High Society Gonna Fucking Snap If Playwright Says One More Thing About Their Foibles

LONDON—Mingling at intermission during the opening-night performance of the playwright’s latest work, members of high society were about to fucking snap if Clarence Wadleigh’s Haut Monde continued to make clever, lighthearted jests about their foibles, sources confirmed Wednesday. “How dare that impish scoundrel deploy his witty barbs in our direction—at our rituals, manners, and quirks!” said Sir James Copley-Anstruther, quaffing cognac and puffing on a cigar as he spoke to a group of fellow aristocrats, all of whom were reportedly getting ready to lose their shit if the play pointedly winked at the social posturing or acquisitive habits common among their class. “Are we to be made a laughingstock? For no one is safe from this man’s deft skewering—not our bumbling but well-intentioned patriarchs, not our domineering wives, not our fatuous children. Well, I shan’t stand for it. Something must be done.” At press time, sources confirmed the wealthy socialites had calmed down considerably upon realizing that if the play had perhaps stepped over the line, they could always just cancel its funding and force it to close down.