Word: londoners
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...LONDON STAGE...
...refusing to license it for performance. Although blue-penciling has eased in recent years, English playwrights have persistently demanded total dramatic freedom, and last July Parliament abolished the Chamberlain's licensing authority. Two weeks ago, the U.S. folk-rock musical Hair became the first play publicly staged in London without a censor's license since the beginning of the 17th century...
...official censorship was greeted with rejoicing by the London theater; last week there was a mock-serious funeral service for the royal censor in Chelsea. Meanwhile, Hair's actors executed what one critic called "a triumphal dance over the grave of the Lord Chamberlain." High time. With offices in the Palace of St. James's, the Lord Chamberlain is the senior officer of the royal household. Yet he and his four readers have also played the role of arbiters of public taste, passing judgment on some 800 new scripts each year. Their esthetic qualifications have been uncertain...
There may be some unexpected hazards in London's new stage freedom. The Lord Chamberlain's approval once virtually guaranteed a play immunity from lawsuits. But with that protection gone, playwrights face a bewildering maze of common-law provisions against obscenity, sedition, blasphemy and libel, not to mention a recent law against inciting racial hatred. Paradoxically, the end of licensing could lead to new restrictions, imposed by theater owners worried about possible prosecutions...
Hairy Filth. Still, most authors would rather see the Lord Chamberlain concentrate on his other duties, such as arranging Buckingham Palace garden parties and caring for the royal swans. In London's West End, arrangements are now being made to bring back such once banned plays as Jean-Claude van Itahe's America Hurrah and Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers. "We are at last released from the tyranny of the theatrical leaseholder," says Osborne dryly. "There will probably be a quick rash of hairy American filth, but it shouldn't threaten the existence of cheerful, decent, serious...