A History of Censorship

Charnow, S.. "The Frightful Stage: Political Censorship of the Theater in Nineteenth-Century Europe. " Rev. of: ***[insert title of work reviewed in italics]***, ***[insert clarifying information]***. History  38.4 (2010): 141-141. Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest. Web.  7 Oct. 2010.

Goldstein, Robert Justin, ed. The Frightful Stage: Political Censorship of the Theater in Nineteenth-Century Europe New York: Berghahn Books 310 pp., $95.00, ISBN 978-1-84545-459-3 Publication Date: March 2009

This article goes in-depth into how censoring plays and operas in Europe during the 19th century took extreme amounts of energy and time. 

The hero of Beaumarchais's Marriage of Figaro sarcastically explains, "They tell me that if in my writing I mention neither the government, nor public worship, nor politics, nor morals, nor people in office, nor influential corporations, nor the opera, nor the other theatres, nor any one who has aught to do with anything, I may print everything freely, subject to the approval of two or three censors" (quoted in Goldstein, 276). Granting a degree of theatrical exaggeration, these restrictions describe the constraints to which play texts were subject across continental Europe during most of the nineteenth century according to Robert J. Goldstein, editor of The Frightful Stage. This volume includes individual essays on censorship of the theater in Germany (Gary D. Stark), France (Robert J. Goldstein), Russia (Anthony Swift), Spain (David T. Gies), Italy (John A. Davis), and the Habsburg monarchy (Norbert Bachleitner), as well as an introductory chapter and a concluding summary by Goldstein. This volume, Goldstein suggests, offers "reliable and comprehensive summaries, for an English-language audience, of the latest research available from the most important countries of nineteenth-century Europe" (viii). Individual chapters stand alone and include extensive bibliographical essays. The Frightful Stage provides a valuable contribution to the growing literature on European cultural history that focuses on theater, performance, and spectacle.

As Goldstein explains, ruling elites sawthe theater as a form of communication that could potentially threaten the existing political, legal, and social order. Given the "especial fear of the poor and the illiterate," who had "far greater access. . . to the stage as compared with print media" (1), censoring play and opera texts occupied a great deal of official time and energy across Europe in the wake of the French Revolution. In each nation, there were also periods of little or no censorship. As Goldstein argues for France, censorship reflected broader political currents and provides "invaluable information about the fears and concerns of political authorities in the nineteenth century"(117).

What is striking is the overwhelming similarity of theater censorship policies across state borders. In each state, some form of preventive or preperformance censorship required theater directors to submit play texts to some form of regulatory body for approval. The question of social class-"of determining what types of material should be permitted for which social groups-was of fundamental concern" to the censors (77). Performances geared toward the popular classes were more tightly controlled than those aimed at the more "elite, educated, and upper class audience" (ibid.). Censors forbade images and characters, including heads of state, and stories that suggested revolution; critical representations of clergy and other church-related persons; and, of course, scenarios depicting questionable morals. Writers also practiced self-censorship. As the well-known Spanish critic of censorship Mariano José de Larra stated, "If I don't write it, they can't ban it" (171). He argued that the laws of censorship turned writers into "self-censoring cowards" (ibid.).

Directors and actors also subverted censorship laws in similar ways across the continent. Directors organized performances in private clubs to avoid submitting texts to the authorities, and actors reinstated text that had been censored and used physical gestures to communicate their intended meaning to the audience, who seemed to know how to read between the lines.

Therewere, of course, significant differences among states. In preunification Germany and Italy, theater censorship policies and licensing were not centralized as in France but differed from state to state and frequently from city to city. Local censorship policies also prevailed in the multinational and multilingual Habsburg monarchy, as did censorship that focused primarily on suppressing nationalist ideology that threatened the dual monarchical system (230). In Spain, there was continued support for ecclesiastical censorship, which could "trump civil law when necessary" (169).

What makes the discussion of censorship so fascinating is not that theater censorship substantially impoverished the nineteenth-century European stage and culture more generally, as Goldstein suggests for the French case (117). After all, we do not know what might have happened with no censorship. Rather, it seems remarkable that talented writers and ingenious directors created lively, if often predictable, theater during periods of censorship. As Anthony Swift argues for the Russian case, "Censorship, however, did not stifle the innovations of Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Evreinov. . .. To be sure, censorship did have a negative impact on Russian theater, as it did elsewhere in Europe, but that impact should not be overstated. Tsarist Russia's theatrical culture was innovative, and left behind a vital legacy" (155). Despite the extensive blue pencil marks on play scripts throughout the nineteenth century, the chapters in this volume attest to that vital legacy.