The Captive
E465727
The Captive is a controversial 1926 Broadway play, adapted from Édouard Bourdet’s French drama, that became historically significant for its early depiction of lesbian themes and the resulting censorship battles.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Captive canonical | 4 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4719267 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Captive Context triple: [Helen Menken, notableWork, The Captive]
-
A.
The Captive
"The Captive" is a lesser-known Gothic work by English novelist and dramatist Matthew Gregory Lewis, best remembered for his sensational horror style exemplified in "The Monk."
-
B.
The Golden Cage
The Golden Cage is a non-fiction book by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi that recounts the tragic, intertwined fates of three brothers whose lives reflect the political turmoil of modern Iran.
-
C.
The Gilded Cage
The Gilded Cage is a symbolist Pre-Raphaelite painting by Evelyn De Morgan that critiques the constraints placed on women in Victorian society through the image of a trapped, yearning female figure.
-
D.
Shackled and Drawn
"Shackled and Drawn" is a folk-rock song by Bruce Springsteen from his 2012 album *Wrecking Ball*, noted for its protest themes and prominent use of gospel-influenced backing vocals.
-
E.
A Prisoner
"A Prisoner" is a section of Peter Kropotkin’s autobiographical work "Memoirs of a Revolutionist," recounting his experiences of arrest, confinement, and political persecution.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Captive Target entity description: The Captive is a controversial 1926 Broadway play, adapted from Édouard Bourdet’s French drama, that became historically significant for its early depiction of lesbian themes and the resulting censorship battles.
-
A.
The Captive
"The Captive" is a lesser-known Gothic work by English novelist and dramatist Matthew Gregory Lewis, best remembered for his sensational horror style exemplified in "The Monk."
-
B.
The Golden Cage
The Golden Cage is a non-fiction book by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi that recounts the tragic, intertwined fates of three brothers whose lives reflect the political turmoil of modern Iran.
-
C.
The Gilded Cage
The Gilded Cage is a symbolist Pre-Raphaelite painting by Evelyn De Morgan that critiques the constraints placed on women in Victorian society through the image of a trapped, yearning female figure.
-
D.
Shackled and Drawn
"Shackled and Drawn" is a folk-rock song by Bruce Springsteen from his 2012 album *Wrecking Ball*, noted for its protest themes and prominent use of gospel-influenced backing vocals.
-
E.
A Prisoner
"A Prisoner" is a section of Peter Kropotkin’s autobiographical work "Memoirs of a Revolutionist," recounting his experiences of arrest, confinement, and political persecution.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Broadway play
ⓘ
LGBT-related play ⓘ adaptation ⓘ theatrical play ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
American theatre censorship
ⓘ
LGBT theatre history ⓘ obscenity law in the United States ⓘ |
| author | Édouard Bourdet ⓘ |
| basedOn |
La Prisonnière
ⓘ
a French play by Édouard Bourdet ⓘ |
| censorshipReason | depiction of lesbianism ⓘ |
| censorshipType | police closure of the production ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | France ⓘ |
| culturalContext | post-World War I Western society ⓘ |
| dramaticForm | three-act play ⓘ |
| firstPerformanceDate | 1926 ⓘ |
| genre |
drama
ⓘ
melodrama ⓘ |
| historicalPeriod | 1920s ⓘ |
| influenced | later LGBT-themed plays ⓘ |
| languageOfPerformance | English ⓘ |
| legacy |
case study in early 20th-century stage censorship
ⓘ
milestone in representation of lesbians in mainstream theatre ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
lesbian desire
ⓘ
same-sex love ⓘ sexual repression ⓘ social stigma ⓘ |
| medium | stage ⓘ |
| narrativeFocus | conflict between social convention and personal desire ⓘ |
| notableFor |
early depiction of lesbian themes on the Broadway stage
ⓘ
involvement in censorship controversies ⓘ legal battles over theatrical indecency ⓘ |
| originalLanguageOfWork | French ⓘ |
| placeOfFirstPerformance |
Broadway
ⓘ
New York City ⓘ |
| portrays | a lesbian relationship without explicit physical contact ⓘ |
| reception |
commercially successful before being shut down
ⓘ
controversial ⓘ |
| setting | upper-class European society ⓘ |
| subjectMatter | a married woman emotionally attached to another woman ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfCensorship | late 1920s ⓘ |
| triggered |
censorship actions by New York authorities
ⓘ
police raids on Broadway theatres ⓘ public debates about morality in the theatre ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Captive Description of subject: The Captive is a controversial 1926 Broadway play, adapted from Édouard Bourdet’s French drama, that became historically significant for its early depiction of lesbian themes and the resulting censorship battles.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.