Page:The Captive by Édouard Bourdet and Arthur Hornblow Jr.pdf/13



During the summer and early autumn of 1926, rumors that an American producer was bringing to America an adaptation of Bourdet's "La Prisonnière" were received with a good deal of uncertainty by the more responsible citizens of New York. For the theatrical news from Paris, where this trenchant drama began its career, had stressed the audacity of the theme, with a general tintinnabulation about censorship and the decadence of the stage. And those who were already nauseated by the fetid smells of several plays then current were quite naturally distressed at the prospect of sensationalism in the form of abnormality. Surely, they complained, themes of this character are not fit subjects for open portrayal on the stage. Indeed, the audience assembled for the opening performance at the Empire Theatre was obviously prepared for a violent shock. But whatever the expectations may have been, the objective treatment of the theme and the austere quality of the performance cleared the humid air like a northwestern breeze. With Mr. Hornblow's adaptation and Mr. Miller's masterly direction "The Captive" became, as it was written, a restrained though uncompromising tragedy, rather than a malodorous truckling to low curiosity. Thus for the thousandth time it was evident that the motives of