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Citizen Juries Will Purify Offensive Plays
The Theatre has decided that it is oversexed. Fourteen plays (TIME, Oct. 29) plus various musical revues now current in Manhattan were intent upon the discussion or display of feminine attraction and its results upon a fallible mankind. So intent were six of these that the Society for the Suppression of Vice began to move restlessly in its cocoon. There was danger that it might burst and become a full-fledged moth to eat through the linings of the managers' money bags. But no. The managers, the actors, the playwrights put their hard old heads together. A plan developed.
It was obvious from the amount of comment lately aroused by the various dramatic disquisitions upon morality that some sort of censorship was inevitable. Therefore those whose daily bread is cut and buttered in theatrical box offices wished the censorship to assume least offensive form. No Blue Law Committees for them or salaried censors whose efficiency might be measured by the number of plays they purged. Citizens, they demanded, plain citizens who support the Theatre. And citizens they will have.
A year-old plan was brought to light, brushed off, adopted as their brain child. A committee of 250 citizens, men and women, no one of whom may have any connection with the theatrical business or with any reform movement, committee or organization, will be selected. From this group juries of twelve must stand ready to be called. Complaints, according to the ruling, must be received directly by the City Commissioner of Licenses. Complaints through the Society for the Suppression of Vice will not be considered, because the Society insists on withholding the identity of its communicants. When a sufficient quantity of complaints against a play or any part thereof are on record in the Commissioner's office, and when he has satisfied himself that these letters are sponsored by reputable and intelligent beings, he may convene the jury.
The dozen jury members will thereupon witness a performance of the play and meditate upon its merits and demerits. If nine of the meditations are finally unfavorable, a decision will be rendered to the producer. He will proceed to delete offensive sections of his entertainment—or withdrew it altogether.
Secrecy, justice, despatch are therefore afforded everyone concerned. Particularly is secrecy deemed necessary since publicity regarding a suspiciously unhealthy play draws thousands to the spot of the infection.
Three plays now candidates for the red spotlight are The Lullaby, Artists and Models, the Vanities.
The Best Plays
These are the plays which, in the light of metropolitan criticism, seem most important:
Drama
CASANOVA—Like a volume of fine old steel engravings colored and come to life. Lowell Sherman as the gentleman on his knees; Katharine Cornell the lady whose hand he is kissing.
RAIN—The population is still fighting the speculators for the privilege of watching Jeanne Eagels among the South Sea Missionaries.
SUN UP—The soft accents and the hard hearts of Carolina hill folk expressing a primitive patriotism when feud hatred is drowned by the bugle of war.
TARNISH—The latest of important sex discussions. Proving that "Frailty, thy name is man."
Comedy