THE CENSORSHIP OF THE DRAMA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
"Sin,—May I contribute to the controversy raging on this _subject, by pointing out that we are apparently as a nation striving to live up to our title of " hypocrites " ?
First we permit and approve every kind of veiled indecency In our revues where laughter is evoked by the pointed omission of obscene words, by countless jokes about honey- moons, beds, stolen kisses and so forth : and in perpetual bedroom farces whose whole point lies in the suggestion of 'possible impropriety. And at the same time, there is an outcry against plays where the tangled business of sex is not derided but treated seriously ! This, by the way, although scores of the plays we are supposed to venerate, not excepting Shakespeare, treat with great frankness the sort of situations which• (if they are handled intelligently and not facetiously) are banned from the stage if treated by a living writer.
Secondly, while the " unfortunate " tendency of modern dramatists is so much censured, not a word is said of modern ' novelists, who are taking more and more licence as the shades • of Victorian and Edwardian respectability dissipate. Novels which would have been condemned heartily even ten years ago are common to-day. The explanation, of course, must be that manners have changed considerably and that novels and plays alike reflect the change, but that while a novel is read when one is alone, or at any rate in individual privacy, a play is witnessed publicly. It looks very much as though we were willing to stand for frankness ourselves, but that we are not willing to let our neighbours know it. Which, one must admit, is absurd.
And finally, I wonder if the people who clamour that they must keep the stage clean (whatever that means) for the sake of their wives and daughters realize that those same wives and daughters read the newspapers in which, in the most horrible way, the most degraded behaviour is described ? Surely these people should re-examine their standards.—
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