New-York tribune., 1921-10-25
'sThc Right TO Strike" l.
Presented by Richard
Walton 'Tully at the
Comedy Theater
THE CAST

Tho railway men Of Valleyhead, in
Lancashire, having struck for higher
wages and employed violence to fur
neighborhood retaliated by walking out
on their patients.
The result last evening at the Com
edy Theater was an impressive play
called "The Right to Strike" in the
course Of which the age-old controversy
between master and man was discussed
with much forensic ardor and with
considerable dramatic power.
At the end it seemed that the men
had bested the masters, since they
won an increased remuneration, and
the physicians and surgeons were back
on the job before any of the indisposed
had passed away.
Mr.. Ernest Hutchinson, the autnot,
submitted, near the finish, his catholi-
con as cure for what ails US. Miss
Gypsy O'Brien; who was playing the
attractive young widow of one or the
victims Of the imbroglio, announced
for him the belief that Love is the
vmbroeation by which our social ana
industrial fevers can be healed. She
spoke of Calvary and the Great Sac
rifce Although it was rather a stiff
assignment, Miss O'Brien pointed the
moral and adorned the tale SO sim
cerely that you could almost see Jim
Larkin falling upon Judge Gary's neck
and telling him that he loved him.
At any rate, her sentiments convinced
young DR.. Wrigley, who, embittered by
the strikers murder of his best pal,
was reluctant TO perform the Casarian
operation which would save the wife of
Ben Ormerod, the leader of the men.
Just a week or two before the doctor
and his friend, while strike breaking,
had been upset in their motor truck,
and his friend was killed. 1t was he,
acted we'll by Mr.. Edmond Lowe, who,
disdaining his doctors oath, had in
spired the revolt of the heaters. Poor
little Rose Ormerod was in the agonies
of childbirth, while the situation was
under discussion by a practical Social
ist, labor member of Parliament
Ormerod himself, several physicians
and Miss O'Brien. Really, the scene grew
so painful in its suspense (though
there were no outcries from the tor
ture chamber) that you experienced
sense of physical relief when the doc
tor doffed his overcoat, donned his
surgeons robe and gave the orders for
the anesthetic.
You may recall similar situation in
Sabotage" at the Grand Guignol. In
that sermon. however, the workman's
child died while under the surgeons
knife because the strikers cut off at
the critical moment the lights above
the operating table.
The play seems to consider industrial
troubles, not as labor versus capital,
but as labor against the community,
and 1t is honest in setting forth the
arguments on both sides. All the char
acters are human in their faults and
virtues Even Gordon Montague, one
Of those vlndictive intellectual Social
lists who are more against capital than
they are for labor, was presented sym
pathetically by Mr.. Hutchinson, aided
by what | thought was superior i'm
personation by Mr.. Harry Mestayer.
Mr. David Terrence, as the old physi-
clan whose son was killed, and Mr.
George &, Riddell as Dewhurst, the
understanding Labor member of Par
lament, I regarded also as particu-
larly efficient
The subject of "7'he Right to Strike"
and its episodes are first page, last
edition in their timeliness. You find
yourself listening to debates and dis
courses upon the worlds travail with
much excitement, ar emotion brought
about by honest Characterization, in
teresting and believable situations. as
we'll as by the agitating topic sus-
pect "The Right to Strike of being
that unique thing-a good show and a
good play.