A PROHIBITED PLAY

Evening Star, Issue 12652, 4 November 1905, Page 5

A PROHIBITED PLAY

Prwi AMOoiaiion—By 7-elesrapb—Copyright. VRW YORK, November 3. The authorities in New York prohibited th.' production of Mr (ieorjre Bernard Show's plav ' Mn-- Warren's ' on the ground'that it was immoral, The. manafrer and all the male members at the Garrick Theatre responsible for the performance have been arraigned at the Police Court. [Mx 0. Bernard: Shan-, dramatist, essayist. satirist, and |>oet, whose exceptional methods and brilliant abilities have given hira a unique place in English, letters, lias had more attention devoted to his product? in the United. States than in the heart of the Empire his plays are only now coming into voijue. In New \ork they have been received with delight. They are- mainly a satire on the- foibles —political. social, and moral—of English society. His '.John Ball's Other Mand ' is a comment in dramatic form on Home Rule. His ' Admirable Bashville ' has for its hero a. vulgar pugilist, who marries the beautiful, iiighboni maiden, and is appointed I>epnty-Lieu-tenant of Dorset—obviously a skit on modern society l —and '.Mrs Warren's Profession,' we believe, treats of paternity, midwifery, Ihe birth-rate, motherhood. etc. Quite recently the. same author's work?! were forbidden circulation by the chief of Now York's free lending libraries, as. in t lie opinion of thai, official, tiny „rc itaidly lit for general reading. They may be. all right, ho said, to tickle the fancy nf peiiple of mature age, but they are un.-iii.itcd for healthy and thoughtless younc; Americans. Mr Bostwick, commented the Ijondon ' Telegraph's ' correspoodent, illustrated his case bv a reference in * Man and Superman' to a' remark auboufc & ioAgisrtn£t*i Tipon iKe facsseii probably being as guilty as the prisoner in the dock. Suth a sentiment, declares Ml Bostwick, nrast not he exploited in New York, because it might tend to increase the trtatistics of juvenile crime! Mr Shaw's works were not placed exactly on the index Expurzatorius, but they are taken away from the " open shelves!," where they might taint the minds of juvenile readers! When critics that tolerate tho nmstj indecent advertktemeots and prints in their daily Press, and the exhibition of the lewdest pictures in saloott bars, enter on a crusade against Mr (i. B. .Shaw, who writes in blank verse "because it is so ridiculously the outside work! is apt to smile..]