The United States of America is a democracy which allows all kinds of right-wing views to be expressed by all kinds of rabid right-wing organisations, but the one thing which the American democratic system does not tolerate is the propagation of views which are considered to be left-wing and therefore, un-American.

I doubt if there is a communist party in existence in America today, but during the first half of the 20th century it did exist though it always remained under surveillance. Years before Senator Joe McCarthy became a name that will live in infamy in the annals of American democracy, the congress of the United States managed to kill off the largest social experiment of taking theatre to the masses.

The Federal Theatre project gave employment to eight thousand people during the Depression and brought, mainly free, classic and modern drama to millions of people. It was ended by an act of congress in 1939 after five years. I have, here, an article written by Hallie Flanagan, the artistic director of the Federal Theatre, describing his experience before the House Committee to investigate Un-American Activities. I quote from it:

"I was sworn in as a witness by Christmas Dies, a rangy Texan with a cowboy drawl and a big black cigar. I wanted to talk about Federal Theatre, but the committee apparently did not. Who had appointed me? Harry Hopkins. Was that his own idea or did somebody put him up to it? I said I had no knowledge of any recommendations made on my behalf; I said that while the committee had recently been investigating un-American activity, I had been engaged for four years in combating un-American inactivity. The distinction was lost on the committee.

Mr Starnes took a different tack: Did I consider the theatre a weapon? I said the theatre could be all things to all men. ‘Do you see this?’ Congressman Starnes suddenly shouted waving a yellow magazine aloft. ‘Even see it before?’ I said it seemed to be an old Theatre Arts Monthly. This described a meeting of workers. Theatre in New York in 1931. Hadn’t I been active in setting them up? No I had never been connected in anyway with workers theatres. I wrote a report on such theatres for Theatre Arts Monthly under the title ‘A Theatre is Born…’ This theatre, however, was not born through me; I was simply a reporter. ‘How about these plays that had been criticized by witnesses before the committee? Were they propaganda? For Communism?’ To the best of my knowledge, I told the committee, we have never done a play which was propaganda for Communism, but we have done plays which were propaganda for democracy, for better housing.

‘How many people had we played to so far?’ Twenty five million people, a fifth of the population. ‘Where did our audience come from? Was it true that we couldn’t get any audiences for anything except Communist plays?’ No. The list submitted would show our wide audience support.

Mr Starnes again referred to the article, ‘A Theatre is Born’ and the phrase where I had described the enthusiasm of these theatres as having a certain ‘Marlowesque madness’

‘You are quoting from this Marlowe’ observed Mr. Starnes, ‘is he a Communist?’:

The room rocked with laughter, but I did not laugh. Eight thousand people might lose their jobs because a Congressional Committee had so pre-judged us that even the classics were ‘communistic.’ I said I was quoting from Christopher Marlowe.

‘Tell us who Marlowe is, so we can get the proper references, because that is all we want to do’".

Who says that such crass insensitivity is only a prerogative of our politicians?

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In my last column, "Bardolatory" I wrote that, in the earlier part of the 20th century, two esteemed Shakespearean scholars, William Poel and Harley Granville-Barker, had striven hard to rid Shakespeare from beneath an oppressive load of trappings in which he was presented in the theatres of London. I should have mentioned that the Bard had been similarly over-burdened in his birthplace, Strafford-upon-Avon as well. A friend of mine, who read my column, was kind enough to send me this marvellous piece of theatrical history which I reproduce for your amusement:

"In 1919, Nigel Playfair, a successful impresario and director, was invited to produce ‘As You Like It,’ one of the perennial favourites at the Stratford Memorial Theatre. He found that both the Board of Directors of the Festival and the inhabitants of Stratford had definite ideas about producing Shakespeare.

The play was to be given uncut, with only one interval. "I was determined," Playfair wrote several years later, not to cut a single sentence. "If they want the Bard", I said to myself, "they shall have him -- whole and unadulterated".

But when he arrived at the Memorial Theatre Playfair discovered that Stratford had numerous ideas about how a production of ‘As You Like It’ should be put on, and they had nothing to do with respect for the Bard’s text. Chief of these was the obligatory appearance of a stuffed stag. Playfair looked at the moth-eaten animal and categorically refused to use it. He was met with stupefied disbelief. "Such a piece of iconoclasm", he wrote, "had apparently never been heard of in Stratford before."

Resolutely stagless the production opened. Sir Frank and Lady Benson (Frank Benson was a star and a producer in London) were in the first night audience to give gentle encouragement to their protégé. They saw a play transformed, with young actors playing young parts, with scenes flowing into scenes, lines spoken which had always been cut, a Rosalind (Athene Seyler) who was not the gracious womanly figure they were used to, but giggling and girlish.

Among Stratford theatre-goers the reaction was one of outrage. "Outside the theatre," Playfair wrote, "the storm raged and attained a ferocity I could hardly have thought possible. When I came into my hotel people turned their backs and got up and walked from the room. The rest of the cast fared little better; they were cut and cold-shouldered everywhere. When Lovat Fraser, the designer, was walking in the street, a woman came up to him and shook her fist in his face, ‘Young man’ she said impressively, ‘how dare you meddle with our Shakespeare?’"

The theatre has always been a source of wonderment, sublimation and -- need I say -- enormous amusement.