Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1909-06-12
Especial Correspondence
= cNDON, May 2g.---4As / eantcfpat-
ed would be the case the 5Licens-

r sss 81 Wouid pc the case 5LIle IlIiCeiiS-
er has launched his thunderbolt
and yet his official ban upon
Bernard Shaw,s play, .ThcF Show
ing Up or 8Blanco Posnet.''t 1t was
of course. open 10 Shaw to meet the
Lord Chamberlain half way and by
excluding certain risky passages rend-
5er decentralization OF his piece possible.
But You might as well trStto move one
Fl OF he pyramids rs to turn Bernard
Shaw from his purpose when he has
got his lighting Jacket on @
Wlthin hsfew& hours of the receipt of
the licenserfs liItimatum he had pen
ned vehement protest against that
gentleman ruling and despatched
copies Of it to the principal London pa
pers. Irritation triumphing over good
taste. he.Fwfls even prompted to drag
the kings name into. the discussion
and boldly to accuse his majesty Of
being at the bottom Of all the trouble.
II presume he wrote, the king
would not hold up Mr.. Tree and my
guilty of the disgraceful step of
schenling to produce aplaY too vile
for public performance unless he had
the most entire confidence in his own
Judgment
STORM IN A TEAcuP.
Shaw, according to his custom,
treats the matter as one of national
Importance but really it Is rather in
the nature of a storm in teacup.
Tree himself declared to me yesterday
While | consider the general tendency
of The piece to be the very. reverse of
immoral 1t contains in my opinion
passages to which objection might
quite reasonably be taken On the
Iv,lx
have insisted at rehearsal. You are
pretty sure to see, The Showing Up
of Blanco Posnet," IN America be-
fore very long. and learn that the
piece is being translated as rapidly
as possible into several foreign lang
3uages. But there is no blinking the
fact, and therein lies the licenser's JUS
LITIGATION. that although the root-ideas
Of the story is really OF a most touch
ing and tender description-it might
have sprung from the brain of Bret
Harte--its treatment is crudely sensa-
tional, painfully lurid and of a kind to
offend the susceptibilities even of the
yindication of THE attitude taken.
by the licenser could possibly be pro-
vided than the publication, which
Shaw threatened US with shortly, OF
the play itself.
NUMEROUS FAILURES.
|. Failure follows failure with exasper-
-ating and disappointing regularity.
Lewis walters production OF THE
Conquest in which Maxine Elliott,
was starred. lasted lust a week and
now his revival of Somerset Maugh-
ANS '"rhe Explorer" has Just missed
making the same deplorable record
.hX one night. During the 26 years !
have been OH the stage" Waller said
to me the other day. 81 have not
known such wretchedly bad season.
He is not the only sufferer, but. n,ani-
testify, there is very little consolation
. to be drawn from the fact Waller has
shut down for the next three weeks in
order to enable him to carry on day
and night rehearsals of new play
by Arthur Conan Doyle entitled, THE
Fires of Fate" 1t is founded on one
of Doyle,s novels entitled, The Trag-.
edy Of the Kurosko." The story is In
tended as protest against the sup
posed right of a man to take his own
life even when assured by the highest
medical authorities that lie has only
year to live and that the progress
of his fatal disease must be accom-
PANIED by intense suffering.
FANNIE WARDS NEW: PLAY.
Marc Illaw has Just arrived in Lon.
don, having made q little detour In the
direction of Madrid and Paris on his