THE EXAMINER OF PLAYS.
The Lord Chamberlain holds office only so long as the political party
to which he is attached remains in power. He comes in and goes out
with the ministry. Any peculiar fitness for the appointment is not
required of him; it is simply a reward for his political services. Of
course different Chamberlains have entertained different opinions of
the duties to be performed in regard to the theatres; and, in such
wise, much embarrassment has arisen. The Chamberlain's office is
supported by a grant from the Civil List, which is settled upon the
accession of the sovereign. In addition, fees are received for the
licensing of theatres, and for the examination of plays.
The Examiner of Plays has long been recognised as a more permanent
functionary than the Lord Chamberlain, although it would seem the
precise nature of his appointment has never been clearly understood.
"I believe," said Mr. Donne, the late Examiner, in his evidence before
the Parliamentary Committee of 1866, "that it is an appointment that
expires with the sovereign (at least, I infer so from the evidence
which Mr. Colman gave in the year 1833), but I cannot say that from my
own knowledge: I believe it to be an appointment for life."
In truth, the Examiner is simply the employé of the Chamberlain,
appointed by him, and holding the office only so long as the superior
functionary shall deem fitting. There is no instance on record,
however, of the displacement of an Examiner, or of the cancelling by
one Chamberlain of the appointment made by his predecessor. Power of
this kind, however, would seem to be vested in the Chamberlain for the
time being. Colman's evidence, it may be noted, is of no present
worth. He was appointed as a consequence of the old Licensing Act,
repealed in 1843.
The first Licenser of Plays sworn in after the passing of the
Licensing Act of 1737 was William Chetwynd, with a salary of £400
a-year. But this deputy of the Chamberlain was in his turn allowed a
deputy, and one Thomas Odell was appointed assistant examiner, with a
salary of £200 a-year. Strange to say, it was this Odell who had first
opened a theatre in Goodman's Fields, which, upon the complaint of the
civic authorities, who believed the drama to be a source of danger to
the London apprentices of the period, he had been compelled forthwith
to close. He applied to George II, for a royal license, but met with a
peremptory refusal. In 1731 he sold his property to one Giffard, who
rebuilt the theatre, and, dispensing with official permission,
performed stage plays between the intervals of a concert, until
producing Garrick, and obtaining extraordinary success by that
measure, he roused the jealousy of the authorities, and was compelled
to forego his undertaking.
The Licenser's power of prohibition was exercised very shortly after
his appointment, in the case of two tragedies: "Gustavus Vasa," by
Henry Brooke, and "Edward and Eleonora," by James Thomson. Political
allusions of an offensive kind were supposed to lurk somewhere in
these works. "Gustavus Vasa" was especially forbidden "on account of
some strokes of liberty which breathed through several parts of it."
On the Irish stage, however, over which the Chamberlain had no power,
the play was performed as "The Patriot;" while, by the publication of
"Gustavus Vasa," Mr. Brooke obtained £1000 or so from a public curious
as to the improprieties it was alleged to contain, and anxious to
protest against the oppressive conduct of the Licenser. In 1805, with
the permission of the Chamberlain, the play was produced at Covent
Garden, in order that Master Betty, the Young Roscius, might personate
the hero. But the youthful actor failed in the part, and the tragedy,
being found rather dull, was represented but once. At this time Mr.
Brooke had been dead some years. In a preface to his play he had
vouched for its purity, and denounced the conduct of the Licenser, as
opposed to the intention of the Legislature, Dr. Johnson assisting his
cause by the publication of an ironical pamphlet--"A Vindication of
the Licenser from the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr.
Brooke." Modern readers may well be excused for knowing little of the
dramatist whose "Gustavus Vasa" had no great deal to recommend it,
perhaps, beyond the fact of its performance having been prohibited.
Yet some few years since, it may be noted, the late Charles Kingsley
made endeavours, more strenuous than successful, to obtain applause
for Brooke's novel, "The Fool of Quality;" but although a new and
handsome edition of this work was published, it was received with some
apathy by the romance-reading public.
The author of "The Seasons" hardly seems a writer likely to give
offence designedly to a Chamberlain. But Thomson was a sort of Poet
Laureate to Frederick, Prince of Wales, then carrying on fierce
opposition to the court of his father, and the play of "Edward and
Eleonora"--a dramatic setting of the old legend of Queen Eleanor
sucking the poison from her husband's arm--certainly contained
passages applicable to the differences existing between the king and
his heir-apparent. In the first scene, one of the characters demands--
Has not the royal heir a juster claim
To share his father's inmost heart and counsels,
Than aliens to his interest, those who make
A property, a market of his honour?
And King Edward apostrophises his dead sire--
O my deluded father! little joy
Hadst thou in life, led from thy real good
And genuine glory, from thy people's love,
The noblest aim of kings, by smiling traitors!
In 1775, however, the play was produced at Covent Garden. George III.
was king, and the allusions to the squabbles of his father and
grandfather were not, perhaps, supposed to be any longer of the
remotest concern or significance to anybody.
At this time and long afterwards, the Licenser regarded it as his
chief duty to protect the court against all possibility of attack from
the stage. With the morality of plays he did not meddle much; but he
still clung to the old superstition that the British drama had only a
right to exist as the pastime of royalty; plays and players were still
to be subservient to the pleasure of the sovereign. The British
public, who, after all, really supported the stage, he declined to
consider in the matter; conceding, however, that they were at liberty
to be amused at the theatre, provided they could achieve that end in
strict accordance with the prescription of the court and its
Chamberlain. In George III.'s time King Lear was prohibited, because
it was judged inexpedient that royal insanity should be exhibited upon
the stage. In 1808 a play, called "The Wanderer," adapted from
Kotzebue, was forbidden at Covent Garden, in that it dealt with the
adventures of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender. Even after the
accession of Queen Victoria, a license was refused to an English
version of Victor Hugo's "Ruy Blas," lest playgoers should perceive in
it allusions to the matrimonial choice her Majesty was then about to
make.
The Licenser's keenness in scenting a political allusion oftentimes,
indeed, entailed upon him much and richly-merited ridicule. The
production, some fifty years ago, of a tragedy called "Alasco"
furnishes a notable instance of the absurdity of his conduct in this
respect. "Alasco" was written by Mr. Shee, a harmless gentleman
enough, if at that time a less fully-developed courtier than he
appeared when, as Sir Martin Archer Shee, he occupied the presidential
chair of the Royal Academy. Possibly some suspicion attached to the
dramatist by reason of his being an Irishman and a Roman Catholic. In
any case, the Licenser found much to object to in "Alasco." The play
was in rehearsal at Covent Garden; but so many alterations and
suppressions were insisted on, that its representation became
impracticable. We may note a few of the lines expunged by the
Licenser:
With most unworthy patience have I seen
My country shackled and her sons oppressed;
And though I've felt their injuries, and avow
My ardent hope hereafter to avenge them, &c.
Tyrants, proud lord, are never safe, nor should be;
The ground is mined beneath them as they tread;
Haunted by plots, cabals, conspiracies,
Their lives are long convulsions, and they shake,
Surrounded by their guards and garrisons!
Some slanderous tool of state,
Some taunting, dull, unmannered deputy!
The words in italics were to be expunged from the following passages:
Tis ours to rescue from the oblivious grave
_Where tyrants have contrived to bury them,_
A gallant race--a nation--_and her fame;
To gather up the fragments of our state,
And in its cold, dismembered body, breathe
The living soul of empire._
Fear God and love the king--the soldier's faith--
Was always my religion; and I know
No heretics but cowards, knaves, and traitors--
_No, no, whate'er the colour of his creed,
The man of honour's orthodox._
It is difficult now to discover what offence was contained in these
lines, and many more such as these, which were also denounced by the
Licenser. Shee expostulated--for he was not a meek sort of man by any
means, and he knew the advantages of a stir to one aiming at
publicity--appealed from the subordinate to the superior, from the
Examiner to the Chamberlain, then the Duke of Montrose, and wrote to
the newspapers; but all in vain. The tragedy could not be performed.
That the stage lost much it would be rash to assert. "Alasco" was
published, and those who read it--they were not many--found it
certainly harmless; but not less certainly pompous and wearisome.
However, that Shee was furnished with a legitimate grievance was
generally agreed, although in "Blackwood's Magazine," then very
intense in its Toryism, it was hinted that the dramatist, his religion
and his nationality being considered, might be in league with the
author of "Captain Rock," and engaged in seditious designs against the
peace and Protestantism of Ireland! Some five years later, it may be
noted, "Alasco" was played at the Surrey Theatre, without the
slightest regard for the opinion of the Examiner of Plays, or with any
change in the passages he had ordered to be expunged. Westminster was
not then very well informed as to what happened in Lambeth, and
probably it was not generally known that "Alasco," with all its
supposed seditious utterances unsilenced, could be witnessed upon the
Surrey stage. Nor is there any record that anybody was at all the
worse, or the treasury of the theatre any the better, for the
representation of the forbidden tragedy.
The Examiner of Plays at this time was George Colman the younger, who
was appointed to the office, less on account of the distinction he
enjoyed as a dramatist, than because he was a favourite and a sort of
boon companion of George IV. Colman had succeeded a Mr. Larpent, who
had filled the post for some twenty years, and who, notwithstanding
that, as a strict Methodist, he scarcely seemed a very fit person to
pronounce judgment upon stage plays, had exercised the powers
entrusted to him with moderation. It was generally agreed that he was
a considerate and benignant ruler, and that his career as Examiner
offered few occasions for remark, although upon its close some
surprise was excited at the exposure for sale by public auction of the
many manuscripts of plays, &c., which were found in his possession,
and which should certainly have been preserved among the archives of
the Chamberlain's office. Colman, however, proved a very tyrant--a
consummate Jack-in-office. As a gentleman of rather unbridled habits
of life, and the author of "Broad Grins" and other works certainly
paying small heed to the respectabilities, it had been hoped that he
would deal leniently with his brother playwrights. But he carried to
fanatic extravagance his devotion to the purity of the stage. Warned
by earlier example, few dramas which could possibly be considered of a
political complexion were now submitted for examination. Still the
diction of the stage demanded a measure of liberty. But Mr. Colman
would not allow a lover to describe his mistress as "an angel." He
avowed that "an angel was a character in Scripture, and not to be
profaned on the stage by being applied to a woman!" The exclamation,
"Oh, Providence!" was not permitted. The words "heaven" and "hell" he
uniformly expunged. "Oh, lud!" and "Oh, la!" were condemned for
irreverence. Oaths and all violent expletives were strictly
prohibited.
Now it was rather an imprecatory age. Men swore in those days, not
meaning much harm, or particularly conscious of what they were doing,
but as a matter of bad habit, in pursuance of a custom certainly
odious enough, but which they had not originated, and could hardly be
expected immediately to overcome. In this way malediction formed part
of the manners of the time. How could these be depicted upon the stage
in the face of Mr. Colman's new ordinance? There was great
consternation among actors and authors. Plays came back from the
Examiner's office so slashed with red ink that they seemed to be
bleeding from numerous wounds; line after line had been prohibited;
and by Colman of all people! Critics amused themselves by searching
through his own dramatic writings, and cataloguing the bad language
they contained. The list was very formidable. There were comminations
and anathemas in almost every scene. The matter was pointed out to
him, but he treated it with indifference. He was a writer of plays
then; but now he was Examiner of Plays. His point of view was changed,
that was all. It was no fault of his if there had been neglect of duty
on the part of previous examiners. Mr. Arnold, the proprietor and
manager of the Lyceum Theatre, expostulated with him on the subject.
In a play by John Banim, one of the authors of the "Tales of the
O'Hara Family," Colman had forbidden certain lines to be chanted by
monks and nuns in a scene of a foreign cathedral. It was too profane.
What about the singing of "God save the King" upon the stage? That had
been sanctioned by custom, Colman maintained; but he could not regard
it as a precedent. Was he prepared to mutilate Portia's great speech
in the "Merchant of Venice?" Certainly he was; but then custom had
sanctioned it, and playgoers were not prepared for any meddling with
the text of Shakespeare. He admitted, however, that he did not trouble
himself to ascertain whether his excisions were carried into effect
when the plays came to be represented. "My duty," he said, "is simply
to object to everything immoral or politically dangerous. When I have
marked my objections the play is licensed, subject to the omission of
the passages objected to; beyond this I have nothing to do, or an
examiner would become a spy as well as a censor on the theatre." Any
breach of the law was therefore left to be remedied by the action of
the "common informer" of the period.
As evidence of Colman's lack of conscientiousness in this matter, a
letter he wrote to Mr. Frederick Yates, in 1829, may be cited. A
dramatic author, the friend both of Colman and Yates, had bitterly
complained of the retrenchments made by the Examiner in a certain
play, or, to follow Colman's own words, had stated "that his comedy
would be sure to be damned by the public, owing to the removal of some
devilish good jokes by the Examiner." "Cannot you, my dear Fred,
instruct him better?" wrote Colman. "The play, you know, must be
printed in strict accordance with my obliterations; but if the parts
be previously given out, it will be difficult to induce the actors to
preach from my text!" No doubt upon this hint the actors spake. Only,
in that case, of what good was the Examiner, regarded as a public
servant?
It was questioned at the time whether the Chamberlain, by his deputy,
was not exercising more authority than he was really clothed with,
under virtue of the Licensing Act. He was entitled to prohibit the
performance of any play; but could he make terms with the managers,
and cut and carve their manuscripts, forcing upon them his capricious
alterations? Further, it was asked by what right he delegated his
power to another? The Act made no mention of his deputy or of such an
officer as an Examiner of Plays. And then, as to the question of fees.
What right had he to exact fees? There was no mention of fees in the
Act. No doubt the managers had long been in the habit of paying
fees--£2 2s. for every piece, song, &c. But it was urged that this was
simply to secure expedition in the examination of their plays, which
they were bound to submit to the Chamberlain fourteen days at least
before representation, and not in pursuance of any legal enactment.
The Examiner of Plays received a salary from the Chamberlain for the
labour he performed; why should he levy a tax upon managers and
authors, and so be paid twice over for the same work?
Now, on the subject of fees Colman was certainly most rapacious. He
spared no effort to increase, in this way, the emoluments of his
office. Did an actor on a benefit night advertise any new songs,
glees, or other musical performance--Colman was prompt to demand a fee
of £2 2s. for every separate production. Occasional addresses,
prologues, and epilogues, were all rated as distinct stage plays, and
the customary fees insisted upon. One actor, long famous as "Little
Knight," so far defeated this systematic extortion that he strung
together a long list of songs, recitations, imitations, &c., which he
wished to have performed at his benefit with any nonsense of dialogue
that came into his head, and so sent them to be licensed as one piece.
They were licensed accordingly; the dialogue was all omitted, and the
ingenious actor aided his benefit by saving £8 8s. or £10 10s., which
would otherwise have found their way into the pocket of the Examiner.
When the French plays were performed in London, in 1829, Colman
insisted that a fee must be paid for every vaudeville or other light
piece of that class produced. As some three or four of such works were
presented every night--the same plays being rarely repeated--it was
computed that the Examiner's fees amounted upon an average to £6 6s. a
night. During an interval, however, the Duke of Devonshire succeeding
the Duke of Montrose as Chamberlain, this demand was not enforced;
eventually a compromise was agreed upon, and a reduced fee of £1 1s.
was levied upon each vaudeville, &c. Colman even succeeded in rating
as a stage play, an astronomical lecture, delivered at the Lyceum. The
"At Homes" of Mathews were of course taxed, a "slight sketch and
title" being submitted to the Examiner, the actor professing to speak
without any precise text, but simply from "heads and hints before him
to refer to should his memory falter." In an attempt to levy a fee on
account of an oratorio performed at Covent Garden, Colman failed,
however; it was proved that the libretto was entirely composed of
passages from the Scriptures. After great discussion it was ultimately
decided that the Bible did not need the license of the Lord
Chamberlain.
Colman died in 1836, and was succeeded as Examiner of Plays by Mr.
Charles Kemble, who, strange to say, while holding that appointment
returned to the stage for a short season and performed certain of his
most celebrated characters. He resigned the office in 1840, and his
son John Mitchell Kemble then held it in his stead. On the death of
John Mitchell Kemble, in 1857, Mr. William Bodham Donne, the late
Examiner, received the appointment. Mr. Donne, however, had in truth
performed the duties of the office as the deputy of the Chamberlain's
deputy since the year 1849. As he informed the Parliamentary committee
of 1866, he had received a salary of £320, subject to deduction on
account of income-tax. Further, the Examiner receives fees for every
play examined. Two guineas are paid for every play of three acts or
more; under three acts the fee is £1 1s. For every song sung in a
theatre a fee of 5s. is paid. As Mr. Donne explained to the
committee, he had examined between 1857 and 1866 about 1800 plays.
It is to be noted that in 1843 the Act for Regulating Theatres,
commonly known as Sir James Graham's Act, became law. By this measure
the powers of the Lord Chamberlain were enlarged and more firmly
established; he was empowered to charge such fees as he might deem fit
in regard to every play, prologue, epilogue, or part thereof, intended
to be produced or acted in Great Britain, although no fee was in any
case to exceed £2 2s. in amount. Further, it was made lawful for him,
whenever he should be of opinion that it was fitting for the
preservation of good manners, decorum, or of the public peace so to
do, to forbid the performance of any stage play, or any act, scene or
part thereof, or any prologue or epilogue or any part thereof,
anywhere in Great Britain or in any such theatre as he should specify,
and either absolutely or for such time as he should think fit. It was
enacted, moreover, that the term "stage play" should be taken to
include "every tragedy, comedy, farce, opera, burletta, interlude,
melodrama, pantomime, or other entertainment of the stage."
The Act provides for no appeal against the decision of the
Chamberlain. His government was to be quite absolute. If he chose to
prohibit the performance of Shakespeare's plays, for instance, no one
could question his right to take that strong measure; only another Act
of Parliament could, under such circumstances, restore Shakespeare, to
the stage. Of the Examiner of Plays the Act made no mention: that
office continued to be the creation simply of the Lord Chamberlain,
and without any sort of legal status. The old Licensing Act of 1737
was absolutely repealed; yet, unaccountably enough, Mr. Donne's
appointment, bearing date 1857, and signed by the Marquis of
Breadalbane, then Lord Chamberlain, began: "Whereas in consequence of
an Act of Parliament, made in the tenth year of the reign of His late
Majesty King George the Second," &c. &c.
The intensity of George Colman's regard for "good manners and decorum"
has no doubt furnished a precedent to later Examiners. For some time
little effort was made again to apply the stage to the purposes of
political satire. Mr. Buckstone informed the Parliamentary Committee
that an attempt made about 1846, to represent the House of Commons
upon the stage of the Adelphi--Mr. Buckstone was to have personated
the Lord John Russell of that date--had been promptly forbidden; and
the late Mr. Shirley Brooks stated that a project of dramatising Mr.
Disraeli's novel of "Coningsby" had also, in regard to its political
bearing, been interdicted by the Chamberlain. Few other essays in this
direction appear worth noting, until we come to a few seasons back,
when certain members of the administration were caricatured upon the
stage of the Court Theatre, after a fashion that speedily brought down
the rebuke of the Chamberlain, and the exhibition was prohibited
within his jurisdiction. But the question of "good manners and
decorum" has induced much controversy. For where, indeed, is
discoverable an acceptable standard of "good manners and decorum"? In
such matters there is always growth and change of opinion. Sir Walter
Scott makes mention of an elderly lady, who, reading over again
certain books she had deemed in her youth to be of a most harmless
kind, was shocked at their exceeding grossness. She had unconsciously
moved on with the civilising and refining influences of her time. And
the question of morality in relation to the drama is confessedly very
difficult to deal with. "It must be something almost of a scandalous
character to warrant interference," says Mr. Donne. "If you sift the
matter to the very dross, two-thirds of the plays of any period in the
history of the stage must be condemned. Where there is an obvious
intention, or a very strong suspicion of an intention to make wrong
appear right or right appear wrong, those are the cases in which I
interfere, or those in which there is any open scandal, or any
inducement to do wrong is offered; but stage morality is--the morality
of the stage, and generally, quite as good as the morality of the
literature of fiction." This does not define the Examiner's principle
of action very clearly. As instances of his procedure, it may be
stated that upon religious grounds he has forbidden such operas as the
"Nabuco" of Verdi and the "Mosé in Egitto" of Rossini, allowing them
to be presented, however, when their names were changed to "Nino" and
"Zora" or "Pietro l'Eremita" respectively. On the other hand, while
prohibiting "La Dame aux Camélias"[1] of M. Alexandre Dumas fils, he
has sanctioned its performance as the opera "La Traviata." "I think,"
explained Mr. Donne, "that if there is a musical version of a piece it
makes a difference, for the story is then subsidiary to the music and
singing." Prohibiting "Jack Sheppard" he yet licensed for
representation an adaptation of a French version of the same piece.
Madame Ristori was not allowed to appear in the tragedy of "Myrrha,"
and the dramas which French companies of players visiting this country
from time to time have designed to produce, have been severely dealt
with, the Examiner forgetting, apparently, that such works should
rather be judged by a foreign than a native standard of "good manners
and decorum." As a result, we have the strange fact of the Examiner
stepping between the English public and what have been judged to be
the masterpieces of the French stage.
[1] "La Dame aux Camélias" obtained a license at last, and was
played for the first time in England at the Gaiety Theatre, on
the 11th June, 1881, with Mdlle. Sarah Bernhardt as the
representative of the leading character.
The Chamberlain has also held it to be a part of his duty to interfere
in regard to certain of the costumes of the theatre, when these seemed
to be more scanty than seemliness required, and from time to time he
has addressed expostulations to the managers upon the subject. It must
not be concluded, however, that from his action in the matter, much
change or amendment has ensued.
In America there is no Lord Chamberlain, Examiner of Plays, or any
corresponding functionary. The stage may be no better for the absence
of such an officer, but it does not seem to be any the worse.
In 1832, the late 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 unconstitutional
power. Certainly, with regard to a censor, a censor upon plays seems
to me as idle and unnecessary as a censor upon books.... The public
taste, backed by the vigilant admonition of the public press, may,
perhaps, be more safely trusted for the preservation of theatrical
decorum, than any ignorant and bungling censor who (however well the
office may be now fulfilled) might be appointed hereafter; who, while
he might strain at gnats and cavil at straws, would be without any
other real power than that of preventing men of genius from submitting
to the caprice of his opinions."