G.B. SHAW PLAY BANNED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14109, 10 July 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

G.B. SHAW PLAY BANNED.

DRAMATIST SAYS THAT. HIS-NEW WORK IS TOO RELIGIOUS. > :

The Censor-has'refused to license Mr. G.B. Shaw's new: play, " The Showing Up of : Blanco ] Posnet," which , the Afternoon Theatre was ••' to have -produced l iufc ■ ■ His Majesty's Theatre. --• ~ " ' ,'

Mr. Shaw, to whom the experience is no novelty since the ban on " Mrs. Warren's Profession," is calmly and righteously disgusted. He issued a statement in which he .regrets that he is unable to .explain the Lord Chamberlains action. The decision as to the moral fitness; of a play, to be performed, he says, rests with the King absolutely, and he is not in the King's confidence. He proceeds: —

" To write a play too vile for public performance even at the very indulgent standard applied to our London theatres is as grave an offence as a man can commit, short of downright felony; in fact, it is much worse than most felonies. To announce it for production at a theatre of high reputation is almost as bad. I presume the King would not hold up Mr. Tree and myself before Europe and America as guilty of this disgraceful conduct unless he had the most entire confidence in his own judgment or that of his advisers.

"The injury—not to mention the insult — to us is very considerable ; but the disgrace will depend on the extent to which the public shares the King's faith in this'.matter. ; It would be affectation for me to pretend to share it. I shall allow the play to be performed in America and throughout. Europe. I shall publish it. I should not do that if I shared the King's opinion of it. • I have far more at stake than anyone else concerned; for I should be ruined if I lost the confidence of the public in my honour and conscience as a playwright, as I have no following among vicious, or thoughtless people.

" The effect on the future of the theatre will be seen later on. Young men are at this, moment writing plays'for the repertory theatres of j Mr. Frohinan and Mr.. Herbert Trench. They cannot afford, as I accidentally can, to loss the price of months of arduous labour and be blacklisted by managers as dangerous. . This reminder to them that there is safety in ' The Merry Widow' and the utmost danger in plays of the kind I write, will inevitably act as a lesson to them which will seem gratifying and hopeful only to those who not only enjoy ' The Merry Widow'l enjoy it myself greatly for the matter of that —but who think that it presents a complete, satisfactory, and edifying view of human motive and destiny.

"I repeat that I do not know why the play, has been declared unfit to exist. It is a very simple and even crude, melodrann, with absolutely no sexual interest whatever. ... It represents a little community of violent, cruel, . sensual, ignorant, blasphemous, ' bloodthirsty, backwoodsmen, whose conception of manliness is mere brute pugnacity, and whose favourite sport ie lynching. " , " Into this welter of crude newspaperised savagery there suddenly comes a force—not mentioned in '. ' The Merry Widow'to which they give the name God, the slightest regard for which they make it a point of honour to despise as mere 'weakness of character. That force. nevertheless, at the crisis which is the subject of the drama, makes them do its will and not their own in a manner very amazing to themselves and, I should hope, not altogether 'modifying to the spectators.

'" "T. am given to: understand that the ii - traduction of this. force into my play as a substitute for the simple cupidities. and concupiscences of 'The Merry Widow' is the feature that renders the play unfit for performance. It was precisely the feature which made the play worth writing to me." . - -. ■ • . •