I must conclude by recommending the Government to take my advice
wherever it conflicts with that of the Joint Select Committee. It is,
I think, obviously more deeply considered and better informed, though I
say it that should not. At all events, I have given my reasons; and at
that I must leave it. As the tradition which makes Malvolio not only
Master of the Revels but Master of the Mind of England, and which has
come down to us from Henry VIII., is manifestly doomed to the dustbin,
the sooner it goes there the better; for the democratic control which
naturally succeeds it can easily be limited so as to prevent it becoming
either a censorship or a tyranny. The Examiner of Plays should receive
a generous pension, and be set free to practise privately as an expert
adviser of theatrical managers. There is no reason why they should be
deprived of the counsel they so highly value.
It only remains to say that public performances of The Shewing-Up
of Blanco Posnet are still prohibited in Great Britain by the Lord
Chamberlain. An attempt was made to prevent even its performance in
Ireland by some indiscreet Castle officials in the absence of the Lord
Lieutenant. This attempt gave extraordinary publicity to the production
of the play; and every possible effort was made to persuade the Irish
public that the performance would be an outrage to their religion,
and to provoke a repetition of the rioting that attended the first
performances of Synge's Playboy of the Western World before the most
sensitive and, on provocation, the most turbulent audience in the
kingdom. The directors of the Irish National Theatre, Lady Gregory and
Mr. William Butler Yeats, rose to the occasion with inspiriting courage.
I am a conciliatory person, and was willing, as I always am, to make
every concession in return for having my own way. But Lady Gregory and
Mr. Yeats not only would not yield an inch, but insisted, within the due
limits of gallant warfare, on taking the field with every circumstance
of defiance, and winning the battle with every trophy of victory. Their
triumph was as complete as they could have desired. The performance
exhausted the possibilities of success, and provoked no murmur, though
it inspired several approving sermons. Later on, Lady Gregory and
Mr. Yeats brought the play to London and performed it under the Lord
Chamberlain's nose, through the instrumentality of the Stage Society.
After this, the play was again submitted to the Lord Chamberlain. But,
though beaten, he, too, understands the art of How Not To Do It. He
licensed the play, but endorsed on his licence the condition that all
the passages which implicated God in the history of Blanco Posnet must
be omitted in representation. All the coarseness, the profligacy, the
prostitution, the violence, the drinking-bar humor into which the light
shines in the play are licensed, but the light itself is extinguished.
I need hardly say that I have not availed myself of this licence, and do
not intend to. There is enough licensed darkness in our theatres today
without my adding to it.