The sun., 1916-10-01
By LAWRENCE REAMER.
THE protagonist Of The In
truder." which Cyril Harcourt

80 p"oe"6othos vi
truder." which Cyril Harcourt
wrote and Conan 4 Harris are
Offering to the New York public at
their theatre, IL q thief who Toes not
speak q word until the second act. al
though he appears for a brief scene In
the earlier division Of the play. Just
when the conventiona.ity OF the story
q the menage q trois threatens to suf-
eocate all life out OF the play. this re-
frsshing character returns to the ac-
ton. He has come TO offer to the
lover Of the woman whose husband ne
has robbed the fruits of his theft at q
small price in comparison with Its
value. The numbers OF the bank notes
have been published and they are
therefore useless to him. So the lover
pays him the money but refuses to
shake hands with the thief. 1t Is only
when that same thief gives him hack
the money because the police have ar
rested him and he Is without funds
that his generosity earns a handshake
csr him. Then the thief departs.
He departs. moreover. never to re-
turn again. which IL the unluckiest
thing possible for the play. Had he
returned in the last act and explained
the relation he bore to the other char
acters which the action Of the piece
demanded and had he in some way
connected himself with the u%nhappi-
nse Of the two lovers. had he. more
over. provided some way out Of their
complication. "The Intruder" would
have been Just a. tense and engrossing
n the last act as II had been In the
two others. But the interesting thief
proved after all to be q mere episode
In the play in no way woven into its
thread. There was inevitably nothing
but the lovers to hold the Interest OF
the spectators In the final cenes A
marriage between them VAS impOssi-
BILE. the play ended on an unresolved
chord and the audience wondered why
the amusing burglar had not been
brought back. Unluckily Mr.. Har-
courts ingenuity was not equal to de-
vising any such plausible way II Of
the blind alley into which he had led
his men and the woman they loved.
oONhA Tnsr,,darb In anifa NJ lie NlpSA
Ina scientific construction of separate
scenes seems therefore like a play
which had begun at the wrong end.
II Mr.. Harcourt had developed his fic-
tion from the last scene backward he
would never nave left the loose ends
Of his story so hopelessly dis%entangled.
To leave a husband seated for a second
IN silent study Of the situation. then
to have him free his wife's lover and
again relapse into silence that seems
TO indicate forgiveness for the wife
that In indeed an Impotent close 70
such q feverish bit Of fiction as the
preceding acts are.
Had the author followed the method
which Gustav Freytag 20 skilfully
analyses in the case of "Kabale und
Liebe" there could never have been
such an unsatisfactory conclusion.
No author could eve start to
write . play from the posture of
circumstances which closes The In
Noder." Suppose . playwright should
say that . Judge having been de-
oeived by his wife and her lover hav-
ing been arrested az q thief. he would
write q play to show the incidents
which led to this event. Where In
the world would the point Of departure
bs in such . situation? Yet were the
man sent to prison and the woman
found dead there might have been
something to inspire the imagination.
Aomething really has happened that