“They grope in the dark without light, and He maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.
“Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with His net.
“He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and He hath set darkness in my paths.
“He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath He removed like a tree.”
Is this blasphemy? Is not Mr. Shaw’s theme and its expression a reflection of Job’s, save that in the one case a bad man speaks, and in the other a good one? If the answer is that these subjects, these moral and religious relationships, must not be treated on the stage, then we reply first that the Censor is grossly inconsistent, for he did not veto the entire play, but only that passage which most clearly revealed its meaning; secondly, that the licensing of Everyman, and of Mr. Jerome’s The Third Floor Back, where God appears, not merely as an influence on the lives of men, but as a man, sitting at their table and sharing their talk, forbids such an hypothesis; and thirdly, that if Mr. Redford holds this view, he is convicted of opening the drama to horrible mockery of life and sensual trifling with it, and closing it to those close questionings of its purpose, which constitute the main theme of all serious playwrights from Æschylus to Ibsen. That Mr. Shaw could have consented to the omission of the passage we have quoted was out of the question. It is vital. The entire play turns on it. For when the woman comes into court and tells her story, it is seen that the leaven which works in Blanco’s mind has leavened the lump; that the prostitute who is for swearing away his life cannot speak, that the ferocious jury will not convict, and the unjust judge will not sentence.
Mr. Shaw had, therefore, to fight for his play, and the Censor has to come into the open and face the music; to reveal his theory of the British drama, and illustrate his continual practice of it; which is to warn off the artist and the preacher, and to clear the path for the scoffer and the clown.
LETTER FROM W. G. BERNARD SHAW TO LADY GREGORY AFTER THE PRODUCTION OF “BLANCO POSNET”
Dear Lady Gregory: