11 plays and musicals that have broken obscenity laws and have been kicked off the stage
Special features11 plays and musicals that have broken obscenity laws and have been kicked off the stage
For the banned book week, look at some of the plays and musicals that are considered inappropriate for public consumption.
What does an ancient Greek playwright do, roaring twentieth film icon There is a gemand Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw Everyone in common? They all wrote plays associated with the fines of the jail. With the forbidden books week raising awareness about the censorship of the literature, a look back reveals by theater history some of his own interesting stories of plays and musicals that have driven boundaries.
Look at these 11 works that led to actors in prison, the development of new obscenity and censorship laws, Supreme Court cases, and more for their politically and socially undermining messages.
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Although this play was written in ancient Greece in 411 BC, the drama was apparently controversial enough to be banned in the United States almost 2000 years later. With the transition from the Comstock laws through the congress in 1873-which censored many things, as well as the use of the US Post Office to send any obscene literature, contraceptives and more-the comedy about women who go on an anti-war strike by withholding sex from their husbands was placed on the banned list. In the 1920s, the Moscow Art Theater tried to transfer their production to the states, but arrested and jailed in the production budget. Surprisingly, the production did not transfer.
Mrs. Warren’s profession by George Bernard Shaw
Comstock laws also led to the interruption of a New York production of Shaw’s play on a careless brothel owner. The play was written in 1893 and was banned in Britain, and only performances received from members’ clubs until the first public performance in 1925. In the United States, the play was staged at the Garrick Theater on October 23, 1905 and played a simple performance before police arrested the cast for the Comstock laws. However, the one performance makes the finally canceled production the play’s official Broadway premiere. Since then, it has received five Broadway revivals.
The children’s hour per Lillian Hellman
Despite being successfully staged in New York, the 1934 drama was about a runaway student who accused two of her female residence teachers of having a relationship, in Boston, Chicago and London because they touched homosexuality thematically. The play was considered unfit by Boston’s Watch and Ward Society, which led to the cancellation of the production’s transfer track of New York. When producer Herman Shumlin Summed the city of Boston for damages, a federal judge did not enter. After Boston, a municipal ordinance in Chicago was cited for denial of a performance permit. The work was banned in London in 1935 for public performances. London’s Gate Theater Studio paid attention to the fine print and bypassed the ban with a private performance in 1936.
Salome per Oscar wildadapted by Richard Strauss
Wilds’ 1891 one-act-al Although in rehearsals with stage Star Sarah Bernhardt– is forbidden for portraying biblical characters. The tragedy tells the story of Salome, who tries to seduce John the Baptist, to perform a veil dance worthy of a burlesque show, attracting John’s execution and then executing herself at the command of her stepfather. Salome was absent from the London raised to 1931. Richard Strauss composed an opera based on Wilde’s play in 1905. It was promoted in New York in the Metropolitan Opera in 1907, just four days later by the directors of the Met and banned by the opera House. Prohibition on the United States and in Europe has spread it quickly.
Sex and The drag by Mae West
These two plays by the 1920s Siren landed Mae West in prison. Sexwhich follows the story of multiple prostitutes, opened on Broadway on April 26, 1926 and, despite bad press, had a successful commercial run. Another display of West with the title The dragdealing with themes of homosexuality and sexual representation, which were successfully opened in January 1927, but under pressure from the mayor (Beau James) and other influential people, New York district attorney Joab H. Banton order both Throw 9 February and close it off due to obscenity. West spent ten days in prison and presumably said of the experience: ‘A few days in the pen a’ $ 500 is not too bad. ‘
The prisoner per Edouard Bourdet
A melodrama with themes of lesbianism, The prisoner The first time in Paris in 1926 without issue, but translated into English and transferred to Broadway where it was less accepted. The play debuted in Empire Theater on September 29, 1926 and played 160 performances before it closed. It was heard by the citizens of the citizens’ play because of immorality, but the acquittal of all charges did not prevent the New York Society for the suppression of vice and several other religious organizations continuing to incur for improper charges. Along with West’s The drag and Sexas well as another show with the title The virgin man, The prisoner was in the middle of a New York censorship campaign that eventually led to a new state law called the Wales Padlock Act. The prohibition on the act plays ‘depict or deals with the topic of sexual general or sex perversion’, and offenses can lead to the arrest of actors and producers, and the trading of a theater for a year.
Her With book by Rome ragni and James Radoand music by Wrong macdermot
After the Tony-nominated success on Broadway in 1969, the show (which contains famous, the pre-frontal nudity) received productions across the country, but found less acceptance than on the New York stage. In 1970, a proposed production in Boston was in the center of censorship dispute which led to the highest judicial court of Massachusetts ruling in favor of production – with a warning. The actors had to be dressed and could not simulate sex. Producers argued that it was a first amendment offense, and filed a lawsuit that went through various phases and on the doctrine to the Supreme Court, whose ruling allowed the production to continue. The Supreme Court would decide a few years later in the same way when the municipal council of Chattanooga, Tennessee, tried to refuse a city building used as a production lender.
Spring awakening per Frank Wace
The original play is now known in the Broadway musical adaptation in 2006, and was written by Frank Wondekind at some point in the earlier 1890s. It was banned for years in Wace’s homeland Germany and only led in 1906. In 1917, the play on the sexual awakening of teens was staged for the first time in English in the 39th Street Theater. The Commissioner of licenses claimed that the show is pornographic, but it was eventually allowed to continue with a Matinee performance for a limited audience under an order by the New York trial court.
The other shore by Gao Xingjian
This 1986 play by Chinese playwright Gao Xingjian has never been staged in China. A walk in Beijing People’s Art Theater was canceled, and Xingjian left for France the following year in a permanent leave of his country of origin. It was not the themes of relief from the play that caused controversy, but rather Xingjian’s political issues with the Communist Party and his departure that led to the banning of The other shore and additional works by the Chinese government in the early 2000s. Productions of the play were performed at the Taiwan National College of Art and Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts.