PULPIT AND STAGE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 885, 3 August 1910, Page 6

PULPIT AND STAGE.

"THE GIRL FROM RECTOR'S." MR. HUGH WARD REPLIES TO CRITICS Statement by dr. Gibb and rev. J. J. NORTH. ---------- "l am very, pleased to see that the. mistake your good, but over-zealous, clergymen have made regarding 'The Girlfrom Rectors' has, in a, measure, already been exposed," said Mr. Hugh J. Ward, in the course of an interview with a Dominion representative yesterday. "I tell you seriously that l was fairly astunded on reading the astonishing assertions made in the Wellington pulpits

about the play and my company, in such intemperate language, used, too, I assume, in the presence of children. Says the Rev. Dr. Gibb — 'So vile is this thing, that though l speak with the white heat of indignation, I dare not sketch the plot. Think of that' Ay, think of it — that's what I would have the honest, sober-minded public of Wellington do, and also to think of intemperance, which characterises such a slander on a play the speaker had never seen. Again, he says: 'Is there no power in the hands of the police to put an end to these abominations? I am afraid there is no power to prevent the performance of The Girl from Rector's,' but the police, and even the Rev. Dr. Gibb, has the power to prosecute, any management for producing anything indecent or obscene. In the recent great agitation at Home; over the censorship of plays, the commission appointed decided that the best way to deal with offensive plays was to allow the management to take all risks, and for the police to prosecute when they saw fit. Thus Dr. Gibb fulminates in his blind ignorance — I denounce this play as Satanic. It is beastly, glittering, but none the less beastly.' "I appeal," said Mr. Ward, "to all who attended last evening if by any sane manner of reasoning they can call this merry farce 'beastly'! Your papers eyidently do not think so. I resent such blatant and highly theatrical splutterings from the pulpit and if the reverend gentlemen think that members of an honoured profession may be treated as rogues and vagabonds as they were 200 years ago he is very much mistaken. Nowadays the people on the stage are just as 'charitable and God-fearing as those off it -- perhaps a little more so. As a matter of fact l have lately been reading seriously reading — a life of Christ, written most interestingly from a human point of view, and I fail to find a trace of the sublime meekness, gentleness, and charity there pictured in the actions of these fierce men of the cloth in Wellington who have deliberately gone out of their way to vituperate from their pulpits against a play which they had never seen and knew nothing about. You would not think; a man in Dr. Gibb's' dignified position would allow himself to get so much out of hand, at the dictates of his imagination. His language was so shocking that it might very 'easily have injured my business seriously — people might have been ashamed to be seen in the theatre -- but l am pleased to see that the public is not easily influenced by irresponsible utterances. Since this morning I have received letters, wires, and telephone messages from theatregoers of good standing assuring me that the play was far from what was represented by the ministers, and assuring me that the wholesale condemnation meted out by them (the Revs. J. J. North and Dr. Gibb) would surely recoil on them. If quite sincere in their protest against plays that are really improper, I trust that will not be the case; but when do you get improper plays in Wellington? ln Wellington it seems the affair of 'The Girl from Rector's', has brought about a crisis of a kind, and it behoves people to be careful how much reliance can be placed on what certain clergymen say, when not in a normal frame of mind. Compare them, for instance, with the solid, genuine men of this city who quietly and unostentatiously are

doing so much good in your city. As to the trend of the drama and its morals; I am convinced that the taste in plays is once more leaning to the human and beautiful in life. The realists, who are always interesting temporarily, writers such as Ibsen, Suderman, and later, Shaw, with their brutal force, tickle the mind while they revolt the heart. The wit of Shaw — brilliant and cruel — makes an appeal to the intellect only. lt will live in the study and the library, never in the hearts of the masses of the people. After all, what is wanted are sweet wholesome plays, with sufficient dramatic merit to give them tang — plays that appeal more to the heart than the head. ln catering for the masses you must not get too highly intellectual, there must be a leaven of that something which makes a subtle appeal to the humanity within us -- something common to the white blood. I have been talking more in respect to serious plays, but the same rule applies to plays in lighter vain. Wit, I have always taken it, is that which appeals to the intellect as distinct from the meaning of humour, which has a glow that warms the heart. 'The Girl from Rector's is a humorous farce."