charges. Led by John S. Sumner, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice campaigned alongside the Catholic Church and other religious organizations to close The Captive and other plays on obscenity charges. Religious groups and women's clubs also expressed disapproval of the play. A former president of the Colonial Dames of America informed Miller that she would use her influence "to prevent such an affront to American womanhood." Theater critic Brooks Atkinson wrote a review of The Captive for The New York Times on 30 September 1926. The character Irène is depicted as a lesbian who is feminine, attractive, and seductive. Sherrie Inness writes that "the play dismantles the idea of the lesbian as the easily recognizable Other (i.e., the mannish lesbian)," instead offering a lesbian prototype more threatening to the hegemony of heterosexuality. The age difference between Irène and Madame d'Aiguines was a type of relationship often portrayed in mid-20th century depictions of lesbians and reinforced Teresa de Lauretis's conjecture that the loss of the mother produces relationships of that type. New York County District Attorney Joab H. Banton received pressure from the Society for the Prevention of Vice. When mayor Jimmy Walker went on vacation to Cuba in February 1927, acting mayor Joseph "Holy Joe" McKee ordered Banton to "banish nudity and obscenity" from Broadway theatres. Plainclothes police were ordered to monitor The Captive and Mae West's play SEX on 5 February. Four days later, Banton issued an order to have the casts of both plays arrested. On 9 February, while Rathbone and Menken were in middle of the second act of The Captive, police marched onto the stage and arrested the pair. With the rest of the cast, they were thrown in the back of a police van with the cast of SEX, who had also been arrested and taken to jail. West and Menken fought with each other, with West accusing Menken of being a lesbian in a lavender marriage and Menken suggesting that West was a drag queen. Rathbone described the events on the night of the raid in his autobiography: "As we walked out onto the stage to await our first entrances we were stopped by a plainclothes policeman who showed his badge and said, 'Please don't let it disturb your performance tonight but consider yourself under arrest!' ... At the close of the play the cast were all ordered to dress