Boston Secedes from the Universe

Abstract

Up there on Olympus the gods must be snickering to themselves. The bureaucrats of Boston, who lived undefiled through an invasion of Point Valaine, have refused Within the Gates permission to sing and dance in Tremont Street. Like one of the characters in Mr O’Casey’s masque, they insist upon ‘turning the song of life into a mea maxima culpa.’ For the traditional genius of censors is to make fools of themselves by discovering low motives in decentminded plays and by running to cover when a dramatist ventures to redeem the theatre from commonness.

First published under the title, Thundering in the Index: In Banning Within the Gates Boston Withdraws from Universe again — Religion of O’Casey’s Play’, The New York Times (27 Jan. 1935).