Offensive but essential ... The Emperor Jones stars Paterson Joseph. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Does theatre have anything to do with political correctness? I'd suggest not. Once you start worrying about drama's capacity to give offence, you get into self-censorship. What prompted the thought was Thea Sharrock's courageous decision to play Eugene O'Neill's script for The Emperor Jones, now at the National, exactly as written. The hero, a black despot, constantly refers to the Caribbean islanders he has exploited as "dem fool bush niggers." The play even ends with a Cockney trader scornfully dismissing the hero's tormentors as: "Stupid as 'ogs the lot of 'em. Blasted niggers!"
Obviously it is a shock to hear such words on the Olivier stage. But to dilute O'Neill's language would be to betray his dramatic point. Admittedly, New York's Wooster Group found a way of distancing itself from the text by having the title character portrayed by a white actress in black face. That was an astute defence mechanism. But, in general, it seems to me that American theatre is hampered by notions of political correctness in a way Britain is not. I had a classic example only the other day. Speaking at the annual summer school in Stratford-upon-Avon, I had a go at the American academic, Harold Bloom, for his dismissive attitude to Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy. I suggested it was probably because he'd never seen them on stage. A passionate Bloomite came to his defence, claiming you could never do the Henry VI plays in the States - not because of their historical obscurity, but because of their distorted, propagandist portrait of Joan la Pucelle.
That seems to me a nonsensical reason for consigning plays to the shelf. But it is a prime example of what happens when you surrender to political pressure groups. Robert Brustein, a veteran American critic and academic, has a chilling passage in Who Needs Theatre when he writes: "It is virtually impossible to produce Marlowe's The Jew of Malta these days because of the protest of Jewish groups; Strindberg is rarely staged lest he arouse the ire of feminists; Huckleberry Finn is still attacked in the mistaken belief it libels blacks." As Brustein says, almost any powerful dramatic work can be seen as an insult to a group or individual; but one also has to protect the right of the thing being challenged.
In younger, rasher days I sometimes advocated theatrical vetos. One of the silliest things I ever wrote was a suggestion that The Taming of the Shrew should be dropped from the repertory because of its sexual brutality. Since then I've seen countless productions that, without whitewashing the play, have placed it in its proper historical and emotional context. And this gets to the root of the matter. We may not like or approve of everything we see on stage. But it seems to me an act of vanity - not to mention vandalism - to demand that every play from the past chimes with modern tastes and sensibilities. Better, I would suggest, a theatre that occasionally gives offence than one that is watered down to appease particular pressure groups. Which is why the National is right to give us The Emperor Jones exactly as written.
