New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-05-23
Another Book of Plavs
"The Skin Came" One of the Series, Compares
Well With "Strife'

havlor. the convention of st. Francis
of Assist. He. follows the convention
earnestly, to the point Of copying the
formula. yet the figure of Strangway
in "A Bit o Love" is no more than an
imitation and rather grotesque one
These English clergymen with their
ecstasies in the moonlight, their not
quite adult companionships with birds
and flowers, their overswect murmur-
ing about love, are family repellng.
There is something banal in them as
in chrome, something indicating an
artist that gives him leave to sub
stitute an obvious, worn, oversenti-
mentalized literary symbol for sponta-
neous emotion.
1t is clear that Mr.. Gasworthy is
| eager to put down the figure. of the
saint in modern life, and equally clear
that he comes up against the same OBJ
stacle in himself each time-somethng
that keeps him circling around the
same conception, and that shuts him
off from seeing it afresh. The same
thing may bo said to be true of his
play, "The Foundations Here he goes
back to that earlier theme that he saw
in its memorable deadlock in "Strife."
The struggle of the classes, each with
their own Qualifications, each with
their own tenacities, is the substance
of his play, but Galsworthy has
mixed with 1t something of the fan
tastic quality Of "The Little Dream"
sad great deal of his later-day sent-
mentality. 1t is a little hard to fancy
the Galsworthy of Strife" writing a
play of labor struggle In which the
crash is averted by the great lord Of
fering the old seamstress a pension
of ten bob week-even though the
play is chiefly at the swift tempo of
burlesque.
But in "Thc Skin Game" where Mr.
Galsworthy is breaking no lances
against old inhibitions, he has written
play of such surprising vitality that
it revives the faith in the power of the
Galsworthy Of "Strife" and "Justice"
Here is play, clear-cut, true and filled
with genuine feeling for the quality
of living, that tells powerfully the
story of a social feud in an English
county town. 1t is the struggle be-
tween the Ins and Outs-and old self
made Hornblower, aggressive, obsti-
nate and thick-skinned, determined to
70 al
society, meets an opponent of his own
quality in the aristocratic Mrs. Hill
crist. The depths of squalid conducts
to which the feud leads, the ruin it
works on innocent people, the smrch-
ings of self-disgust it leaves on Or
dinarily fine and kindly people-the
primitive quality of it--all this Gals
worthy seizes with constituencies. with
imaginativeness, with imagination.
with that power for fluid characterize
ton that he has at his best. This is
the Galsworthy Of his best-the Gals
worthy who puts down things as they
are without painting the lily, or gliding
refined gold. 1t has sometimes been said
that Galsworthy's passion for fairness
was his weakness. Yet his finest work
has been done in that heat. what is
it," cries Hillcrist, chat gets loose
when you begin fight, and makes you
what you think you're not? What
binding evil. Begin as you may, it
ends in this-skin game! Skin game. "
This play is a resurgence of that spirit
Of austere restraint in which pity does
not degenerate into limp maudlinity.