Grime

The ridiculous squabble in Manhattan over the morals of the drama is currently reaching a crisis. The fate of the Citizens Play Jury is in the hands of the law. If this body is declared illegal and inoperative, censorship reverts to the old section 1140 of the penal code which makes it a crime to present an obscene, indecent, immoral and impure theatrical production. The flaw in this statute is the fallibility of human opinion. How is the Grand Jury qualified to decide between indecency and art? Does Eugene O'Neill deserve the same latitude as Shakespeare? Obviously if a hidebound Grand Jury is given rein much classic and modern expression will be throttled. Obviously if the lid is lifted altogether unscrupulous producers will grow fat pandering to the peep-show instinct of the populace.

To solve this gritty problem a Citizens Play Jury was planned some years ago. A panel of several hundred jurors, intelligent citizens from all walks of life, was drawn. When a complaint was lodged a dozen of these jurors were delegated to judge the entertainment. If nine of the dozen found it, or any part of it, unfit, the whole or the part was to be withdrawn. The Producing Managers Association and the Actors Equity Association pledged themselves to enforce its decrees by withdrawing their plays or calling out their actors.

For some time this jury lay fallow. The God of Vengeance (in which a brothel keeper hoped to keep his daughter untarnished, only to find her perverted by one of the women in his own establishment) was indicted by the Grand Jury, and the producer and some of the performers fined (1923). Last season William A. Brady voluntarily withdrew his Good Bad Woman after much agitation and a conference with the District Attorney. David Belasco purified his notorious Ladies of the Evening and it was allowed to run.

The Play Jury suddenly came to life and was delegated by the District Attorney to inspect They Knew What they Wanted, Desire Under the Elms, The Firebrand. The first two were passed and a recommendation of deletion in one scene of The Firebrand offered. The deletion was made.

Within the past month the Play Jury has again been summoned. Its delegates inspected two revues, The Bunk of 1926 and The Great Temptations; and two plays, Sex and The Shanghai Gesture. The plays passed. Parts of Temptations were frowned upon and eliminated by the management. Bunk was ordered closed, obtained an injunction and, at this writing, is still playing, though considerably disinfected.

The State Supreme Court is now pondering whether the Play Jury, a nonofficial body, can be permitted to continue and enforce its edicts. If not, some form of legal and organized control will inevitably be instituted.

The playwrights, the actors, the producers, and the press solidly favor the citizens' Jury. They feel that by this method only can the clammy fingers of legal censorship be kept from the throat of the drama. With the exception of determined radicals these same forces feel that some honest and clear-headed curb is necessary.