliamentary debates. G. K.
Chesterton, in 1910, described Shaw's reaction to the ban
ning. He represented Shaw as believing that if the woman
"had died from poison or a pistol-shot it would have left
everyone unmoved, for pistols do not in their nature follow
female unchastity. Illegal operations very often do."
Chesterton then did what many were to accuse the censor of
doing: he objected to the use of the abortion in the play
not on moral, but on artistic grounds. "The instinctive
movement of repulsion which everyone has when hearing of the
operation in Waste is not an ethical repulsion at all. But
18
it is an aesthetic repulsion, and a right one."
The play was produced, not by the Vedrenne-Barker rep
ertory theatre, but by the Stage Society on November 24,
^George Bernard Shaw, pp. 145-146.
321
1907. A few days later Barker wrote to Murray that the
troubles about Waste were wasting him. He reported that a
meeting of the committee had taken place at Shaw's, and that
the formation of a playwright's society had been discussed,
as had
suggestions of Barrie's that we should now proceed to
get as many signatures of important and celebrated per
sons as possible to a version of the manifesto adapted
to them and not to playwrights. He wished in some way
he didn't make clear to hand this job over to you. Use
to be made of the document, I suppose, about next Febru
ary when C. B. [the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman] will be receiving the deputation.
The Prime Minister had promised Sir James Barrie that
he would meet with the authors' delegation, but his illness
forced postponements until finally, on February 25, 1908,
the Home Secretary, Herbert Gladstone, received the deputa
tion. Purdom states that the authors received no satisfac
tion, that Gladstone simply promised to relay the protest to
the Prime Minister (p. 79). But Garnett maintained, just
before the parliamentary hearings began, that
The Home Secretary, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, in his reply
to the Dramatists' Deputation in February, 1908, fully
recognized that the reform asked for, viz., a Court of
Appeal from the Censor's veto, was necessary. The Gov
ernment, no doubt, will be asked, shortly, to redeem
19
Purdom, p. 75.
this pledge, officially given.
322
Purdom quotes a letter written to Murray at the time of
the deputation, in which Barker objected to being forced to
deal with Gladstone, who, he said, he was convinced was an
ass. The letter indicates that the united front presented
by the dramatists was not as solidly backed as it might have
been. Barker wrote:
Nothing happened at the meeting to-day, except that I
came to the conclusion that we must leave Pinero and
Gilbert alone to do the job as best they can. They, but
especially Gilbert, are so terrified at being mixed up
with the disreputable drama, that at the word "Shaw" so
pi
to speak they perform evolutions suggestive of flight.cx
In spite of the reservations of many, the support for
the dramatic authors' position was growing. While the re
sult of the deputation's endeavors remained unclear, the
question of the free drama was being discussed in lectures,
and by figures as notable as G. K. Chesterton. He agreed
with an earlier talk by Gertrude Kingston, who had main
tained that good drama did not begin to develop in England
20
"The Censorship of Public Opinion," The Fortnightly
Review. LXXXVI, N.S. (July-December 1909), 137.
^^Purdom, p. 78.
323
22
until the Puritan attitude toward the stage changed.
Chesterton, a Times reporter observed, objected
to the illiberal institution, the irresponsible and des
potic power of one official over any art whatever. He
would abolish the censorship tomorrow if he could do it
by lifting a finger or throwing a b r i c k . 23
The dramatists' protest received no reply from the
prime minister. To keep the issue alive in the following
weeks, the Stage Society presented Garnett's The Breaking
Point on April 5, and Galsworthy drafted a pamphlet ad
dressed to the English people. During the 1909 hearings,
the militant dramatists were accused of taking themselves
too seriously. In fact, this short piece, published "anony
mously," but "With a Prefatory Note by John Galsworthy," is
the single work which turns the edge of satire against the
censorship. Shaw, in his prefaces, was witty but waspish.
The other writers were earnest in the extreme. Galsworthy
alone reached for the eighteenth-century weapon which had
served men like Swift so well. In view of the Hankin state
ment cited earlier to the effect that the censor could be
*^The Times [London], March 28, 1908, p. 3. All subse
quent references to the London Times will be given as The
Times.
23
The Times. April 2, 1908, p. 4.
324
defeated only by being made to look ridiculous, it is sur
prising that ridicule was not used as freely as forthright
protest. But perhaps the sober, earnest plays alone are
sign enough that this was no age of satire.
In his pamphlet, Galsworthy presented his readers with
two matched lists of plays, one group censored, the other
not, and with the names of the banned authors. The list is
included here because it summarizes the major banned works,
and also because it suggests what the authors 1 line of at
tack was to be during the hearings. Galsworthy pointed out,
sarcastically, that the opponents of the censorship would
have to admit that, of the two lists of plays, the licensed
ones were more popular, placed less strain on the intelli
gence of an average audience, and were freer from painful
tragedy. Galsworthy:s deck was, of course, stacked:
CEdipus Tyrannus (Sophocles)* The New Baby
The Cenci (Shelley) The Country Mouse
Monna Vanna (Maeterlinck) The Devil
Ghosts (Ibsen) The Cuckoo
Les trois Filles de (Brieux) The Spring Chicken
M . Du Pont
Maternite (Brieux) Dear Old Charlie
Les Avaries (Brieux) The Orchid
Mrs. Warren's Pro (Shaw) Hush I not a Word
fession
Waste (Barker) The Giddy Goat
Les Lionnes (Augier) The Bride and Bride
Pauvres groom
The Breaking Point (Garnett) The Man with Three
Wives
325
Bethlehem (Housman) Hannele (Hauptmann).**
*The names of the authors of censured plays are given,
that the reader may judge for himself whether prima facie
they are or are not likely to be appreciated by the ma
jority of the play-going public.
**The name of the author of the licensed play "Hanne
le is given, since it presents the exceptional feature
of being one not, perhaps, calculated to attract the
greater Public.^4
Galsworthy's satirical appeal to the English people was
backed up by an extremely forthright one by Garnett during
the middle of 1909. By then it was clear that the drama
tists' objections were to be listened to; the parliamentary
hearings were arranged. In "The Censorship of Public Opin
ion," Garnett returned to the censoring of Waste. The rea
son given for its suppression, in the Times review of the
play, was that it was "wholly unfit for performance, under
ordinary conditions, before a miscellaneous public of var
ious ages, moods, and standards of intelligence." Garnett
argued that anything which went beyond convention would, by
definition, transgress the feelings of the audience de
scribed in the Times article; it was from precisely this
group that conventions arose. But in this article, Garnett
OA
Justification of the Censorship of Plays. Together
with a Demand for the Extension of the Principles of That
Office to Other Branches of the Public Service. With a
Prefatory Note by John Galsworthy (London, 1909), pp. 4-5.
326
avoided the author's old complaint of injustice. He focused
instead on the effect of the censorship on the public, and
maintained that the censor intruded between the public and
the playwright: "in asserting that you, the playgoers, are
not fit to see that play, or decide on those moral issues,
and that, therefore, Waste must be banned by law, the cen
sorship has denied your right of moral judgment" (p. 141).
He appealed to the sense of superiority of his readers: the
will of the less intelligent section of society was, through
the agency of the censorship, imposed on the more intelli
gent. The English Puritan, Garnett said, deplored what was
frivolous or sensuous in the theatre; but the English Puri
tan had abandoned the stage to the English Philistine. That
individual enjoyed the frivolous and the sensuous, and so
they were presented; but he mistrusted whatever challenged
his complacency, and so that was denied (p. 141). In Gar
nett's opinion, the fact that there were no great Victorian
plays was only partly due to the censor, but in 1909, the
censorship was "the final and real weapon of coercion in
the British Philistine's hands" (p. 146).
Garnett turned to a censored play by Sir Sydney Oliv
ier. Mrs. Maxwell's Marriage had dealt with the breakdown
of a marriage and the separation of the couple. The man in
327
the play had then gone away to marry a girl whom he loved.
Garnett's logic was not particularly good, but he realized
his aim, nevertheless, when he pointed out that
Of course, Sir, all this has its humorous side. It is
a comedy in itself that Sir Sydney Olivier's moral in
sight should bar him as a dramatist from our public
stage, while it presumably aids him in the Governorship
of a great Crown colony [Jamaica]. (p. 144)
The philistine mentality, he thought, was expressed by
a letter in the Daily News of June 5. A lady reader had
stated a clear case for the suppression of any unorthodox
position. She had written:
We have in this country an official religion, called
Christian, with its accompanying table of moral val
ues. . . . and why, in the name of logic, should we
not have official guardians of our moral code? Now,
the whole tendency of Mr. Shaw's philosophy being
anti-Christian, the censor would have been quite with
in his right had he prohibited the public performance
of nearly all of t h e m . ^ 5
Garnett closed with the warning that "The real danger
of a censorship is that it carries with it automatically the
great majority of commonplace minds." He looked to the
field of painting for an example of how the censorship
worked in the long run. The pre-Raphaelites had been
25
"Censorship of Public Opinion," p. 145.
328
censured in the middle of the nineteenth cei'.tury, but they
were not censored. Their work, heterodox then, was orthodox
in 1909:
The censorship sets its seal of approval oxi the ortho
dox— but what was heterodox yesterday is orthodox to-day
— and the effect of its office, if not its declared ob
ject, u.s to hinder our normal progress in new ways of
thought. (p. 146)
During the opening months of 1909, articles entitled
"The Censorship of Plays" and "Dramatic Censorship" became
familiar to readers of the Times. Disputants argued the
question of control of the drama in the columns open to let
ters to the editor. St. John Hankin explained that the cen
sorship was not simply disliked by the authors on theoreti
cal grounds: it was unworkable. Only gross indencencies
could be detected by reading a manuscript,
But it is not against these that the Censor's energies
nowadays are either directed or required. His mind ap
pears to be absorbed in subtle questions as to the moral
tendency of the works submitted to him, and the result
is those decisions which arouse the anger of the drama
tist and the laughter of the public. Such mistakes are
bound to happen, for the Censor's task is beyond the
power of man . . . ^
Shaw exchanged public letters with barrister Sir Harry
^6The Times. June 2, 1909, p. 13.
329
Poland, who wrote to absolve the king of responsibility in
27
the matter of the censorship. But to Shaw, Poland's opin
ion led only to the conclusion that "the Lord Chamberlain is
a private and irresponsible monopolist to whom Parliament,
in a fit of insanity, gave despotic powers over the theatre,
including the levy of taxes." Shaw wondered if Poland could
also tell him
how a certain Mr. George Alexander Redford, who describes
himself as "the King's Reader of Plays," levies a play
tax of two guineas (or one guinea for a one-act play),
and carries on his operations at St. James's Palace, can
be prevented from compromising the Crown in this manner,
and from causing the public to believe that his convic
tion that I am a blackguard and a blasphemer is the
King's conviction.28
Redford hurried into print to disclaim the use of the
29
title "King's Reader," and Shaw wrote back demanding "If
he is not the King's Examiner of Plays, then who is he?"
If he were replaced by men of stature, by the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Lord Chief Justice, for example, they
would have the perceptivity to see that when an Ibsen or
Tolstoy understands that "there are certain things that the
27The Times. June
3 j
1909,
P.
13
28The Times. June
4,
1909,
P.
8.
29The Times. June
5,
1909,
P-
6 .
330
world needs to be told, it is not for them to pretend either
that they know better or that they dare share the responsi
bility by saying officially, It is good." They would also
understand that unethical playwrights would be willing to
evade rules while serious writers would not, "so that final
ly, all the most serious plays would be prohibited and all
the most licentious ones officially licensed— which is just
30
what happens at present."
Galsworthy, who had early selected for himself the task
of attempting to keep the discussions on a high plane, put
the case to the public more quietly. He pointed out that
the Damocles sword of the censorship was intolerable to
serious artists, that the public was a more effective censor
than the present one which encouraged the dishonorable
writer who, "inevitably lacking in self-respect, is always
willing to withdraw this or that portion of his play at the
Censor's bidding." The only play which suffered was one
which could not be changed "without injuring the spirit of
the play and the conscience of the author." It was within
the powers of Parliament to remove the censorship from the
king's household, but commercial objections, which came from
~^The Times. June 7, 1909, p. 8.
331
31
the theatrical managers, perpetuated the system.
A play by James Bernard Fagan entitled The Earth elic
ited from Shaw the accusation that it fell just short of
32
being a plagiarized version of Barker's banned play. Un-
33
der Shaw's prodding, Barker reopened the question of the
justice of the banning of Waste. He asked that the rules by
which a work was judged be published:
How was I to tell, in writing Waste— since that play has
been introduced into this discussion— that, while almost
every form of adultery, seduction, and debauchery may be
vividly presented in the theatre, yet an illegal opera
tion— quite a common and a tragic consequence of these
things— might not even be mentioned?^
If, during the opening months of 1909, Shaw comman
deered an inordinate amount of space in the columns of The
Times. it is less than surprising. In March he had written
a play intended for production at Herbert Beerbohm Tree's
experimental Afternoon Theatre, but the work, The Shewing-Up
of Blanco Posnet. was banned as blasphemous. Shaw was stung
then by what he considered Redford's misinterpretation of
~^The Times. June 5, 1909, p. 6.
^ The Times. May 29, 1909, p. 10.
33Purdom, p. 156.
^The Times. June 10, 1909, p. 12.
332
the moral intent of the play, and he issued a broadside
objecting to the treatment of his work. He took the oppor
tunity to affiliate his interests with those of the re
spectable Tree:
The injury— not to mention the insult--to us is very
considerable; but the disgrace will depend on the ex
tent to which the public shared the King's faith in
this matter. . . . But I naturally regret that Mr. Tree,
the first of our successful West-End managers to step
into the gap left by the retirement of Messrs. Vedrenne
and Barker from what may be called the National Theatre
. . . , should find that he has only exposed himself to
what is virtually a rebuke for misconduct from the very
quarter in which he might have expected the most en
lightened support.^
Blanco Posnet will be discussed at some length later
since it was to figure prominently in Shaw's attack on the
censorship, but it is sufficient to note here that its sup
pression early in 1909 represents only part of Shaw's deal
ings with the censor during that year. Shaw was at work at
the same time on Press Cuttings, a play which was written at
the request of Forbes-Robertson for a suffragette society,
a work which Shaw said he undertook "to prevent myself suc
cumbing to the fits of fury that all this frightful waste of
35
Quoted in Dan H. Laurence, "The Blanco Posnet Con
troversy," The Shaw Bulletin. VII (January 1955), 2.
333
„ 36
time and money brings on . . .
In June, a letter from Shaw appeared in The Times under
the title "The Censor's Revenge." It opened with the obser
vation that Tree, "found guilty by the Lord Chamberlain of
attempted blasphemy," had just been knighted by the king.
Shaw had learned that same day that Press Cuttings, which
had been announced for performance at the Court Theatre in
July, had been banned. "It only remains," Shaw wrote, "for
the King to make me a duke to complete the situation."
Shaw's offense, in the case of this sketch, was his alleged
attempt to present "personalities, expressed or understood."
His attention had also been called by the Examiner to the
prohibition against the presentation of living persons on
the stage. Shaw objected that Barrie's play, Josephine, had
been licensed despite a representation of Shaw himself, and
that his own
grotesquely imaginary Prime Minister under the well-worn
Punch name of Balsquith, and a wildly impossible Teuto-
phobe general whom I christened Mitchener in order to
clear him of all possible suspicion of being a carica
ture of Lord Roberts
were like no living people. "I feel so little guilty," he
^Purdom, p. 150.
334
wrote, "that I cannot bring myself to believe that the rea
son given for destroying the value of several weeks of my
37
work is the real reason."
In his protestations in this case, Shaw eschewed philo
sophical objections to the censorship, but his case would
have been stronger had he relied on them. His contention
that his aims in the play were innocent is hardly borne out
by a reading of it. In the sketch, the prime minister makes
his way from Downing Street to the War Office by disguising
himself as a suffragette and gains entrance to the building
by chaining himself to the general's door-scraper. But the
play, besides drawing the prime minister in an undignified
manner and parodying suffragette tactics, is strongly anti
establishment. General Mitchener is the proponent of the
use of violence to obtain social order and is cynical about
the manipulation of political power. He scolds the prime
minister:
"Dont be weak-kneed, Balsquith. You know perfectly
well that the real government of this country is and
always must be the government of the masses by the
classes. You know that democracy is damned nonsense,
and that no class stands less of it than the working
class. You know that we are already discussing the
steps that will be taken if the country should ever be
3^11e Times. June 26, 1S09, p. 10.
335
face to face with the possibility of a Labor majority
in Parliament. You know that in that case we should
disenfranchise the mob, and if they made a fuss, shoot
them down. You know that if we need public opinion to
support us, we can get any quantity of it manufactured
in our papers by poor devils of journalists who will
sell their souls for five shillings."38
The play also violated the old practice of avoiding
themes which might compromise England's international rela
tions. By Shaw's own description, Mitchener was a "Teuto-
phobe," and in the play there is speculation that Bismarck
is a woman in disguise. When, as Shaw reported, the "hasti
ly created Civic and Dramatic Guild" gave a private perform
ance of Press Cuttings, the German press saw the play as one
which contributed to the anti-German war fever then rising
39
in England.
By the time the banning of Press Cuttings was an
nounced, the agitation by dramatists had had its effect. On
April 22, 1909, the House of Commons ordered the printing of
a member's bill, presented by Robert Harcourt, "to abolish
the powers of the Lord Chamberlain in respect of Stage Plays
and to vest in Local Authorities the Licensing of Theatres,
38Press Cuttings (London, 1909), p. 12.
39The Times. July 14, 1909, p. 10.
336
40
and Places of Public Entertainments." According to Shaw,
Harcourt, as a . newcomer to Parliament, had
informed his leaders that he was going to take up the
subject of the censorship. The leaders, recognizing
his hereditary right to a parliamentary canter of some
sort as a prelude to his public career, and finding
that all the clever people seemed to agree that the
censorship was an anti-Liberal institution and an
abomination to boot, indulged him by appointing a
Select Committee of both Houses to investigate the
subject .^1
^Great Britain, House of Commons, Bill 160, 1909.
^The Shewina-Up of Blanco Posnet: A Sermon in Crude
Melodrama (London, 1913), p. 305.
CHAPTER XII
FREEDOM AND RESTRAINT: THE CONFRONTATION
The Select Committee sat from July 21 until September
24, 1909. It listened to the testimony of forty-nine wit
nesses, who represented all shades of opinion on the subject
of the censorship. The Speaker of the House of Commons
addressed the members regarding the legal accountability of
the Lord Chamberlain as Licenser of Plays; representatives
from the Lord Chamberlain's office were examined. Actors,
managers, and authors appeared to make their cases for or
against the practice of the censorship. Shaw, Archer, Bar
ker, Barrie, Forbes-Robertson, Cecil Raleigh, Galsworthy,
Laurence Housman, William Courtney, Gilbert Murray, Hall
Caine, Israel Zangwill, Pinero, and Chesterton insisted
that, in the best interests of the drama and of justice,
changes had to be made. Most of them urged abolition of the
censorship. All of them begged for reform. When at last
the committee's report was printed, the testimony heard
337
338
during the twelve sittings filled 375 pages.^
The committee agreed, in establishing its ground rules,
that specific plays should not be discussed but that the
principles upon which the censor operated should, instead,
be elucidated. Of all of the witnesses summoned, only the
drama critic A. B. Walkeley reflected a kind of detachment
about the issue. To him it was immaterial whether the cen
sor existed or not. In his view,
The present form of the censorship represents the
rough common sense of the great mass of the public, or,
as the phrase goes, the man in the street. The Censor
is what we call a "plain man," looking at matters in a
plain way as, say, a common jury would look at them.
This means that he has no literary bias, no peculiar
way of looking at the world, which is almost inevitably
the way of the professional literary man. He has a
tendency to what Matthew Arnold used to call Philistin
ism, to a certain limited, narrow, conventional view of
literature and life. . . . But the world at large con
sists of such people, and the Censor very fairly repre
sents the world at large. Of course he is not infal
lible; if he were, he would at once become impossible,
a public nuisance. If the fact that the Censor banned
a play were in itself conclusive evidence that for all
right-minded people the play deserved banning, the
stigma upon the banned author would be intolerable.
(1909, Q. 3582)
In Walkeley's view, the censor should be an "enlightened
• ^ •Report from the Joint Select Committee of the House of
Lords and the House of Commons on the Stage Plavs (Censor
ship) . Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 2
November 1909. Vol. VIII. All future references to this
report will be cited by year and question number.
339
despot" (1909, Q. 3602).
George Alexander Redford was a "plain man" and a "des
pot," but his degree of enlightenment was open to question,
as were the principles upon which he operated. Redford told
the committee that, in his work, he was
Simply bringing to bear an official point of view and
keeping up a standard. It is really impossible to de
fine what the principle may be. There are no principles
that can be defined. I follow precedent. I was under
Mr. Pigott for a great many years--that is to say, as a
personal friend— and I obtained an insight into the du
ties then. (1909, Q. 194)
An enumeration of forbidden topics was impossible because
"things are continually changing. Every year almost things
crop up that are dealt with on the stage." There was no
limit, he said, to the number of topics he might be asked to
deal with because of the "tendency to rather enlarge the
view of the stage" (1909, Q. 199). The Examiner's sole
guide for the consideration of a play, aside from nebulous
"precedent," was to be found printed on the license itself:
No profanity or impropriety of language to be permitted
on the stage. No indecency of dress, dance, or gesture
to be permitted on the stage. No offensive personali
ties or representations of living persons to be permit
ted on the stage, or anything calculated to produce riot
or breach of the peace. (1909, Q. 634)
Redford clung to the old practice of forbidding whole
340
categories of dicussion in spite of the lack of clear direc
tives. It had "always been the custom and the precedent" to
refuse to read scriptural plays (1909, Q. 526), but the rule
was nowhere laid down; it had simply been in existence since
before Redford's time (1909, Q. 530). The stage was "not a
political arena, and it j° not desirable that specially im
portant political questions, perhaps involving diplomatic
relations with Foreign Powers, should be touched upon"
(1909, Q. 259). Furthermore, Redford did not consider it a
healthy thing for politicians occasionally to be satirized
on the stage; he would use his influence to protect them
(1909, Qq. 265-266). When moral issues were raised in a
play, he did not render judgment on the basis of any speci
fic regulation; every case was "gone into and judged on its
merits" (1909, Q. 524).
During the course of the investigation the militants
asserted first that the censor inconsistently applied con
trols to the discussion of religion, politics, and morals,
and second, that this control, whether it did or did not
reflect the spirit of the law of 1843, was philosophically
incorrect. Laurence Housman was one of many who complained
about religious restrictions. His play, Bethlehem, had been
refused a license. But within the year, a similar play
341
entitled Eager Heart had been produced with the sanction of
the Lord Chamberlain, as had two other scriptural plays,
Hannele and Samson and Delilah (1909, Qq. 526-541, passim).
But Redford explained his difficulty in the case of Eager
Heart. The precedent which permitted the performance of old
plays on the assumption that they had been previously li
censed had been invoked for a performance of Everyman. Red
ford told the committee that since that morality play had
been allowed, he had stretched the restriction after reading
Eager Heart; "'Eager Heart' was such a slight little thing,
which was done at Christmas time, and is an imitation of a
miracle play" (1909, Q. 542). When his decision to ban one
play while permitting the other was challenged, he abandoned
the rule prohibiting religious subjects: "As I said just
now, every case must be judged on its merits, and every case
is looked at from its merits" (1909, Q. 543).
Hall Caine had reason to doubt the practical necessity
for the religious restriction. He had once written a play
in which he had
the temerity to introduce the Pope. How it came to pass
that the play was licensed baffles my comprehension? but
Mr. Redford was so much better than his job that he al- .
lowed the play to go.
The play was sent on tour to Dublin, and, against the
342
warnings of the theatre manager that the audience would not
tolerate the presentation of the Pope, the play went on.
The manager was certain that a riot would ensue.
Everything went well with the performance down to the
moment when the Pope entered, and then instead of there
being a riot and disturbance, the whole house rose and
cheered the Pope for a solid five minutes,
which led Caine to conclude that "the fear of disturbance
arising out of religious plays is generally a bogey" (1909,
Q. 5566).
The Bishop of Southwark viewed the portrayal of relig
ious subjects more liberally than did the censor. Religious
topics should be dealt with in a spirit of reverence; but,
he said,
. . . I can quite believe that there might be plays of
which the central interest was what would be called a
religious motive, which ought not to be prohibited, be
cause to prohibit them would be to prohibit the full
and legitimate play of opinion upon these matters.
(1909, Q. 5423)
Political censorship had also been inconsistently main
tained. Shaw pointed out that, not only was there no spe
cific law which he could consult to discover the rules which
applied to the presentation of political points of view, but
usage was confusing and was no guide. He had, for instance,
written a play called John Bull's Other Island.
343
in which there are certain political personages, and in
which a certain type of Liberal politician is held up
to gentle ridicule. I find that that play is licensed
without a moment's demur. Later on I write another play
called "Press Cuttings," in which another type of poli
tician, who is usually to be found on the other side in
politics, is held up to a little gentle ridicule, and
immediately that play is censored. Now you see my dif
ficulty is this: the objection is clearly to my poli
tics and not to my personalities. The fact is that I
have to ascertain what the Censor's politics are before
I know whether the play will pass. (1909, Q. 931)
Precedent had long provided against the presentation of
political personages and persons of high estate on the stage
--even years after their deaths. But Housman objected that
this restriction was not in the best interests of the drama.
He thought that
public characters should not have the same protection
after their death as in the other case [that of private
individuals], and that the fierce light that beats on
the throne during life should equally beat upon it after
death. (1909, Q. 2536)
Barker, like Shaw, objected that the restriction had not
prevented his being ridiculed on the stage. Sewage was un
doubtedly a parody of Waste and "Bleater" a pun on Barker's
name (1909, Qq. 1463-1465).
Witnesses generally supported the reasoning which re
stricted the discussion of foreign political problems. But
both Shaw (1909, Q. 895) and Zangwill (1909, Q. 5881)
pointed out that foreign powers considered licensed plays
344
to be representative of court feelings only because of the
official nature of the censorship.
Throughout the hearings, the question of the treatment
of moral issues remained prominent. Shaw charged that a
large percentage of licensed plays had for their object the
stimulation of sexual desire (1909, Q. 904). Witness after
witness testified that, in spite of the censoring of frank
and serious treatments of sexual themes, more subversive
plays were being licensed because they merely joked about
moral problems. Herbert Beerbohm Tree, no proponent of the
abolition of the censorship, had requested a license for an
unspecified French play, but it was refused:
I went to see the Lord Chamberlain on the subject, or the
officials, and I was told that it was rather terrible.
But I said, "The play is not immoral"; and they said,
"Yes, it is." I said "A play is only immoral or moral
in so far as its tendency is moral or immoral"; and I
was told that it would be unacceptable— the subject was
adultery— but, if it could be made more comic, it would
pass. (1909, Q. 2605)
Barker agreed that innuendo was tolerated, but that the ten
dency was "to come down very heavily whenever anybody does
attempt to speak plainly" (1909, Q. 1285). The representa
tive of the Actors' Association extended the description of
immoral plays to include those which introduced gratuitous
violence (1909, Q. 3549), and found it incongrous that
345
plays, admittedly controversial, but
put forward by men of vast experience and intellect who
are seriously trying to grapple with the social problems
of the day, should be banned, while what I can only de
scribe as a putrid stream is allowed to circulate through
the country day after day, week after week, and year
after year at the present time untouched by the Censor.
(1909, Q. 3540)
The debate about the morality of the stage revealed the
depth of division between the militants and those who de
fended the censorship more clearly than the discussions of
political or religious control. Barker put the case for
those who urged a new and more responsible morality when he
agreed with his questioner that the day had passed when one
could expect to find an "expert in moral questions" since
"no such canons exist in the world of moral ideas." In
Barker’s opinion, England had lost the power "of regarding
any one individual as true Catholics must regard the Pope
of Rome" (1909, Qq. 1328-1330). Caine, who agreed with
Barker’s contention that morals change, pushed the argument
against the censor on these grounds one step further. If
one accepted the belief that the censor's job involved the
protection of current morality, one would have to find
against him. The censor did not always judge plays by the
morality of the day. Old plays, based on old thought, were
346
allowed in perpetuity. Caine implied that this old and out
moded morality prevailed on the stage through the agency of
the Examiner of Plays (1909, Q. 5520).
The authors did not limit their objections to the cen
sor simply to a discussion of the appropriateness of con
trol on religious, political, and moral grounds.- The Exam
iner of Plays was a "magistrate beyond review" (1909, Q.
657), a "species of anarch" (1909, Q. 930). Gilbert Murray
pointed out that the basis in law for the censor's actions
resided in his "unlimited discretionary power to suppress
whatever in his opinion is contrary to good manners, deco
rum, and the public peace" (1909, Q. 3884). To Murray,
"decorum" was too wide and ill-defined a concept. Extra
ordinary power resulted from the censor1s right to establish
the interpretation of the term. Further, because of the
peculiar circumstance of the Examiner being attached to the
Lord Chamberlain, and through him to the royal household,
it was impossible for members of the House of Commons to
review his actions (19 09, Q. 2222). The Speaker of the
House of Commons reminded the committee that as a result no
governmental department had any control of the drsima (1909,
Q, 4806). The Examiner did not have to look to the govern
ment for approval and support even in monetary matters:
347
Redford1s salary came from the Civil List and the fees paid
by managers for the reading of plays (1909, Q. 1568).
The Examiner, too, held uncommon power because, by tra
dition, he did not indicate what reasons supported his judg
ment. Redford had testified that he resented authors' will
ingness to make public his occasional communications with
them, for it was "no part of [his] duty to give any reason
for vetoing a play" (1909, Q. 414). To Frederick Whelan,
the director of the Stage Society, this secrecy was a
"shirking of responsibility on the part of the Censor"
(1909, Q. 2366). The authors, Raleigh insisted, would wel
come any strengthening of the censorship,
so long as it gave us freedom and publicity; we want
nothing to be done in a corner, but everything to be
done in public after we have committed our offence,
and that the offence should be proved. (1909, Q. 2214)
As matters stood, the authors were powerless to know what
the censor might prohibit. Courtney personally disliked
both Mrs. Warren's Profession and The Power of Darkness, but
one had been forbidden, the other allowed, in spite of their
basic similarity (1909, Q. 3301).
Commercial considerations, Zangwill insisted, hypno
tized the censor. Plays in which large financial interests
were involved passed in spite of their dubious material;
348
conversely, disputed plays, intended for presentation at
smaller theatres and for briefer periods, had suffered badly
(1909, Qq. 5915-5918). Archer pointed to a possible reason
for the unquestioning approval of the light treatment of
serious themes. He noted that
the light play always tends to be a great financial
property, whereas the serious play is, as a rule, not a
great financial property; and consequently, to interfere
with the light play continually and habitually would, as
Mr. Pigott very frankly said before the last Committee,
lead to the breaking of what he called the reins with
which he drove the authors. (1909, Q. 797)
Witnesses alleged that, although he declared criticism
to be no part of his job, the censor did occasionally judge
plays by what he considered to be their dramatic merit
(1909, Q. 2355). In Archer's opinion, the drama suffered as
a result:
I would like to sum up my view of the effect of the
censorship by saying in sum that the Censor keeps seri
ous drama down to the level of his own intelligence (and
possibly lower, because of timidity), while he does not
even pretend to keep the lighter drama up to the level
of his own morality. (19 09, Q. 715)
The censor's presence had widely ranging effects on the
whole of English dramatic life. To the authors it repre
sented extraordinary punishment. In Galsworthy's words, it
was an injustice; he told his questioners,
349
I cannot conceive of any reasons why a dramatist should
be considered in any way different from any other form
of artist. I maintain that the existence of this cen
sorship treats him as if he were. (1909, Q. 2303)
Shaw objected to controls which were not the ordinary con
trols applied to all citizens and which interfered with the
freedom accorded to all others in the source of their busi
ness and pursuit of their livelihood (1909, Q. 888). When
only dramatists were concerned, Zangwill urged, one found
that there were three types: pioneers, plain men, and por-
nographers. History had proven that censorship prior to
production discriminated only against the pioneer, while it
protected only the pornographer. Because the license rep
resented a form of protection, the pornographer cried loudly
for it as a talisman against the police (1909, Q. 5877).
This "control beyond the last pitch of despotism"
(1909, Q. 891) was more than simply aggravating. Artistic
reputations and livelihoods were at the disposal of the cen
sor, but he could also inflict considerable inconvenience.
The structure of the laws of dramatic copyright permitted a
dramatic author who printed his work to secure its stage
rights only by presenting at least one public performance at
the time of publication. If there was any danger the play
might not be allowed, the author was driven to the expedient
350
of submitting to the censor a stripped version of his work.
This skeleton version could at least be performed to insure
that the rights to his own plot belonged to the author. But
if a play which was scheduled for publication had been re
fused, the situation became especially difficult. Because
the censor would not indicate the passages to which he ob
jected, a playwright had to go to ridiculous extremes in
stripping the play before he would be allowed his farcical—
and financially unrewarding— performance. In the case of
Housman1s previously mentioned Bethlehem, the dramatic
rights to the play were unprotected. He had produced the
play privately, for no profit, seventeen times at the Uni
versity of London (1909, Q. 2528), but had been prevented
from giving the single necessary public performance (1909,
Q. 2529) .
Israel Zangwill, who wrote primarily for the American
stage, pointed out another inconvenience forced on the au
thor by the law. In order to secure his English stage
rights, he hired halls at railway hotels for the single,
legally necessary performance. But authors could not deal
directly with the censor. As he pointed out, "the manager
of this railway hotel has those rights of relationship with
the Censor which I do not possess" (1909, Q. 5874)
If the authors argued persuasively that the censor's
effect on them was harmful, the managers were unable to sup
port their cause. While the proposals of the authors that
the office of the censorship be overhauled received some
sympathy from the managers as being theoretically defens
ible, they could not accept the practical difficulties which
would accompany any thoroughgoing change. Herbert Beerbohm
Tree summed matters up on behalf of the managers: they pre
ferred "the quiet life with the Lord Chamberlain" (1909, Q.
2705). The censor was a convenience, even a necessity, with
which they could not dispense. The logic of the world of
commerce informed their desire for the perpetuation of the
censorship. Their first concern had to be the protection of
their financial investments. As the solicitor who testified
on behalf of the Theatre Managers' Association pointed out,
plays would be controlled— if not before production, then
after. Under the existing system, a play could only reason
ably be considered a commercial property when a license had
been issued for it. The value of the license lay in the
protection it furnished for touring purposes in the provin
ces. Under ordinary circumstances, local authorities would
not move to stop a play once it had received the approval of
the Lord Chamberlain. If the preliminary license were
352
removed, it would become impossible for a manager to risk
subjecting his investment to the whim of each city's author
ities (1909, Q. 974).
Direct police surveillance was undesirable both from
the standpoint of the managers1 financial interests and from
that of the art itself. Forbes-Robertson demonstrated the
extent to which police interference could be carried. He
reported that in a large provincial city
I came down on to the stage and I found two enormous
policemen on the stage during the performance. I was
very much amazed. I had never seen such a thing before,
and I asked my manager what the officers of the law were
doing there. I said: "Would you kindly ask them to go
away," and he said: "I cannot do that? they are here
under orders." I said: "Whose orders?" and he said:
"The local authority's." I said: "What are they here
for?" The manager said to me: "They are here, sir, to
see that no improprieties are committed." (1909, Q.
1941)
Throughout the hearings, the authors pointed to the United
States as proof that abolition of censorship was not imprac
tical. There police interference with a play was unusual in
spite of the lack of formal censorship. Against the argu
ment was the undeniable fact that Mrs. Warren's Profession
had been closed in New York, and that actors and managers
had been arrested (1909, Q. 5375).
Even when local authorities tried to view the stage
353
leniently, vigilance groups in the provinces often made it
difficult. George Edwardes, who pointed to the uncertainty
which would accompany the abolition of the censorship, had
found the Lord Chamberlain's license protection enough for
his production of The Merry Widow in Hull. But without it,
his play would have been closed. An attack on the play had
been launched in the press, charging that it was "improper"
and "never ought to have been allowed to be produced." Only
the Lord Chamberlain's sanction had prevented more substan
tial interference (1909, Qq. 4460-4464). In the same city,
the Watch Committee had successfully prevented Maud Allen
from dancing, although she had performed for many months in
London without interference. The Hull Committee warned the
manager of the theatre that, unless he complied with their
demand, they would interfere at the next city licensing
session (1909, Qq. 4673-4675). Comyns Carr, the single au
thor who spoke on behalf of the censorship, argued that
abolition of the censorship would urge vigilance groups to
greater action:
I think that these societies, knowing that the censor
ship was abolished, would be infinitely more on the alert
than they are now, and the author would be deprived of
the bulwark of the censorship which now stands between
him and them. I think that the censorship acts . . . as
a discouragement of the initiative of these societies.
(1909, Q. 4698)
354
But the managers had another reason for supporting the
Examiner of Plays: he protected them from the authors.
Without the censor, the responsibility of deciding what was
permissible would be thrust on the manager himself (1909,
Q. 988). Frequently a manager agreed to produce a play be
fore an author had finished writing it. Judging the work
only by its synopsis, he relied on the clause in his con
tract with the author which specified that production was
subject to the approval of the play by the Examiner. With
out such an escape clause, the manager would have to dispute
his decisions with an author if he judged the completed play
improper (1909, Q. 1035). Rather than disagree with Shaw,
Tree had relied on the censor to trim Blanco Posnet:
One always desires to have friendly relations with
one's authors, and there were certain passages in it
which I, personally, should not have regarded as quite
suitable for the stage, and I said to Mr. Whelen, "Send
this in, I am sure these passages will be cut out by
the Censor." (1909, Q. 2621)
Redford had ordered the deletion of the passages which had
troubled Tree.
While actors tended to agree with the spirit of the
authors' complaints, they sided with the managers, and for
substantially the same reasons. Interference with produc
tions in the midst of runs was disastrous to them.
355
Managers and officials were slow to admit that the
censorship produced an adverse effect on the drama itself.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, when asked to answer
not in his official capacity but as a private citizen, could
not agree that the censorship prevented the growth of a more
mature English art. In his opinion,
any healthy-minded author with a wholesome plot would
have no difficulty in writing a good drama if he is
capable of writing a good drama at all. He is not
obliged to go to these very unhealthy and disgusting
subjects, as many of them do, and seem to revel in
them. I think a good many plays have been very de
moralising in their tendency. (1909, Q. 4819)
But the authors insisted that, personal considerations
aside, the effect of the censorship on the drama itself was
harmful. Galsworthy introduced testimony by Henry James to
the effect that the censorship had turned the drama in Eng
land into a "mean minor art" and had condemned it "to ig
noble dependences, poverties, pusillanimities" (1909, Q.
2262). Galsworthy thought it remarkable that long lists of
great names attached to nineteenth-century fiction, poetry,
and belles lettres, while there was no single dramatist who
could claim mention (1909, Q. 2265).
Before the hearings, Galsworthy had solicited letters
from other writers who, like James, had responded that the
356
presence of the censor had done much to prevent them from
seriously pursuing careers as playwrights. In Hardy's opin
ion, the censorship drove men of letters to seek other chan
nels for communicating with the public. Arnold Bennett
could not write plays
on the same plane of realism and thoroughness as my
novels. . . . Immediately you begin to get near the
things that really matter in a play, you begin to think
about the Censor, and it is all over with your play.
That is my experience, and that is why I would not at
tempt to write a play, for the Censor, at full emotion
al power. (1909, Q. 2264)
He considered the censorship "monstrous and grotesque and
profoundly insulting, and to condescend to reason against a
thing so obviously vicious humiliates me." Other letters
from Conrad and Wells supported these opinions (1909, Qq.
2262-2264). The censorship, in Barrie's judgment, made the
drama "a puerile thing" (1909, Q. 1764). Courtney saw the
censor's control as the representation of the instincts of
the average man. The average man was accustomed to and
liked "a certain amount of moral maxim" at the same time
that he disliked any serious study of unfamiliar moral or
social issues (1909, Q. 3148). This conservative spirit
which informed the censorship effectively stopped experi
mentation, a necessary condition of any art (1909, Qq. 3239-
357
3240).
The presence of the censor helped to predetermine the
treatment of material. Barker charged that authors had ob
served that the censor no longer noticed the presence of
certain subjects, such as adultery, provided they were
handled in certain ways. As a result, the author who was
concerned to see his play approved was
naturally inclined to send in a play which contains only
such subjects, and such a treatment of subjects, as have
grown so familiar to the Licenser of Plays that he no
longer thinks about them at all. (1909, Q. 1224)
Dramatists were chary of treating new subjects because they
could not anticipate the censor's reaction to them (1909, Q.
1356). An original or unusual point of view on any subject
naturally caused the censor to stop and think, "and the
process of his thinking very often interferes with the li
censing of the play." In Barker's estimation, the extreme
narrowness of English drama was attributable to the censor's
influence (1909, Q. 1224).
Archer cited, as an example of the way in which the
censor's restrictions could affect the shape of a play,
Stephen Phillips' The Sin of David. Phillips had wanted to
write a play dealing with David and Bathsheba, but the in
junction against scriptural plays prevented his doing so.
358
He wrote the play, moved the action from biblical times to
seventeenth-century England, and in doing so ruined what
Archer thought might otherwise have been a valuable literary
contribution. But the irritating old inconsistency per
sisted: George Peele1s Elizabethan version of David and
Bathsheba could be performed (1909, Q. 701).
During his fourteen years as Examiner, Redford had read
some 7,000 plays, but he had banned only thirty (1909, Qq.
216-218). A few, like Waste and Monna Vanna. had become
causes celebres. But the influence of the censorship on the
art could not be measured by the thirty which had been pro
hibited, nor could it be measured by the admittedly numerous
plays which had been altered substantially in order to meet
the censor's demands. The militants argued that the most
harmful effect of the censorship was one which was beyond
calculation. Unwritten plays, never more than ideas in the
minds of their potential writers, were the real loss to the
English theatre. In spite of the attempts of the few to
turn the stage into a forum for the discussion of serious
themes, the "theatre of ideas" had gone undeveloped in Eng
land (1909, Qq. 666, 3705). Playwrights were, according to
Archer, indirectly warned off interesting fields of human
inquiry (1909, Q. 786). The frustration of authors by the
359
censor prevented them from reforming and advancing their
art. In Gilbert Murray's opinion, it was this reforming
spirit which was the particular victim of the censorship.
He testified,
I think that possibly its [the censorship's] influence
is rather small and does not affect a large number of
authors or plays, but I think that it has quite a bad
effect so far as it has any; that its restrictive power
is aiming straight at a highly valuable class of play,
a class of play that really is aiming at elevating the
stage. (1909, Q. 3898)
The restrictive attitudes toward the theatre which were
revealed during the course of the discussions were not new.
Hall Caine summarized conservative attitudes and pointed to
the significant change witnessed during the 1909 hearings.
He noted that Edwardes prided himself on presenting "light,
bright and amusing" plays, that Alexander supported the cen
sorship as a means of preventing the production of political
plays and suppressing blasphemy and obscenity, that W. S.
Gilbert denied that the stage was the proper place for the
discussion of moral problems, and added,
All these witnesses, I think, belong to the number of
people who think that the drama has no moral duties or
responsibilities whatever, but is only meant to please,
and that it must do that or it does nothing. The dra
ma must please naturally, but I hold that it should
have, and always has had, a much higher purpose. (1909,
Q. 5539)
360
But when one compares the hearings of 1909 with any held
during the nineteenth century, it becomes apparent that the
day of the plea for the "manly" play and for the theatre of
amusement was passing. Some of the certitude about the role
of the drama in the life of the nation had disappeared.
When the conservatism which stemmed from commercial consid
erations is overlooked, what remains of the conservative
position is a more general fear of what Redford had termed
the "tendency to enlarge the view of the stage," or what Mr.
Byrne of the Lord Chamberlain's Office referred to as the
tendency to discuss delicate and debatable subjects on the
stage (1909, Q. 104).
Implicit in these fears is the same acknowledgment of
the power of the drama which had stimulated, well over 100
years earlier, the passage of restrictive legislation. But
by 1909, what had once been the motive force behind that
legislation, the desire for political immunity, had shifted
to areas much more difficult to define. Moral questions, in
all their personal and social aspects, had moved to the
center of the debate. In the face of an earnest new dra
matic movement, the grounds upon which the censorship was
based were open to serious challenge for the first time.
Did the censorship have the right to extend the meaning of
"decorum" to include the discussion of moral issues? The
authors said that it did not, and on this point they found
support among managers and actors alike. But a more subtle
question, and one which has yet to be answered, arose. What
the hearings of 1909 began to consider was whether all as
pects of human behavior are proper matter for public presen
tation. The authors, almost unanimously, argued in the
affirmative and would test the respectability of a work only
by the author's intention in writing it. But Herbert Beer-
bohm Tree spoke for many when he offered his opinion that
"the stage enlarges everything," that things which might
without harm be considered privately when presented on the
stage were written in "letters of fire" (1909, Q. 2662).
The effects of what Comyns Carr called the "intrusion of the
physical personality of the actor" (1909, Q. 4687) gave im
mediacy to the experiencing of a play which made control of
the drama more necessary than control of the printed word.
The question of the effect of viewing in public what
might be read without embarrassment in private was argued
to a stalemate during the dicussicns. The conservative po
sition was marked by the belief that public presentation of
many ideas was dangerous, while the liberal attitude was
informed by the belief that public consciousness should be
362
confronted with whatever moral evils the playwright observed
in his society.
The moral imperative which formed the foundation of the
militants' argument was clearly related to the authors' con
sciousness that theirs was a new drama, one undreamed of by
mid-Victorian playwrights. This new drama, which Archer saw
as beginning in 1885 (1909, Q. 665), claimed rights for it
self which directly contradicted older beliefs. During the
hearings, it found its most optimistic supporter not among
the authors but in the spokesman for the Church of England.
The Bishop of Southwark claimed immunity from the censor
ship for the serious drama,
not because I should be pleased to see the English stage
containing many plays shocking to the current morality,
but because the current morality wants a certain amount
of sifting, no doubt, and also because the current mor
ality ought to be able properly to take care of itself.
(1909, Q. 5417)
He agreed that the stage had grown in dignity and impor
tance; the change during his lifetime had been "entirely
for the good" (1909, Q. 5467). The old notion that plays
should be judged by whether they did or did not shock a
playgoer's daughter was, in his estimation, no standard by
which to measure the drama. He disagreed with those who
maintained that the theatre was not a pulpit (1909, Q.
363
5454). While he felt that decency on the stage should be
assured, he would free the discussion of moral questions.
Ideal control
would allow a great deal which I should think personally
likely to do more harm than good, more mistaken than
right; but that does not of itself make a case for in
terference any more than in many other spheres of life.
(1909, Q. 5412)
Beerbohm Tree, as a manager, had practical reasons for
supporting the censorship, but he volunteered the opinion
that the greatness of the stage's future depended upon its
freedom (1909, Q. 2669). In America, the benefits of a
freer stage were already appearing. Zangwill pointed out
that the American stage was beginning to welcome "plays of
ideas," and that the American public was turning to the
stage not only for amusement but for education as well
(1909, Q. 5886).
The ideal drama envisaged by the militants claimed all
areas of human life as proper to itself. Both Archer and
Shaw refused even to grant that the possibility of a breach
of the peace resulting from a play justified the extraordi
nary control placed on the drama. The rights extended to
political gatherings, whe^e such breaches were not unusual,
belonged to the theatre as well (1909, Q. 915). There was
364
no valid reason why "the theatre should be sacred against a
little difference of opinion any more than a hall of public
meeting is sacred against it" (1909, Q. 697).
But the militants, in arguing for the freedom of the
stage, were also arguing for the morally responsible play.
Barker's dictum that "you have no right to represent vice
upon the stage, unless you are prepared also to represent
the consequences that vice entails" (1909, Q. 1267) was part
of the militants' code, as were Hall Caine's assertion that
the morality of a play was determined not by its details
but by the general tendency of the whole (1909, Qq. 5529-
5531), and Barrie's insistence upon the "sincerity" of the
author as a guide to the worthiness of his work (1909, Q.
1853).
The division between the proponents of the free-but-
morally-responsible drama and their antagonists was more
deeply founded than the question of suitable standards indi
cates, however. The militants were arguing from a philo
sophical position which was deeply inimical to the values
of those who wished to maintain the status quo. The expla
nation for the collision can be found in this division.
The proponents of the new drama, if they were not moral
relativists, were moral evolutionists. Zangwill's attitude
365
was representative:
In fact, with regard to the play of ideas, I should like
to say that while in the East we may see nomadic tribes
with fixed ideas, in the West we have run our civilisa
tion, at any rate our modern civilisation, on the basis
of being fixed tribes with nomadic ideas; and therefore
until someone can prove to us that we have arrived at
finality in truth the stage is one of the greatest means
of expressing the discoveries in truth, and people who
give their lives to truth should not in any way be ham
pered as to the form of expression of those truths.
(1909, Q. 5882)
When the Bishop of Southwark maintained that the "morals of
the country want sifting," he was, in effect, taking the
attitude expressed by Zangwill. His single standard for the
judgment of plays was not their "morality," but their de
cency. The depth of his commitment to an evolutionary view
of morals was reflected by the example he offered of the
sort of material which was properly discussible on the
stage. One of the questions which ought to be "threshed
out by opinion" was that of the ideal relationship between
the sexes. A play which dealt with the moral theme of a
happy marriage could be presented indecently,
whereas it is perfectly possible . . . to take a theme
. . . of which the burden would be that a contract de
pendent upon permanant fsic 1 inclination should be the
basis of the relation between men and women, and to
present that in a way that would have no tinge of in
decency or suggestiveness. If so, I do not think it
ought to be stopped. (1909, Q. 5416)
366
The opinions offered by the Bishop of Southwark were
most closely paralleled by those of George Bernard Shaw.
Shaw still called himself a "conscientiously immoral" play
wright. He admitted to the committee that by the phrase he
meant "non-customary," but he insisted on using his own ex
pression to illustrate the cleavage between older, hardened
ways of viewing problems and newer ways which were based on
conscience rather than precept. "Immoral plays," he in
formed his interrogators, were those which "set up an en
tirely new standard of conduct, which may or may not be
right, but which certainly is not the accepted standard"
(1909, Q. 957).
If the militants were essentially in agreement about
the function the drama could perform in the public interest
through the presentation of controversial points of view,
they were also fundamentally agreed on what should be in
cluded in any new law dealing with the rights of the the
atre. Ideally, the censorship should be abolished, but
control of the drama should remain. It should be placed in
the hands of the public, who were capable of deciding for
themselves what was tolerable and in the best interests of
society. While the crowd was not a necessarily virtuous
body, it was an effective censor and "very deterrent of
367
things that are offensive to the body corporate" (1909, Q.
3717). Censorship by the public, in its simplest form, was
represented by rejection of unsuitable plays by the audi
ence. At a more organized level, "the ordinary customs re
ferred to in public speaking and writing in England, trans
lated into law, would be amply sufficient to safeguard the
public . . ." (1909, Q. 1234). Control by law did not rep
resent an infringement, but a guarantee, of freedom. As
Shaw put it,
I have no objection whatever if you will make a law that
I shall not mention a certain subject, or that I shall
not deal with a certain subject. If you pass that law,
I am prepared to obey it, or, at any rate, I am only
prepared to defy it under conditions under which man is
a martyr, but I object to their being no law. (1909,
Q. 887)
Legal prosecution alone should establish that a play was
unfit for production (1909, Q. 905).
The authors insisted that only ex post facto control
was just. A play did not technically exist until it had
been performed (1909, Q. 5526). Besides, it was impossible
to judge effectively from the manuscript what effect a play
would have on an audience. The laws which applied to the
publication of a book, laws which reserved judgment of a
work until after it was issued, represented the proper type
368
of control (1909, Q. 3171).
The authors disagreed as to who should be responsible
for the surveillance of plays— the Home Secretary, the
King's Proctor, appointees of local authorities— but all
agreed that the common informer, who, under the existing law
was the only person who could initiate proceedings, should
be stripped of his power. When exception was taken to a
play, the objections should be weighed by the Public Prose
cutor, who was the best judge of whether litigation should
be initiated.
Militants rejected the notion that a reconstructed cen
sorship would serve. More sensitive censorship would, in
Shaw's words, be disastrous because it would "stop the im
moral play, which from my point of view is the only play
that is worth writing" (1909, Q. 898). The fact that con
troversial plays were sometimes licensed by the current
Examiner did not stem from the flexibility of the office,
but rather from Redford's lack of perceptivity. More en
lightened censors, Shaw pointed out, would have recognized,
for example, that A Doll's House was an attack on the fami
ly, and would have seen, too, that if they licensed it, they
would be to some extent endorsing the attack. Even if more
enlightened censors recognized that the author saw further
369
than they did, they would still not be able to abdicate
their responsibility to judge works according to their own
best notions of propriety (1909, Q. 959).
Before the hearings began, the Lord Chamberlain had
instituted an advisory committee, but that group nad not yet
begun to function. During the hearings, dramatists dis
cussed the suggestion that this group represented protection
from the autocracy of the censor. The authors disputed its
efficacy, as it was constituted, but, failing the total
abolition of the censorship and the institution in its place
of ex post facto control through legal procedures, they were
willing to accept the notion of some sort of arbitration.
Ideally, such a group would be an ad hoc committee, ap
pointed by both the Lord Chamberlain and the aggrieved au
thor or the Dramatic Authors' Committee. Some method of
appeal from the censor's judgment was necessary if he was to
continue in office.
By the time the committee terminated the hearings, it
was clear that two major problems required solution: the
atre managers and actors needed some form of protection for
their livelihoods, and authors were entitled to some release
from the burden of the censorship. The nature of the com
promise which the committee finally drafted was not to be
370
clear until late in October. But spectators interested in
the dispute had more to claim their attention than the daily
reports issuing from the committee he?aring room. George
Bernard Shaw was an early witness, and his formal part was
soon played. With the help of Lady Gregory and William
Butler Yeats, however, he engineered a production meant to
demonstrate the folly of the censorship to the spectators
and participants in the discussion. Dublin was to be in
cluded in the arguments about the state of the English
drama.
CHAPTER XIII
SHAW'S LAST STAND, AND AFTER
During the months preceding the hearings George Bernard
Shaw had been both a divisive and a driving force in the
militant cause. His excessive zeal had frightened the more
hesitant authors, and when he confronted the committee, he
antagonized the conservative members. Witnesses were asked
to present resumes of the evidence they expected to discuss,
and Shaw was typically prodigal. He submitted copies of a
document, printed at his own expense, which ran to 11,000
words.^ He then insisted that precedent established by
previous committees allowed him to read it, in its entirety,
-*-The complete resume, together with Shaw's account of
the hearings, introduces the London, 1913, as well as the
New York, 1928 [c. 1911], edition of The Shewing-Up of Blan
co Posnet. The tenor of the resume can be judged by Shaw's
assertion in it that ". . . it is of the most enormous im
portance that immorality should be protected jealously
against the attacks of those who have no standard except the
standard of custom, and who regard any attack on custom—
that is, on morals— as an attack on society, on religion,
and on virtue" ([London, 1913], p. 319).
371
372
into the minutes of evidence. The committee room was or
dered cleared while his proposal was discussed., but the
committee denied Shaw's request— without stating why, and
defeated Robert Harcourt's motion that the Shaw paper be
2
included in the printed report as an appendix.
The decision of the members, in view of the length of
the document, was not unreasonable. But Shaw, never one to
miss an opportunity to dramatize the frustration of the au
thor confronted by officialdom, took the decision with an
air of condescension. Irritation with Shaw on the part of
the conservative members of the committee shows through in
the tone of the questions put to him after the hearings had
been resumed.
Shaw pursued the advantage furnished by the committee
in this matter of the rejected brief. In a private letter
to Herbert Samuel, the chairman of the committee, he ac
knowledged his motive in assuming an offended air. On July
31 he wrote:
On reflection I think the refusal of the Committee
to publish my statement is a grievance, which is always
a valuable property in an agitation like this. . . . In
O
Report from the Joint Select Committee of the House of
Lords and the House of Commons on the Stage Plays (Censor
ship) , p . xx.
373
the morning, whilst you were away, they decided to stick
to precedent, being then (poor lambs!) under the impres
sion that precedent was against me. The sudden volte
face when I cited precedent, the dramatic secret con
clave, the point blank refusal without reason given, are
too good to be thrown away. Also I want to get into the
papers that the room had to be cleared when one of the
licensed plays was discussed, as it was too indecent to
be mentioned in public. I shall fly to the last refuge
of the oppressed: a letter to The Times.^
Shaw displayed his wounds in the August 6 edition of that
paper (p . 7).
It is clear from his letters to Samuel that Shaw had
more ambitious plans for the hearings than the chairman did
himself. Shaw wanted to make the report "a classical blue-
book instead of the wretched business the 1892 bluebook was
. . ." He complained that Samuel had let the conservatives
spoil the report by cutting him out of it, and predicted
that ultimately his own ideal form of censorship, based on
county licensing and litigation only through the Public
Prosecution, would prevail. Shaw closed his first letter to
Samuel, "P.S. Oh, if parliaments & committees would only
do just what I tell them!"
After his first appearance before the committee, Shaw
This letter and the two referred to below are to be
found in the Record Office, House of Lords, among the Samuel
papers.
374
was asked to continue his testimony during the next session.
But on his return, the committee dismissed him abruptly.
Shaw, parading his injured dignity, took back from the irri
tated committee members the copies of his carefully prepared
text. He wrote that day to Samuel:
. . . I saw by the papers that I had done all the execu
tion necessary by my examination on Friday, and that a
refusal to hear me further (which I knew I was risking)
would not hurt so much as the refusal itself would help
— besides, there are others coming who will say all I
could have said. So I misconducted myself in the neces
sary manner to make the most of the situation. My only
regret is that it should be your committee. (Letter of
August 5)
In this second letter Shaw continued to urge Samuel to
aim for greatness in the report. The dismal 1892 proceed
ings were still in his mind:
Think what it might have been if Meredith and all the
great guns had been called up to deliver their souls.
The whole thing would have been on a high plane: it
would have gone off like Beatrice Webb's Minority Re
port. Why should you be so very modest?
Samuel, he maintained, was surrounded by dunderheads. Shaw
urged him to confound them with all the greatness he could
muster. The Liberal party could "recover all the glory of
its palmy days" if it would not throw away all its chances.
"Think," he wrote, "of what Louis XIV would have made of a
commission on the theatre. . . . Disraeli would have made
375
this job something between a coronation and an arctic expe
dition." Samuel could do the same if he would let himself
go. By the end of the letter, Shaw had assumed the job of
stage manager:
You must not only do the job; but you must get the credit
of doing it; and that means that you must paint it ten
times larger than it really is, and spend time and money
profusely on fireworks. Try and get the Bishop of St.
Albans: I am told he is a sportive old bird. Call
Thomas Hardy, and ask him whether he considers The Dy
nasts a practicable stage play and why he has not written
plays instead of novels. Call the King; and ask him
whether he really told Redford to censor Pelissier. As
I said before, call the Chief Rabbi, and the whole San
hedrim fsic 1 if you can get them. Look after the lime
light; and the play will take care of itself. (Letter
of August 5)
By the middle of August, Shaw was more satisfied with
the hearings. He wrote to tell Samuel that he no longer
complained about the committee:
You sit and listen like lambs to my friends reading long
manuscripts to you; and anything more impressive than
the contrast between the anxious politeness of the House
of Lords to Granville Barker and its naughty manners to
me could not have been desired from my point of view.
(Letter of August 13)
Shaw was leaving on a motoring tour of Ireland, but before
he left he wanted to remind Samuel that all the nonsense
about the copies of his brief had taken place "after seeing
Mr. Redford with your own eyes and hearing him with your own
376
ears, so that you knew exactly the filter that my life's
work has to pass through" (letter of August 13). But even
on vacation, Shaw was very much a part of the proceedings in
London, and Redford was very much in Shaw's thoughts.
Dublin was one of the few places in the British Isles
in which the drama was exempt from the control of the Lord
Chamberlain: the surveillance of the Irish stage was the
responsibility of the Lord Lieutenant. Dublin's Abbey The
atre operated under a limited patent which had been granted
to encourage the development of native Irish talent and to
allow the production of native Irish plays. Some time be
fore the hearings began, Lady Gregory and Yeats, relying on
the separatist Irish sentiments for support, offered the
Abbey Theatre to Shaw for a production of the banned Blanco
Posnet. A series of letters exchanged by Lady Gregory and
Shaw indicate that the presentation of Blanco was, from the
4
beginning, intended as an insult to the censor. On July 6,
1909, Lady Gregory wrote to Shaw:
W. B. Yeats arrived today, and I said "Couldnt we do
Blanco Posnet?" and he said "I want to, and Shaw has
offered it." I think we could do it well, and I dont
^Copies of these letters are to be found among the Shaw
correspondence, Vol. 50534, in the manuscript collection of
the British Museum.
377
think anything could show up the hypocrisy of the British
Censor more than a performance in Dublin where the audi
ence is known to be so sensitive.
On August 5, the date on which Shaw was scheduled to
make his second appearance before the Committee, The Times
announced that the Abbey Theatre would do the play:
The directors of the theatre do not share the view of
the play taken by the Censor, who is stated to have no
authority in Ireland. It is pointed out, however, that
under the terms of the patent granted to the Abbey The
atre the Lord Lieutenant has the power to prohibit the
production of any play which he may consider to be of
fensive. (p. 10)
Shaw offered the Abbey the banned Press Cuttings as
well, but it was rejected by Lady Gregory, partly because
there was insufficient time to prepare it. She wrote to
Shaw:
Press Cuttings is extraordinarily amusing, we have all
been delighted in it, but on the whole Blanco is our
best cheval de bataille, and I am glad we had it first.
It is great fun the respectable Lord Aberdeen [Lord
Lieutenant] being responsible, especially as he cant
come to see it, as vice-royalty doesnt like the colour
of our carpets. We have never put down red ones, I
always suggest their wearing red slippers.^
Lady Gregory added that the Belfast papers had taken note of
the announced performance under the heading "Probable
c ;
■'Britj.sh Museum, Shaw Correspondence, Vol. 50534, let
ter of August 9, 1909.
378
Interference by the Lord Lieutenant." "But this is too
good," she wrote, "— we could raise a great cry of injustice
to an ill treatment . . . if this were done— "
Shaw rejoiced with her and understood the value to
their campaign of the possible interference of England in
the operation of the Irish National Theatre:
Your news is almost too good to be true. If the Lord
Lieutenant would only forbid an Irish play, without
reading it, and after it had been declared entirely
guiltless and admirable by the leading high class jour
nal on the side of his own party (The Nation)--forbid
it at the command of an official of the King's house
hold in London, then the green flag would indeed wave
over Abbey St, and we should have questions in parlia
ment and all manner of reverberating advertisement and
nationalist sympathy for the theatre.^
A Castle official had called on the solicitors of the
Abbey Theatre to warn them that the production of Blanco
Posnet "could be an expensive business" for the theatre's
owner, and Yeats and Lady Gregory had been summoned to an
interview with Sir J. Dougherty, who spoke on behalf of the
Lord Lieutenant. He had warned Lady Gregory that the pub
licity given to the forthcoming performance probably made
interference by the Lord Lieutenant necessary. She wired
the news to Shaw (August 12), and asked if they should
^Shaw Correspondence, Vol. 50534, letter of August 12.
379
consider giving a private performance. Shaw thought it
would be a mistake to threaten with a contraband perform
ance:
Threaten that we shall be suppressed; that we shall be
made martyrs of; that we shall suffer as much and as
publicly as possible. Tell them that they can depend
on me to burn with a brighter blaze and louder yells
than all Foxes' martyrs.
Amidst uncertainty about what course of action the Lord
Lieutenant would choose, Shaw left on his trip to Ireland.
The play which the Irish National Theatre was so anx
ious to present was a Shavian attempt at horse-opera.
Blanco Posnet is a thief who has stolen his brother's horse
to settle a debt between them in his own way. But on the
edge of town, a woman confronts the hardened Blanco and de
mands the horse from him so that she can take her dying
child to the town doctor. Blanco, horseless, is sitting and
contemplating the fate which has overtaken him when he is
captured and returned to town to be tried. Shaw limits the
action of the play to the trial scene, in which Blanco de
scribes to the roughneck townspeople his unwilling conver
sion through the agency of the obvious Madonna-figure.
n
'Shaw Correspondence, Vol. 50534, letter of August 12.
380
Blanco Posnet was banned as blasphemous. In what Shaw
defended as a style made necessary by the character of the
protagonist, Blanco reveals his encounter with the Almighty.
It was this style which cased official resistance to the
play. Blanco, in spite of his change of heart, still de
scribes the "Ruler of the Universe" in terms consistent with
his character. When Lady Gregory wrote her account of the
founding of the Irish National Theatre, she included the
passage which had caused Shaw's difficulty with the censor—
and she pointed to the parallel between Blanco's words and
those of Job. To Blanco, the Almighty
"always has a trick up his sleeve. . . . He's a sly one.
He's a mean one. He lies low for you. He plays cat and
mouse with you. He lets you run loose until you think
you're shut of Him; and then when you least expect it,
He's got you."
When Elder Daniels cautions Blanco to be more respectful, he
demands;
"Reverent! Who taught you your reverent cant? Not your
Bible. It says, 'He cometh like a thief in the night
aye, like a thief— a horse-thief. And it's true. That's
how He caught me and put my neck into a halter. To
spite me because I had no use for Him— because I lived
my own life in my own way, and would have no truck with
His 'Don't do this,' and 'You mustn't do that,' and
'You'll go to hell if you do the other.' I gave Him the
go-bye, and did without Him all these years. But He
caught me out at last. The laugh is with Him as far as
381
hanging goes,"
While Shaw toured, Lady Gregory and Yeats continued to
skirmish with officials of the Lor 1 Lieutenant's office, and
it became clear that Dublin opposition to the play was
caused not by Blanco Posnet itself but by the judgment from
London. Shaw followed developments in the press. He wrote
to Lady Gregory from KiHarney Lake:
I saw in [sic.] Irish Times today with Blanco announced
for production, so I presume the Castle has not put its
foot down. The officials made an appalling technical
blunder in acting as agents of the Lord Chamberlain in
Ireland; and I worded by telegram in such a way as to
make it clear that I knew the value of that indiscre
tion . ^
When he reached Parksanilla, County Kerry, he found
letters from Lady Gregory waiting for him, and he wired her:
"Then it is really the King after all. So much the better.
Announce the fact and give up the performance."^ Among the
letters which awaited Shaw was one in which Lady Gregory
evidently requested certain deletions from the play on the
basis of her own judgment that they would be considered
O
Quoted in Our Irish Theatre: A Chapter of Autobiogra
phy (London, 1914), p. 272.
^Shaw Correspondence, Vol. 50534, letter of August 17.
■^Shaw Correspondence, Vol. 50534, letter of August 19.
382
blasphemous by the audience. Shaw refused to make those
corrections, but he congratulated her for having recognized,
as Redford had not, the heterodox passages of Blanco Posnet.
Shaw does not indicate which were the disputed lines, but
his letter nevertheless is interesting because in it he ex
plains the raison d'etre for Blanco Posnet and his own sense
of purpose in writing plays like that "sermon in pure melo
drama." Shaw wrote in part:
To me, of course, the whole purpose of the play lies
in the problem "what about the croup?" When Lady Grove,
in her most superior manner, told me "He is the God of
Love," I said "He is also the God of Cancer and Epilep
sy." That does not present any difficulty to me. All
this problem of the origin of evil, the mystery of pain,
and so forth, does not puzzle me. My doctrine is that
God proceeds by the method of "trial and error," just
like a workman perfecting an aeroplane. He has to make
hands for himself & brains for himself in order that his
will may be done. He has tried lots of machines— the
diphtheria bacillus, the tiger, the cockroach; and he
cannot extirpate them except by making something that
can shoot them or walk on them, or, cleverer still, de
vise vaccines & antitoxins to prey on them. To me the
sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to
regard himself as an experiment in the realization of
God, to regard his hand as God's hand, his brain as
God's brain, his purpose as God's purpose. He must re
gard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into
existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.
You will find it all in Man & Superman, as you will find
it all behind Blanco Posnet. Take it out of my play,
and the play becomes nothing but the old cry of despair
— Shakespear's "As flies to wanton boys so we are to the
gods: they kill us for their sport"— the most frightful
blasphemy ever uttered, and the one from which it is my
383
mission to deliver the world.'*''*'
There can be no doubt that Shaw was less interested in
seeing Blanco Posnet produced in Dublin than he was in gain
ing publicity for the cause. In the same letter he wrote:
"If we can only fix the suppression of the play on the King,
then 'if the color we must wear by England's cruel red' we
perish gloriously."
By August 21, four days before the scheduled production
date, the Lord Lieutenant's position was finally made pub
lic. The Abbey Theatre company had been warned that Shaw's
play was "hardly within the scope of the theatre's limited
patent" which provided for the production of native Irish
works, that it "did not accord with the spirit of the pat
ent," and that it might "possibly provoke disturbance." But
the Lord Lieutenant evidently would let the outcome of the
12
production determine his further actions.
Yeats and Lady Gregory took advantage of the stir
caused by the possibility of the Lord Lieutenant's inter
ference on what seemed to be instructions by the Lord
■^Shaw Correspondence, Vol. 50534, letter of August 19.
"Mr. Shaw's Play in Dublin," The Times. August 21,
1909, p. 6.
384
Chamberlain's office to reassert the independence of the
Irish theatre:
If our patent is in danger it is because the English
censorship is being extended to Ireland, or because the
Lord Lieutenant is about to revive, on what we consider
a frivolous pretext, a right not exercised for 150 years,
to forbid at his pleasure any play produced in any Dub
lin theatre. . . . We are not concerned with the ques
tion of the English censorship, but we are very certain
that the conditions of the two, [sic.] countries are dif
ferent, and that we must not, by accepting the English
Censor's ruling, give away anything of the liberty of
the Irish theatre of the future. Neither can we accept
without protest the exercise of the Lord Lieutenant's
claim at the bidding of the Censor or otherwise. The
Lord Lieutenant is definitely a political personage
holding office from the party in power, and what would
sooner or later grow into a political censorship cannot
be lightly accepted.^
The play, with only very minor changes "made by Mr.
Shaw himself to oblige Lord Aberdeen," was ready for presen
tation. On the day before the performance, Yeats took a
final shot in the press at the English censor. The differ
ence between the Irish and the English people, he wrote,
would be made apparent by the play's success. In Ireland
people might be publicly dishonest, but they were truthful
13"Mr, Shaw's Play," The Times. August 23, 1909, p. 4.
This Yeats-Gregory "Manifesto" is reprinted in its entirety
in a slightly different form by Dan H. Laurence in "The
Blanco Posnet Controversy," pp. 5-6, as is the official
communique which is cited above, pp. 3-4.
384
Chamberlain's office to reassert the independence of the
Irish theatre:
If our patent is in danger it is because the English
censorship is being extended to Ireland, or because the
Lord Lieutenant is about to revive, on what we consider
a frivolous pretext, a right not exercised for 150 years,
to forbid at his pleasure any play produced in any Dub
lin theatre. . . . We are not concerned with the ques
tion of the English censorship, but we are very certain
that the conditions of the two, [sic.] countries are dif
ferent, and that we must not, by accepting the English
Censor's ruling, give away anything of the liberty of
the Irish theatre of the future. Neither can we accept
without protest the exercise of the Lord Lieutenant's
claim at the bidding of the Censor or otherwise. The
Lord Lieutenant is definitely a political personage
holding office from the party in power, and what would
sooner or later grow into a political censorship cannot
be lightly accepted.13
The play, with only very minor changes "made by Mr.
Shaw himself to oblige Lord Aberdeen," was ready for presen
tation. On the day before the performance, Yeats took a
final shot in the press at the English censor. The differ
ence between the Irish and the English people, he wrote,
would be made apparent by the play's success. In Ireland
people might be publicly dishonest, but they were truthful
13"Mr. Shaw's Play," The Times. August 23, 1909, p. 4.
This Yeats-Gregory "Manifesto" is reprinted in its entirety
in a slightly different form by Dan H. Laurence in "The
Blanco Posnet Controversy," pp. 5-6, as is the official
communique which is cited above, pp. 3-4.
385
with themselves.
In England they have learned from commerce to be truth
ful to one another, but they are great liars when alone.
The English Censor exists to keep them from finding out
the fact. He gives them incomplete arguments, senti
mental half-truths, and above all he keeps dramatists
from giving them anything in sudden phrases that would
startle them into the perception of reality.^
Lady Gregory and Yeats emerged from their confrontation
with the Lord Lieutenant with their patent intact, and Shaw
made his point. The review of Blanco Posnet which appeared
in The Times noted that many must have been disappointed by
the affable reception which greeted the presumably dangerous
performance:
There was no protest against its profanity or indeli
cacy. There was no protest against its lack of profan
ity or indelicacy. The audience took it in a very
friendly manner, laughing heartily at its humours, pass
ing over its dangerous passages with attentive silence,
calling loudly but in vain for the author at the close.
Let us say that there has been a good deal of fuss about
nothing and say no more about it.^
The Times of August 27 noted that Dublin was amused at the
"more or less false pretences by which a huge audience was
attracted last night to the Abbey theatre." The play was
14"^. shaw's piay^1 1 The Times. August 25, 1909, p. 5.
^ The Times. August 26, 1909, p. 8.
386
judged to be "perfectly innocuous." Everyone was enjoying
"Shaw's cleverness and the Censor's folly." It was agreed
that Shaw had understated his case when he maintained that
Blanco Posnet was "less offensive to Irish Roman Catholic
feeling than the Coronation oath." Amidst conjectures about
the effect the play might have on the position of the Eng
lish Censor, The Irish Times had maintained that "if ridi
cule were as deadly in these countries as it is in France,
the Censorship would be 'blown away in the shouts of laugh-
16
ter that greeted Blanco Posnet'1"
In spite of the continuing efforts of George Bernard
Shaw, the censorship was not, however, blown away. The
hearings had not yet concluded and the committee had not yet
issued its recommendations, but Shaw was not quite finished.
While the committee withdrew to draft recommendations on the
basis of the testimony it had heard, Shaw again submitted
the play for licensing. Redford approved Blanco Posnet. but
rejected the same passages he rejected at first. Once more
Shaw took his grievance to the public. He wrote in The
Times of October 11:
What the Censorship has actually done exceeds the
• * -6The Times. August 27, 1909, p. 8.
387
utmost hopes of those who, like myself, have devoted
themselves to its destruction. It has licensed the
play, and endorsed on the license specific orders that
all its redeeming passages shall be omitted in repre
sentation. I may have my insolent prostitute, my blood
thirsty, profane backwoodsmen, my atmosphere of coarse
ness, or savagery, or mockery, and all the foul dark
ness which I devised to make the light visible; but the
light must be left out. I may wallow in filth, ferocity,
and sensuality, provided I do not hint that there is any
force in Nature higher and stronger than these. (p. 10)
Lady Gregory's "best cheval de bataille" was to have
one last gallop. The Abbey Players brqught Blanco Posnet to
London for a private performance sponsored by the Stage So
ciety in December. By then, however, the battle had passed
its climax. The committee's bluebook had been issued and
was a matter of public record. There was nothing new to
add.
The report released on November 13, 1909, was a victory
for no one, least of all the authors. The managers' posi
tion had been cogently argued. As a result, the opinion
that "The Lord Chamberlain should remain the Licenser of
17
Plays" headed the list of recommendations. But the au
thors' complaint that he moved in mysterious ways had also
17
Report . . . on the Stage Plays (Censorship), p. xi.
388
been listened to. The second recommendation therefore made
a half-hearted attempt at codifying the offenses for which
the Lord Chamberlain could ban a play. But the list was
nothing more than an enumeration of the grounds upon which
plays had always been judged. A play could be banned if the
Lord Chamberlain judged it
(a) To be indecent;
(b) To contain offensive personalities;
(c) To represent on the stage in an invidious manner a
living person, or any person recently dead, fsic1
(d) To do violence to the sentiment of religious rever
ence;
(e) To be calculated to conduce to crime or vice;
(f) To be calculated to impair friendly relations with
any Foreign Power; or
(g) To be calculated to cause a breach of the peace.
(p. xi)
The next recommendation introduced real chaos, as well
as tacit admission of the validity of the authors' com
plaints, into the report: "It should be optional to submit
a play for license, and legal to perform an unlicensed play,
whether it has been submitted or not" (p. xi). Had this
recommendation been implemented, the relationship between
author, manager, and censor would have been more confused
than ever. Censorship would have both existed, and not ex
isted at the same time. The author's position in regard to
freedom of the stage in London would have been somewhat
389
improved, but obviously no manager would have risked taking
a play which was known to be without approval into the prov
inces . The pressures on the author to submit to censorship,
according to the old standards, would in effect have been
nearly as great as ever.
The committee members agreed that each category of
play— licensed and unlicensed— should be subject to differ
ent control after performance. The unlicensed play should
be proceeded against either by the Director of Public Prose
cutions or the Attorney General, and all performance of the
challenged play should cease until after the case had been
heard and decided. Both theatre manager and author should
be included in the indictment. In cases brought by the
District Attorney, the Court could enforce one or more of
the following orders regarding the play: it could prohibit
the performance of the play for any period up to ten years.
It could impose penalties on author or manager or both. It
could endorse a conviction on the license of the theatre.
In the event that a theatre license was endorsed three times
within a five-year period, the license would be liable to
forfeiture. The Attorney General would proceed against an
unlicensed play by applying for a decision on the case by
the Committee of Privy Council— a group which could, if it
390
wished, hear cases in camera.
The committee held that it should be legal to take
steps to close a licensed play. But in such cases, neither
author nor manager should be liable to penalties, nor should
the theatre license be subject to endorsement (p. xi, pas
sim) .
In ics discussion of the arguments which supported the
recommendations, the committee agreed that some way should
be found to make the Lord Chamberlain accountable to both
Houses of Parliament for his decisions. There was further
agreement that authors should be granted access to the Ex
aminer of Plays, and that his judgments, communicated in the
name of the Lord Chamberlain, should be accompanied by pub
lic statements of the reasons supporting them. But it was
also recommended that authors still submit plays only
through the theatre manager.
While the committee made no suggestions concerning the
control of political plays, it favored loosening the re
strictions on the presentation of scriptural characters on
stage. But the committee warned authors who sought to dig
nify their works by claiming that the test of intent should
determine a play's propriety. The committee insisted that
a play is not necessarily moral because its ultimate
391
tendency claims to be moral. A right to a licence is
not given to a play which presents vice in an alluring
guise, by an ultimate, and perhaps perfunctory, condem
nation of it. (p. xiii)
The committee was most innovative— and impractical— in
its suggestion that optional licensing be instituted. The
members reasoned that
There is a middle territory. With dramas of a certain
class it is only after performance, and by reference to
their effect upon the audience, that a final opinion as
to their propriety can be reached. (p. xiv)
The 1909 Committee, in acknowledging the existence of this
"middle territory" and in its tentative move toward protec
tion of writers who chose that territory for their own, had
gone some little way beyond its predecessors. But the com
mittee was unwilling to offer the substantial support for
which the militants had hoped. The closing words of the
section dealing directly with the question of licensing are
a curious mixture of agreement that change does and should
occur, and refusal to be committed to the hastening of that
process:
It may be anticipated that the more elastic system we
propose will develop, as our institutions usually do,
along the lines that experience indicates. To seek a
licence for a play will remain the rule, or it will be
come the exception, according as licences are found in
the future to be necessary, or to be superfluous, in the
public interest and for the protection of producers.
392
(p. xiv)
The committee's attempts to please everybody were to be
of no practical value, however. The ponderously slow move
ment toward change which the words of the committee's summa
tion suggest could not be hastened by the indignation of men
like Archer, Barker, and Shaw. The recommendations were not
accepted by the government, nor was the report debated in
either House. Not until 1966 was a second committee on the
censorship of stage plays appointed to re-examine the same
issues which had been discussed in 1909. In a brief his
tory of the censorship which was appended to that commit
tee's report it was noted that
on a Motion by Mr. Robert Harcourt, on 16th April 1913,
to abolish censorship altogether, the then Parliamentary
Under Secretary of State, Home Office, made it clear
that the Government were not prepared to legislate until
and unless proposals acceptable to all sections of the
profession and to the public (which could not be said
of the Select Committee's recommendations) were put for
ward. He also drew attention to the uncertainty of re
lying solely upon the courts when— as would be the case
— the courts had no guiding principle to help them de
cide what was corrupting and what was not.
The hearings of 1909 were a futile exercise for those
dedicated to advancing the claims of the drama. The
1 R
Report of the Joint Committee on the Censorship of
the Theatre, p . 104.
393
censorship continued to operate as it had for decades. For
a time an advisory council worked with the Lord Chamberlain,
but it produced no changes in the censorship. In December
of 1911, Redford resigned, but was replaced by a man outside
the militants' camp. Playwrights continued to resist and
complain. Authors had summoned their forces for the 1909
campaign, but when that one sustained effort to introduce
change failed, much of the energy of their movement was
dissipated.
World affairs, too, helped to deflect their interests
and to alter somewhat their notion that heavy emphasis
should be placed on the drama's ability to instruct while it
entertained. With the advent of the first World War, the
theatre of the "flapper" drove the serious drama temporarily
off the stage. As Shaw put it, in the preface to Heartbreak
House.
The reaction from the battle-field produced a condition
of hyperaesthesia in which all the theatrical values
were altered. Trivial things gained intensity and stale
things novelty.19
Theatre rents in London soared, driving away non-lucrative
19
Works of Bernard Shaw. Vol. 15: Heartbreak House.
Great Catherine, and Playlets of the War (London, 1930), p.
31.
394
serious works. But both public and playwrights welcomed the
temporary return of the drama of frivolity. Shaw spoke for
both militants and ordinary theatre-goers when he justified
the retreat from earnestness by observing that "Truth tell
ing is not compatible with the defence of the realm" (p.
40) .
The concluding words on the censorship cannot yet be
written, for the censorship of the English stage still sur
vives. If that particular institution does, however, cease
to exist during the late 1960s, a final summary of the in
teraction between it and the drama will reveal that the
major turning point was reached with the emergence of play
wrights of the caliber which made the 1909 hearings inevit
able. The final sixty years of the censorship, that is to
say, the period between 1909 and the present, offer little
that is significantly different in objections raised on both
sides of the issue. It will, of course, be found that in
its frankness the more recent drama has gone far beyond the
openness advocated by the militant dramatists. But the
differences between our "modern" plays and those of the
playwrights discussed in the later pages of this study are
395
differences in degree only. The arguments advanced at the
turn of the century which held that the theatre could claim
for itself a role as significant social force are precisely
the arguments being used in what seems to be the final stage
of the long struggle between the proponents of a free drama
and representatives of more conservative public attitudes.
Yet if the most recent arguments on behalf of the drama are
essentially the same as those of Archer and Shaw and their
group, the reception which meets those arguments has
changed. To understand how far the general attitude toward
the theatre has altered, one need only contrast the tone of
the questioners during the 1909 hearings with that of the
questioners of 1967. The mistrust and disdain which met
Shaw's radical remarks, for example, is gone. In the most
recent hearings, his position was considered with respect.
Shaw is a convenient figure for this study, for much
about the whole struggle becomes apparent through him. In
1909, he was well known, but it was not yet apparent that
his type of theatre would in fact dominate the English
stage. He was a gadfly and an unashamed critic of the in
stitutions of what D. H. Lawrence was later to refer to as
"the eunuch century, the century of the mealy-mouthed
396
20
lie." Shaw, and others like him, taught his own age to
like what it had at first rejected. New attitudes toward
the drama's function finally did capture the public, and
once they had begun to form, the decline of the censorship
became an inevitable if gradual result.
It has not been the aim of this study to denounce ei
ther the theory or practice of censorship. Numerous works
have done that— those of the militants most emphatically of
all. The greater significance of the censorship of the
Victorian and Edwardian drama from an historical point of
view is to be found in the means it offers of measuring
first how passive and static the mid-century art had become,
and second, how deeply revolutionary were the aims of the
new drama. Pigott and Sir Ponsonby-Fane were the embodiment
of their age. During the period in which "precisely those
21
qualities that make a successful cheesemonger" character
ized the successful theatre manager, no resistance to the
control of the content of the drama could be expected to
arise. But once a revaluation of that period began and, as
^Pornography and Obscenity (London, 1929), p. 25.
^-*-John Hollingshead, "Dealing in Theatricals," Time: A
Monthly Miscellany. I (1879), 126.
397
Shaw put it, "one fierce hand after another . . . stripped
its masks off and revealed it as on the whole perhaps the
22
most villainous page of recorded human history," the pos
sibility of control became unlikely. Shaw, as usual stating
his case extravagantly, described that period as one which
"regarded itself as the very summit of civilization, and
talked of the past as a cruel gloom that had been dispelled
for ever by the railway and the electric telegraph" (p. ix).
He added, "But centuries, like men, begin to find themselves
out in middle age" (p. ix).
In the face of this reawakening, the ineffectual Red-
ford, too, was the embodiment of his age. He and the out
moded institution which he represented were finally no match
for the determination of the earnest and impudent spirit of
reformers like Shaw. The shift in the balance of power was
slow, but it was no less certain because of that. The new
drama, stronger, perhaps, for the official resistance it
met, had come to stay.
22Three Plays by Brieux. With a Preface by Bernard
Shaw, p. ix.
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
398
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Censorship And The Victorian Drama
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), Brown, Ronald F. (
committee member
), Durbin, James H., Jr. (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-663769
Unique identifier
UC11361278
Identifier
6909034.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-663769 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
6909034.pdf
Dmrecord
663769
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Mattson, Marylu Catherine
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
Tags
Literature, Modern