Arrington, Lauren
(2008)
The Censorship of O’Flaherty V.C.
Shaw, 28.
pp. 85-106.
ISSN 0741-5842
Abstract
When opposition arose to the Abbey Theatre's scheduled production of
Bernard Shaw's new play, O'Flaherty V.C, the theater had very little impe-
tus to fight the objections. Ireland was in the midst of a heated debate
over the country's involvement in the Great War, and even though Shaw's
satire of Irish politics was "evenhanded," as described below, it was never-
theless unwelcome. Shaw and the Abbey had been partners in controversy
before, when Dublin Castle, the seat of the British administration in Ire-
land, objected to the production of The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet in
1909. At that time, when Lady Gregory was summoned to the castle, she
was able to present the administration with two irrefutable arguments: the
Abbey enjoyed the patronage of notable figures in Dublin society, and the
theater was in an increasingly firm financial position, contributing "over
£1500 a year" to the Dublin economy.1 The production went ahead in
defiance of government opposition and was a great financial success for
the theater. Neither of these arguments - patronage nor financial stabil-
ity - was available to the Abbey in November 1915. An evaluation of corre-
spondence between the Abbey's directors, the financial records of the
theater, and the actions taken by the British military and civil authorities
in Dublin reveals that the censorship of O'Flaherty V.C was a product of
Shaw's protagonist's stance that "no war is right" and the Abbey Theatre's
state of financial crisis, brought on by the war, which prevented the the-
ater's directors from risking the production.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Censorship; O’Flaherty V.C; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts & Humanities > School of English, Media & Theatre Studies > English |
| Item ID: |
12903 |
| Depositing User: |
Lauren Arrington
|
| Date Deposited: |
18 May 2020 11:46 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Shaw |
| Publisher: |
Penn State University Press |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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