The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet

The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet
Written by	George Bernard Shaw
Date premiered	25 August 1909
Place premiered	Abbey Theatre
Original language	English
Subject	A man is saved from hanging by a prostitute
Genre	"Crude Melodrama"
Setting	A pioneer town in the American West

The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet: A Sermon in Crude Melodrama is a one-act play by George Bernard Shaw, first produced in 1909. Shaw describes the play as a religious tract in dramatic form.

In 1909 Shaw jousted with governmental censorship, as personified by The Examiner Of Plays, an agency acting under the auspices of the Lord Chamberlain. The outcome, unsatisfactory to Shaw, is reviewed minutely in the Preface to this play, which had been refused a license to perform because of statements made by the protagonist about God, which were thought to violate the blasphemy law in force at the time.

The play is set in the American West. Blanco Posnet, a local drunk and reprobate, is brought before the court accused of stealing a horse belonging to the Sheriff. He been found walking along a road out of town after having left his brother's house in the early hours of the morning. The same night the horse had gone missing from his brother's stable. His accusers assume he has sold or concealed the horse. Blanco says they can't convict him without evidence that he ever had the horse. He also says he was owed some jewellery belonging to his mother, which had been bequeathed to him, but his brother had refused to hand it over. Even if he did take the horse he did so as payment for the debt his brother owed. Unfortunately he was unaware that the horse was merely being stabled by his brother, but belonged to the Sheriff. His brother, a reformed drunkard who is now a church Deacon, lectures Blanco on morality and judgement, but Blanco ridicules his brother's view of God.

Feemy, the local prostitute, is called to witness. She says that she saw Blanco riding off on the horse. Blanco says that her word cannot be trusted, as she is a woman of low character and she admits was drunk at the time; in any case she has a grudge against him because - unlike members of the jury he can name - he had no interest in her services. The jury are outraged and strongly inclined to convict Blanco. At this point news arrives that the horse has been found. A woman had used it to take her sick child to the nearest doctor. The woman is brought to the court. She says she was given the horse by a man who was about to pass her on it on the road as she was carrying her dying child. She had pleaded with the man to allow her to take the horse. The judge asks her to name the man, but she absolutely denies that Blanco was the man who gave her the horse. She says that the man who did give it to her evidently did so in the knowledge that on foot he would probably be caught and could be hanged. It is clear to everyone that Blanco gave her the horse, but she cannot bring herself to name him if it will mean his conviction and inevitable hanging. Feemy takes the stand again and says she was lying about having seen Blanco. She never saw him on the horse. Blanco is released. He offers to marry Feemy in thanks for what she did, but she rejects him. Blanco says he'll buy drinks for everyone in the saloon and offers to shake Feemy's hand. She accepts.

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