When Saved opened in London in 1965, it attained instant notoriety and provoked considerable outrage because of a scene in which a group of men stone a baby to death in its pram. The Lord Chamberlain, whose authority to censor plays has since been abolished, banned further showings. The Edward Bond play is now making its first New York appearance at the Chelsea Theater Center of Brooklyn. While the baby-killing episode is still potently emetic, playgoers have become inured to so many acts of gratuitous violence, on and offstage, that the scene now seems more prophetic than scandalous.
Saved takes place in...