The Press: Clean Majority

Amid scenes of the utmost violence and disorder, San Francisco policemen prevented performance of a play last week. The play was The Captive, by Edward Bourdet. Its performance was forbidden not because the play was bad but because it dealt with homosexuality.

The policemen, acting upon a court order which temporarily restrained the producers from exhibiting the piece, appeared at the theatre while the play was in progress. Their captain, one Layne, leaped upon the stage with a cry that the curtain be rung down. He was rewarded by impolite and illbred hoots from the gallery, by blows and shouts from the actors. Even the producer and his lawyers flocked about Captain Layne, threatening lawsuits. They attempted to make speeches but were pulled roughly from the stage. Ann Davis, leading lady, attempted to make a speech but swooned when prevented and was later discovered to have taken too much veronal. At last the theatre was darkened, the crowd went home, the policemen made statements and the reporters wrote stories, in the case of the enraged reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner, on ". . . today's developments in the clash between purveyors of dramatic filth and the clean-minded majority of San Franciscans. . . ."