| Apr. 16th, 1906. | “The Doctor in spite of Himself.” | (Molière.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Mar. 16th, 1907. | “Interior.” | (Maeterlinck.) |
| “ 19th, 1908. | “Teja.” | (Sudermann.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Apr. 4th, “ | “The Rogueries of Scapin.” | (Molière.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Jan. 21st, 1909. | “The Miser.” | (Molière.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Feb. 24th, 1910. | “Mirandolina.” | (Goldoni.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
| Jan. 5th, 1911. | “Nativity Play.” | (Douglas Hyde.) Translated by Lady Gregory |
NEW PRODUCTIONS
| Nov. 21st, 1912. | “The Hour Glass” Revised. | |
| “ “ “ | “Damer’s Gold.” | |
| Jan. 23rd, 1913. | “The Dean of St. Patrick’s.” | G. Sidney Paternoster |
| Feb. 6th, “ | Revival, “Casting-out of Martin Whelan.” | R. J. Ray |
| “ 20th, “ | “Hannele.” | Gerhardt Hauptmann |
| Mar. 6th, “ | “There are Crimes and Crimes.” | August Strindberg |
| “ 13th, “ | “The Cuckoo’s Nest.” | John Guinan |
| Apr. 10th, “ | “The Homecoming.” | Gertrude Robins |
| “ 17th, “ | “The Stronger.” | August Strindberg |
| “ 24th, “ | “The Magic Glasses.” | George Fitzmaurice |
| “ 24th, “ | “Broken Faith.” | S. R. Day and G. D. Cummins |
| May 17th, “ | “The Post Office.” | Rabindranath Tagore |
APPENDIX II
“THE NATION” ON “BLANCO POSNET”
We have often spoken in these columns of the condition of the British drama and the various ways of mending it. But there is one of its features, or, rather, one of its disabilities, as to which some present decision must clearly be taken. That is the power of the Censorship to warp it for evil, and to maim it for good. There can be no doubt at all that this is the double function of the Lord Chamberlain and his office. The drama that they pass on and therefore commend to the people is a drama that is always earthly, often sensual, and occasionally devilish; the drama which they refuse to the people is a drama that seeks to be truthful, and is therefore not concerned with average sensual views of life, and that might, if it were encouraged, powerfully touch the neglected spheres of morals and religion. As to the first count against the Censorship there is and can be no defence. Habemus confitentem reum. The man who would pass Dear Old Charlie would pass anything. He has bound himself to tolerate the drama of Wycherley and Congreve, of which it is a fairly exact and clever revival, suited to modern hypocrisy as to ways of expression, but equally audacious in its glorification of lying, adultery, mockery, and light-mindedness.
The case on the other count is, we think, sufficiently made out by the Censor’s refusal to license Mr. Bernard Shaw’s one-act play, The Showing-up of Blanco Posnet. It is fair to the Censor to explain the grounds of his refusal. Mr. Shaw has been good enough to let the editor of this paper see a copy both of his drama and of the official letter refusing a “license for representation” unless certain passages were expunged. There were two such passages. On the second Mr. Shaw assures us that no difficulty could have occurred. It raised a question of taste, on which he was willing to meet Mr. Redford’s views. It seems to us outspoken rather than gross, but as it was not the subject of controversy we dismiss it, and recur to the critical point on which Mr. Shaw, considering—and, in our view, rightly considering—that the heart and meaning of his play were at issue, refused to give way. In order that we may explain the quarrel, it is necessary to give some slight sketch of the character and intention of The Showing-up of Blanco Posnet. We suggest as the simplest clue to its tone and atmosphere that it reproduces in some measure the subject and the feeling of Bret Harte’s Luck of Roaring Camp. It depicts a coarse and violent society, governed by emotions and crude wants rather than by principles and laws, a society of drunkards, lynchers, duellists at sight, and, above all, horse-stealers—in other words, a world of conventionally bad men, liable to good impulses. The “hero” is something of a throw-back to Dick Dudgeon, of the Devil’s Disciple; that is to say, he is reckless and an outcast, who retains the primitive virtue of not lying to himself.
The scene of the play is a trial for horse-stealing. Blanco is a nominal—not a real—horse-stealer, that is to say, he has committed the sin which a society of horsemen does not pardon. He has run away with the Sheriff’s horse, believing it to be his brother’s, and taking it on account of a fraudulent settlement of the family estate. A man of his hands, he has yet allowed himself to be tamely captured and brought before a jury of lynchers. Why? Well, he has been upset, overtaken, his plan of life twisted and involved out of all recognition. On his way with the horse, a woman met him with a child dying of croup. She stopped him, thrust the sick child on to the horse, and “commandeered” it for a ride to the nearest doctor’s. The child has thrust its weak arms round his neck, and with that touch all the strength has gone out of him. He gives up the horse and flies away into the night, covering his retreat from this new superior force with obscene curses, and surrendering, dismounting, dazed, and helpless, to the Sheriff when the posse comitatus catches him.
Thenceforward two opposing forces rend him, and make life unintelligible and unendurable while they struggle for his soul. Dragged into the Sheriff’s court, he is prepared to fight for his neck with the rascals who sit in judgment on him, to lie against them, and to browbeat them. Unjust and filthy as they are, he will be unjust and filthy too. But then there was this apparition of the child. What did it mean? Why has it unmanned him? And here it seems to him that God has at once destroyed and tricked him, for the child is dead, and yet his life is forfeit to these brutes. The situation—this sketch of a sudden, ruthless, unintelligible interference with the lives of men—though apparently unknown to the Censor, will be familiar to readers of the Bible and of religious poetry and prose, and Mr. Shaw’s treatment of it could only offend either the non-religious mind or the sincerely, but conventionally, pious man who is so wrapt up in the emotional view of religion that its sterner and deeper moralities escape him. The literary parallels will at once occur. Browning chooses the subject in Pippa Passes, and in the poem in which he describes how the strong man who had hemmed in and surrounded his enemy suddenly found himself stayed by the “arm that came across” and saved the wretch from vengeance. Ibsen dwells on this divine thwarting and staying power in Peer Gynt, and it is, of course, the opening theme of the Pilgrim’s Progress. As it presents itself to a coarse and reckless, but sincere, man he deals with it in coarse but sincere language—the language which the Censor refuses to pass. Here is the offending passage, which occurs in a dialogue between Blanco and his drunken hypocrite of a brother:—