New Zealand Mail - Friday, June 7, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
PLAYS AND PLAYERS.
GOSSIP FROM LONDON STAGE-LAND.
From Our Special Correspondent
London, Good Friday, 1985.
In New York the news of Oscar Wilde's arrest sufficed to end the runs of his plays, which I imagine were not paying over well. Here in London we are less particular, and the managements of "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "An Ideal Husband" have simply erased the author's name from the playbills. Some of the papers are very indignant on the subject. The Weekly Sun says:—
"Is it good taste, to say the least of it, for a fashionable house to seek to attract ladies and gentlemen to a work by a man who stands in the position of this author? It is good taste to allow English ladies to speak the words of such a man?
"The erasure of his name from the bills and programmes is mere trifling. The excuse that people would be thrown out of work is not to the point. A revival, a stop-gap of any kind, could surely have been provided, and successful managers could afford to pay their hands for a little while until the theatre could be re-opened.
"It is a very terrible business, and it seems remarkable that London managers cannot see matters in their true light.
"Does the action of such managers help to remove from this city of ours the stain, the stigma, and the disgrace that recent events have brought upon it?
"If there are managers who ask the public to patronise such a man through his work, if there is a public to support such plays—does it not show a decadence in Englishmen, a blunted feeling, a suspicion that we are saying, 'What does it matter?'"
Respecting the foregoing, Mr Sydney Grundy has delt a coup de grace to the controversy in the following epigrammatic comment:—"I wonder on what principle of law or justice, or Christian charity, an author's name is blotted from his work. If a man is not to be credited with what he has done well, by what right is he punished for what he has done ill?"
Mr. Sydney Grundy writes to the Telegraph:—"I wonder on what principle of law, or justice, or common sense, or good manners, or Christian charity, an author's name is blotted from his work. If a man is not to be credited with what he has done well, by what right is he punished for what he has done ill?
I wonder on what principle of law, or justice, or common sense, or good manners, or Christian charity, an author's name is blotted from his work. If a man is not to be credited with what he has done well, by what right is he punished for what he has done ill?
Sydney Grundy, the dramatist, wrote the "Daily Telegraph" a letter April 6th, regarding the removal of Wilde's name from the programme of his plays. He asks, "By what principle of justice or charity is an author's name blotted from his work? If a man is not to be credited with what he has done well, by what right is he punished for what he has done ill?"
LONDON, April 7. - Sydney Grundy, the dramatist, has written the Daily Telegraph a letter regarding the removal of Oscar Wilde's name from the program of his plays. He asks: "By what principle of justice or charity is an author's name blotted from his work? If a man is not to be credited with what he has done well, by what right is he punished for what he has done ill."