PLAY STOPPED AND 47 ACTORS ARRESTED

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6803, 5 January 1929, Page 3

PLAY STOPPED AND 47 ACTORS ARRESTED

STAGE CENSORSHIP IN NEW YORK For once a stage censorship is being exerted in New York; and hardly a voice is raised in disapproval. The latest drama of Miss Mae West, called “Pleasure Man,” has been stopped by tho police (write, the New York correspondent of the Manchester Guardian.) After the first New York City performance, 55 persons, including all tho members of the cast and Miss West, were arrested. The next day she obtained an injunction preventing police interference, and the performance was given, but the Appellate Division of tho New York Supreme Court cancelled the injunction, ,and in tho midst of the third performance police officers' stepped on the stage and ordered tho curtain to bo lowered, arresting 47 members in the cast. Some of the actors tried an appeal to the audience against “police tyranny,’’ but wero forcibly removed.

The play deals with degeneracy in a fliyipant, sordid manner. Mayor Walker, who is personally responsible for police activity in this case, issued a statement saying that he is determined to “put an end to this kind of salacious performance in violation of law.” Ho added that “this is a community of liberal people, and the mayor is liberal and always has been, and will bo a patron of tho theatre. But anything so offensive to _ the decency and morality of tho citizens of this community cannot continue in this town while I am mayor.” Miss West some months ago served a term for her activities in writing, producing, and appearing in another play called 'Sex.’ A third picco from her pen. ‘Tho Drag.’ was stopped by tho police in several provincial cities during the try-out period, and never reached New York.

Tho authorities are contemplating padlock proceedings against the theatre where ‘Pleasure Man’ is played. UndeT tho present law they could closo the playhouse for a maximum period of one year, causing a heavy loss of rentals to the proprietors.